Trying to fix what they call a glitch in a state gun law that went into effect in October, two Delray Beach Democrats are pushing a measure that would make it illegal to bring firearms into child care centers and public buildings.

Sen. Maria Sachs and Rep. Lori Berman filed bills that would change a new law approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott that went into effect in October. The new law, which includes civil penalties and removal from office for local officials who ignore it, forced state agencies, municipalities and counties such as Palm Beach to scrap hundreds of measures dealing with guns.

After the law went into effect, state police were also forced to reverse their policy and allow firearms to be brought into the Capitol although weapons are still barred from legislative committee meetings. The same law applies to local government meetings – guns are permitted in the building but not where officials are publicly gathered.

“The same rule should apply to the building where the meeting is taking place,” Berman said.

Under the new law, people are allowed to bring guns into child care centers but are still barred from bringing them into public schools or college and university campuses.

“If you’re not allowed to carry a gun into a school where children are five years old, I’m sure the law should extend to those who are four, or three or two,” Sachs, a former prosecutor, said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

The Palm Beach County Commission, which unanimously voted to support the bills (SB 1340, HB 1087), last month filed a lawsuit against Scott and others over the law, arguing that it is unconstitutional and that the sanctions “are simply a form of political bullying that serves no governmental purpose” and have a “chilling effect.”

Commissioner Shelley Vana, a former state representative, stood beside Berman and Sachs at a press conference announcing the proposals this morning.

She said their effort will make Floridians, especially children, safer and called it “another major step in rectifying a tremendous wrong and helping local governments keep their citizens safe.”

The measures are unlikely to gain traction in the GOP-dominated legislature, especially in an election year. The National Rifle Association pushed the new law last year.

But Sachs said the issue is one of public safety, not partisanship.

“I know Palm Beach is a pretty progressive county…but I know that every other county will follow us,” she said.

The Florida Medical Association will represent doctors in administrative complaints involving a new law that limits what health care providers can ask patients about gun ownership.

But the association’s House of Delegates also voted late last month not to join a lawsuit challenging whether the new law is a violation of doctors’ freedom of speech.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and several doctors’ groups, including the Florida chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Practitioners and the American College of Physicians, filed the lawsuit in June against Gov. Rick Scott and his administration seeking an injunction against what they call the “Physician Gag Law,” already in effect. The groups, later joined by the Palm Beach County Medical Society and the ACLU, also want a federal judge to strike down the law as unconstitutional.

Under the law, doctors and other health care professionals will face sanctions including fines and losing their licenses if they ask patients about guns in the home without a direct belief that the inquiry is relevant to the patient’s safety or health. Pediatricians say the law keeps them from doing their jobs.

FMA general counsel Jeff Scott said the FMA’s House of Delegates rejected a proposal to join the lawsuit but later agreed to a substitute resolution calling for the FMA to help out doctors facing complaints related to the new law.

“We made kind of a policy statement that the doctor-patient relationship is important and to guide us going forward,” Scott said.

National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer, who pushed the legislation passed this session, worked with the FMA and eased off sanctions in an early proposal that would have slapped doctors with up to $5,000 fines and prison time for probing into patients’ gun ownership. Florida is the first state to pass such a law, Hammer said.

Under the amendment approved by the delegates late in July, the FMA will “legally support, to the greatest degree possible, any FMA member subject to disciplinary action based on enforcement of the Florida gun law … if the affected physician was acting based on the medical necessity and safety of the patient or others.” The organization will also be required to “actively oppose an attempt to restrict physician questions to patients or require questions of patients.”

Scott said he doesn’t think the resolution will be an issue because he doesn’t anticipate doctors breaking the law or patient complaints.

“I don’t think this will come into play,” he said.

UPDATE: Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill (HB 155) into law today.

Three groups of physicians are threatening to sue the state if Gov. Rick Scott signs into law a bill barring doctors from asking patients if they own a gun.

Lawyers representing members of the Florida chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Physicians asked Scott to veto the measure (HB 155) because they say it restricts their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.

“Healthcare professionals throughout the state of Florida routinely speak with patients about effective methods to minimize a variety of risks to their health and safety,” attorneys Bruce Manheim Jr. and Douglas Hallward-Driemeier of the Washington-based law firm Ropes & Gray wrote to Scott last week. Scott has until June 9 to act on the law.

Doctors advise patients about safety issues associated with swimming pools, dangerous chemicals, bike helmets and car seats, they wrote, and “provide anticipatory guidance regarding the significant health risks posed by firearms in the household.”

The bill would prohibit those talks and impose severe sanctions including fines and permanent revocation of licenses.

“In sum, if CS/CS/HB 155 becomes law, it will deprive healthcare professionals throughout the state of Florida of their rights under the First Amendment to freedom of speech. In violation of the U.S. Constitution, the law would also deprive patients of potentially life-saving information regarding safety measures they can take to protect their children, families and others from injury or death resulting from unsafe storage or handling of firearms,” the lawyers wrote. “For these reasons, we intend to file a lawsuit against you and other state officials in the event this legislation becomes law.”

The NRA sent out an action alert last week asking members to pressure Scott to sign the measure.

“Doctors need to treat illness, not guns. Pediatricians and other physicians, in growing numbers, are prying into our personal lives, invading our privacy and straying from issues relating to disease and medicine by questioning children or their parents about gun ownership,” the NRA’s Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer, a former NRA president, urged in an e-mail on May 26.

With NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer sitting in the front row of the public gallery, the Florida Senate easily approved three bills loosening gun laws, including a measure banning doctors from asking their patients about gun ownership.

Two other measures are now headed to Gov. Rick Scott, an NRA member and gun owner who has said he would sign them into law.

The “open carry” bill (HB 45), watered down yesterday, would protect concealed weapons permit owners from being prosecuted if their guns are accidentally exposed. Proponents of the measure say that current law could subject the inadvertent display of weapons to being charged with a felony.

The third (HB 155) would punish local officials with a fine for passing gun laws stricter than the state’s, already prohibited under state law.

Law enforcement officials opposed the open carry bill, saying it would make their jobs more dangerous.

And barring health care providers from asking safety questions about the presence of weapons in the household could endanger the lives of children and have a chilling effect on the doctor-patient relationship, pediatricians have argued.

Firearm injury is the leading cause of death for children and teens, said Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston.

“Adolescents know about firearms. Children know about firearms and they know where they are. This Republican Party is a party of less government and this is the party that brings us more government intrusion that encroaches into the privacy of a doctor’s office and the doctor-patient relationship,” she said.

But Sen. Alan Hays, a retired dentist, said “it’s none of my business what kind of weapons if any” patients have in their homes.

“If it’s medically necessary you may inquire but otherwise stay out of the private business of your patient,” said Hays, R-Umatilla. The bill passed by a 27-10 vote.

Doctors would still be allowed to ask patients about guns under a compromise measure backed by the Florida Medical Association and the National Rifle Association.

The Senate Health Regulation Committee voted 8-4 to in favor of the measure (SB 432) that would allow health care providers to ask about gun ownership if they believe “this information is relevant to the patient’s medical care or safety.”

But opponents – including Sen. Mike Bennett, a Vietnam veteran – said the proposal doesn’t go far enough to protect the family members of the patients, especially in light of a growing number of veterans returning home from overseas wars with with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

“If you’re a product of it, you understand,” Bennett, R-Bradenton, said. “I’m just concerned about the wife at home the kids at home because I’ve been there, done that. I’m worried about the vet coming home with PTSD, the increases in domestic violence.”

The money gun owners pay to the state to process their concealed weapons permit applications won’t be used for anything else no matter how bad Florida’s budget crisis gets, thanks to GOP lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist who signed the bill (SB 1158) into law today as promised.

The concealed weapons trust fund is now the fifth of the state’s 400-plus similar funds that are off limits to legislators who grabbed $500 million from them last year to fill a $2.3 billion budget gap. Like the concealed weapons trust fund, money for the trust funds comes from fees related to their specific purpose.

Of all the trust fund raids that the legislature attempted last year, the $6 million raid on the gun permit fund was the only one Crist singled out for a veto.

Stopping the gun permit fund raid was one of NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer‘s election-year priorities this session. The Senate passed out the measure on the second of session.

Some Democrats complained that the money from the trust fund should be available like others to help cover critical health and human service needs for Floridians.

The tussle between a gun shop-owning senator and the former president of the National Rifle Association is heating up over a controversial driver license handbook.

And the prospect looks bleaker every day for the vendor who prints the driver license handbook for free in return for the exclusive ability to advertise his “National Safety Commission” driver education courses.

First, Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles chief Julie Jones canceled Ken Underwood’s controversial contract with the state effective at the end of the year.

Then an effort by a seemingly unwitting Sen. Carey Baker that would have given Underwood a leg up on a new contract went nowhere after a senate committee balked at the proposal, saying it appeared to be aimed at rescuing the sole source vendor.

Enter ultra-powerful NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer.

(more…)

Sen. Carey Baker’s effort to rescue the vendor who has printed the state’s driver license handbook for five years went nowhere today and seems to be destined for the cutting room floor.

Baker had originally proposed a bill (SB 2342) that would keep Ken Underwood in the running for a contract with the Department of Motor Vehicles and Highway Safety which he now prints for free in exchange for advertising his National Safety Commission driver’s ed schools.

Baker, R-Eustis, rewrote the bill to appease opponents, including Underwood’s competitors, but he asked the Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee to skip a vote on it today, as he did last week, because it was clear the revisions didn’t pass critics’ muster.

DHSMV chief Julie Jones, who canceled the contract after the end of the year, told the committee that “We need to overcome the perception of an endorsement of one company.”

(more…)

NRA lobbyist and political heavyweight Marion Hammer’s targeting a bill that ostensibly has nothing to do with weapons except that the bill’s Senate sponsor Carey Baker owns a gun shop.

A controversy over the state’s drivers license handbook has the former president of the National Rifle Association loaded for bear.

Baker, R-Eustis, is backing a bill (SB 2342) that would force the state to extend a contentious agreement with Ken Underwood, the Ponte Vedra Beach owner of a driver ed school, in which he prints the drivers license handbook for the state’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles for free.

In return, Underwood gets to advertise his businesses in the handbook.

(more…)

Florida lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a measure now on its way to Gov. Charlie Crist that would prohibit adoption agencies from discriminating against gun owners.

The Senate voted 38-2 on the bill (HB 315) this morning, with Democratic Sens. Ted Deutch of Boca Raton and Frederica Wilson of Miami the only hold-outs. The House earlier unanimously passed the measure.

Story here.

U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez:“I congratulate George LeMieux for being appointed by the governor to fill the remainder of my term. George is bright, capable, and an accomplished
administrator. My staff and I stand ready to ensure a smooth transition.”

Former House Speaker Marco Rubio, who is running against Crist in the GOP primary to replace Martinez: “This is a disappointing pick for Florida. George LeMieux is a talented political operative and the governor’s best friend, but that doesn’t make him the right choice to represent Florida in the Senate. Governor Crist had a wealth of consistent and principled conservative candidates to choose from, all of whom would have been a reliable check and balance on the excesses of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda.”

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate: “Governor Crist was afforded a high responsibility with this appointment. Instead, he treated this process like a mockery, politicizing his selection by flying around the state at taxpayers’ expense, touring major media markets and drawing this selection out. Well respected Floridians with a wealth of elected service experience from Congressman Clay Shaw to Mayor John Delaney to various Hispanic leaders were in a position to hit the ground running if appointed, but that possibility is now nonexistent.”

Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer: “Once again, Charlie Crist has demonstrated his commitment to serving Floridians, by appointing George LeMieux who is well qualified, a dedicated public servant, conservative Republican and an excellent choice!”

Progress Florida executive director Mark Ferrulo: “It’s shocking. We wonder why Gov. Crist didn’t just appoint himself if he was going to pick his former chief of staff and campaign ‘maestro’. “The so-called ‘People’s Governor’ has made clear through this appointment that he places personal loyalty and his own political benefit above the interests of Floridians.”

Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican running to replace Crist as governor: “I congratulate George LeMieux on his appointment as Florida’s U.S. Senator. I have known George for a long time, both as a friend and as a former Deputy Attorney General, a capacity in which he served this office
well. I wish him the best in serving the people of Florida in the U.S. Senate.”

Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Hari Sevugan: “With Florida’s economy in shambles, Charlie Crist could have selected a Senator who would be able to hit the ground running in Washington to tackle the problems that face Floridians. In appointing a political crony as a placeholder until he can run for Senate himself, Charlie Crist is using the Governorship to advance his own political ambitions rather than advancing the lives of the Floridians he was elected to serve.”

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Democrat from Boca Raton: “In short, George LeMieux will make an excellent Senator. I wish him great success and look forward to working with him in any way I can.”

Republican operative and political consultant Mac Stipanovich: “He was not the obvious choice.”

Marion Hammer, former NRA president who now lobbies for the same organization and the Unified Sportsmen of Florida: “The NRA and Unified Sportsmen of Florida are very pleased with Governor Crist’s appointment of George LeMieux as Florida’s new junior U.S. Senator. George is rated ‘A’ by the NRA and will be a strong supporter of the Second Amendment in the U.S. Senate. Gun owners can count on George LeMieux to fight to protect freedom and the Second Amendment.”

Florida Democratic Party spokesman Eric Jotkoff: “This is just one more example of the Republican leadership in Tallahassee putting cronyism and corruption above the people of our state. From Ray Sansom, to former lobbyist Bill McCollum, to George LeMieux, it is clear that we must stand together and pledge to end the Republican culture of cronyism and corruption in Tallahassee.”

Former U.S. Rep. Clay Shaw, who was a finalist on Crist’s list of possible Martinez replacements and for whom LeMieux once worked as an intern: “George is a very, very capable guy and I’m sure he’ll do a good job. He’s a quick study, he’s articulate, he’s very close to the governor. I think it’s a good choice.”

State Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, active with LeMieux in Broward County GOP politics since the mid-1990s: “He’s a smart guy, politically savvy, a hard worker. There’s nothing negative to say about George….He’s certainly smart enough to wade through the issues.”

Kirk Fordham, head of the Everglades Foundation: “George LeMieux is the right pick for Florida. He has a deep understanding of a wide range of regional issues that are unique to Florida. When it comes to protecting the people’s water supply and restoring the Everglades, we couldn’t ask for a better ally than we’ll have in Senator George LeMieux.”