Amid a series of legal battles, a Senate Republican on Wednesday filed a proposal that would put into state law a ban on school districts requiring students to wear masks.
The proposal (SB 452), filed by Sen. Keith Perry, R-Gainesville, also would bar cities and counties from requiring people to wear masks or undergo medical procedures or treatments. It came a day after the Florida Department of Health announced it had imposed a $3.57 million fine on Leon County for requiring government employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The bill is filed for consideration during the 2022 legislative session, which will start in January, and is in line with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ high-profile attempts to prevent mask and vaccination mandates.
The DeSantis administration has been embroiled in legal fights during the past two months in state, federal and administrative courts about whether schools should be able to require students to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
DeSantis issued an executive order July 30 aimed at preventing student mask mandates, and the state Department of Health followed by issuing rules to carry out the order. Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran and the State Board of Education also have pursued financial penalties against eight districts that have defied DeSantis.
Perry’s bill would give added force — and permanence — by putting the prohibition on school mask requirements into state law. It also would make void any school “policy, rule, code of conduct or order” requiring masks.
DeSantis contends that parents should be able to decide whether children wear masks, and his July 30 executive order was based, at least in part, on a law passed this year known as the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” The executive order appeared to anticipate that lawmakers could address the mask issue in the future.
“This (the executive order) does not prohibit the Florida Legislature from exploring legislation to further protect the fundamental rights of students and parents to be free from excessive, harmful regulation in schools,” the order said.
Perry is from Alachua County, where the school board has bucked DeSantis on the mask issue. The Alachua board, along with school boards in Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange, Duval and Leon counties, are challenging the latest version of the Department of Health rule in a case at the state Division of Administrative Hearings.
DeSantis’ effort to prevent school mask mandates also has been challenged by groups of parents in state and federal courts, including a case filed by parents of children with disabilities. Meanwhile, opponents of mask requirements have filed lawsuits against school districts.
While the DeSantis administration has targeted school-district mask requirements since summer, it more recently has sought to prevent local governments from requiring employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Perry’s bill does not specifically mention city and county COVID-19 vaccination requirements, but it would put into law that a “county or municipality, directly or indirectly, may not require that any citizen of the United States submit to any medical procedure or receive any medical treatment. Counties and municipalities may not condition citizens’ access to public property or services based on whether a citizen has submitted to any medical procedure or received any medical treatment.”
Also, it would prevent cities and counties from imposing mask requirements.
The Department of Health announced Tuesday that it had fined Leon County because 714 employees had been required to show proof of vaccination — with 14 people losing their jobs over the issue. The health department cited what is known as a “vaccine passport” ban that DeSantis signed into law in May.
Leon County Administrator Vince Long indicated that the county could challenge the legality of the fine.
“There is a genuine disagreement about the applicability of the (state vaccine passport) statute and rule, and the county will enforce its rights using any remedies available at law, if necessary,” Long said in a statement Tuesday.
With bills gradually being filed in advance of the 2022 session, the House does not have a proposal that is identical to Perry’s measure. But Rep. Anthony Sabatini, R-Howey-in-the-Hills, filed a bill (HB 75) last month that seeks to prevent government agencies from requiring masks and COVID-19 vaccinations.
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
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flatsflyer says
I expect the crazies to ban setbelts, CWP’s, compulsory education, red lights, speed limits and 1,000 plus other things that infringe on my personal freedom. DEATHSANTIS and and his charts will not be satisfied until hey end civilization.
bob says
flats you left out the crazies changing 3 strikes and 4 balls in baseball, 10 yard 1st downs in football, and tennis balls clearing the net on serves.
uncursed says
No vacc’d ID displayed on you , no mouth to mouth resuscitation if you need ME . Thank your Dr. Deathsantis .
marlee says
WHAT!??????
The GOP mission statement says:
……protecting constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms and protecting liberty and personal freedom.
HA!
So much for that.
A.j says
Vote the Repubs out of office.
Jimmy says
DeathSantis what are the statistics on how many innocent people he has killed under his watch? Whatever happened to his Oath of Office to PROTECT AND SERVE? Another Cult liar.
Mark says
Bunch of wierdo creeps
Ray W. says
Broad language! Can it be argued that the proposed statute can be interpreted as applying to all children’s vaccines as meeting the definition of a medical procedure or medical requirement? Tetanus? Rabies? Measles? Mumps? Rubella? Smallpox? Will this statute, if passed, upend 60 years of vaccination requirements prior to children attending school? Is this a new avenue of a potentially deadly strategy to retain and consolidate political power?
Pogo says
@Ray W.
I’ll choose yes.
@To Whom It May Concern:
Another elected Republican name plate — instead of anything useful
Keith Perry’s Biography
Office: State Senate (FL) – District 8, Republican
https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/biography/124227/keith-perry
Keith made it all the way through high school in preparation for running the world.
So what? Use the above styled web site to learn more about your elected representative(s), of any political party; and then look at their campaign sites too. Compare the two versions of their story.
https://justfacts.votesmart.org/
If you’re not dismayed by how many instances of attended, rather than graduated, some educational institution appears; by resumes that wouldn’t be competitive for dollar store assistant manager — you damn well ought to spend more time and effort when deciding on your vote — a matter of life and death.
Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don’t.
— Pete Seeger
Ray W. says
Great Pete Seeger reference! Thank you, Pogo. Reading the fine print can make every difference in the world, yet a significant segment of our society just cannot bring itself to read the fine print and we all are forced to gain unwanted experience as a result.
Reading, and the knowledge it can bring, can be important.
I am reminded of a story told by my son-in-law, an electrical engineer who works in the gas turbine electrical generation field. One day he talked of his early years spent in the field, ranging from Argentina to Canada; he wasn’t a team leader at the time. Sometimes, when a turbine fails or its time in service mandates a rebuild, it requires use of a huge crane to lift the frame of the turbine out of the facility. The consensus among the team leaders was to use a certain crane, based on a formula published in a company manual, with the formula providing data that required the use of a particular type of very expensive crane to lift a commonly used version of the company’s turbines, which also required significant lead time to preorder, so that the crane could be brought to the often remote worksite on time. If the wrong crane was ordered, it not only could fail to lift the frame, it could also collapse, damaging both a facility and a turbine, resulting in costs to facilities that had already cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. One night, he was rereading the company manual and spotted a footnote that described the need to use a different formula if an updated version of the turbine frame was to be removed from a worksite. The team was working with the updated version of the turbine frame. A completely different crane was needed to lift the newer version of the turbine frame, but none of the supervisors had realized the need to use the different formula, and the wrong crane had been ordered. Years later, my son-in-law now supervises all of the field teams of engineers that fan out across North and South America.
Double-checking the formulas can be important.
An argument can be made that my son-in-law got the original engineering job offer shortly after he approached me one evening with a question about a metallurgy problem. He was about to graduate from college and was working as an intern with a large engineering company, alongside a number of other interns; they all knew that only so many positions were available and some would not get hired. As we were discussing a theory in physics that explains the random and, therefore, uneven distribution of molecules of different metals in a compound, something the old-time motorcycle racer in me understands after having had to drill holes in metal fenders to stop the spread of stress cracks that form when front forks flex and vibrate under heavy braking and hard turning. The cracks develop at weak points in the compound metals caused by unequal distribution of metal molecules. We began discussing constant velocity (CV) carburetors commonly used in older British sports cars, a type of carburetor he had never heard of. I located a schematic online and discussed how that type of carburetor uses the vacuum created by the Venturi effect and we looked over and discussed every component of the carburetor. That weekend, all the interns were invited to attend a high-end antique car show in Orlando, where they could interact with the company’s upper management personnel. One of the managers spotted an exotic antique British sports car with its hood raised. Looking in the engine bay, he asked everyone present about the engine part with the large bell-shaped object on top of it. None of the other management engineers knew what it was, until my son-in-law commented that it was a CV carburetor. No one else in the group had heard of the term, so my son-in-law explained its inner workings. Two or three days later, he was offered a job with the company.
Understanding and sharing one’s knowledge of the scientific method can be important.
Another story centered on a vibration that sensors detected when a newly-rebuilt turbine at a Mexican facility was tested, necessitating a complete teardown of the turbine. At full speed, the outer edge of the spinning turbine vanes approach the speed of sound. In one of the hollow turbine vanes, the engineers found a number of coins (pesos) that caused the imbalance. The working theory was that one of the facility’s local engineers who had been hired by the facility’s owners to assist the American team in the rebuild had tossed in the coins, because those engineers were contract workers; therefore, they had a financial incentive to cause another teardown and inspection. The American team was scheduled to leave for another facility and had no financial incentive to throw in local coins, but no one knows who did it and there are multiple reasons why someone might sabotage a turbine rebuild.
Attempting to understand motives can be important.
There is also a story involving a shift change at a large complex located in a North American-based facility. As the engineering teams left the worksite to gather near the administration office to discuss problems that had been found with a dismantled natural gas turbine, another working turbine on the site exploded, killing a significant number of workers. I looked online to read about it, but could find absolutely nothing about the event. My youngest son, who works in the rail industry, tells me that derailments occasionally occur in remote areas that never make the news, sometimes with fatalities.
Transparency can be important.
Finally, pushing back against those who advocate gaining natural herd immunity by exposing millions of unvaccinated Americans to Covid-19 and treating those who become sick can be important. I understand that Fox News is already using Colin Powell’s death, reportedly from complications from Covid-19 despite his having been vaccinated, as proof that vaccines don’t work, even though Powell himself reported the existence of two different co-morbidities. Understanding the fine print allows one to know that a vaccine that is 95% effective means that it will be ineffective in 5% of the recipients, for whatever reason, be it co-morbidities, simple old age, a damaged or aging immune system, other reasons, or a combination of two or more of those reasons, but the gullible among us just don’t or won’t understand that.
Common sense can be important, but only if you accept that it is a process, which means you must exercise common sense for yourself. If you accept the idea that common sense is a result, then someone else can tell you what it is, without you ever having to go through the process.
Blind trust in the words or silences of politicians who would sacrifice a small percentage of us for political gain can be disastrous for all.
Pogo says
@Ray W.
Thank you. You enlighten, expand, and improve the comment section. Always.
It strikes me that many of the “regulars” here read little other than bumper stickers, titles of reports (but not the reports), headlines, etc.. And irony, of course, is lost on the lemmings following each other to destruction. They are, every one of them, very special — just like everyone else…
The bills for decades of lazy ignorance and the arrogant criminality of reactionary robber barons manufacturing consent, e.g., big tobacco’s playbook; that playbook recycled by big oil, big food, et. al. are indeed coming due. The reckoning will be terrible.
The years teach much which the days never know.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
https://www.google.com/search?d&q=Ralph+Waldo+Emerson
Timothy Patrick Welch says
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Benjamin Franklin
Live Free, Love much
Mike Cocchiola says
So… Biden’s vaccine mandate represents government overreach but Florida’s anti-mandate mandate isn’t. Republicans make no sense.
Timothy Patrick Welch says
State powers are those required for health, welfare and public safety.
Federal powers are those required to levy taxes, regulate commerce, Federal courts, and common defense.
Ray W. says
Funny! Our Declaration of Independence, marking the beginning of a fledging national government by confederation, described the importance of preserving the ability of all citizens to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those intending to establish our then-fledging national government appear to have intended to delegate to it the power to enact legislation preserving the health, welfare and public safety of all American citizens. I am not convinced by Timothy Patrick Welch’s claim, but I think I can see where he is coming from. When you live in a perfect or bad world, there are only two options. When you live in a good/better/best-bad/worse/worst world, you have many more options. One of my many mentors, Judge Uriel Blount, often commented both in court and in chambers, as follows: I am often wrong, but never in doubt. He referred to himself as “Often Wrong Blount.” Wise words from a judge who knew that judicial powers were constantly changing in ways that he could not predict, yet he had to rule on what he knew and understood at the time.
Let’s get down to the basics. A constitutional framework incorporating checks and balances on all powers delegated to federal, state, county and municipal governments, with multiple executive, legislative and judicial branches, anticipates that each form of government will attempt to preserve and expand its delegated powers and all other branches will push back in an effort to preserve their own delegated powers and limit powers exercised by other branches of government. Out of this constantly changing flux of powers comes a working liberal democratic Constitutional republic, at least thus far. I suppose the static form of government that Timothy Patrick Welch appears to advocate might work, only no one has ever implemented such a static form of government in American history. Remember, the most important lesson a law student can ever learn is that the law is what a judge says it is on the day he or she says it, and don’t ever forget it. Particularly whenever federal courts rule in ways that bind state courts. Some might call it equal protection under the law. Others might argue substantive due process. Some might argue both concepts. Timothy Patrick Welch gets to argue the extent of delegated governmental powers. He never gets to decide the extent of delegated governmental powers. There is a huge difference between the two positions.
As an aside, state executive orders nullifying federal laws haven’t worked in over a century, but some people keep trying to resurrect nullification as a legal strategy. Oy vey!
Timothy Patrick Welch says
The wish of a President or Governor put forth by executive order is not law. Laws are created only by the legislature. This prevents abuse of power. Yes an executive order of a state should should overrule the wish/recommendation of the Federal government.
capt says
As a born resident of Fla of 72 years I find the total republican BS of late just plain pathetic and downright lame. It’s amazing that most of these “jerks in the house and senate of Fla are running for or will be up in a few years for re-election and are following or kissing the Death Whisper DeSantis butt in an attempt to get votes. Hopefully, the people in this state are not stupid enough to re-elect these jerks back in for another term, including the Death Whisper himself.
marlee says
to capt says…..
GRRReat name for Deathsantis!
“Death Whisper DeSantis”