2020 Legislative Session | Week 1
The 2020 Florida Legislative Session is officially underway. The next nine weeks are going to be fast and furious in Tallahassee, and we appreciate your interest in monitoring the issues with the potential to impact Florida’s children and families. Our goal is that you will use the content provided in this digest and the subsequent issues to guide your advocacy efforts until session ends (sine die) in mid-March.

Last year, we changed the format for Capitol Connection to make it easier to read and understand where each bill is at in the process. Each week we will give a brief summary of the high points from the executive and legislative branches and then will share the bills that have moved that week. We will also include reference to presentations, press conferences and conversations that are of interest. Since this is Week 1, below is an exhaustive list of the bills that we are currently monitoring. Moving forward, we will only include the ones that were considered and/or acted upon during that week.

Below you will find a list of bills filed for this session related to children, youth and families. The first column lists the bill number, name and sponsor and provides a hyperlink to the bill's text and history. The second column represents the number of committees of reference for each bill and the final column gives a brief description of the bill. Here is a key to help guide you in your review of where a bill is:
We are excited for the new year and all of the opportunities to ensure effective policy is passed that best support our children and families. As always, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out.

Sincerely,

The Florida Children’s Council
Opening Day & State of the State Address
The 2020 60-day legislative session opened on Tuesday, January 14. House Speaker Jose Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, and Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, spoke to their respective chambers followed by the State of the State address by Governor Ron DeSantis.

While Speaker Oliva focused primary on healthcare reform and made some references to addressing education overspending and providing wage increases for child welfare workers, Senate President Galvano led with a discussion on civility, decorum and leadership. But the most in depth review of the state’s priorities came from the Governor, himself. Gov. DeSantis focused his remarks on cultivating a season of opportunity, drawing not only on past successes but being very specific on policy aimed at maintaining our State’s fiscal health, investing in our natural resources, protecting communities and responding in times of natural disaster, strengthening our traditional and vocational education programs, implementing e-verify to protect our legal workforce, increasing teacher pay in the K-12 public school system, and offering more scholarship opportunities to families to access needed services. He also talked about prescription drug access, adoption, and insurance. He ended his remarks with a historical reference to 1492 when our state was discovered as a land of opportunity and on its shore a flag reading “plus ultra” -- meaning “more out there.”  
Child Welfare
Early Learning
K - 12 Education
Juvenile Justice
Health & Safety
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For more information, contact: Jenny Foltz - jfoltz@floridacsc.org