From Your Charlotte County Democratic Party’s Legislative Liaison Committee
Education
• SB 7030/HB 7075 School Choice (General Bill by Senate Education Committee/Rep. Jennifer Sullivan)
Passage of this bill will greatly expand school vouchers and directs general revenue dollars to private and religious schools reducing general revenue for public schools. It is unconstitutional. We oppose this bill.
• SB 0522 Apprenticeship Programs (Senator Manny Diaz)
This bill establishes a new reporting requirement and funding source to expand apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs and expands expand opportunities for residents to be trained for trades. We support this bill.
Natural Resources
• SB 7064 – Oil Drilling (Senator Ben Albritton)
This bill attempts to define the term “fracking” and prohibits fracking in Florida. Sounds good but it does not ban matrix acidizing. And get this: Senator Albritton used parliamentary rules as a stalling tactic to limit public comment on his bill. Then he opposed a motion by Senator Bill Montford to extend time. We oppose.
WE’RE WATCHING
• SB 7030 – School Safety and Security
This bill is commonly known as the “Guardian” bill and intends to arm teachers.
It is scheduled for the Infrastructure and Security Committee Wednesday, March 20th at 4:00 P.M. Keep an eye out for an Action Alert in the coming days on this bill.
