BILL SUMMARY DETAILS

WMC2 (Ways and Means Committee) proposes an amendment to the constitution to authorize the Legislature to require an annual adjustment to the value of certain homestead exemptions. The constitutional amendment must be approved by at least 60% of electors at the November 2024 general election and will take effect on January 1, 2025. (Chapman)

SB 220 (Wright) and HB 689 (Smith) expand the current ad valorem tax exemption for not-for-profit homes for the aged. The bills will allow a home for the aged owned by a separate entity that is owned by a not-for-profit corporation to also receive the exemption. (Chapman)

HJR 53 (Tant) and SJR 618 (Simon) propose an amendment to the constitution to authorize the Legislature to provide for a property tax exemption for the surviving spouse of a quadriplegic who was receiving a property tax exemption on real estate used and owned as a homestead at the time of their death. The constitutional amendment must be approved by at least 60% of electors at the November 2024 general election and will take effect on January 1, 2025. (Chapman)

HB 57 (Salzman) and SB 438 (Ingoglia) – Term Limits for County Commissioners

SB 780 (Yarborough) and HB 963 (Daniels) – Early Voting Sites

HB 281 (Arrington) and SB 724 (Davis) – Candidate Qualifying

HB 1035 (Bracy Davis) – Elections

SB 326 (Ingoglia) – Term Limits

SB 734 (Ingoglia) and HB 735 (Andrade) impose restrictions on the renewal or extension of contracts for the chief executive officer of a municipality and the municipal general counsel; lobbyist registration requirements for lobbying counties, municipalities or special districts; and revise physical quorum requirements for public meetings. The bills prohibit a person from lobbying a county, municipality, or special district unless he or she is registered as a lobbyist with such entity. “Lobby” is defined as seeking, on behalf of another person or group, to influence a decision of the governing entity in an area of policy or procurement or in an attempt to obtain the goodwill of an official or employee of such entity. “Lobbyist” has the same meaning as in section 112.3215(1). A municipality, county, or special district may use the state’s executive or legislative branch lobbyist registration forms, or it may develop its own lobbyist registration form that requires disclosure of the name and address of the lobbyist, the name and address of the principal, and the existence of any direct or indirect business association or financial relationship the lobbyist has with any officer or employee of the county, municipality, or special district. The municipality, county or special district must make available to the public copies of lobbyist registrations and, if the entity maintains a website, it must make the information available on its website. The local lobbyist registration must be filed electronically with the Florida Commission on Ethics. The bill authorizes a municipality, county or special district to impose a lobbyist registration fee not to exceed $40 for each principal represented. The bill authorizes the Florida Commission on Ethics or the county or municipality’s local ethics commission to investigate violations of the registration requirements. It specifies that it does not preempt or supersede any ordinance or charter provision establishing a lobbyist registration program before July 2024, but provides that the state law prevails over a conflicting local requirement. An ordinance may include additional or more stringent disclosure requirements. The bills prohibit public officers, public employees, a local government attorney, or candidate for nomination or election from soliciting or accepting anything of value from a foreign country of concern. The bills prohibit the governing body of a municipality from renewing or extending the employment contract of a chief executive officer of the municipality during the eight months immediately preceding a general election for the mayor or for members of the governing body unless the renewal or extension is approved by a unanimous vote. In addition, the bills prohibit the governing body of a municipality from renewing or extending the employment contract of a municipal general counsel during the eight months immediately preceding a general election for mayor or for members of the governing body unless the renewal or extension is approved by a unanimous vote. The bills specify that when at least two members of the governing body are physically present, a member of the governing body may be considered present if, by the use of any technology, the member can participate in the deliberation of the governing body. The bills define “present” as meaning that a member of a governing body has, for the purpose of determining a quorum, the ability to participate meaningfully in the deliberation of the governing body, either by physical presence at the meeting or by his or her use of technology that allows the member to see, hear and speak at the meeting as if physically present. (O’Hara)

SB 782 (Yarborough) amends section 102.012, Florida Statutes, to require election boards to include at least one member from each of the two largest political parties in the state. (O’Hara)

SB 190 (Garcia) and HB 671 (Borrero) require a law enforcement officer to transport ballot boxes or ballot transfer containers from a supervisor of elections to a precinct and require that all ballot boxes and ballot transfer containers be supervised by a law enforcement officer at all times. The bills require all ballot boxes, ballots, ballot stubs, memoranda and papers relating to the tabulation of votes and proclamation of results under section 102.071, Florida Statutes, to be transported by a law enforcement officer. (O’Hara)

SB 7014 (Ethics and Elections Committee) creates timeframes for the completion of investigations of alleged ethics violations conducted by the Florida Commission on Ethics (Commission). The bill creates a harmless error standard for the Commission’s failure to meet the deadlines, tolls the timeframes until any related criminal cases are resolved and that specifies the new timeframes will apply to existing and new cases. In addition, the bill provides that terms of Commission members are limited to two terms total, rather than two successive terms. It adds candidates for public office to the categories of persons authorized to recover costs and attorney fees for defending against a maliciously filed ethics complaint. The bill also requires a vote of six Commission members to reject or deviate from a recommendation of Commission counsel to the Commission and removes the Commission’s ability to conduct a formal hearing to determine disputed material facts. It authorizes an alleged violator to request a hearing before the Division of Administrative Hearings or to select an informal hearing with the Commission. Finally, the bill conforms the maximum penalty (changing the penalty from $10,000 to $20,000) for a violation of the constitutional prohibition against lobbying by a public officer to the penalties authorized for violations of other ethics laws. (O’Hara)

HB 919 (Rizo) and SB 850 (DiCeglie) require political advertisements, electioneering communications or other miscellaneous advertisements to include a specified disclaimer if the advertisement or communication was created in whole or in part with the use of generative artificial intelligence and the generated content appears to depict a real person performing an action that did not actually occur. The bills subject a person who fails to include the disclaimer in an advertisement or communication to civil penalties. (O’Hara)

HB 473 (Giallombardo) and SB 658 (DiCeglie) exempt cities and counties from liability in connection with a cybersecurity incident if the local entity has substantially complied with the current training and cybersecurity standards requirements under Section 282.3185, Florida Statutes. (Wagoner)

SB 192 (Garcia, I.) – Anchoring of Vessels in Anchoring Limitation Areas (Biscayne Bay)

SB 426 (Garcia, I.) – Community Associations

HB 229 (Payne) and SB 364 (Collins) – Public Service Commission Rules

SB 366 (Yarborough) and HB 81 (Brackett) – Gas Safety

SB 404 (Rouson) – Urban Agriculture Pilot Projects

SB 452 (Burton) and HB 451 (Bell) – Land Acquisition Trust Fund (Heartland Headwaters)

HB 437 (Porras) – Anchoring Limitation Areas (Biscayne Bay)

SB 484 (Bradley) – Flood Disclosure in the Sale of Real Property

SB 566 (Rodriguez) – Land Acquisition Trust Fund (Florida Keys)

SB 780 (Yarborough) – Early Voting Sites

HB 281 (Arrington) and SB 724 (Davis) – Candidate Qualifying

HB 815 (Smith) – Liquified Petroleum Gas

SB 708 (Burton) and HB 825 (Koster) revises the timeframe within which an excavator is required to provide information through the free-access notification system established by Sunshine State One-Call Florida, Inc., before beginning certain excavation or demolition activities. In addition, the bill revises the timeframes during which member operators who receive such notifications are required to mark the horizontal route of an underground facility and provide a positive response to the system. (O’Hara)

SB 122 (Stewart) repeals a state law preemption of local government regulation of tree pruning, trimming or removal on residential property. (O’Hara)

SB 406 (Rodriguez) requires that stormwater management systems be designed with side slope horizontal-to-vertical ratio of 4:1 or an equivalent substitute. The bill supersedes all other side slope rules adopted by the Department of Environmental Protection, water management districts or delegated local programs. (O’Hara)

SB 144 (Berman) and HB 193 (Eskamani) amend multiple provisions of law relating to renewable energy. The bills prohibit the drilling, exploration for or the production of oil, gas or other petroleum products on the lands and waters of the state. The bills provide that by 2050, 100% of the electricity used in the state will be generated from 100% renewable energy and that by 2051, the state will have net zero carbon emissions. The bills direct the Office of Energy within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to coordinate with state, regional and local entities to develop a unified statewide renewable energy plan. (O’Hara)

HB 165 (Gossett-Seidman) and SB 338 (Berman) requires the Department of Health to adopt and enforce certain rules and issue health advisories for beach waters and public bathing places if the results of bacteriological water sampling at the site fail to meet health standards. The bill also expands the current law preemption of the issuance of health advisories related to bacteriological sampling of beach waters to include public bathing places. The bill specifies that beach waters and public bathing places must close if closure is necessary to protect health and safety and must remain closed until the water quality is restored in accordance with the Department's standards. The bill requires the Department to adopt by rule specifications for signage that must be used when it issues a health advisory against swimming in affected beach waters or public bathing places due to elevated levels of specified bacteria and requires such signage to be placed at beach access points and access points to public bathing places until the health advisory is removed. The bill specifies that municipalities and counties are responsible for posting and maintaining the signage around beaches and public bathing places they own. Finally, the bill requires the Department to develop an interagency database for reporting fecal indicator bacteria data and specify that fecal indicator bacteria relating to sampled beach waters and public bathing places must be published in the database within five business days after receipt of the data. (O'Hara)

SB 480 (DiCeglie) and HB 683 (Yeager) authorize an investor-owned utility to recover, through an appropriate cost-recovery mechanism administered by the Public Service Commission, prudently incurred renewable natural gas infrastructure project costs. The bill revises the required contents of a basin management action plan for an Outstanding Florida Spring to include identification of water quality improvement projects that can also produce and capture renewable natural gas through anaerobic digestion or other similar technologies at wastewater treatment plants, livestock farms, food production facilities and organic waste management operations. It encourages municipalities and counties to develop regional solutions to the processing, capture and reuse or sale of renewable natural gas from landfills and wastewater treatment facilities. Finally, it authorizes the Department of Agriculture to expand any “farm-to-fuel” initiative to address the production and capture of renewable natural gas. (O’Hara)

SB 602 (DiCeglie) and HB 321 (Chaney) revise the current law prohibiting the release of certain balloons. SB 602 deletes the specified timeframe and number of balloons subject to the prohibition, making the intentional release of any number of balloons over any timeframe a violation of state law. SB 602 also deletes the current law exemption from the prohibition for certain biodegradable or photodegradable balloons. Both bills provide that a person who violates the statutory prohibition commits the noncriminal infraction of littering, punishable as provided in Section 403.413(6)(a), Florida Statutes. (O’Hara)

SB 698 (Rodriguez) requires the Department of Environmental Protection to review and periodically update its 2010 report and recommendations relating to the use of plastic bags and auxiliary containers. The bill establishes a pilot program for coastal municipalities to establish a pilot program to regulate single-use plastic products upon meeting specified conditions. (O’Hara).

SB 498 (Stewart) removes the state law preemption of local laws regarding the regulation of auxiliary containers, wrappings or disposable plastic bags and removes the state preemption of local law regarding the use or sale of polystyrene products. (O’Hara)