An advocate for legislation that would have banned drivers from operating a motor vehicle while using a cellphone lashed out at a state legislator on Wednesday, claiming that she prevented the measure from advancing in the Florida House of Representatives and potentially becoming state law earlier this year.
Tallahassee resident Demetrius Branca’s 19-year-old son Anthony died in 2014 when a distracted driver hit him as he rode his motorcycle to Tallahassee State College. In the past few years, he’s personally lobbied local governments and state lawmakers up and down Florida to pass legislation enhancing the state’s ban on texting while driving to get a “hands-free” distracted driving measure into law.
In 2023, distracted driving resulted in the deaths of 3,275 people, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which reported that “texting is the most alarming distraction.”
In the 2025 regular legislative session, a hands-free driving bill sponsored by Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, was approved in that chamber, 37-9. But its House companion (HB 501) sponsored by Rep. Allison Tant (D-Tallahassee) never moved at all.
The bill was placed in two House committees: the Government Operations Subcommittee, chaired by Pinellas County Republican Linda Chaney, and State Affairs, chaired by Manatee County Republican Will Robinson. Neither lawmaker allowed the bill to come before their committees.
Appearing during the Pinellas County legislative delegation meeting on Wednesday, an angry Branca called out Chaney, who sat with her colleagues on a stage at St. Petersburg College’s Clearwater campus.
“You stopped it cold,” he said to her. “After all the work, all the testimony, all the grieving parents who begged you to act. You chose to not let it through. That was not leadership, that was political cowardice and I’m standing here to look you in the eye and tell you to your face.”
Chaney did not comment at the time. She left the meeting about a half-hour before it concluded and did not respond to a request for comment by a Phoenix reporter later in the day.
A year ago, Branca made equally critical remarks to Pinellas County Republican Sen. Nick DiCeglie following a similar legislative standoff. During the 2024 session, Tant’s hands-free driving bill won approval in all three of its committees in that chamber, but a companion bill in the Senate was never heard.
The chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee that year was DiCeglie, and Branca chastised him publicly at the Pinellas County legislative delegation meeting in January for not allowing the bill to advance. The two engaged in a sharp exchange after the event.
But in a Senate committee meeting this April, DiCeglie told Branca that after taking the emotion out of it, he supported the legislation.
“I looked at the statistics,” he said. “I looked at the data, and I looked at what 31 other states did. And I thought of you and I thought of your son, Anthony.”
“I’m proud that you’re standing here in front of us today telling your story,” DiCeglie added. “That has translated into what I believe is good public policy, and I think that’s going to translate into saving lives. And regardless of what happens this point forward, I think that you can look yourself in the mirror and know that you did what was right in your heart.”
A hands-free driving law went into effect in South Carolina on Sept. 1. That makes 33 states in the U.S. that have passed such legislation.
Whether the bill moves in the 2026 Florida legislative session remains to be seen.
“Support the hands-free law,” Branca said in closing. “Bring it back. Pass it. Save lives. Anthony should still be here. I couldn’t save him. You can save the next. Will you?”
–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
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