Florida lawmakers are closer than they’ve ever been to helping a man who suffered life-altering injuries in a devastating crash nearly two decades ago.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously for HB 6507, which would authorize Pasco County Schools to pay $1 million to Marcus Button and $200,000 to his mother, Robin Button, for pain, suffering, costs and lost wages due to a 2006 collision with a school bus.

The bill is now heading to the House floor. So far, it hasn’t received a single “no” vote in the chamber.

Meanwhile, the bill’s Senate twin (SB 8) has cleared two of three committee stops. That’s further than any prior version of the measure has gotten since former Sen. Mike Fasano filed the original legislation in 2010.

HB 6507 and SB 8 are claims bills, a special classification of legislation intended to compensate a person or entity for injury or loss due to the negligence or error of a public officer or agency.

Claims bills arise when appropriate damages exceed what is allowable under Florida’s sovereign immunity law, which protects government agencies from costly lawsuits by capping payouts — today — at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. For payments beyond those sums, legislative action is necessary.

Marcus Button was 16 on Sept. 22, 2006, when his friend was driving him to their high school. A school bus driver pulled out in front of Jessica Juettner’s car on State Road 54. It was later determined that bus driver John E. Kinne, whose only other passenger was a backup driver, failed to yield the right-of-way.

The car struck the bus between its wheels, slipping under the larger vehicle. Button, who was riding in the front seat and allegedly not wearing a seatbelt, struck the windshield headfirst, sustaining facial and skull fractures, brain damage and vision loss.

Button had to relearn to walk, still suffers from pain, is mostly blind in his right eye and has no sense of smell, among other chronic issues. He also now speaks with a British accent due to foreign accent syndrome, a speech disorder associated with traumatic brain injury. He also endures visual and auditory hallucinations that contribute to chronic paranoia.

Button’s parents sued the Pasco County School Board in 2007 and ultimately won a $1.38 million settlement for Button and $289,000 for themselves. But Button and his mother have seen just $163,000 due to Florida’s statutory limits.

For the past two years, Tallahassee Sen. Corey Simon and Pensacola Rep. Alex Andrade, both Republicans, have been sponsoring Button’s claims bill. They were the first to take up the cause since 2020, when former Senate Democratic Leader Audrey Gibson filed a comparable measure with no House companion.

It died without a hearing, as did prior efforts by former Republican Sen. Miguel Díaz de la Portilla in 2012 and 2013, and former Republican Sen. Denise Grimsley in 2014, 2015 and 2017.

The Pasco County School Board supports Simon and Andrade’s legislation.

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Legislation to ask voters next year whether they want to amend the Florida Constitution and set eight-year term limits for all County Commissioners and School Board members survived its second House stop, but not without taking some dings.

By the time members of the House Education Administration Subcommittee voted on the measure (HJR 679), more than three dozen people had spoken against it or signaled opposition, including several members of the panel.

The bill’s sponsor, Escambia County Republican Rep. Michelle Salzman, was visibly frustrated and said as much during her closing statements. Last year, she said, she sponsored a similar proposal that would have made the change through legislative approval, but people urged her to instead put the issue on the ballot.

“I brought it back and I’m putting it on the ballot, and now that’s not enough,” she said. “Now that’s not the right way.”

Lawmakers established 12-year term limits for School Board members in 2022. But by the following year, Spring Hills Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia — who is now carrying a Senate twin (SJR 802) to Salzman’s bill — began pushing for a more restrictive eight-year limit that also applied to County Commissioners.

Gov. Ron DeSantis supported the change, though it’s proven unsuccessful so far.

Salzman said an overwhelming share of voters want term limits at all levels of government and that without them, incumbents often amass power that can prove prohibitive to smart, well-intentioned people hoping to unseat them.

“Public service is not a career. We’re not supposed to be here serving the people for 20 years. We’re supposed to come here fresh and ready to serve, energized and ready to work for the people,” she said. “And it’s certainly not easy for people with fresh minds and ideas to have an opportunity to serve their community as a public servant if you have the inability to get somebody to move out of office.”

Salzman added that she plans to file an amendment to allow for County Commission and School Board members to serve again after they’ve left office for a while and “taken a break.”

Democratic Reps. Jose Alvarez of Kissimmee, LaVon Bracy Davis of Ocoee, Angie Nixon of Jacksonville and Marie Woodson of Hollywood complained about state overreach, arguing a one-size-fits-all approach to local governance could cause problems.

Nixon noted that at a time when there’s a push among Republicans at the federal level to send authority back to states, “it almost seems disingenuous with this now to impose the state’s choices on a local area.”

Islamorada Republican Rep. Jim Mooney expressed similar concerns, noting that what is appropriate for Holmes County may not benefit Duval County “and vice versa.” But he said he’d vote for the bill Wednesday with the expectation that it will be improved as it advances.

Miami Beach Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe defended the proposal. He said he used to think elections worked as de facto term limits, since voters had the opportunity to oust officials they disapproved of, but being a state lawmaker changed his perspective.

“We represent a voice in what controls such a massive economy, and locally those (County) Commissions and School Boards … are arguably equally as powerful of an economy,” he said. “I worry about the concentration of power not ever leaving room for new voices and accountability. And on top of that, I’m really interested in hearing from the voters on this.”

One person from the public signaled support for HJR 679. Thirty-seven opposed it, including numerous locally elected officials and representatives from the Florida Association of Counties and the Small County Coalition.

Rich Templin of the Florida AFL-CIO said the idea of blanket term limits for all state officials “has been floating around for about a decade” in Florida, but it’s failed repeatedly because imposing them would “change the fundamental structure of local community government without asking the local community.”

“The problem that we have here is that you are asking all of the voters in the entire state of Florida to make decisions that are going to impact individual communities that are far different than where those voters reside,” he said.

“There are currently four counties in the state right now who could vote, and if they all come out and vote, they could put this in the constitution. … But what about the smaller counties? What about the rural counties? I think you’ll hear from them later.”

That proved true. Ralph Thomas, a Commissioner in Wakulla, Florida’s smallest and newest county, said the right to home rule — local self-governance — was enshrined in the Florida Constitution in 1968 to allow local governments to impose term limits as they saw fit, among other things.

Today, 47 of Florida’s 67 counties have not adopted home rule charters and 20 have. Of those, 11 have term limits and nine don’t.

“There’s great diversity across our state with this opinion,” he said. “(HJR 679) gives the people nothing they don’t already possess. This just strips away the ability to choose who’s on the ballot.”

HJR 679, which advanced on an 11-6 vote Wednesday, will next go to the House State Affairs Committee before reaching a floor vote.

SB 802 advanced through its first of three stops on a 6-2 vote last month.

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A.G. Gancarski of Florida Politics contributed to this report.

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Last Call – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.

First Shot

Florida’s push to remove books from school libraries has made national headlines in recent years, and now Democrats fear a new bill could remove some of the defenses that School Boards have to fight back.

Rep. Doug Bankson’s bill (HB 1539) would prohibit School Boards from considering a book’s serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value when deciding if the material can remain on shelves.

If a parent or a county resident who doesn’t have kids at the school complains, the school must remove the books within five school days.

The state could threaten to withhold state money until school districts obeyed under the Apopka Republican’s bill.

Bankson’s legislation comes as Republicans and conservative advocates expressed outrage about the content appearing in school libraries.

Bankson’s bill was heard and approved by a vote of 13 to 4 in front of the House Education Administration Subcommittee. However, the Senate companion bill (SB 1692) has been temporarily postponed.

“The power of the state to control the conduct of children reaches beyond the scope of its authority over adults,” Senate staff analysis said, discussing recent court rulings on the issue.

But the staff report also added, “Despite the Court’s clear ruling that a state may regulate material harmful to minors, but not obscene for adults, some statutes have been found unconstitutionally overbroad and criminalized constitutionally protected speech.”

Democrats pounced and called Bankson’s and McClain’s bills unconstitutional. 

Read more on Florida Politics.

Evening Reads

—”Democrats show a pulse: Six takeaways from Tuesday’s elections” via Reid J. Epstein, Julie Bosman and Emily Cochrane of The New York Times

—”I’ve NEVER seen this in my 34 years in Florida politics!” via Dave Trotter of Voting Trend

—”Elon Musk setback in Wisconsin raises questions about his future role” via Naftali Bendavid and Patrick Marley of The Washington Post

—”Donald Trump and GOP confront Musk quandary after Wisconsin defeat” via John McCormick, Anthony DeBarros and Lindsay Wise of The Wall Street Journal

—”How ‘groceries’ explains Trump’s detachment from working Americans” via Ryan Bort of Rolling Stone

—”The Supreme Court struggles with whether to wound Medicaid to spite Planned Parenthood” via Ian Millhiser of Vox

—”Trump tries to limit GOP defections on tariff vote” via Siobhan Hughes, Gavin Bade and Lindsay Wise of The Wall Street Journal

—“Ron DeSantis says he tried to install Randy Fine at FAU because state lawmakers wanted to get rid of him” via Anthony Man of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

—”How Florida troopers are getting around red tape limiting immigration enforcement” via Ana Ceballos of the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times

—”Critic’s appreciation: Val Kilmer, an unclassifiable heartthrob who always had an edge” via Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter

Quote of the Day

“We put a down payment on our future, and we’re going to make Republicans pay for it in the long run.”

— FDP Chair Nikki Fried, on Democrats’ overperformance in Tuesday’s congressional elections.

Put it on the Tab

Look to your left, then look to your right. If you see one of these people at your happy hour haunt, flag down the bartender and put one of these on your tab. Recipes included, just in case the Cocktail Codex fell into the well.

Florida Democrats closed the gap in yesterday’s congressional elections, but they spent a lot of money doing it, earning them a Burnt Citrus.

Small-scale beer manufacturers can crack open one of their own brews to celebrate HB 499’s victory in the House State Administration Budget Subcommittee.

Democrats are worried that a new bill could remove some of the defenses that School Boards have to fight book bans. Help them chill out with a Fahrenheit 151.

Breakthrough Insights

Tune In

Heat in final playoff push

With seven games left in the regular season, the Heat travels to Boston to face the Celtics as Miami tries to climb the NBA’s Eastern Conference standings.

Miami (34-41) is ninth in the conference, half a game ahead of the Chicago Bulls, who hold the final postseason spot in the conference. The Heat have clinched a postseason spot, but how the playoff path will look remains to be determined.

Winners of five straight games, the Heat could finish as high as sixth, earning an automatic spot in the playoffs. However, the more likely scenario finds Miami in the four-team play-in tournament. Teams seeded seventh through 10th have the chance to play into the main playoff bracket. The ninth seed hosts the 10th seed in the first stage, while the seventh seed hosts the eighth seed to open the play-in tourney. Two of the four teams will advance. 

Boston (56-19) is second in the Eastern Conference standings, four games behind Cleveland. The Celtics have won nine straight games and mathematically have a chance to catch the Cavaliers for the top seed in the playoffs. 

Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo have powered Miami’s recent hot streak. Herro averaged 28.4 points per game in the winning streak, while Adebayo added 18.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game over the last five contests.

The Heat returns home on Thursday to face the Memphis Grizzlies, followed by home games against the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers.

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Last Call is published by Peter Schorsch, assembled and edited by Phil Ammann and Drew Wilson, with contributions from the staff of Florida Politics.

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