Legislative Advocacy

Following the 2020 Election, Florida’s Governor, Ron Desantis, and other top officials in the state declared that election as one of the most successful and secure elections in the history of the state. Yet during the legislative session immediately following that election, the Governor worked in tandem with the Convservative-led Legislature to build on the state’s racist history by proposing voter suppression laws that target Black people and limit our access to the ballot box. So in 2021, we made the necessary decision to take a more active role in shaping public policy and fighting back against the repeated attempts to deny our voting rights. We immediately got to work meeting with legislators and sharing why it is important to protect the right to vote. In addition to rallies and press conferences, we held a community hearing where we gave legislators the opportunity to hear directly from Floridians about how the proposed changes would impact them. Ultimately our efforts did not stop the bill from becoming law, but by working collaboratively with the voting rights partners throughout the state, we were able to stop a bad bill from being worse.

Every year prior to the Legislative Session, the Florida Legislature convenes what is known as “Committee Weeks”. This is a period of about 6-8 weeks where members of the Legislature meet to discuss and debate the merits of legislation that will be considered during the Legislative session. Because Florida is only in Legislative session for 60 days a year, members use this time to get a head start on the thousands of bills introduced.

During the legislative session, we help keep our community informed by producing a weekly newsletter that provides subscribers with the latest updates on priority bills and developments in Tallahassee.

We have archived previous newsletters below for your review:

Pre-Session Week 1 - Week of February 6, 2023

Pre-Session Week 2 - Week of February 13, 2023

Pre-Session Werk 3 - Week of February 20, 2023

Legislative Session Week 1 - Week of March 6, 2023

Legislative Session Week 2 - Week of March 13, 2023

Legislative Session Week 3 - Week of March 20, 2023

Legislative Session Week 4 - Week of March 27, 2023

Legislative Session Week 5 - Week of April 3, 2023

Legislative Session Week 6 - Week of April 10, 2023

Legislative Session Week 7 - Week of April 17, 2023

Legislative Session Week 8 - Week of April 24, 2023