Florida Senate president suggests set of 'anti-woke' bills are dead for this session

Is Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo putting Florida’s 'war on woke' to bed?

Reporters on Wednesday asked the Naples Republican about a quartet of bills included in the Republican Party of Florida's legislative agenda approved this past weekend. They have not, however, either moved in either chamber or are stalled in the Senate.

Measures include prohibitions on the government display of Pride flags and taking down Confederate memorials, regulations of the use of pronouns, and a rollback of age restrictions for firearms purchases.

But with the meeting of committees coming to an end and budget negotiations moving to center stage, Passidomo said the bills in question were effectively dead. It takes an extraordinary effort to get a bill not approved in a committee to the floor for debate and final passage.

“Our bill process is not the Republican Party of Florida. We are the Legislature. We make the laws,” Passidomo said.

“... None of those bills are moving in the Senate anymore," she went on, explaining that just because something is part of the state GOP's agenda, she would not take it out of a committee "or violate our rules” to get it to the Senate floor.

Republican Party of Florida chair Evan Power said Passidomo was "right."

"The Legislature passes laws and our Legislature has delivered for our voters," he said in a text message. "The RPOF's job is to let the legislature know how our grassroots feel about issues," explaining that a state party legislative affairs panel recommends bills for passage.

"The Democrats ... are on the verge of extinction in Florida (because of) their support of some of the radical policies we highlighted," he added. "... We look forward to continuing to work with our partners in the Legislature to keep Florida as the conservative beacon of freedom and the best place in our nation to live, work and play."

Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried countered in a tweet, "We’re talking about the REAL issues w real solutions. We are putting in the work & bringing people together. We are succeeding all over the country bc people want Government to work again & want the chaos to stop."

Florida's focus on 'culture wars' under Gov. DeSantis

Gov. Ron DeSantis made Florida the leader on hot-button social issues in his first five years in office. Up till now, he's been aided by a compliant Legislature that passed his initiatives on how sex and history are taught, restrictions on access to voting and abortion, and looser regulation of guns.

This year, nearly a half-dozen so-called culture war related bills are in limbo – approved by the House, but no hearing or stopped in the Senate.

Passidomo said the problem is not with the policy, but that the bills have been "weaponized" by both the left and the right. The flag bill ran out of time, she explained, because its sponsor – Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers – had to delay its final committee hearing to work on the Confederate memorial bill, which he also sponsored.

“Everybody knew that was the last committee meeting. I’m not going to have another committee meeting for (that) bill, for any bill for that matter,” Passidomo said.

Martin got the memorial protection bill through a fiery committee meeting, which may well have made the bill too volatile for Passidomo to bring it to the floor.

For instance, during public comments on the bill, spectators yelled insults, the three Democrats on the panel walked out of the room before the vote, and three of the five Republicans who voted to move the bill through the process said they disavowed comments by some speakers who were in support of the measure.

“I think the bill itself is benign, but it has been weaponized by both sides and that troubles me. That’s not how we run our chamber. That’s not how we pass our legislation,” Passidomo said. “I don’t see that bill coming back.”

Lawmakers are in session until March 8.

James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com. Follow him on X: @CallTallahassee

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: 'Anti-woke' bills may be dead in Florida Senate, its leader suggests