Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed several bills, some of which have provoked much debate among the state’s residents and the country at large. From restricting teen golf cart drivers and defunding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, to modifying middle and high school start times, with these new laws in place, some Floridians will experience drastic changes in the near future.
Here is a round-up of the recent bills signed.
- Bill restricting teen golf cart drivers
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill that will restrict teens who are driving golf carts. The new law, House Bill 949, was approved by DeSantis last week. The law goes into effect on October 1.
Under the bill, golf cart drivers under the age of 18 must be at least 15 with a learner’s permit, or 16 with a driver’s license.
Florida minors will be unable to drive golf carts without proper identification under a new measure. Anyone who is 18 or older must have a valid government-issued ID to drive a golf cart.
Florida law had previously allowed anyone 14 and older to drive a golf cart.
- Bill combating illegal immigration
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1718 last week to tackle the dangerous effects of illegal immigration caused by the federal government’s border policies.
The law requires that hospitals that receive Medicaid question patients about whether they are U.S. citizens and are legally present in the country. Hospitals are also expected to report the responses to the state.
The new law will crack down on the smuggling of immigrants, stop municipalities from issuing ID cards to people in the state illegally, and ensure that employers are hiring American citizens or people in the country legally.
The new measure:
- Requires private employers to use the E-Verify system to verify the eligibility of newly hired employees, fines employers $1,000 per day if they fail to use E-Verify, and suspends the licenses of those employers until they come back into compliance.
- Suspends licenses of employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens, and makes using a fake ID to gain employment a felony.
- Enhance penalties for human smuggling, including making knowingly transporting five or more immigrants without legal status or a single minor a second-degree felony subject to a $10,000 fine and up to 15 years in prison.
- Provide $12 million to continue the Unauthorized Alien Transport Program to relocate immigrants to sanctuary jurisdictions if they lack legal status.
- Ban local governments and non-governmental organizations from issuing identification documents to people without legal status and invalidates all out-of-state driver’s licenses issued exclusively to people in the U.S. illegally.
- Bills regarding education and workforce
Governor Ron DeSantis signed three bills on Monday, May 15 to further strengthen Florida’s position as the top state for higher education, and to advance the objective of becoming the top state for workforce education by 2030.
The Governor signed Senate Bill 266 to defund diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at all public universities in the state. DeSantis called DEI a “distraction from the core mission.”
The law prohibits Florida state colleges from using state or federal funding to promote, support, or maintain programs that “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or promote or engage in political or social activism.”
DeSantis explained that this move is to reorient the universities back to their traditional mission- to treat people as individuals, “not to try to divy them up based on any type of superficial characteristics.”
According to the law, general education courses “may not distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics” based on “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”
The Governor also signed House Bill 931 to prohibit Florida’s public institutions from requiring students, faculty, or staff to pledge loyalty to any “ideology or movement,” including to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Furthermore, DeSantis signed SB 240 to expand workforce education programs and increase access to career and technical education (CTE) programs.
The laws will go into effect on July 1.
- Bills to combat human trafficking
Governor Ron DeSantis signed four laws on Tuesday, May 16 to combat human trafficking, improve awareness of the signs and impacts of human trafficking, and implement critical reforms to hold human traffickers accountable.
Governor DeSantis signed Senate Bill 7064, which supports victims of human trafficking and strengthens penalties for human traffickers by:
- Establishing a civil action for victims of human trafficking against traffickers and providing that victims can recover damages and attorney’s fees from adult entertainment establishments.
- Allowing seized property from a human trafficker to be sold and proceeds to be paid as restitution to victims.
- Requiring adult establishments to verify the identity and ages of all employees and establishing a third-degree felony for owners or operators of adult establishments that do not retain such records.
- Requiring offenders of prostitution, lewdness, or related acts to attend an educational course on the impacts of human trafficking and the negative impacts of commercial sex on people and their communities.
The Governor also signed SB 1690, Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking, which expands human trafficking awareness programs and increases human trafficking victim support by:
- Cracking down on repeat violators of human trafficking awareness requirements by shortening the cure period for an initial violation from 90 days to 45 days and imposing daily fines for any subsequent violation.
- Requiring residential treatment centers for children to place signs on their premises to warn children about the dangers of human trafficking and to demonstrate avenues for reporting instances of human trafficking.
- Mandating the Statewide Council on Human Trafficking to conduct a study and make recommendations regarding the regulation of adult safe houses, which provide housing and care specifically for survivors of human trafficking.
- Ensuring security measures for safe houses and safe foster homes includes detection of possible trafficking activity, coordination with law enforcement, and emergency response plans to search for absent or missing children.
- Requiring safe houses and foster homes to give kids age-appropriate programming to educate them on the signs and dangers of commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking, approved by the Department of Children and Families.
He also signed HB 1465 which makes human traffickers eligible for mandatory minimum sentences when they possess or discharge a firearm during the course of their crimes.
Moreover, DeSantis signed SB 1210 which provides that a petition for human trafficking victim expunction and all pleadings and documents related to the petition are confidential and exempt from public records requirements.
- Bills targeting drag shows, pronouns, bathroom use, and transgender children
On Wednesday, May 17, Governor DeSantis signed bills that ban gender surgical procedures for minors, restrict pronoun use in schools, and force people to use the bathroom corresponding with their sex in some cases.
He said the new law will prevent the mutilation of minors, protect children from “sexually explicit” entertainment and keep pronouns from being forced on students.
- Bill modifying start times for middle and High schools
Many Florida students may see a change in their school start times in the future, following the signing of a bill by Governor DeSantis.
The Florida Senate approved the bill during the final week of the recent legislative session, while the House passed the measure in March.
Middle schools will be prohibited from starting the school day before 8 a.m., while high schools will be barred from starting before 8:30 a.m.
According to reports, about 48% of Florida’s public high schools currently start school before 7:30 a.m. Another 19% of high schools start between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m.
These changes will go into effect by July 2026.
