This year so far — and we’re just over halfway though — Florida has been thrust into the national spotlight over a governor-fueled welfare program scandal, an unfathomably hastily built detention camp, a near-decimation of its state parks — and that’s not even touching whatever happened in the state Legislature.
We saw calls for guns for teens, Depression-era child-labor law rollbacks, legal standing for fetuses, and more mind-numbing proposals and action taken by lawmakers.
While there’s sure to be more before 2025 is out, here are 15 of the dumbest things that happened in the Florida Legislature so far this year.
Rep. Shane Abbott: Forgetting that Florida doesn’t have a state OSHA agency
Florida Rep. Shane Abbott, R-DeFuniak Springs, once again in April made the false statement that Florida has a state Occupational Safety and Health Administration agency, in defense of a bill that opponents said would have gutted over a dozen worker protections for temporary employees if passed. But Florida Gov. Jeb Bush did in fact repeal Florida’s state OSHA statutes 25 years ago, thereby dismantling a state division of safety that had formerly been housed within a state labor department. Bush abolished that department entirely just a couple of years later. Credit: Photo via Florida House of RepresentativesRep. Mike Giallombardo: Having an activist forcibly removed from a legislative committee hearing for stating the obvious
The 20-year-old UF student Cameron Driggers was removed after bringing up Florida Rep. Monique Miller’s affiliation with Moms for Liberty during a hearing for her bill that would allow certain 13-year-olds to begin working.
“No, sorry, just please remove him,” Giallombardo instructed, moments into Drigger’s limited period for public testimony. Credit: Photo via Florida House of RepresentativesRep. Monique Miller: Claiming parents and God are a sufficient defense to child labor violations on the job
“I think every family needs to make that decision for what’s best for them, instead of having the government tell them what’s best,” said Miller, a self-described “parental rights” activist. She further responded to voiced concerns from Democratic colleagues about children being exploited on the job: “God gave us a great barrier for that, and that is parents.” Credit: Photo via Florida House of RepresentativesRep. Shane Abbott and Sen. Tom Leek: Lying so shamefully about labor protections for temp workers that even their Republican colleagues turned on them
“The fact of the matter is that these laws are duplicative of other federal and state laws,” Abbott said, during a hearing on the proposal in April. “The industry is already highly regulated, both federally and by other state wage and employer regulations.”
His colleagues, mostly Republicans, bought into his argument, satisfied with the explanation. That is, until a group of formerly incarcerated workers from South Florida who take on temp work caught wind of the proposal. Credit: Photo via Tom Leek for State Senate, District 7/FacebookSen. Jonathan Martin: Claiming Florida’s minimum wage is too high for young workers
“If the young people who want the skills, want to work … I want to make sure that the employers can afford to bring them on,” Martin said. OK? Credit: Photo via Jonathan Martin/FacebookThen-Rep. Patrick Rooney: Even just initially sponsoring the “Great Outdoors Initiative”
Although we salute his speedy backing out of the plan at the first sign of literal state-wide public outrage, Rooney did help kickstart that mess. Credit: Photo via Florida House of RepresentativesRep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka and former Sen. Blaise Ingoglia: Disguising a corporate-backed effort to silence the will of voters as an effort to prevent fraud
Pushing a bill that would put even more restrictions on the ballot-initiative process, bill sponsor Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, said the ballot-initiative process is “broken,” with out-of-state money flooding into Florida to try to pass initiatives and paid petition circulators committing fraud. Credit: Photo via Florida House of RepresentativesFormer Sen. Blaise Ingoglia: Siccing a state version of DOGE on mostly Democratic local governments
Ingoglia has wasted no time in working with Gov. DeSantis to crack down on local government spending across the state, mimicking the efforts of the Elon Musk-birthed DOGE. His audit of Orange County began earlier this week. Credit: Photo via Jay Collins/FacebookSen. Nick DiCeglie and Rep. Tyler Sirois: Renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America
Bills aimed at carrying out Trump’s mission to rename the Gulf of Mexico, which first appeared on Spanish maps in the mid-1500s, as the “Gulf of America,” were introduced earlier this year, in a move bill sponsor DiCeglie called “patriotic.” Rep. Dotie Joseph, D-North Miami, clapped back saying she opposed the change as “the Gulf of Mexico was assigned that name at birth.” Credit: Photo via Florida House of RepresentativesRep. Monique Miller: Trying to gut wages for workers even faster
Not only was this Miller-sponsored proposal designed to significantly roll back child labor laws, it also sought to speed up state preemption of local living-wage laws across Florida. Two for one, we suppose. Credit: Photo via Monique Miller for State Representative District 33/FacebookSen. Erin Grall: Refiling bill that permits lawsuits in wrongful death of fetuses
The bill wouldn’t allow any suits against the pregnant person, but parents would be entitled to compensation for mental pain and suffering from death caused by negligence, which reproductive rights advocates warned would establish fetal personhood. The proposal didn’t make it out of this year’s session, again. Credit: Photo via Florida House of RepresentativesSen. Jay Collins and Rep. Michelle Salzman: Moving to allow teens to buy rifles
Collins, R-Tampa, and Salzman, R-Pensacola, filed similar bills to allow teens to buy rifles: set the minimum age at 18 for purchasing rifles and other long guns. Federal law bars people under 21 from buying handguns. For the third year in a row, the Florida House voted to repeal the provision of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public High School Act that raised the age to purchase a long gun in Florida from 18 to 21. Credit: Photo via Jay Collins/FacebookRep. Randy Fine: Moving to allow college students to carry guns
Fine has said over the past year that such legislation is necessary to protect students from “on-campus Muslim terror.” It did not pass. Credit: Photo via Florida House of RepresentativesRep. Susan Placencia: Voting to repeal in-state tuition rates for Florida students who are undocumented
A repeal of Florida’s decade-old in-state tuition policy by Florida lawmakers came this year as part of a broader immigration package the state Legislature passed in a special legislative session called by Gov. DeSantis. Ahead of the session, Orlando students were barred from entering Plasencia’s office to voice concerns and deliver a petition demanding Plasencia reverse her position. Credit: Photo via Florida House of RepresentativesRep. Randy Fine: Trying to ban Pride flags
Fine earlier this year introduced duplicate legislation to ban local governments and schools from displaying “politically partisan” flags, including Pride flags. According to Fine, the intent of the bill is to keep “political message” flags out of government buildings. The proposal, however, has been criticized for targeting Pride flags, as well as flags promoting racial justice movements like Black Lives Matter. Credit: Photo via Florida House of Representatives
