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URGENT: Florida’s HB 1085 Moved to new committees! >> It needs to be stopped!

by | Mar 19, 2023 | ACTION ALERT

HB 1085 Moved to new committees: Infrastructure & Appropriations Subcommittee and Infrastructure Strategies Committee

Major Concerns About This Bill:

  • The bill states that all driver’s licenses and identification cards for people on the registry “shall have printed in the color red all information otherwise required to be printed on the front of the license or identification card.” HB 1085, lines 805-821
  • This bill was passed by a vote of 16 to 2 in the Transportation & Modals Subcommittee on 3.15.2023 as a result of a good deal of misinformation. The sponsor, Rep. Patt Maney, did not seem to fully understand what the correct wording was in the bill relating to the red lettering, nor the decision that came out of the Alabama case.
  • No committee member or analyst seemed to be aware of the court decisions in Alabama and Louisiana.
  • This bill will be moving on to the Infrastructure & Tourism Appropriations Subcommittee and the Infrastructure Strategies Committee, which are both in the House of Representatives.

PLEASE Do the Following:

  • Call all members of the Infrastructure & Appropriations Subcommittee and the Infrastructure Strategies Committee
  • Whether you talk to a person or voicemail, you must give your name and contact information (phone numbers work). Remember that all voicemails are checked, so you can call after hours.
  • State that you OPPOSE the part of the bill that would require the red lettering on driver’s licenses for people on the registry.
  • Mention that you are a constituent if you happen to live in the representative’s district.
  • Give two brief reasons why you oppose the red lettering on the licenses.
  • Ask family members and friends to also call to oppose the red lettering.

Talking Points:

  • The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Louisiana’s appeal of a decision against its 2006 law requiring that people on the sex offense registry have their driver’s license or identification card marked with “SEX OFFENDER” in orange letters. The Louisiana Supreme Court said the marking was compelled speech and could not be justified by the state’s interest in protecting public safety.
  • In 2019, a federal judge struck down Alabama’s sex offense registration law that required registrants to carry a driver’s license or official ID with “CRIMINAL SEX OFFENDER” emblazoned in red.
  • If this bill is passed as is, will Florida also be facing a costly lawsuit?
  • There are currently 52 registry requirements for people on the sex offense registry. Every Florida legislator should have received a copy of the timeline of these registry requirements that started off with 3 in 1997 and have grown to 52 by 2020.  Failure to fulfill any of these requirements could lead up to 5 years of imprisonment, even for the thousands of Florida registrants who are now law-abiding citizens. 
  • While there is no research showing a need for the red lettering on licenses, there is an abundance of research showing that the sexual recidivism rate for people with a past sex offense is lower than that for all other crimes, with the exception of murder.
  • Research has shown that at least 90% of FUTURE sex crimes will be committed by people NOT on the registry.
  • The first-of-its-kind meta-analysis study of 25 years of findings of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification (SORN) evaluations and their effects on recidivism was published in 2021. Eighteen research articles including 474,640 formerly incarcerated individuals were used.  (Journal of Experimental Criminology,“The effectiveness of Sex Offender Registration and Notification: A meta-analysis of 25 years of findings”, Kristen M. Zgoba and Meghan M. Mitchell, September 2021)
  • Some of the findings of the above-mentioned study: (1) The sex offense registries have had no effect on sexual and non-sexual crime commission over their periods of existence, thereby failing to deliver on the intention of increasing public safety; (2) Public safety could likely be maximized by focusing limited resources on the highest-risk individuals, rather than utilizing a one-size-fits-all law; and (3) It is time that we work as an empirically informed community, unhindered by emotion, to find a solution to reining the “horse back into the barn”, i.e., reining in the numerous sex offense registry statutes.

Even though the bill passed through the Transportation and Modals Subcommittee, comments were made by different representatives showing that some of the representatives did take note of the high number of calls their office received opposing the red lettering.  YOUR CALL DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!

Phone Numbers for the Infrastructure & Tourism Appropriations Subcommittee:

  1. Robert Andrade (Chair – R): (850) 717-5002
  2. Linda Chaney (Vice Chair – R): (850) 717-5061
  3. David Silvers (Democratic Ranking Member – D): (850) 717-5089
  4. Bruce Antone (D): (850) 717-5041
  5. Kimberly Berfield (R): (850) 717-5058
  6. Robert Brackett (R): (850) 717-5034
  7. Dan Daley (D): (850) 717-5096
  8. Tiffany Esposito (R): (850) 717-5077
  9. Mike Giallombardo (R): (850) 717-5079
  10. Jennifer Harris (D): (850) 717-5044
  11. Chip LaMarca (R): (850) 717-5100
  12. Vicki Lopez (R): (850) 717-5113
  13. Susan Plascencia (R): (850) 717-5037
  14. Felicia Robinson (D): (850) 717-5104
  15. Bradford Yeager (R): (850) 717-5056

Phone Numbers for the Infrastructure Strategies Committee:

  1. Bobby Payne (Chair – R): (850) 717-5020
  2. Sam Garrison (Vice Chair – R): (850) 717-5011
  3. David Smith (Republican Committee Whip – R): (850) 717-5038
  4. Christine Hunschofsky (Democratic Ranking Member – D): (850) 717-5095
  5. Robert Andrade (R): (850) 717-5002
  6. Adam Botana (R): (850) 717-5080
  7. Robert Brackett (R): (850) 717-5034
  8. James Buchanan (R): (850) 717-5074
  9. Hillary Cassel (D): (850) 717-5101
  10. Linda Chaney (R): (850) 717-5061
  11. Anna Eskamani (D): (850) 717-5042
  12. Tom Fabricio (R): (850) 717-5110
  13. Michael Gottlieb (D): (850) 717-5102
  14. Sam Killebrew (R): (850) 717-5048
  15. Johanna Lopez (D): (850) 717-5043
  16. Fiona McFarland (R): (850) 717-5073
  17. James Mooney, Jr. (R): (850) 717-5120
  18. Angela Nixon (D): (850) 717-5013
  19. Susan Plasencia (R): (850) 717-5037
  20. Felicia Robinson (D): (850) 717-5104
  21. Jason Shoaf (R): (850) 717-5007
  22. Cyndi Stevenson (R): (850) 717-5018
  23. Josie Tomkow (R): (850) 717-5051
  24. Keith Truenow (R): (850) 717-5026

Every call gets heard and tallied.  Every respectful conversation with a staffer is an excellent opportunity to change a mind about our community with someone who has direct contact with a lawmaker.  YOUR EFFORTS DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE