This public discover advert was printed Monday, February 3, 2020, within the Miami Herald.
Miami Herald file picture
TALLAHASSEE
For the second time in 11 months, the Florida Home voted on Thursday to ship a invoice to Gov. Ron DeSantis that will strip Florida’s newspapers of income from authorized notices.
Some lawmakers stated the transfer is a jab at publications that typically publish tales and editorials important of the Republican management in Florida.
“The free press right here within the free state of Florida isn’t reporting what the governor’s communications director desires it to report,” Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Fort Lauderdale, stated throughout a committee listening to on the invoice this week.
Supporters of the measure say it shouldn’t be the state’s job to make native governments subsidize newspapers. They are saying the measure will make notices extra extensively accessible to Floridians — who could or could not subscribe to a newspaper.
In Florida, native governments are required by legislation to publish sure notices in print newspapers or on newspaper web sites. These notices embrace updates on authorities conferences and budgets, code enforcement notifications and dangerous waste disposal notices.
Home Invoice 7049, which now heads to DeSantis, would eradicate the requirement for native governments to publish these notices in a third-party publication. As an alternative, governments can be allowed to publish them on a county web site.
The measure cleared the Senate 26 to 13, and the Home 79 to 40, largely alongside celebration strains.
Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Lake Mary, spoke in favor of the invoice, saying governments ought to direct tax {dollars} “in direction of probably the most susceptible,” and to not corporations that make a product that “no person desires.”
However detractors of the measure, together with newspaper publishers, say authorized notices include necessary public data. Notices needs to be printed by an unbiased third celebration as a result of governments don’t have any incentive to publish authorized notices in a means that’s simply accessible for Floridians, they argue.
Critics additionally notice that underneath the brand new invoice, the state’s authorized notices might be strewn throughout 67 completely different county web sites as a substitute of the centralized clearinghouse run by the Florida Press Affiliation — Floridapublicnotices.com. (That affiliation represents dozens of newspapers, together with the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald, Bradenton Herald and the Tampa Bay Occasions.)
“If I needed to cover one thing from the general public that’s required to be seen, that is precisely the method I might use,” stated Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, throughout a Senate committee listening to this week. “I might throw it on certainly one of 67 completely different web sites.”
The push for this 12 months’s invoice got here lower than three months after changes went into impact from a invoice final 12 months that additionally took goal on the state’s authorized notices guidelines.
Amongst different issues, that measure, Home Invoice 35, expanded the variety of newspapers eligible to publish authorized notices within the hopes of driving down prices for native governments. It additionally required all authorized notices within the state to be printed on Floridapublicnotices.com, the searchable database run by the Florida Press Affiliation.
Through the 2021 session, legislators handed the authorized notices invoice after hours of negotiations between lawmakers, press advocates, newspaper executives and lobbyists. The Florida Press Affiliation supported it — although the most important papers are poised to lose a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} in authorized discover income this 12 months as a consequence of the invoice.
That’s why it got here as a shock to the newspaper business when the Legislature raised this 12 months’s measure.
“We had a cope with you guys,” Todd Wilson, the writer of the Lake Metropolis Reporter, informed a panel of Senate lawmakers this week. “The legislation solely went into impact 67 days in the past, and I’m asking you all to offer it an opportunity to work.”
Republicans within the Florida Home, led by Rep. Randy Superb, R-Palm Bay, have been pushing for years to permit native officers to publish authorized notices on authorities web sites. For years, the Florida Senate remained a roadblock.
That modified this 12 months when Senate management allowed Home Invoice 7049 to be heard in a committee over the last week of session.
When requested whether or not he aimed to punish newspapers with the invoice, Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, stated the invoice was heard within the Senate as a result of it’s a coverage enchancment.
“We now have been having issues on-line for a few years,” Simpson stated. “If you would like some further transparency, logging on offers you that transparency.”
This story was initially printed March 10, 2022 7:19 PM.
