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.