Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Florida's 2025 Legislative Session Week Two

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Florida's 2025 Legislative Session Week Two · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

0:02
Speaker 1: Third hour, Monday, March seventeenth. Aaron Gobra, everybody, and happy
0:11
Speaker 1: Saint Patrick's Day to those of you of Irish descent.
0:13
Speaker 2: A care.
0:14
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott. He is Jose,
0:17
Speaker 1: I'm Preston, and we are joined by our good friend
0:20
Speaker 1: from Consumers Defense the website Consumers Defense dot com. Salnowzoh, hello,
0:25
Speaker 1: my friend Aaron Gobra. Today we are all Irish. Yeah
0:29
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This actually our first
0:34
Speaker 1: topic here as we look at the legislative session what's
0:37
Speaker 1: going on in Florida governance. This actually dovetails very nicely
0:41
Speaker 1: with Consumers Defense.
0:42
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's one I kind of selfishly teed up
0:45
Speaker 2: a little bit, but it is very important, especially for
0:48
Speaker 2: anybody who has a Florida retirement system package. We've got
0:53
Speaker 2: a lot of state workers in the area, and normally
0:57
Speaker 2: we try to tee up the governor. This is more
1:00
Speaker 2: on the Attorney general, and I think it's important.
1:02
Speaker 1: Tell me this. The new attorney general was the chief
1:04
Speaker 1: of staff for Governor Rond de Santas, James Uthmeier. Is
1:08
Speaker 1: he picking up where Ashley Moody left off on this one,
1:11
Speaker 1: or is this a new initiative.
1:13
Speaker 2: This one's relatively new. I think prior to him coming
1:17
Speaker 2: into office, a lot of these things were tackled in
1:19
Speaker 2: the cfo's office. But now you've got that influx a
1:22
Speaker 2: little bit because Jimmy Patronis is on kind of the
1:24
Speaker 2: path to Congress. And we really don't know yet who
1:28
Speaker 2: officially the governor's going to name, but to her credit,
1:33
Speaker 2: General Moody, now Senator Moody was very aggressive and going
1:36
Speaker 2: after corporate problems, and so in one sense a little bit,
1:40
Speaker 2: but this is really his initiative, and he's going starting
1:44
Speaker 2: with target the company, the retailer, and his claim is
1:48
Speaker 2: very unique, and like you said, it kind of dovetails
1:50
Speaker 2: into the combating ESG front that we have his claim
1:56
Speaker 2: and he is going after them with litigation. Is that
2:00
Speaker 2: by embracing this ESG governance approach, in embracing DEI and
2:06
Speaker 2: expanding it out throughout their entire retail structure and system,
2:10
Speaker 2: the company itself is willfully and negatively impacted their shareholder value.
2:16
Speaker 2: The return on them as a public company is far
2:20
Speaker 2: lower than if they had not. So the Florida Retirement
2:24
Speaker 2: System is a major investor, and so there the Attorney
2:28
Speaker 2: General is going after them from that vantage point, saying
2:31
Speaker 2: that from the perspective of a shareholder, exactly, we're a shareholder.
2:36
Speaker 2: You are embracing a strategy that we are defending our
2:40
Speaker 2: tens and hundreds of thousands of retirees that that need
2:45
Speaker 2: to generate returns for their retirement system. But he's also
2:49
Speaker 2: telegraphing this to other publicly held companies that your first
2:54
Speaker 2: and really only mission should be to maximize the return
2:58
Speaker 2: to your shareholders. Social agendas do not translate to that,
3:03
Speaker 2: and therefore, if you are pursuing them, you are doing
3:06
Speaker 2: damage and you are not maintaining what we would call
3:08
Speaker 2: pecuniary or fiduciary interests.
3:10
Speaker 1: We talk about this on the show from time to
3:13
Speaker 1: time with our friends with Project twenty one, the Free
3:15
Speaker 1: Enterprise Project, because they talk about shareholder activism and thus
3:20
Speaker 1: far it's largely fallen on deaf ears. They've been saying
3:23
Speaker 1: to the Walt Disneys of the world, the Targets of
3:25
Speaker 1: the world, you have a responsibility to the shareholders, and
3:28
Speaker 1: they're ignoring it. This would force them to no longer
3:31
Speaker 1: ignore it.
3:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of the problems that we've uncovered with
3:36
Speaker 2: those big publicly traded companies that are pursuing this is
3:39
Speaker 2: because the activism is not necessarily starting with their board
3:43
Speaker 2: of directors. It's starting with the asset managers that control
3:47
Speaker 2: all of the stocks. So Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard are
3:50
Speaker 2: pursuing this activist agenda. The challenges those three asset managers
3:56
Speaker 2: will oftentimes control forty fifty sixty percent of the stock
3:59
Speaker 2: in Disney or some of these other companies, so they're
4:03
Speaker 2: pushing the board of directors to pursue that in the
4:05
Speaker 2: board if they want to keep their jobs, because those
4:08
Speaker 2: three control the stock, they're going along with it. Now
4:11
Speaker 2: that's not always the case, sure, but it's happened more
4:15
Speaker 2: and more as we've kind of peeled back the onions. Okay,
4:18
Speaker 2: so as the Attorney General is going after Target, it's
4:21
Speaker 2: also telegraphing to all of these other publicly traded companies
4:25
Speaker 2: you need to be prepared to fight the shareholder activism
4:29
Speaker 2: or on the flip side of this, we're going to
4:33
Speaker 2: we're going to defend our shareholder rights as the Florida
4:36
Speaker 2: retire Retirement System kind of the folks who hold those
4:41
Speaker 2: the retirees. Now, it's a little bit different than if
4:45
Speaker 2: you're a private company. Like hobby lobby. You want to
4:47
Speaker 2: do whatever you want, that's business. As long as you're
4:50
Speaker 2: obeying the law, you're fine. But when you decide to
4:53
Speaker 2: go public, you're now subject to a new set of requirements.
4:58
Speaker 1: Eleven minutes past the hour of those of you that
5:01
Speaker 1: go to my blog page, you've seen it. I've suggested
5:05
Speaker 1: you go there, especially if you're an employer inside the
5:07
Speaker 1: state of Florida. I'll ask sal News of Consumer's Defense,
5:11
Speaker 1: if you've had a chance to read the piece that
5:14
Speaker 1: was published in Florida Politics that I wrote about a
5:17
Speaker 1: personal situation involving my daughter and her children, my grandchildren,
5:23
Speaker 1: and an illegal immigrant in this country being employed by
5:26
Speaker 1: someone in Florida.
5:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did, And in fact I had also heard
5:29
Speaker 2: your segment I think it was last week or earlier,
5:32
Speaker 2: and so saw it on x Twitter and then it
5:35
Speaker 2: also was the top opinion in Florida Politics this morning
5:40
Speaker 2: in Sunburn. So really well done. Kudos to you for
5:46
Speaker 2: using the platform and really tying it into a very
5:50
Speaker 2: specific policy debate that needs to continue. Where is that
5:55
Speaker 2: debate though, in the House in the Senate? Sure, So
5:58
Speaker 2: let's unpack this. So the special session passed some new
6:01
Speaker 2: reforms to make sure that the state was ready to
6:03
Speaker 2: partner with the Trump administration DHS and border security. However,
6:07
Speaker 2: what they didn't do in that special was address anything
6:10
Speaker 2: specific in cracking down on the employment of illegal immigrants.
6:16
Speaker 2: So back I think it was two sessions ago, maybe three,
6:19
Speaker 2: the legislature did pass the everify requirement, but it's only
6:25
Speaker 2: a requirement if you have twenty five or more employees.
6:29
Speaker 2: If you have less than twenty five, you can continue
6:32
Speaker 2: to use the I nine form, which is not nearly
6:34
Speaker 2: as fool proof. It's very easy to fake documents and
6:38
Speaker 2: get around that, and it doesn't it offer basically employees
6:42
Speaker 2: number one, it offers them a loophole, but equally it
6:46
Speaker 2: allows them what i'll call plausible deniability.
6:49
Speaker 1: Oh, we've done what we've you know, we've followed the law.
6:52
Speaker 1: But they're in practical terms, they're not solving the problem.
6:55
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you're spot on there now. During the special session
7:00
Speaker 2: on the Senate floor, Democrat Senator Jason Pizzo, who you
7:04
Speaker 2: cited in your article, filed a floor amendment that would
7:08
Speaker 2: have closed that loophole. It would have required all employees,
7:11
Speaker 2: regardless of size, to use e verify. It was ruled
7:15
Speaker 2: not germane to the existing bills, so they could not
7:20
Speaker 2: amend it on the floor because of that procedural protocol.
7:25
Speaker 2: And you've cited why this is a problem, why it's
7:28
Speaker 2: a loophole. If you have forty employees, all you do
7:31
Speaker 2: is create a separate LLC, and now you've got two
7:34
Speaker 2: LLCs with twenty and you're out of the way. There
7:37
Speaker 2: are a series of bills that are moving in both chambers,
7:43
Speaker 2: and one of them on the Senate side, or two
7:46
Speaker 2: of them on the Senate side, one from Pizzoh and
7:48
Speaker 2: one from I believe It's blazing Golia. Do close that loophole.
7:53
Speaker 2: I have not seen any of them or heard of
7:57
Speaker 2: any of them gaining traction yet to move on to
8:01
Speaker 2: a committee agenda that would get them into the kind
8:05
Speaker 2: of the glidepath to enactment, given your knowledge of the
8:11
Speaker 2: way policy unfolds inside Florida. So this is one of
8:15
Speaker 2: those everybody knows illegals are being paid in certain trades
8:21
Speaker 2: under the table. Everyone knows that. Customers know it, clients
8:25
Speaker 2: know it, competitors know it. Why is this not getting hit?
8:30
Speaker 2: What is keeping this from just this to me is
8:33
Speaker 2: low hanging fruit. What's keeping it from getting done. Oh,
8:37
Speaker 2: you'd have to really talk with a number of the
8:43
Speaker 2: trade associations, a number of the employer groups, Okay, a
8:47
Speaker 2: number of the very big industry sectors that for a
8:54
Speaker 2: long time, I think have turned a blind eye.
8:57
Speaker 1: And isn't it fair though, to say that there are
9:00
Speaker 1: absolutely people that are legally employable, that have the proper
9:05
Speaker 1: requisite visas and so forth, that can get jobs. And
9:10
Speaker 1: so to me, it's the issue of the illegals.
9:14
Speaker 2: It's it's a great point that isn't talked about. What
9:19
Speaker 2: we talk about a lot of times, especially when you
9:21
Speaker 2: talk about national immigration reformis yeah, well, these are the
9:24
Speaker 2: people that do a lot of the jobs that Americans
9:27
Speaker 2: don't want to do.
9:28
Speaker 1: One.
9:28
Speaker 2: I think that is an awful argument. If you want
9:30
Speaker 2: to defense slavery, go for it. I'm never going to
9:33
Speaker 2: But the point that you're making is not only is
9:35
Speaker 2: this a problem for lawbiding. You know, Americans immigrants who
9:41
Speaker 2: are here legally are not getting jobs because of the
9:45
Speaker 2: fact that this loophole has existed, and not just in Florida,
9:49
Speaker 2: in other states. Is absolutely and it is kind of
9:53
Speaker 2: it is making life harder for those who have done
9:56
Speaker 2: the right thing. To get here legally.
9:57
Speaker 1: So some bills that are finding some progress one way
10:01
Speaker 1: or the other, either progress out the tour, progress and passage.
10:04
Speaker 1: Starting with public safety, let's unpack some public safety stuff.
10:08
Speaker 1: Seven fifty nine Senate Bill seventeen sixteen. It would remove
10:12
Speaker 1: the prohibition on the sale of firearms to adults aged
10:16
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty one. It is moving, and I'm surprised
10:20
Speaker 1: if it's moving in the Senate or not. I mean
10:22
Speaker 1: pleasantly surprised, because typically the Senate has been very has
10:28
Speaker 1: been verish yeah on firearm restrictions. And in a related
10:34
Speaker 1: note to this, and this came out over the weekend,
10:36
Speaker 1: I believe the ag James Uthmeyer, has said publicly his
10:41
Speaker 1: office will not defend the existing law against any suit
10:46
Speaker 1: file to overturn it. So he's effectively siding with the
10:51
Speaker 1: folks who are like, no, eighteen to twenty one year
10:53
Speaker 1: olds legally and constitutionally should be allowed to purchase a firearm.
10:59
Speaker 1: Another one kind of in the public safety space, Senate
11:02
Speaker 1: Bill thirteen eighteen, House Built five oh one from Senator
11:05
Speaker 1: Aaron Grahl and Alison Tant hands free driving.
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Speaker 2: It is moving. It is likely I would say this
11:12
Speaker 2: one's got a fair chance of passing. We would join.
11:15
Speaker 2: I think it's more than two dozen states that are
11:18
Speaker 2: just hands free completely. You will not be able legally
11:22
Speaker 2: to touch your phone while your car is moving, so
11:26
Speaker 2: you'll have to use the voice prompts and all of
11:28
Speaker 2: that stuff from this point forward or risk a ticket.
11:31
Speaker 2: Another one one point thirty House Bill fifty nine Incarcerated
11:36
Speaker 2: but Innocent compensation. I'd mentioned this in a previous segment
11:40
Speaker 2: because of the fact that Florida has what's called this
11:42
Speaker 2: clean Hands provision, which is if you have been wrongfully
11:47
Speaker 2: incarcerated for like twenty twenty five years and you're exonerated,
11:51
Speaker 2: you you have a right to compensation. But if you
11:54
Speaker 2: have been convicted of a prior felony, it could be
11:57
Speaker 2: when you were eighteen years old, but it's not related
12:01
Speaker 2: to the one you were incarcerated wrongly for, you cannot
12:05
Speaker 2: get that compensation. We're like the only state that does.
12:07
Speaker 1: That's silly.
12:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's moving, And I would say it seems
12:11
Speaker 2: all but certain to land on the governor's desk. They
12:14
Speaker 2: recognize that this is an injustice.
12:15
Speaker 1: Is he likely to sign it? He sometimes has been
12:18
Speaker 1: contrarian on issues like this.
12:19
Speaker 2: And that's the that's the part of this that I'm
12:22
Speaker 2: really paying attention to. In the past, he has done
12:25
Speaker 2: some vetos for bills in the public safety space, like
12:28
Speaker 2: the juvenile justice what do you call when you remove
12:32
Speaker 2: expurging records? So I don't know where he stands on
12:37
Speaker 2: this part. I don't see anything public that he's stay
12:41
Speaker 2: said on it, but I'm kind of watching its coast.
12:44
Speaker 2: And lastly, in the public safety space two thirty four
12:47
Speaker 2: House Built one seventy five from Rep. Assaltsman Blazingolia, enhancing
12:51
Speaker 2: the penalties for taking the life of a law enforcement officer.
12:53
Speaker 1: That one's going forward as it relates to elections.
12:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually, let's take up elections in the next one.
12:59
Speaker 2: Look over because I want to spend some time on
13:01
Speaker 2: that one. In the education space, Demi Bisada has got
13:05
Speaker 2: House Built nine forty nine, extending the device band to
13:08
Speaker 2: the entire school day. It advanced unanimously. You I think
13:13
Speaker 2: this one is going to be a game changer, and
13:17
Speaker 2: I know it will. Yeah, and I'm really pleased to
13:19
Speaker 2: see this. We've talked about this over the years, and
13:23
Speaker 2: so that one is a big one.
13:25
Speaker 1: Uh.
13:25
Speaker 2: And the Housing and Insurance Arena you got a few
13:28
Speaker 2: one eighty four to two forty seven on affordability from
13:31
Speaker 2: Senator Gates. Uh it, it's one where the biggest difference
13:37
Speaker 2: in government legislation and writing is the difference between the
13:41
Speaker 2: words may and shall. When a legislator puts the word
13:46
Speaker 2: may in there, you can you know, you can bet
13:49
Speaker 2: it's it's whitewashed.
13:50
Speaker 1: Yep.
13:51
Speaker 2: When you have the word shall, it's a requirement. These
13:53
Speaker 2: are some things that are going to be useful for
13:57
Speaker 2: expanding the ability of developers to put smaller, more affordable
14:04
Speaker 2: housing units in local governments. You've also got the Condo
14:08
Speaker 2: Boards Piece nine thirteen seventeen forty two that would block
14:14
Speaker 2: its citizens Property insurance from issuing or renewing policies for
14:18
Speaker 2: condo owners if they have not complied with the prior laws.
14:23
Speaker 2: But what they're also doing is including provisions to make
14:26
Speaker 2: it a little less painful for those condo units to
14:28
Speaker 2: obtain credit and bonding to get all of those renovations
14:32
Speaker 2: and repairs to bring the units up to the new standards.
14:36
Speaker 1: We were talking about insurance and there was a fascinating
14:41
Speaker 1: hearing on Friday.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so they had the House Insurance and Banking commission
14:46
Speaker 2: Committee had a three hour hearing where they wanted to
14:50
Speaker 2: get more information on this report that was a draft
14:54
Speaker 2: report cited in the speaker's remarks which kind of alleged
14:59
Speaker 2: that insure companies in the state had been funneling premiums
15:02
Speaker 2: from rate payers to their affiliate companies out of state
15:07
Speaker 2: and then crying poor and whatnot. So the you know,
15:11
Speaker 2: the legislature had given the insurance industry a whole lot
15:14
Speaker 2: of what they were really wanting back in twenty twenty
15:17
Speaker 2: three with tort reform, and so they had first Michael Yuworski,
15:21
Speaker 2: who is the state's insurance commissioner.
15:24
Speaker 1: But he's new to the job.
15:25
Speaker 2: He's new ish, you know. I think it was like
15:28
Speaker 2: late twenty twenty two is when he came on board,
15:30
Speaker 2: after the report had been sent in draft form to
15:35
Speaker 2: the prior oir commissioner, David Altmeyer. So the current commissioner
15:42
Speaker 2: gave a presentation on kind of how the structure of
15:45
Speaker 2: what they call these MGA's managing general Agencies affiliate group's
15:51
Speaker 2: kind of function, and then they dove in quite a
15:53
Speaker 2: bit on the elements of the report, why it was
15:58
Speaker 2: still in draft form, what they were doing with it,
16:01
Speaker 2: over the course of a year or two. And you know,
16:05
Speaker 2: to his credit, he is a very collegial. He knows
16:08
Speaker 2: more about insurance than I think anybody that I've ever
16:12
Speaker 2: come across. So the back and forth was very good
16:15
Speaker 2: with him. They did ask some pointed questions and he
16:19
Speaker 2: gave very direct answers. And then they brought up the
16:22
Speaker 2: prior commissioner, David Altmeyer, and they swore him in so
16:27
Speaker 2: he was under oath, and they gave him a grilling
16:31
Speaker 2: for a good hour and a half on why they
16:34
Speaker 2: didn't do more with it in draft form, why it
16:36
Speaker 2: wasn't released, in a whole host of other things. He
16:40
Speaker 2: did his best to kind of navigate what was a
16:44
Speaker 2: lot more combative than the first half of that hearing.
16:47
Speaker 2: But yeah, they're in a very the legislature, the House
16:52
Speaker 2: in particular, is in a very angry mood with respect
16:57
Speaker 2: to this.
16:57
Speaker 1: Would it be fair to say that the insurance company,
17:00
Speaker 1: then it would appear, based on the draft have postured
17:05
Speaker 1: themselves being fiscally financially far worse off than they reality
17:11
Speaker 1: are within the state of Florida because they've moved so
17:14
Speaker 1: much of their revenue out of state.
17:17
Speaker 2: That is the allegation as I understand it in the report,
17:20
Speaker 2: and I haven't seen even the draft, and.
17:22
Speaker 1: I don't know that any buttresses what they're requesting the
17:25
Speaker 1: legislature continue to do on their behalf.
17:27
Speaker 2: Potentially, and that could pose a problem if they if
17:32
Speaker 2: the legislature wants to come back and you know, train
17:36
Speaker 2: their you know, fire on insurance companies for not reducing premiums.
17:41
Speaker 2: And we've talked about this that you know on the
17:44
Speaker 2: Senate side, you have individuals kind of saying, look, the
17:47
Speaker 2: market is correcting, we're on the right path. Don't do
17:51
Speaker 2: anything to upset that. And so that's a big deal, all.
17:54
Speaker 1: Right, before we take a break and then look at
17:56
Speaker 1: the week that's coming up elections.
17:58
Speaker 2: Elections, You've got a number of bills filed. Some are aligned,
18:02
Speaker 2: some others deal with different parts of the code. The
18:05
Speaker 2: ones that are moving right now are twelve oh five
18:07
Speaker 2: and seventy sixteen. And seventy sixteen is a Senate PCB,
18:11
Speaker 2: a proposed committee bill. The fact that they made it
18:14
Speaker 2: a PCB when Blazing Gloalie had already filed the bill
18:17
Speaker 2: is a little bit telling because Blaze is one of
18:20
Speaker 2: the governor's biggest supporters there. What those two bills deal
18:24
Speaker 2: with are the regulations on citizen initiative petitions the ballot
18:28
Speaker 2: amendment process. Now, it's been a challenge area in the
18:31
Speaker 2: state for decades, but slowly and surely over the years,
18:35
Speaker 2: they've been enacting reforms to make it more challenging for
18:37
Speaker 2: groups to get a petition on the ballot, which I
18:40
Speaker 2: am all in favor of because that is our governing document.
18:43
Speaker 2: We should not be debating policy in it. So now
18:48
Speaker 2: what those things would do, What those two bills would
18:51
Speaker 2: do further tighten the process for collecting signatures, ensure groups
18:54
Speaker 2: that are not gaming the system or not being forthcoming
18:57
Speaker 2: with intent and language. One element of the says not
19:00
Speaker 2: addressed within those bills is the issue that was brought
19:03
Speaker 2: up by the governor on the funding of ballot initiatives
19:06
Speaker 2: by foreign nationals. Basically, what we found was is like
19:10
Speaker 2: radical leftist billionaire giving tens of millions of dollars to
19:14
Speaker 2: groups in the US nonprofits who then use that money
19:17
Speaker 2: to do ballot campaigns. One of those groups is called
19:20
Speaker 2: the sixteen thirty Fund, used about thirteen million dollars from
19:23
Speaker 2: a Swiss billionaire just to promote the abortion amendment last year.
19:29
Speaker 2: The election statutes are a little bit ambiguous, and depending
19:32
Speaker 2: on how you read it, you know, there could be
19:35
Speaker 2: some case for tightening that. Okay, and that's going to
19:39
Speaker 2: be something that we're paying attention to, not just me,
19:43
Speaker 2: but our group that we work with a lot, the
19:45
Speaker 2: Honest Election Project, because that's a loophole that they're trying
19:48
Speaker 2: to close nationally.
19:50
Speaker 1: A couple of the bills here that are moving before
19:52
Speaker 1: we get to what's ahead.
19:53
Speaker 2: Sure three in particularly like to point out seven five
19:56
Speaker 2: to two sixty sixty seven from Corey Simon and Allison
19:58
Speaker 2: Tan They're bringing the defamation Bill on news outlets. It
20:02
Speaker 2: would lower the standard for defamation suits against media platforms.
20:07
Speaker 2: It would require them to take down material that's been
20:10
Speaker 2: deemed by a court ruling or and this is where
20:13
Speaker 2: some problematic language I think when I get nervous, or
20:17
Speaker 2: what a quote reasonable person would know to be false?
20:20
Speaker 2: It passed its first Senate stop. I think this is
20:24
Speaker 2: gonna be something that gets debated and dialogued and amended
20:27
Speaker 2: before it well.
20:28
Speaker 1: And who determines what a reasonable person is exactly?
20:32
Speaker 2: And that's where I'm like my antenna go up when
20:34
Speaker 2: anything ambiguous like that is potentially significant, fair enough, two
20:40
Speaker 2: thirty two seven on the House side, debt collection. It
20:43
Speaker 2: would prohibit companies from sending text messages to individuals after
20:47
Speaker 2: nine PM. And it's a Democrat sponsored bill, but it's
20:52
Speaker 2: it's got a lot of support, bipartisan, and it's moving.
20:55
Speaker 2: And then the one that I really hope gets some
20:57
Speaker 2: steam six seven five point forty one on the House side,
21:01
Speaker 2: minimum wage exemptions. This would create what we would call
21:05
Speaker 2: training wages or interurn wages. If both parties, the employer
21:09
Speaker 2: and the employee, sign an agreement saying we understand the
21:13
Speaker 2: minimum wages X. We are both agreeing that this will
21:16
Speaker 2: be a training wage. It would allow those employees to
21:20
Speaker 2: earn a lower wage. And knowing, well, is there a
21:24
Speaker 2: cap on the length of time for that, like a year?
21:27
Speaker 2: Great question, And I'll have to read the language on
21:29
Speaker 2: it to find out. It could very well be in there,
21:32
Speaker 2: and that might be something that if it isn't in
21:34
Speaker 2: gets placed in later. Okay, all right, let's move into
21:37
Speaker 2: this week. There's a lot going on committee hearings every
21:41
Speaker 2: single day. A few to pay attention to. First off,
21:44
Speaker 2: thirteen seventy four in the Senate side from clay Yarbro
21:47
Speaker 2: mandatory reporting requirements for teachers, and this one's one. It
21:51
Speaker 2: flew under the radar until I saw it last week.
21:53
Speaker 2: If a teacher is charged with certain offenses for example, grooming, assault,
21:58
Speaker 2: et cetera, outside of any outside the classroom it's not
22:02
Speaker 2: related necessarily to their function, they would be required by
22:06
Speaker 2: law to report that to the district within forty eight hours,
22:09
Speaker 2: and then the district would have twenty four hours to
22:12
Speaker 2: decide to remove them from the classroom. It's up in
22:15
Speaker 2: its first committee stop. Today, you've got Senate Bill five
22:19
Speaker 2: thirty six and A eight ZHO two up. These are
22:22
Speaker 2: the term limit bills for both county commissioners and school boards.
22:26
Speaker 2: Seventeen ten from Senator Di Segli further eliminating DEI in
22:32
Speaker 2: state agencies and medical institutions that are tied to universities
22:37
Speaker 2: of Tier one or Stage one institutions that they have
22:42
Speaker 2: fourteen thirty eight and sixteen ninety two two Senate bills
22:46
Speaker 2: from Senator Er Grahl and Stan McClain would further expand
22:50
Speaker 2: the provisions of last year's bill to keep harmful content
22:53
Speaker 2: on social media platforms for miners. And I think this
22:57
Speaker 2: is important because just the other day Judge Walker refused
23:02
Speaker 2: to enjoin last year's bill on social media access for minors.
23:07
Speaker 2: So that bill is enacted until the court challenge kind
23:11
Speaker 2: of weaves its way fully, so they're going even further
23:15
Speaker 2: this year. You've got HB six' five to, one which
23:18
Speaker 2: is the big agency bill From agriculture And Consumer. Services
23:22
Speaker 2: there is a ton in there that at some POINT
23:25
Speaker 2: i think it would be great to unpack. More it's
23:27
Speaker 2: got its first, stop and Then i'm keeping an eye
23:30
Speaker 2: on thirteen hundred and eleven forty. Three this is from
23:33
Speaker 2: our local, Folks Alison, Tant jason chaff And Corey simon
23:37
Speaker 2: banning oil and gas permits from areas within The Big
23:40
Speaker 2: bend that are in close proximity to specific bodies of.
23:43
Speaker 2: Water we saw one where they were trying to drop
23:46
Speaker 2: some holding tanks for oil and gas close to what
23:49
Speaker 2: color of. Springs they're trying to like nip that in the.
23:51
Speaker 2: Bud and you, know the environmentalist in me is all for.
23:55
Speaker 1: It, Yeah and there's it's not like we don't have
23:58
Speaker 1: land available exactly.
23:59
Speaker 2: Exactly this is very tailored AND i think it's precisely
24:03
Speaker 2: how you should do, legislation.
24:04
Speaker 1: Good, stuff all, Right thank you.
24:06
Speaker 2: Sir always a pleasure to be with.
24:08
Speaker 1: You, Yeah monday from now ought to be fun after
24:11
Speaker 1: all these committee.
24:12
Speaker 2: Weeks it's going to be an intriguing, week, indeed And
24:15
Speaker 2: i'm looking forward to as we enter into the second
24:19
Speaker 2: third of the session kind of how what gain, steam what's,
24:24
Speaker 2: moving what's kind of fallen, off and the dynamic with
24:28
Speaker 2: The house and the and the. Governor i'm still paying attention, To.
24:31
Speaker 1: Thank, you. Sir always sell newso With Consumers defense the
24:36
Speaker 1: Website consumers defense dot. Com The Legislative session review is
24:40
Speaker 1: over for the.
24:40
Speaker 2: Day