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Regular Session of the Florida Legislature
January 14 - March 13, 2020
The following priority issues are expected to be considered by lawmakers during the 2020 Regular Session of the Florida Legislature.
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LIFE
The true moral test of society is how the weakest and most vulnerable members are treated. If the inalienable right to life of the unborn is not protected, the human family will make little progress dealing with other issues relating to life and dignity, including the death penalty, euthanasia, poverty, and immigration.
- Expanding the role of Florida Pregnancy Care Network centers that assist pregnant mothers and their families in preparation for parenting or adoption
- Ending the use of the death penalty in Florida while maintaining the alternative of life imprisonment without parole
- Clarifying Florida’s privacy clause to ensure that Florida’s constitution does not provide greater rights to an abortion than the U.S. Constitution
- Requiring parental consent before a minor child’s abortion, as required for other comparable interventions
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EDUCATION
The Church supports the rights of parents to select the schools they deem best suited for their children. There is a special emphasis on ensuring that poor and disabled students receive federal and state services necessary to achieve academically and socially.
- Reducing costs for low-income families participating in the Family Empowerment and Florida Tax Credit Scholarships
- Providing new resources to enhance the Voluntary PreKindergarten Education Program (VPK) and improve accountability
- Covering the cost of dual-enrolled nonpublic school students as is the case for public school and home education students
- Hardening the physical security of public and nonpublic schools
- Streamlining the background screening process for nonpublic school employees (such as administrators, teachers and after-school staff) to enhance effectiveness and reduce duplication
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HEALTH CARE
As a basic human right necessary for a healthy and just society, the Church supports ensuring accessible, quality health care for all. Health delivery systems must be rooted in values that respect life, acknowledge human dignity and respond to the needs of the poor and vulnerable.
- Ensuring access to health care for the most economically and socially vulnerable residents of Florida
- Preserving freedom of conscience for health care providers with respect to abortion, family planning, executions, and end-of-life decisions
- Promoting ethical and appropriate end-of-life health care policies, including palliative and hospice care, that respect the dignity of the human person
- Opposing strongly any efforts to overturn Florida’s ban on physician assisted suicide and euthanasia
- Supporting efforts that improve the availability of community-based mental health and substance abuse services, especially as they relate to the opioid epidemic and youth violence
- Promoting policies that enhance the stewardship and care of Florida’s natural environment
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FAMILY & SOCIAL CONCERNS
As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world. Every person has a fundamental right to life and to that which is required for human decency. Corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities to one another, to our families, and to the larger society.
- Ensuring the freedom of all people to serve the public in accord with deeply held moral or religious convictions concerning the sanctity of life, marriage, and integral human ecology
- Improving juvenile justice policies by treating minors according to cognitive abilities and making the most of their capacity to reform their lives
- Emphasizing rehabilitation over retribution in the criminal justice system by increasing incentive gain-time that persons who are incarcerated can earn towards reduction of their sentences through positive behaviors
- Protecting the poor and vulnerable from the traps of debt and offering alternatives to license suspension for those who demonstrate an inability to pay traffic citation fees
- Directing affordable housing trust fund dollars as intended for state and local housing programs
- Defeating human trafficking by combating sexual exploitation and the demand for forced labor
- Supporting comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level while opposing piecemeal proposals at the state level that harm immigrants such as mandated use of E-Verify
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