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Florida Legislature - page 25

Florida considers 24-hour waiting period for abortions

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Women seeking abortions would have to wait 24 hours under a bill now advancing in the Florida Legislature. A House committee on Thursday approved the bill after hearing passionate testimony. The measure sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Sullivan would require a woman seeking an abortion to talk in person to the physician performing the abortion at least 24 hours ahead of time. Sullivan said she was sponsoring the bill (HB 633) to make sure women were not rushed into seeking an…

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Class size limits could be eased for school districts

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Class size limits could be eased for Florida’s schools under a bill now moving in the Florida Legislature. A House committee approved the measure on Thursday. A 2002 state constitutional amendment limits classes in core subjects to 18 students in kindergarten through third grade, 22 in fourth through eighth grade and 25 in high school. The state now penalizes districts for every class over those limits. The bill (HB 665) would impose penalties only if a school’s average class size…

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Today on Context Florida: Selma & LeRoy Collins, voting rights, honeybees and educational icebergs

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Today on Context Florida: State troopers, sheriff’s deputies savagely attacked voting rights marchers at Selma, Ala., with clubs, tear gas and cattle prods on March 7, 1965; Martin Dyckman says two great Americans rushed to the city to try to take command of the perilous situation. One was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., determined to lead a second march — regardless of the consequences — two days later. The other was former Florida Gov. LeRoy Collins, President Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights…

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Budget, health care issues cloud Legislature’s opening day

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The Republican-led Florida Legislature kicked off its annual session Tuesday with the usual pomp, but the celebratory nature was overshadowed by lingering questions about the state budget, tax cuts and health care. The two GOP legislators in charge opened the session by stressing areas on which they plan to work in tandem over the next 60 days. That included dealing with the state’s standardized testing system. But Senate President Andy Gardiner and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli struck decidedly different tones…

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Diane Roberts: Welcome to Tallahassee’s Festival of Bad Ideas

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OCCUPIED TALLAHASSEE – Some Florida towns have a strawberry festival; some have a seafood festival or a jazz festival or even a frog leg festival. Here in Florida’s capital, we put on an annual Festival of Bad Ideas. Its other name is the Legislative session. Come spring, legislators swarm, careening madly down our narrow, pretty streets like palmetto bugs lit up with a big dose of Raid. They land first at the Motherhive on Adams Street: that is to say,…

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Budget, beer, guns, pot and potties on lawmakers’ agenda

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Conservation land purchases, beer growlers, tax cuts, guns on state university campuses, medical marijuana and even where transgender people can go to the bathroom will all be issues that will come up during Florida’s 2015 legislative session. The only requirement lawmakers have under Florida law is to approve the state budget, but there’s always so much more when the 120 representatives and 40 senators come to the Capitol for 60 days each year. The session starts Tuesday with Gov. Rick…

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Florida legislators under pressure to alter school testing

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For nearly 2 million Florida public school students, the next few weeks could be a crucial moment in their education. The state is undertaking one of the biggest changes in its classrooms since former Gov. Jeb Bush pushed through his signature A+ school grading system nearly 16 years ago. Students will switch this spring to a new test based largely on Common Core standards, and it’s a test that most will do on a computer instead of paper. What happens…

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