FLORIDA LEGISLATIVE UPDATES

During June, Florida candidates for various offices must file qualifying paperwork with the Florida Department of State, Division of Elections. Historically qualifying for office has occurred during the third week of June. The law has been changed to permit qualifying paperwork to be accepted between June 4 and June 22. The sitting Governor and entire Florida Cabinet, (Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer, and Commissioner of Agriculture), have reached their term limits and are not eligible to seek re-election to their current office.

As you can imagine, with the mandatory change in the Governor and Cabinet officials, there will also be many changes in state agencies between November 6 and the end of the legislation session in May, 2019. Frequently, to provide continuity in the administration of public policy, state agency heads will not be replaced before, or in the middle of, a legislative session. We will see.

In the Florida Senate, Senators in even-numbered districts must stand for re-election. With 20 of 40 Senators required to be on the ballot, there could be new faces, but this does not include open seats wherein the incumbent has either resigned or is seeking another office. By June 22 the numbers will become clear, and at this writing, there are 22 known Florida Senate races.

In the Florida House all eligible, incumbent, members must stand for re-election every two years. Many members are termed out and are not eligible to be re-elected. In this election cycle 19 are termed out. In addition to those who are termed out, many current members are seeking other offices or have chosen to not seek re-election. At this writing, 15 Representatives are leaving the House voluntarily (without being forced out by term limits). This total of 34 new members is slightly more than one-fourth of the 120.

After qualifying is complete, and before the primaries on August 28, POF will publish a list of our friends for your consideration at the polls,

What is a given is that we will all be sick and tired of political ads very, very soon. At this writing approximately $ 30 MILLION has been spent in Florida for political ad airtime. Good grief!

Nancy Stewart

2018 SESSION DATES

August 1, 2016:

Deadline for filing claim bills (Rule 4.81(2)

January 27, 2017:

Friday, 5:00pm, deadline for submitting requests for drafts of general bills and joint resolutions, including requests for companion bills

March 3, 2017:

Friday, 5:00pm, deadline for approving final drafts of general bills and joint resolutions, including companion bills

March 7, 2017:

Regular Session convenes (Article III, section 3(b), Constitution) 12:00 noon, deadline for filing bills for introduction (Rule 3.7(1))

April 22, 20017:

All bills are immediately certified (Rule 6.8).  Motion to reconsider made and considered the same day (Rule 6.4(4))

April 25, 2017:

50th day - last day for regularly schedule committee meetings (Rule 2.9(2))

May 5, 2017:

60th day - last day of Regular Session (Article III, section 3(d), (Constitution)