Legislation expanding a 2023 law banning students from in-class cellphone use is advancing in the House, where lawmakers agreed that the devices have a detrimental effect on learning.

Members of the Education and Administration Subcommittee voted unanimously for legislation (HB 949) that would prohibit students from cellphone use throughout the school day, rather than just during instructional time.

The bill would also require schools to designate locations on campus where students can use their phones, with permission from a school administrator.

Coral Gables Republican Rep. Demi Busatta, the bill’s sponsor, said its language provides school districts flexibility on how to implement the change. One Miami school issued locking pouches to students so they could still have their phones but couldn’t use them, she said. At least one school in Palm Beach has done the same.

“Cellphones not only cause constant distractions to student’s focus during the school day, which impedes their ability to learn, but it also has shown to increase bullying,” she said Tuesday.

Busatta added that the most frequent argument she hears against her bill has come from parents concerned that they wouldn’t be able to get hold of their kids during school time.

“To which I’ve said, well, when we were in school, we didn’t have phones — except for maybe (Miami Republican Rep. Juan) Porras, because that was, you know, yesterday,” she said to good-natured laughs. “Our parents managed to get a hold of us by calling the front office. We figured it out, and we can continue to do that.”

Porras, who is 27, later retorted, “I had a flip phone, for the record.”

Busatta’s bill is an update to HB 379, which the Legislature unanimously approved in May 2023. That measure banned TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter and other social media platforms on school devices and prohibited students from using their cellphones during class time except for educational purposes, as directed by a teacher.

School administrators from across Florida gave lawmakers mostly positive feedback in January about the relatively new law, which more than a dozen states have since copied. Schools in Orange County have had a bell-to-bell ban for over a year.

And the results are staggering, said Nathan Hoffman, Senior Legislative Director for the education-focused Foundation for Florida’s Future nonprofit. High schools in the district have seen a 31% drop in fighting and a 21% decline in serious misconduct. Middle schools saw a 58% decrease in fighting and a 28% reduction in gross insubordination. The district overall also saw a 158% decrease in school threats.

Hoffman said research shows that 97% of students report using their phones during the school day, usually for more than an hour and a half, and that it takes students more than 23 minutes to get back on task after getting a phone notification and reacting to it. On average, he continued, they receive more than 200 notifications during school.

“This is certainly a distraction that they don’t need during class time,” he said.

Hoffman’s group supports HB 949. So does the conservative Florida Citizens Alliance.

Ocoee Democratic Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis said the bill makes sense, but expressed worry that broadening the ban more than the measure contemplates could put kids at risk.

“Things have changed, and because of school lockdowns and school shootings I do have concerns if this were to go even a step further in terms of the pouches, where students wouldn’t have access at all to their cellphones,” she said.

Miami Beach Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe spoke to the addictiveness of cellphones and noted that other countries, including the United Kingdom and France, have implemented similar restrictions.

“You see adults have a hard time. Imagine kids. It’s like psychological manipulation,” he said. “I’m glad that we’re really strengthening this and giving teachers and parents kind of that extra push they’re going to need. I mean, it’s really hard to tell a kid, ‘Hey, we need to take your phone away.’ But when you say that it’s the law, it just kind of ends the conversation there.”

HB 949 does not have a Senate companion, according to the Senate and House websites. But it’s not the only bill looking at cracking down on cellphone use in filed this year.

Zephyrhills Republican Sen. Danny Burgess, who sponsored the upper-chamber analogue of HB 379 in 2023, is carrying a measure (SB 1296) that would study the effects of a full-school-day ban on cellphones in six school districts in the 2025-26 school year.

Burgess’ bill is also without a House companion.

HB 949 will next go to the Education and Employment Committee before reaching the House floor. SB 1296 awaits a hearing before the first of three committees to which it was referred last week.

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In the wake of former Orange County Elections Supervisor Glen Gilzean’s spending scandal, his successor has gotten nearly $3 million back — a significant sum, though not the full amount Gilzean gave away.

“It is a relief,” said Elections Supervisor Karen Castor Dentel, who called it one of her top priorities when she took office in January. “We’re still behind where we need to be, so getting these taxpayer dollars back into operation is really going to help us move forward.”

The money comes as Castor Dentel’s Office is getting hit with unpaid election bills from Gilzean’s tenure and battling what’s become a multimillion-dollar deficit. The full extent of Gilzean’s misspending is still unknown two months after Castor Dentel took office, according to comments she made during a Wednesday interview with Florida Politics.

Valencia College agreed this week to return $2.1 million for scholarships and is in the process of wiring it back to Castor Dentel’s Office.

The other major gift involves $1.37 million to the Central Florida Foundation that Gilzean wanted to be used to oversee voter engagement initiatives. Castor Dentel’s Office canceled the contract and the foundation returned $864,500 — or 63% of the money.

However, the foundation kept the $137,000 administrative fee meant to cover a two-year period, while the rest of the money had already been spent on voter engagement efforts.

Castor Dentel said she is still negotiating with the foundation over the $137,000.

“It is a significant amount,” she said. “It’s a contract, and we’re looking at it with a legal lens.”

Complicating the issue is that the foundation brokered into contracts with other groups.

“It’s really kind of tricky to unwind everything,” Castor Dentel said. “It’s not as easy as it seems to just get it back.”

Foundation spokeswoman Laurie Crocker said a dozen community groups received grants ranging between $1,000 and $75,000. The list of groups includes the League of Women Voters, the United Foundation of Central Florida and other groups that focused on Hispanic and Black outreach.

The community groups are required to use social media and to do education outreach to let the public know about voting dates, polling locations and other information.

Castor Dentel praised the foundation and the college, calling them “pillars of the community.”

“I really appreciate their willingness to cooperate, and I think they entered into these agreements without fully knowing the financial straits that our Office was in,” she said, blaming Gilzean for falsely claiming he had a budget surplus. “They didn’t understand that this money that they were given was not really excess funds.”

As she cleans up the financial mess, Castor Dentel said all spending decisions now come to her desk. She has deferred maintenance and purchases and made partial payments for bills.

“Our vendors — the people who print the ballots, people who have the software for administering the elections — I’ve had to reach out to them and ask them to be patient,” Castor Dentel said. “Luckily, they understand, and they’re continuing to work with us. It’s like you’re living paycheck to paycheck, and every week, you have to sit down and figure out which bills to pay.”

Gilzean, who was appointed to a partial term by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March 2024, angered Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and other officials when they discovered he was giving millions to outside groups. Later, Gilzean was accused of running his office in the red and not paying bills.

It sparked a dramatic back-and-forth of tense press releases and County Commission debates, as well as a lawsuit in Orange Circuit Court that ran out of steam in the final days of Gilzean’s term. The lawsuit cost at least $41,500 in legal expenses for the Elections Office after Gilzean sued Orange County Clerk and Comptroller Phil Diamond. After taking over following her election in November, Castor Dentel fired several of Gilzean’s hires and top brass.

Gilzean did not immediately respond to a message for comment Wednesday.

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U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna has managed to force a full House vote on a measure that could allow new moms in Congress to vote remotely.

Luna previously filed legislation that would allow members to vote by proxy for six weeks after giving birth to a child. But the St. Petersburg Republican faced resistance from leadership in her own party, and the bill hasn’t advanced in the chamber.

So Luna filed a discharge petition, a method open to all members to gather enough support to force a vote on a bill if 218 Representatives agree.

That measure reached the requisite signatures required Tuesday, when Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York signed on. Ultimately, only 12 Republicans supported the effort, along with 206 Democrats.

But Luna said the bill represents family values that conservatives should rally behind.

Luna gave birth to her first child during her first term in Congress, and previously said it surprised her that she couldn’t vote by proxy when all members were allowed that ability in the pandemic.

“When my son was born last Summer, leadership told me I would not be allowed to vote by proxy while I recovered from childbirth. Yet, during COVID, the entire House of Representatives was allowed to do so!” Luna told Florida Politics.

“This is a double standard we can’t ignore. My resolution to amend the House Rules would allow a Congresswoman who gives birth to vote by proxy for the first six weeks after her baby is born.”

Democrats had controlled the chamber when proxy voting was allowed in the pandemic, and many Republicans criticized the legality at the time. When Republicans won a majority, the policy was quickly abandoned.

Nine other Florida lawmakers supported Luna’s discharge petition, including Republican U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds and Democratic U.S. Reps. Kathy Castor, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Lois Frankel, Maxwell Frost, Jared Moskowitz, Darren Soto, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Frederica Wilson.

Discharge petitions are often filed, usually by members of the minority party, but rarely force issues to the floor. Of note, one of the last successful petitions was also filed by a Florida Representative. U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, a Sarasota Republican, successfully passed a disaster-related tax relief bill last year using the process.

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