Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Winners and Losers

Each year, the St. Petersburg Times summarizes the fate of major bills at the end of the legislative session. Those that passed, the governor can sign into law, veto or let become law without his signature. To check the governor's action on a particular bill, call 1-800-342-1827 toll-free during business hours or visit www.myflorida.com and follow these links: Governor's Webpage, News Room, Laws and Legislative Actions, 2006 Legislative Actions.

WHAT PASSED

BUDGET, TAXES

BUDGET: The $71.3-billion spending plan includes a record 8.6 percent more per student for public schools, $310-million to buy the Babcock Ranch and $300-million in tax breaks.

DISABLED VETERANS: Asks voters to pass a constitutional amendment giving disabled war veterans 65 and older who enlisted as Florida residents a property tax break on their homes.

INTANGIBLES TAX: Repeals the tax on stocks, bonds and other intangible property.

PROPERTY TAX STUDY: A yearlong study of how to address solutions for rising property taxes.

RENTAL CAR TAX: Allows counties, subject to referendum, to assess a $2-a-day surcharge on rental cars for use on transportation projects.

SALES TAX HOLIDAYS: From May 21 to June 1, some hurricane preparedness supplies are tax free; from July 22 to July 30, school supplies costing $10 or less and books and clothing costing up to $50 are tax-free.

AGRICULTURE

AGRICULTURAL ENCLAVE: Gives agriculture landowners new leverage to win zoning changes if they are surrounded by development on 75 percent of their perimeter.

WORKER SAFETY: Requires large vans transporting farmworkers to have a seat belt for each rider.

BOATING

AIRBOAT MUFFLERS: Requires airboat engines to have mufflers.

CHILDREN

UNDERAGE DRINKING: Allows revocation or suspension of the driver's license of an adult who gives alcohol to an underage drinker.

CONSUMERS

BY-THE-DRINK TAX: Repeals a tax on beer, wine and liquor sold at bars, starting in 2007.

CREDIT REPORTS: Allows consumers to freeze credit reports to prevent identity theft.

PHONE CALL RECORDS: Makes it a crime to obtain or sell individuals' phone calling records without consent.

CORRECTIONS

BOOT CAMPS: The "Martin Lee Anderson Act" eliminates juvenile detention boot camps and transfers their funding to less confrontational Sheriff's Training and Respect programs.

DNA EVIDENCE: Allows charges to be brought against someone after the statute of limitations has run out if it is based on new DNA evidence.

DNA EXONERATION: Eliminates a deadline for prison inmates to seek DNA testing to prove their innocence; extends the right to those who pleaded guilty.

CRIME, PUNISHMENT

ALCOHOL VAPORIZERS: Makes it a crime to sell or use devices that mix spirits, liquor or alcohol with oxygen or other gases to produce a vapor for inhalation.

DOMESTIC SHELTERS: Increases the penalties for trespassing at domestic violence shelters.

FALSE WITNESS: Makes it a crime to give false or misleading information to police investigating a crime.

HIT-RUN: Sets mandatory prison sentences for people who leave the scene of deadly accidents.

LAST WORD: Gives prosecutors the last word in criminal trials in cases where the defense presents no evidence; the defense is now entitled to go last in such cases.

SEX DRUGS AND PREDATORS: Prohibits sexual predators from possessing prescription drugs for treating erectile dysfunction.

SPAM: Creates criminal penalties for unsolicited commercial e-mail that attempts to defraud recipients or gain personal information on them. DEVELOPMENT

ECONOMIC INCENTIVES: Commits $200-million to entice companies to relocate or expand in Florida and $45-million in a "quick action closing fund" controlled by the governor.

EMINENT DOMAIN: Limits the ability of government to condemn private property for private redevelopment. Another measure asks voters to put the same restrictions in the Constitution.

EDUCATION

"A-PLUS-PLUS": Requires school districts to assign experienced teachers equitably among schools; requires high school students to focus on "major areas of interest" and to take a fourth year of mathematics; requires that middle school children get career planning instruction; permits school districts to help meet class size reduction requirements through team teaching in larger classes.

ATHLETIC RECRUITING: Sets restrictions on high school recruiting of athletes; pays for a state review of recruiting violations.

CIVICS: Requires schools to teach history, national sovereignty, natural law, self-evident truth, equality of all people, limited government, popular sovereignty and God-given rights of life, liberty and property.

DEFIBRILLATORS: Requires schools belonging to the Florida High School Athletic Association to have defibrillators - heart restarting devices.

FIRST-GENERATION STUDENTS: Earmarks $6.5-million for scholarships to low-income students who are part of the first generation in their family to go to a state university or community college that matches the money.

SCHOOL START DATE: Prohibits public schools from starting earlier than 14 days before Labor Day, starting in 2007.

STUDENT HEALTH: Requires the state to set school wellness policies and nutritional guidelines, encourage physical education and require schools to inform parents about ways to get children physically active and to eat healthy foods.

TRAVEL TO TERRORIST STATES: Prohibits state colleges from using public money to travel to countries deemed terrorist threats, including Cuba.

VOUCHERS: Allows most current recipients of "opportunity scholarship" vouchers that were declared unconstitutional to continue attending private schools under another voucher program.

ELECTIONS, POLITICS

SHOOTER VOTER: Requires stores that sell hunting, fishing or trapping licenses to have voter registration forms for customers.

SOFT MONEY: Requires donations to fundraising committees controlled by legislators and candidates to be posted on Web sites within five days.

TERM LIMITS: Removes from the November ballot a proposal asking voters to extend term limits for legislators from eight years to 12.

ENERGY

ENERGY ALTERNATIVES: Makes it easier to build nuclear power plants. Rewards purchasers of energy-efficient home air conditioning and appliances with sales tax rebates, offers tax incentives for alternative energy devices and fuels, sets up a commission to recommend energy policy.

ENVIRONMENT

BABCOCK RANCH: Sets terms for the state's $310-million purchase and preservation of the 74,000-acre Babcock Ranch in southwest Florida, home to panthers and black bears.

BILLBOARDS: Mandates unobstructed view zones between highways and billboards and requires cities and counties to pay sign owners compensation for violations.

FLORIDA FOREVER: Dedicates $300-million to the state's conservation land program and $135-million to buy Everglades restoration property.

FAMILIES

STILLBIRTHS: Allows issuance of birth certificates for pregnancies that last 20 weeks and end in the natural delivery of stillborn infants.

FIREARMS

GUNS IN PARKS: Allows permitted gun owners to bring firearms into national and state parks and forests.

RIGHTS IN EMERGENCIES: Prohibits government seizure of guns lawfully possessed by individuals during declared states of emergency.

HEALTH, MEDICINE

BRAIN CENTER: Establishes a brain tumor research center at the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida.

DISEASE RESEARCH: Earmarks a total of $30-million a year for four years for research in Alzheimer's, cancer and tobacco-related diseases, including $15-million a year for the Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer's Center at USF.

HOUSING

AFFORDABLE HOUSING: Pumps $516-million into programs to help the working poor and middle-income residents find homes; includes funds for hurricane repair and retrofitting and programs to help the homeless.

HURRICANES

GAS PUMP GENERATORS: Requires owners of multiple gas stations to have one generator for every 10 stations.

INSURANCE

CITIZENS PROPERTY INSURANCE: Sets a new rate structure for the state-run insurer of last resort, requires nonhomesteaded policyholders and those with property valued at over $1-million to pay more in any future Citizens deficit, requires Citizens officers and employees to abide by state ethics rules. Spends $715-million toward the company's $1.7-billion deficit, lessening the assessment on all property insurance policyholders.

HOME INSURANCE: Private companies have more flexibility in setting premiums; small insurance companies can qualify for up to $250-million in loans and buy more reinsurance from the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund; homeowners can tap a $250-million loan program to harden their homes against hurricanes.

NO-FAULT: Extends the no-fault auto insurance system to 2009.

RISKY TRAVEL: Limits when life insurance companies can deny coverage based on a person's travel history or plans.

SINKHOLES: Creates "neutral evaluator" system to help determine sinkhole claims.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

STUN GUNS: Requires police and probation and corrections officers to take special training for stun guns and abide by new restrictions allowing their use only against resisting subjects who pose a danger of harm or flight.

LAWSUITS

LIABILITY LIMITS: Injured parties suing for damages can collect from an individual defendant only an amount proportional to that defendant's blame.

MILITARY

FUNERAL DISRUPTIONS: Sets a fine of up to $1,000 and a jail term of up to a year for disturbing a military funeral.

PURPLE HEARTS: Grants free tuition at state colleges and universities to Florida veterans who received Purple Heart medals for combat wounds and were residents of record in Florida during their service.

MOTOR VEHICLES

RENDERING AID: Requires motorists involved in crashes to stop, provide information and render aid on private property as well as on public roads.

PUBLIC RECORDS

AUTOPSY PHOTOS: Renews for five years a law exempting autopsy photos from disclosure, enacted in 2001 after race driver Dale Earnhardt's death.

CONCEALED WEAPONS: Exempts from public records the personal information on gun owners' concealed weapons permits.

PUBLIC UTILITIES

PHONE RATES: Partially repeals a 2003 phone rate law that would have let companies raise rates up to 20 percent a year without seeking state approval.

RESTAURANTS

DINING WITH DOGS: Creates a pilot program allowing restaurants, subject to local government approval, to seek permits to allow customers and their dogs in designated outdoor areas.

SPORTS

SPRING TRAINING: Provides up to $15-million over 30 years to refurbish stadiums and keep six Major League Baseball teams training in Florida: the Devil Rays, Orioles, Reds, Indians, Pirates and Mets.

STATE SYMBOLS

MOTTO: Establishes "In God We Trust" as Florida's official motto.

PIE: Makes key lime pie Florida's official state pie.

THEME PARKS

BIBLICAL TAX BREAK: Defines the Holy Land Experience biblical theme park near Orlando as a religious institution, exempts from property taxes.

WHAT FAILED

Measures that did not succeed would have:

ANIMAL CRUELTY: Increased penalties for torturing or killing animals.

"ANTIMURDER": Required jailing of people accused of violating probation given for certain violent crimes.

CABLE TV: Made the state, not cities and counties, responsible for approving cable TV franchises.

CLASS SIZE: Asked voters to weaken the school class size reduction requirements they put in the Constitution.

DEVELOPMENT CONTROL: Ended the authority of 19 charter counties, including Pinellas and Hillsborough, to issue countywide regulations on land use, development and annexation without the approval of city governments or voters.

DUI OFFENDERS: Set a minimum two-year jail term for a fourth or subsequent conviction of driving or boating under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

ETHICS RULES: Bound employees and officers of state-created companies to the same ethics rules as government workers, and required state Cabinet officers to place stocks in blind trusts.

FOREIGN STUDENTS: Ended need-based financial aid for non-U.S. citizens attending Florida state universities and colleges.

GAS PRICES: Repealed a law that prohibited gas stations from charging less than their cost for fuel.

GAY ADOPTION: Eased a state ban on adoption of children by gays by allowing gay foster parents to adopt a child already in their care.

GUNS AT WORK: Prohibited employers from barring employees' vehicles containing guns from parking lots.

HOMELESS ATTACKS: Increased the charges and penalties for attacks on homeless people.

JESSICA LUNSFORD ACT: Streamlined background checks of contract workers in schools to identify those with sex offenses.

PETITIONING FOR LAWS: f,9,um0 Asked voters to pass a constitutional amendment to remove the pregnant pigs provision and obsolete language from the Constitution.

gs,3

f,8.5,ux0,,10.8

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily unless excused through a parent's written request.

PUBLIC COUNSEL: Increased the powers of the state's Public Counsel's Office representing consumers before the Public Service Commission and other agencies, permitting it to file lawsuits alleging unfair or deceptive trade practices.

RESTRICTED COLLEGE BENEFITS: Prevented public universities and community colleges from using state dollars to benefit unmarried couples and domestic partners.

ROLLOVER MONEY: Allowed legislators who were elected unopposed to keep at least $50,000 in their campaign accounts as long as they suspend fundraising for one year.

SAVE OUR HOMES PORTABILITY: Allowed homeowners to transfer their property tax savings under Save Our Homes when they move.

SCHOOL BULLYING: Required school districts to establish and enforce policies against bullying during school activities or on school buses.

SEAT BELTS: Allowed police to stop and ticket any driver (not just a minor) for not wearing a seat belt.

SPLIT SCHOOL DISTRICTS: Asked voters to approve a constitutional amendment allowing large school districts to be split into smaller districts of at least 25,000 students each.

STEM CELL RESEARCH: Set aside state money to promote stem cell research using cells from human embryos that would otherwise be discarded by fertilization clinics.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING: Created an avenue for pro teams across Florida to petition the Legislature for an extra $2-million in annual sales tax rebates.

TITLE LOANS: Allowed car title lenders to increase interest rates on borrowers from 30 percent to the equivalent of 264 percent annually.

TUITION FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS: Allowed high-achieving children of illegal immigrants who graduate from Florida high schools to pay in-state tuition at state colleges.

VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES: Made it illegal for children under 18 to buy them in stores or play them in public arcades.

VISION TESTS: Required a driver applying for or renewing a license to pass a vision test.

VOUCHERS: Asked voters to amend the Constitution to let the Legislature restore a program declared unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court, which allowed children from failing public schools to attend private schools at state expense.

WETLANDS: Shifted wetlands oversight from federal to state government.

WINE ONLINE: Created regulations for shipping and collecting taxes on wine bought through the mail from out-of-state wineries.

WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT: Set up a procedure for compensating wrongfully convicted people for time spent in prison.

Contributing to this report were Times Tallahassee bureau chief Steve Bousquet and staff writers Joni James, Alex Leary, Jennifer Liberto and Letitia Stein. For more information, go to www.flsenate.gov or www.myfloridahouse.gov

[Last modified May 7, 2006, 01:10:18]