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

First Shot

After years of failed attempts, it took Senators mere minutes to pass a monumental bill to repeal a unique restriction that today blocks some exonerees from receiving just compensation for time wrongly spent in prison.

Senators voted 38-0 to pass SB 130 to repeal Florida’s “clean hands” rule, which bars exonerees with more than one nonviolent felony from being eligible for recompense without legislative action.

The measure’s sponsor, Fleming Island Republican Sen. Jennifer Bradley, noted that since state lawmakers created a compensation route for exonerees, just five have received it. Eighteen have been denied, totaling more than 300 years of lost liberty.

Six have waited for a decade or more.

“Each of us has an incredible honor to be able to represent our constituents, and part of that privilege … is the duty that comes with that to be able to right wrongs,” she said.

Bradley credited her husband, former Sen. Rob Bradley, and former Sen. Arthena Joyner for working on earlier versions of her legislation.

“The posture it’s in today (because of their efforts) is the right and just thing for a state to do (after taking) people’s liberty,” she said. “This bill rights that wrong.”

SB 130 and its lower-chamber twin (HB 59) by Tampa Republican Rep. Traci Koster, which now awaits a House floor vote, would also lengthen the window for exonerees to file for compensation to two years after an order vacating their conviction, up from today’s time frame of just 90 days.

Read more on Florida Politics.

Evening Reads

—”Donald Trump changes his tune on Signalgate: ‘I always thought it was Mike’ ” via Jake Traylor of POLITICO

—“Internal White House document details layoff plans across U.S. agencies” via Emily Davies and Jeff Stein of The Washington Post

—”America probably can’t have abundance. But we deserve a better government.” via Nate Silver of the Silver Bulletin

—“Is the White House censoring Laura Loomer?” via Will Sommer of The Bulwark

—”Taxpayers spent billions covering the same Medicaid patients twice” via Christopher Weaver, Anna Wilde Mathews and Tom McGinty of The Wall Street Journal

—“Elon Musk targeted FEMA. Storm-battered communities are paying a price.” via Christopher Flavelle, Eduardo Medina and Luis Ferré-Sadurní of The New York Times

—”How Trump wants to make one of the most dangerous jobs in America even worse” via Kenny Torrella of Vox

—”Florida House speaker uneasy with child labor bill” via Ana Ceballos and Romy Ellenbogen of the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times

—​​“House Democrats get on board with bill requiring media to remove certain online articles” via Jackie Llanos of the Florida Phoenix

—“‘Not discretionary’: James Uthmeier warns Donna Deegan not to veto Jacksonville illegal immigration law” via A.G. Gancarski of Florida Politics

—”Heat-not-burn legislation is getting hot in Tallahassee” via Peter Schorsch of Florida Politics

Quote of the Day

“We have to protect the sanctity of the uniform and make sure they are represented correctly.”

— Sen. Tom Wright on his ‘stolen valor’ bill (SB 402).

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.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is fuming about the House undoing “millions of dollars in cost savings,” but it just sounds like Sour Grapes to us.

I’m sorry, parents of teenagers. Lawmakers are taking back your late mornings and replacing them with an Early Riser.

Florida’s new unemployment claims have dropped for the second week in a row, signaling that it’s time to order another Daily Grind.

Breakthrough Insights

Tune In

Gators continue March to a title

Florida will play Maryland in the Sweet 16 tonight, and the Gators will try to keep their hopes of a national championship alive (7:39 p.m. ET, TBS).

The top-seeded Gators beat Norfolk State 95-69 in the first round, then survived a 77-75 game against two-time defending national champion UConn, the eighth seed in the West Region.

All-America guard, Walter Clayton Jr., is a stand-out for Florida this season and in the tournament. Clayton scored 23 points in the first round in 27 minutes, making four three-pointers. He scored 23 against Connecticut, making five three-pointers, although he missed eight of 14 field goal attempts overall. 

Maryland, the fourth seed in the West, opened the tournament with a dominating 81-49 victory over Grand Canyon, and, like Florida, narrowly won in the second round, beating 12th-seeded Colorado State 72-71.

Four Terrapins scored at least 12 points in the first-round win, led by senior forward Julian Reese. Against Colorado State, all five Maryland players scored in double figures, led by top scorer Derik Queen. During the season, all five Terrapin starters averaged at least 12 points per game this season. 

Maryland has not advanced past the second round of the NCAA tournament since 2016. Florida has not made the Elite Eight since 2017.

The winner of the game will face the winner of tonight’s matchup between Texas Tech and Arkansas in the regional finals.

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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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A bill that would compel news outlets to remove false, defamatory or outdated reports from their websites or lose their media privileges in court cleared its first House committee stop with uniform support from the dais.

The House Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee voted 13-0 for HB 667, which would require a news publication or broadcast station to permanently delete any report on its web server if it learns, either through a court decision or information that a “reasonable person” would believe, that the report contains false or defamatory information.

If an outlet refuses to take down the story, it would lose its fair report privilege considerations in defamation and libel lawsuits.

The site must erase the story even if just one word or sentence is inaccurate. Stories that no longer reflect up-to-date information, such as the exoneration or nonprosecution of someone, would also have to be removed.

“This is not about trying to do anything negative to the media,” said Inverness Republican Rep. J.J. Grow, the bill’s sponsor. “It’s not about First Amendment rights. It’s about humanity. It’s about lives being destroyed.”

HB 667 was filed at the behest of Miami lawyer Barry Richard, the husband of Tallahassee Democratic Rep. Allison Tant, the bill’s cosponsor. One of Richard’s clients was arrested for a crime in 2017 that a State Attorney later decided not to prosecute due to insufficient evidence. While some news outlets complied with the man’s request that they remove stories about his arrest, one refused to do so on the grounds that its reporting wasn’t inaccurate, just outdated.

“Today, seven years later, if you Google his name you will see him in the orange jumpsuit being accused of a crime,” Richard said.

The bill’s Senate analog (SB 752) ran into ample pushback from Democratic lawmakers and First Amendment advocates in its first to committee hearings. That wasn’t as much the case in the House on Thursday, when only a few lawyers and representatives of ACLU Florida and the Florida Press Association spoke out against it.

None of the committee’s Democratic members opposed the bill.

“From my understanding, a journalist would want truth and accuracy,” said St. Petersburg Democratic Rep. Michelle Rayner, a civil rights lawyer. “What’s the affinity for keeping false information up — and not just false information, (but) information that you would know to be false?”

Democratic Reps. Kimberly Daniels of Jacksonville and Mike Gottlieb, a Davie defense lawyer, were similarly unsympathetic to outcry against the bill.

Republican Reps. Kim Kendall of St. Augustine and Vicki Lopez of Miami both recounted how they were “maligned” by the press, Lopez for a since-vacated conviction decades ago and Kendall over false reports that she lied about bomb threats targeting her when she worked for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Kendall said she reached out to the outlet to get a retraction. “There was a book on it. There was a ‘Forensic Files’ episode on it. They had all that information,” she said. “To this day, there’s no retraction.”

Kara LoCicero, a Tampa-based First Amendment lawyer, warned the bill would adversely impact not only news outlets but religious broadcasters, conservative commentators and myriad other media outlets.

Bobby Block of the First Amendment Foundation said that the news outlets didn’t do Richard’s client an injustice; the judicial system did, and all that TV station did was report facts, including the report Richard took umbrage with whose title read, “Prosecutor drops case.”

“They may be inconvenient facts, but they are true,” he said. “If we buy into this logic, we would have to erase the O.J. Simpson car chase and every report on Casey Anthony from history. Does anyone believe that Casey Anthony was defamed by her murder charge?”

HB 667 and SB 752, sponsored by Tallahassee Republican Sen. Corey Simon, are spiritual successors to bills Pensacola Republican Rep. Alex Andrade unsuccessfully carried in 2023 and 2024.

Last year’s version of Andrade’s legislation, which had Senate support from Lake Mary Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur, would have lowered the bar in defamation lawsuits by shifting the burden of proof from the plaintiff to the defendant. It also would have required courts to accept as fact that if a defamatory statement about a public figure is published and the statement relied on an anonymous source, the publisher acted with malice.

Gov. Ron DeSantis boosted the concept in 2023 to hold national media outlets accountable. Still, Andrade’s bill drew the ire of several conservative outlets and criticism from Stephen Miller, a policy adviser to President Donald Trump, who suggested the change could suppress conservative speech.

HB 667 will next go to the House Judiciary Committee, after which it would be subject to a vote by the full chamber.

SB 752 cleared its first two Senate committees, albeit with “no” votes from Democrats at each stop, and is next to be heard by the Senate Rules Committee before reaching the floor.

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More protection for affordable housing tenants could be coming to Florida through advancing legislation.

Members of the House Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee just voted 15-0 for HB 365, which would bar landlords who receive federal, state or local incentives from raising rents mid-lease on affordable units.

The restriction would apply only to rental agreements of 13 months or less executed on or after July 1, 2026. Landlords would still be able to hike rents if federal rules mandate that they must do so to remain eligible for affordable housing incentives.

“This will strike a balance by protecting tenants from unexpected rental increase while also safeguarding landlords from being locked into long-term rents that fall below affordable housing rates,” said Lake Worth Beach Democratic Rep. Debra Tendrich, the bill’s sponsor.

HB 365 and its Senate analog (SB 382) by West Palm Beach Democratic Sen. Mack Bernard are designed to close what Tendrich described as a “loophole” in affordable housing contracts that today allow landlords to increase rents when Florida releases its annual affordable housing rates. That makes it different from other long-term leases, which come with locked-in rates.

“These individuals are given an option to either sign this lease … or become homeless,” Tendrich said.

It’s a personal issue for the freshman lawmaker. Tendrich moved to Florida in 2012 to escape what she described as a “domestic violence situation,” with only her daughter and a suitcase.

“Once the bruises healed, I was able to find a job and I was able to secure housing, (and) the biggest factor in my journey to where I am now was housing stability, knowing what my monthly expenses would be, and being able to account for my budget month-to-month was really the foundation that I used to rebuild my life,” she said. “If I was given an unexpected rent increase, it would have flipped my world upside-down.”

Palm Beach County, AARP Florida and a slew of affordable housing advocacy organizations support the change. A representative from PEN America signaled opposition to it.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle praised HB 365 in its first committee stop Thursday. Jacksonville Democratic Rep. Kimberly Daniels called it “fair” and “balanced,” adding that she planned to add her name as a sponsor of the bill.

Placida Republican Rep. Danny Nix, a commercial Realtor, said he liked the bill too, but noted that what Tendrich called a “loophole” was originally done to guarantee developers that build affordable units see a return on their investment.

“It wasn’t put in for negative impact,” he said. “It was put in as a positive way to bring developers back into this … opportunity.”

HB 365, which cleared its first committee stop last week with unanimous support too, will next go to the House Commerce Committee, after which it would go to the floor.

SB 382 advanced through its first committee Tuesday on an 11-0 vote and will next be taken up by the Senate Community Affairs Committee, its penultimate stop in the chamber.

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