2021 Florida Legislature

Several Tampa Bay area lawmakers talked about their priorities for the upcoming session Friday at the Tampa Tiger Bay Club. Just finding enough money to pay for them could be their first challenge.

Last year, State Senator Randolph Bracy led a successful effort to require public-school students to learn about the Ocoee riot, similar to teaching the history of the Holocaust.

Top Republican leaders in the Florida House and Senate acknowledged there could be health care cuts as they struggle to craft a balanced budget amid the economic wreckage caused by the coronavirus.

The state already has programs like Silver Alert, which cover adults who have dementia and Alzheimer’s, and the Amber Alert for children.

Two bills recently filed in the state legislature seek to give every local elections supervisor the option to operate countywide polling sites on Election Day, instead of restricting voters to designated precinct sites.

By the committee agreeing to adopt three amendments proposed by Rep. Lawrence McClure of Dover, the House version is no longer is identical to its Senate counterpart.

House leaders have pushed to put a limit on tetrahydrocannabinol, the mind-bending component of cannabis, since authorizing smokable medical marijuana in 2019.

Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-St. Petersburg) says the mandatory minimum penalties imposed upon people who reoffend within a few years after being released from prison are too harsh.

The executive order allowing restaurants to serve alcoholic beverages to-go could become law.

Senate and House leaders have fast-tracked identical bills. The Senate version, however, was held up Monday when Senate Judiciary Chair Jeff Brandes was delayed in another meeting.

They say the proposal would force them to spend a lot of money notifying voters to renew their absentee ballot requests every year.

Florida could soon have official state projections for how sea-level rise and flooding could impact the state’s coastline.