The House Education and Employment Committee passed a measure Wednesday that seeks to establish rules and protections regarding student athlete representation and compensation for the use of their name, image, and likeness (NIL).

Naples Republican Rep. Yvette Benarroch presented the bill (HB 981) and explained that the legislation would limit what athlete agents are able to receive from NIL earnings and would create transparency by establishing a public database of agents.

“This bill protects student athletes by placing a 5% cap on the fees athlete agents can collect from new name, imagine, and likeness or NIL contracts, involving NIL collectives,” Benarroch said. “It also allows high student athletes, not just seniors, to earn NIL compensation if they’re being recruited to play sports.”

Benarroch said that student athletes would be able to seek advice, while audit requirements would be removed.

“Additionally, the bill ensures student athletes can seek advice from coaches, economic advisers, or their school registered advisers, with parental consent required for minors,” Benarroch said. “Finally, it removes an unnecessary Department of Education audit requirement, as schools are only required to maintain a list of registered advisers.”

“The bill is a balanced approach that protects student athletes, ensures transparency, and promotes responsible NIL participation,” Benarroch added.

An amendment was adopted that clarifies that the 5% cap only applies to collectives and does not require a student athlete to register compensation with the Florida High School Athletic Association. It further clarifies that a high school student may earn compensation for name, image, or likeness and must get parental consent if the student athlete is under the age of 18.

Sarasota Republican Rep. Fiona McFarland thanked Benarroch for the bill and for taking suggestions into consideration after the last committee stop.

“This bill has made a great improvement, and I know that you will continue to do so as it completes its journey through the committee process,” McFarland said. “As it moves forward, I still have some concerns about this new category we’re creating of a registered adviser. Perhaps outlining where the adviser needs to register, that feels like a very formal title to me.”

McFarland added that she also has concerns over public high school coaches having an alternative revenue source through NIL deals when they’re being paid by Florida taxpayers.

“Those are two very separate activities in my mind, and I know that your heart for protecting our student athletes will dive into these issues,” she said.

Jacksonville Democratic Rep. Kimberly Daniels supported the bill and said she would like to sign on as a co-sponsor and encouraged her colleagues to do the same.

“Representative Benarroch, thank you for this great bill,” Daniels said. “It’s awesome the work that you’re doing and I’m even going to sign on as a co-sponsor and ask my colleagues to do the same.”

North Miami Beach Democratic Rep. Wallace Aristide also supported the bill and noted that he has personal experience with student athletes as an educator and pointed out that his son is a football coach at Texas A&M.

“I’ve been around football all my life, my son is a football coach at Texas A&M, there’s really a tremendous issue, it’s a major problem, families will understand,” Aristide said. “See, there’s a real-life thing happening here, and sometimes when you don’t really know about it, you’re not in the middle of it, where people are getting cars, we’re they’re going leasing cars, some very young people, that advantage can be taken, they could be taken advantage of.”

Aristide added that he understands concerns over high school coaches and said there are people who would take advantage of young student athletes who find themselves suddenly with a lot of money.

“This is a major concern, and I understand about the coaches who don’t get paid a whole lot, they’re going to be given a whole lot of responsibility, because the parents come and they listen to the coaches, they build relationships with the coaches,” Aristide said. “This is going to be a problem that is going to explode eventually, because you’ve got people who are predators, they’re going to try to take advantage of these families, so I want to thank you for bringing this.”

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Companion bills designed to crack down on gift card fraud in Florida are close to passing. Both await floor votes.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to advance HB 1007, which would codify language and punishments specific to gift card fraud in Florida Statutes.

Senate lawmakers did the same for the bill’s upper-chamber analog (SB 1198) Tuesday.

The House bill’s sponsor, St. Augustine Republican Rep. Sam Greco, a lawyer, said the crime his legislation aims to address “has victimized many Floridians in recent years.”

“These schemes have resulted in meaningful financial losses for both consumers and businesses, while our law enforcement and State Attorneys lack the necessary tools to combat this misconduct effectively,” he said.

“The bill aims to protect Floridians from exploitation and give our police and prosecutors the tools they need to hold bad actors accountable.”

SB 1198 and HB 1007 differ slightly in language, but their effects are essentially the same. If passed, the legislation would:

— Establish clear definitions for gift cards and terms related to their use and misuse.

— Make committing gift card fraud a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and $1,000 in fines.

— Increase the penalty to a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and $5,000 in fines, if the value of ill-gotten money, goods or services exceeds $750.

Representatives from the International Council of Shopping Centers, Florida Chamber of Commerce, Florida Retail Federation, Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, Associated Industries of Florida, Florida Smart Justice Alliance, AARP and Interactive Communications International support the legislation.

In 2023 alone, gift card-related fraud accounted for $217 million of the record $10 billion lost in scams across the U.S., according to Federal Trade Commission data.

In Florida, there have been many news reports about gift card fraudsters getting caught.

Democratic Rep. Dan Daley, a Broward County prosecutor, said the state’s existing petit theft laws aren’t sufficient in tamping down on gift card fraud.

“This is not a person that’s going in and just taking a gift card or two off the shelf,” he said.

“This is a complicated scheme where they’re going in, taking as many as they can, taking them home, stripping them out of the packaging, taking down the information, repackaging it, putting it back in the store, somebody’s unexpectedly buying them and giving them to a loved one — a family member, whatever — as a gift, and when there’s money loaded onto the card (the criminal takes) the money. … So, very complicated, very complex.”

St. Petersburg Sen. Nick DiCeglie is carrying SB 1198.

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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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