State lawmakers spent much of Tuesday afternoon moving forward solutions to not-problems facing Florida, namely "sanctuary cities" for undocumented immigrants, food stamp fraud and local bans on Styrofoam.
The Florida House of Representatives were giving final nods to bills cleared for the House floor and any amendments made to them.
The sanctuary cities bill, sponsored by Rep. Larry Metz (R—Yalaha) would make it illegal for cities and counties to help or harbor undocumented immigrants, to whom Metz openly referred as "illegal aliens." And with an amendment approved Tuesday, any city or county official not willing to repeal a policy that would protect (or at least not more aggressively seek to deport) such individuals would be subject to fines; any such official named in a lawful death lawsuit in which an undocumented immigrant is named faces removal from office.
Miami-Dade is the only county with a policy specifically relating to an unwillingness to detain individuals not accused of violent crime for imminent deportation, but a handful of sheriff's departments throughout the state have similar polices.
When State Rep. Dwight Dudley questioned him about the bill, Metz wasn't too able to go into the specifics as to why he thought the bill was needed:
Dudley: “How many federal detainment requests were made to cities or counties last year?”
Metz: “I do not have that information.”
Dudley: “You're trying to address a problem you say exists. I'm trying to get a handle on the scope of the problem. Can you tell us, please…So you don't know how many federal detainment requests there were for illegal aliens. Do you know what cost was associated with those that did occur, where illegal aliens were taken into custody? What was the cost to counties or cities associated with federal detainment requests?”
Metz: “I do not have financial information with regard to detainment requests and the costs of detainment requests on cities and counties.”
Dudley: “You've talked about a problem, you're offering some solution, but I'm trying to get my hands around the scope of the problem and I just wanted to see if you had an approximation of how many detainment requests there were.”
Metz: “No, I don't have that data.”
Metz said the numbers he did have, basically the estimated number of undocumented immigrants, but again no financials, made the case for him: an estimated 900,000 in Florida, 11.3 million in the country.
The bill was ultimately cleared for the House floor to the chagrin of numerous Democrats.
"I don't know what you're trying to fix, but honestly I do believe that immigration issues are not of the State of Florida," said Miami area State Rep. Hazelle Rogers, a Democrat.
Lawmakers then took up a broad-ranging bill relating to agriculture and consumer services. Late in the game, the bill's sponsor, Lithia area Republican Jake Raburn filed an amendment barring cities and counties from passing bans on issuing packing made from polystyrene, commonly referred to as Styrofoam, as Miami Beach recently did out of concerns for the material's impact on wildlife and the natural environment, and, by extension, the local economy.
“There was a municipality that enacted an ordinance that we saw as contrary to current law, and so we wanted to use this bill as a vehicle to make sure that that law is very clear the regulation of Styrofoam would be done at the state level,” Raburn said.
Cities are already not allowed to ban plastic bags and may soon be barred from banning fracking.
Rep. David Richardson wasn't buying it.
“What is the harm if a community decides that they want to regulate Styrofoam because it's causing environmental problems and stormwater drainage problems in their community? Why would that be a problem that the State of Florida needs to insert itself into?” he said.
Still the bill was cleared for the full house floor.
Another bill that cleared was one that turns food stamp fraud into a felony, rather than just a misdemeanor.
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2016.