{"id":45565,"date":"2024-05-16T02:19:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T06:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=45565"},"modified":"2024-05-16T02:19:32","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T06:19:32","slug":"heres-the-most-reprehensible-law-florida-passed-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/05\/16\/heres-the-most-reprehensible-law-florida-passed-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s the most reprehensible law Florida passed this year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019ve often thought that if I were to write a book about modern politics, it would be titled \u201cThe Death of Shame.\u201d The reason: We\u2019ve entered an era where many politicians are no longer ashamed of behavior that would humiliate most decent souls.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Still, every once in a while, politicians do something so bad even they try to hide from their own acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This past legislative session, that something was a new law that makes it illegal for Florida counties to guarantee basic workplace safety for outdoor workers who toil in extreme heat \u2014 like providing shade and water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the kind of stuff most people would provide for dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re talking about water breaks in 100-degree heat. And momentary shade for roofers and farmhands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few counties had started talking about mandating such things \u2014 around the same time a South Florida farmworker was found dead in a ditch from heat exhaustion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Florida businesses \u2014 led by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which is funded by companies like Publix, U.S. Sugar, Disney and Florida Power & Light \u2014 didn\u2019t want to be bothered with new regulations. Even those meant to keep workers safe or even alive.<\/p>\n\n\n

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So their lobbyists pushed a bill that would make such safety rules illegal. Aside from water and shade, the law also bans local rules requiring employers to offer \u201cappropriate first-aid measures or emergency responses related to heat exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, they targeted first aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOP legislators knew this bill looked heinous. So first of all, they cut off testimony for citizens who had traveled across the state to talk about how nasty it was. Then they waited until the last day of the session to pass it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most significantly, though, Gov. Ron DeSantis hid behind closed doors when signing House Bill 433 into law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis normally craves attention the way zombies crave brains. He likes to livestream his bill-signings surrounded by children, Moms for Liberty and staffers who applaud on cue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here, there was no news conference. No big, tough declarations about how Florida is doing things differently than the rest of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because, really, what could he say? Here in Florida, we aren\u2019t doing crazy things like ensuring tomato pickers have access to drinking water!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve watched Florida lawmakers pass a lot of bad bills, but I can\u2019t recall one more cruel. Even the normally shameless politicians knew it and wanted to hide. But you deserve to know who they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill passed along party lines. In the Senate, it was supported by Tampa Bay Republicans Blaise Ingoglia, Jay Collins, Nick DiCeglie, Jim Boyd, Danny Burgess and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo. In the House, the bill meant to ensure that workers couldn\u2019t be guaranteed shade, water or first aid received yes votes from 74 of the 120 members, including Speaker Paul Renner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many consider themselves people of faith. I\u2019d be curious to hear these folks explain their support to their spiritual leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida physicians also decried the legislation as dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, I don\u2019t think anyone runs for public office hoping to deny low-wage laborers access to shade on a scorching-hot day. Instead, they were pressured by Florida\u2019s big-business lobby. And they happily complied, knowing that campaign checks and endorsements were on the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeking Rents, a website that focuses on the influence of money on Florida politics, and the Orlando Weekly got their hands on public records that show the Florida Chamber of Commerce helped write the legislation, which also blocks local governments from requiring its contractors to pay living wages, and then insisted lawmakers pass it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chamber Vice President Carolyn Johnson warned lawmakers in an email that their votes on this issue would not only be documented in the group\u2019s \u201cHow They Voted\u201d report card, but counted twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So GOP lawmakers dutifully adopted the chamber\u2019s talking points with a goal of distracting the public from what the bill actually said \u2014 that local governments can\u2019t guarantee \u201cwater consumption,\u201d \u201ccooling measures\u201d or even \u201cappropriate first-aid measures.\u201d Backers instead said they simply wanted to avoid a \u201cpatchwork\u201d of different regulations in different cities and counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently business owners aren\u2019t capable of complying with different laws in different places \u2014 or understanding why heat protection might be more important in, say, South Florida than North Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their arguments were, of course, garbage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chamber and other business groups, including Associated Industries and the Florida Home Builders Association, didn\u2019t want to block heat-protection rules that varied from one place to another. They wanted to block heat-protection rules altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know this because Florida could have enacted statewide safety guidelines. But lawmakers refused. And the business lobby wasn\u2019t about to tolerate local officials pushing for humane work conditions either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lobbyists also claimed most businesses already provided workers with heat protections in accordance with federal laws. Yet here they were frantically opposing regulations they claimed to already have in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s one helluva top priority for this state\u2019s \u201centire business community\u201d \u2014 ensuring that the workers who build houses, mow lawns and harvest crops aren\u2019t guaranteed drinking water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve often thought that if I were to write a book about modern politics, it would be titled \u201cThe Death of Shame.\u201d The reason: We\u2019ve entered an era where many… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"15","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[8535],"class_list":["post-45565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-heres-the-most-reprehensible-law-florida-passed-this-year"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45568,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45565\/revisions\/45568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}