‘Someone paid $47K to have me killed.' Should Florida lawmakers' addresses be secret?
Members of Congress, school board members, state legislators and other state and local officials — and their families — would have the option to have their personal information redacted from county and state records.
The bill, SB 268, passed the Senate Wednesday with two Democrats voting against it. Its bill sponsor, Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami, said he expects it to pass the House, as well.
Lawmakers have pointed to the need for more protection amid a toxic political environment. Senators recounted in committees their experiences with death threats and instances of round-the-clock police protection at their homes.
But open government advocates say the bill could make it easier for local and state officials to live outside their districts — or redraw districts to favor one politician over another.
If the bill passes, elected officials would be granted rights approaching those of police, judges and prosecutors.
Once elected to office, mayors, property appraisers, city and county commissioners and other elected officials could have their primary house number and street name redacted from records.
So could their spouses and adult children. The names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth of their minor children and where they go to school would also be exempt from public records.
The exemption would expire when the elected official leaves office.
'No one needs to know where you and your family live,' Jones told senators Wednesday.
'It has nothing to do with government, nothing,' he added. 'All you need to know is where you can come to my office to see my staff, to see me.'
Jones said he received death threats following his impassioned 2022 speech against the Parental Rights in Education bill, also known as 'don't say gay.'
Other senators on both sides of the aisle recounted their own stories.
Former Sen. Randy Fine, R-Melbourne Beach, who was elected to Congress last week, said two people have been arrested and imprisoned for threatening him and his family.
'We had to have law enforcement pull up to our house with sirens blaring and everything else,' Fine said last month. 'I got the joy of understanding what it's like to be important for a few days, as I couldn't go anywhere without a ton of security with me.'
Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Hollywood, said state police in 2020 pulled him out of a committee to alert him to the fact that 'someone had paid $47,000 to have me killed.'
Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, said a man recently came to his home asking for him.
'It scared the heck out of my wife,' he said.
Sen. Barbara Sharief, D-Miramar, said her home address was placed on a Ku Klux Klan-affiliated website.
'I was on three months' worth of security protection,' she said.
Some of the heated political rhetoric was evident in Gov. Ron DeSantis' dispute with Republican legislative leaders over a special legislative session on immigration earlier this year. The state's agriculture commissioner, Wilton Simpson, who was on the other side of DeSantis, received death threats.
Opponents of the bill have noted that lawmakers haven't produced any data about the number of threats they've received or whether that number is going up. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which can pursue charges against people who threaten legislators, did not respond to a request for data on lawmaker threats.
Critics of the bill also note that there are numerous instances of politicians getting caught living outside their districts, making them ineligible to hold office.
'It undermines accountability in the sense that no longer would anyone be able to be sure that their legal representatives live in their districts,' said Bobby Block, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation. The organization advocates for open government.
Abdelilah Skhir, a senior strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the organization feared that records custodians would interpret the statute to redact more information than allowed.
The organization asked senators to amend the bill to explicitly state that certain information in Florida's voter file, such as their precinct locations and the congressional districts they live in, must be public.
If that information were redacted, it would be impossible to determine whether state and local officials were redrawing districts to favor one politician over another, Skhir said.
'Totally understand where they're coming from with wanting privacy and security,' Skhir said. 'But there's a balance they have to walk.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US considering removing tax on capital gains on home sales, Trump says
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday his administration is considering removing taxes on capital gains on home sales. "If the Fed would lower the rates, we wouldn't even have to do that," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "But we are thinking about no tax on capital gains on houses." Profits from the sale of homes, like other assets, are now subject to capital gains taxes, although there are large deductions for sales of primary residences. Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene interpreted Trump's comments as a show of support for a bill she's proposed called the No Tax on Home Sales Act, which would eliminate the federal capital gains tax on the sale of primary residences. "Thank you, President Trump, for supporting my No Tax on Home Sales Act!" Greene said in a post on X. "You worked for it. You should keep it. Let's get this bill passed!" Greene said. Congress recently passed legislation that made permanent broad tax cuts passed in 2017 during Trump's first presidency. The bill also fulfilled Trump's campaign promises to include new tax breaks for tips, overtime pay, seniors and auto loans. Trump's political opponents say the measures will mainly help the rich and add trillions of dollars to U.S. national debt, only partially offset by deep cuts to healthcare and other benefits for the poor. Sign in to access your portfolio
The Hill
23 minutes ago
- The Hill
Republican-led states urge NCAA to remove transgender athletes' records
Republican attorneys general in more than two dozen states urged the NCAA on Tuesday to strip records, titles and awards from transgender women who competed in women's college sports. The attorneys general, led by Mississippi's Lynn Fitch, sent a letter to NCAA President Charlie Baker calling for the college sports organization to 'restore to female athletes the records, titles, awards, and recognitions they earned but were denied because of policies that allowed biological males to compete in female categories.' 'Female collegiate athletes trained, competed, and triumphed- only to see their recognitions stripped away and devalued by unfair policies that ignored biology,' Fitch said in a statement. The letter applauds a policy the NCAA adopted in February, shortly after President Trump signed an executive order opposing transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports, to limit competition in women's events to student-athletes 'assigned female at birth only.' 'We encourage you to extend this policy to practice as well. Athletics is not only about what happens during competition,' the attorneys general wrote, adding that the new NCAA policy 'stops short of full fairness for women athletes.' The NCAA previously allowed transgender women to participate in female sports after completing one year of testosterone suppression treatment. In 2022, the organization said national and international governing bodies should determine eligibility rules for transgender athletes in specific sports. Under those prior rules, Lia Thomas, then a swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, became the first transgender woman to win a national Division I championship title in 2022, the year she graduated. Following a February investigation by the Education Department that found Penn had violated Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination, when it allowed Thomas to join the women's swim team for the 2021-22 season, the Ivy League University agreed to remove Thomas's records from its leaderboard. Thomas broke three of the six Penn women's swimming and diving individual freestyle records in the year she competed. An addendum to the university's women's swimming all-time school records now reads, 'Competing under eligibility rules in effect at the time, Lia Thomas set program records in the 100, 200 and 500 freestyle during the 2021-22 season.' 'All colleges and universities should follow suit,' the attorneys general wrote on Tuesday, 'as should the NCAA.' In February, the Education Department similarly called for the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) to revoke transgender female athletes' records and awards. Doing so, the department wrote in letters to Baker and NFHS President Bob Lombardi, would recognize the harms done by 'misguided policies.' In Tuesday's letter, the Republican attorneys general said Trump, who made transgender student-athletes central to his reelection campaign's closing argument, 'has made restoring fairness to women athletes a priority.' They touted executive orders signed by the president to ban trans women and girls from competition and recognize only two unchangeable sexes, male and female. 'With more than 500,000 college athletes and approximately 1,100 member schools in all 50 states, the NCAA has the opportunity and privilege to impact the lives of so many student athletes in a positive or negative way,' the attorneys general wrote in their letter to Baker. 'There is no doubt that the women forced to compete against biological males in female events were impacted negatively and unfairly disadvantaged.' In December, Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, testified before a Senate panel that fewer than 10 NCAA athletes are transgender. A spokesperson for the organization did not immediately return a request for comment. Tuesday's letter comes as the Supreme Court is set to decide during its next term whether states may ban transgender athletes from competing on girls' and women's school sports teams. The justices agreed earlier this month to hear appeals from West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey (R) and Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador (R) — both of whom signed the letter to Baker — defending their state bans, with a decision expected by next summer.
The Hill
23 minutes ago
- The Hill
There are many illegal marijuana farms, but federal agents targeted California's biggest legal one
LOS ANGELES (AP) — There are thousands of illegal marijuana farms around the country. But when the federal government decided to stage one of its largest raids since President Donald Trump took office in January, it picked the biggest legal grower in California. Nearly two weeks later, the reason for the federal raid at two Glass House farm sites northwest of Los Angeles remains unclear and has prompted speculation. Some say the raid was intended to send a chilling message to immigrants in the U.S. illegally — but also to rattle the state's legal cannabis industry. Meanwhile, the Republican Trump administration has been feuding with heavily Democratic California over funding for everything from high-speed rail construction to wildfire relief, so it's also possible Glass House was pulled into a broader conflict between the White House and Sacramento. 'There are plenty of other places they can go to find illegal workers,' said political consultant Adam Spiker, who advises cannabis companies. 'A lot of people believe there is a hint of politics in this. It's federal enforcement coming into California to go after cannabis.' What happened during the raids? On July 10, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents executed a search warrant for Glass House's farms in Carpinteria and Camarillo, court filings show. At the Camarillo site, armored vehicles blocked the road, which is lined with fields and greenhouses, as masked agents deployed onto the property. One farmworker who fell from a greenhouse roof while running to hide later died from his injuries. Outside the farm, officers faced off with demonstrators and fired tear gas to disperse them, a federal agent wrote in court filings. One demonstrator threw a gas canister back at Border Patrol officers, according to the agent. Another demonstrator, who is sought by the FBI, appeared to fire a gun. More than 360 people were arrested, most suspected of being in the country without legal status. Those arrested included four U.S. citizens, including U.S. Army veteran George Retes, 25, who works as a security guard and was held for three days. The operation came more than a month into an extended crackdown across Southern California that was originally centered in Los Angeles, where local officials say the federal actions are spreading fear in immigrant communities. Why Glass House? No cannabis was seized and the criminal search warrants used to enter the farm sites are under court seal. Authorities refused to share them with The Associated Press. The government said the business was being investigated for potential child labor, human trafficking and other abuses. Agents found 14 children at one site. No information has been released about the minors. The company has not been charged. Federal and state laws allow children as young as 12 to work in agriculture under certain conditions, though no one under age 21 is allowed to work in the cannabis industry. Company officials did not respond to calls or emails. In a brief statement on the social platform X, Glass House said it complied with immigration and naturalization warrants and 'has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors.' Some believe the raid was aimed at the legal marijuana market After the raid, United Farm Workers — the country's biggest farm worker union — posted an urgent message to its social media accounts warning that because marijuana is illegal under federal law, workers who are not U.S. citizens should avoid jobs in the cannabis industry, including state-licensed facilities. 'We know this is unfair,' it said, 'but we encourage you to protect yourself and your family.' Industry experts point to unwelcome publicity the company received after rival Catalyst Cannabis Co. filed a 2023 lawsuit alleging that Glass House 'has become one of the largest, if not the largest, black marketers of cannabis in the state of California.' The lawsuit, formally filed by Catalyst parent 562 Discount Med Inc., was dismissed last year but the headlines might have drawn the interest of federal investigators. Who runs the Glass House farm sites? The company was co-founded by Kyle Kazan, a former Southern California police officer and special education teacher turned cannabis investor, and Graham Farrar, a Santa Barbara tech entrepreneur. Glass House started growing cannabis in a greenhouse in Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County when once-thriving cut flower operations were being reduced. It later bought property in Camarillo in neighboring Ventura County for $93 million that had six greenhouses and was being used to grow tomatoes and cucumbers. To date, two of the greenhouses have been converted to grow cannabis. Workers' relatives said tomatoes are still being grown in other greenhouses at the location. How did Glass House do it? The raids have put the spotlight on a company that is alternately admired and reviled because of its meteoric rise in the nation's largest legal market. Glass House is the state's biggest legal cultivator, dwarfing its nearest rivals. Glass House Farms is part of the broader company Glass House Brands, which has other businesses that make cannabis products. 'There is no farmer in California that can compete with them at scale,' Sacramento-based cannabis consultant Sam Rodriguez said. Many legal operators have struggled despite the passage of Proposition 64 in 2016 — which was seen as a watershed moment in the push to legitimize and tax California's multibillion-dollar marijuana industry. In 2018, when retail outlets could open, California became the world's largest legal marketplace. But operators faced heavy taxes, seven-figure start-up costs and for many consumers, the tax-free illegal market remained a better deal. But as other companies folded, Glass House took off, fueling envy and suspicion by rivals over its boom at a time when much of the state's legal market was in crisis, in large part because of competition from the robust underground market. In a recent call with investors, Kazan said company revenue in the first quarter hit $45 million — up 49% over the same period last year. He said he remained hopeful for a federal shift that would end marijuana's classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. But 'we are a company that does not require federal legalization for survival,' Kazan said. Glass House's sales grew as many others around the state declined. 'I remain steadfast in the belief that it is not if but when the cannabis industry becomes America's next massive normalized industry, and I'm excited to participate along with investors in the corresponding reward that that change will bring,' he said.
