CALL TO ACTION ON: SENATE BILL 512 – VACATION RENTALS and HOUSE BILL 325 – VACATION RENTALS
BACKGROUND
CS/SB 512: Vacation Rentals
GENERAL BILL by Community Affairs; Burgess
Effective Date: Except as otherwise expressly provided in this act, this act shall take effect upon becoming a law
Last Action: 2/4/2022 Senate – Now in Appropriations
CS/HB 325: Vacation Rentals
GENERAL BILL by Regulatory Reform Subcommittee; Fischer; (CO-INTRODUCERS) Morales
Effective Date: upon becoming a law
Last Action: 2/1/2022 House – Now in Ways & Means Committee
Both SB 512 and HB 325: Summary of Vacation Rentals
Vacation Rentals; changes to regulate advertising & remit taxes for certain transactions; revises certain regulated activities of public lodging establishments & public food service establishments preempted to state; changes definition of “temporary residence” for sexual predator or offender registration requirements. (Amends s. 775.21 F. S.)
ISSUE RELATED TO REGISTRANTS – CHANGE IN REQUIREMENT
The bill amends s. 775.21, F.S., to require a sexual offender or predator to register at the local sheriff’s office no later than 5:00 p.m., 24 hours after establishing a temporary residence in a vacation rental. Under current law, a sexual offender or predator must register at the local sheriff’s office no later than 5:00 p.m., 48 hours after establishing a temporary residence in a vacation rental.
WHAT TO DO
Take action today and call members of the senate and the house and ask them to delete the language related to s. 775.21 The Florida Sexual Predators Act. This bill has already been passed through several committees with approval. SB 512 has passed Regulated Industries and Community Affairs. It is now in Appropriations. HB 325 is now in Ways & Means Committee and referred to Commerce Committee. These two bills are moving quickly with few chances left to make changes in committees. You can contact members of the committees remaining to review as well as contact as many senators and house members as possible to request they vote no on these bills.
WHO TO CALL
- https://floridaactioncommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2020-2022-Bill_Committees.pdf
- https://floridaactioncommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2020-2022r_FL_SENATE.pdf
- https://floridaactioncommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2020-2022r_FL_House.pdf
WHAT TO SAY
State your name and let them know if you are a constituent (or supporter) for any of the legislators.
(Reminder: If you are a person or family member of a person required to register, it is not relevant and no need to state it).
Tell them:
I strongly ask you to vote No on this bill (if passed all committees.) (If still in committee,) I strongly ask to you remove the portion that deals with s. 775.21 The Florida Sexual Predators Act regarding a temporary residence.
I find no justification for this change based on any research. What is the purpose of amending the definition of “temporary residence” to include a vacation rental where a person lodges for 24 hours or more rather than the current 48 hours?
As a citizen of this state, I am appalled over the constant search for ways to apparently continue to restrict those with sexual convictions in their past. Every legislative session they continue to lose their rights even though they have completed their sentences of incarceration and are continuing to follow all the onerous requirements and restrictions mandated by the state for life.
The shortened time for required registration may make it impossible for registered citizens to comply if they check-in on a weekend when the local sheriff’s office is closed. This could lead to further incarceration or punishment for failing to comply. To avoid this, the registered citizen may choose not to travel and therefore are not free to live their lives because of these unnecessary restrictions.
This change and additional restriction borders on punishment. Let me remind you punishment is not supposed to be the intent of the registry and its requirements. That would be unconstitutional. Are you promoting Florida to purposely violate both the US constitution and the Florida constitution?
According to the FDLE this change will lead to a “substantial increase” in the number of sexual predators and offenders required to complete a registration. This will potentially increase the workload of the FDLE and require programming changes to FDLE’s technology systems and incur increased costs.” This money would be better spent on prevention programs to protect our children as we know from studies that 90% of new sexual offenses are committed by people who are not on the Registry list.
This amounts to an unfunded mandate because the money for the additional expense will be required from local county governments.
Governor DeSantis stated in the State of the State Address that “we will protect the rights of individuals to live their lives free from the yoke of restrictions and mandates.” I assume this means all citizens of the state or does it mean “all except”. This bill will add more restrictions to registered citizens to live their lives free after having fulfilled their obligations to the state.
If this act shall take effect upon becoming a law, it does not allow time to educate the registrants of the new requirements nor for the local Sheriffs’ offices to implement the necessary changes to their procedures.
CALLING AFTER HOURS.
State your name, phone number, and whether you are a constituent (or a supporter).
Then state your message; be respectful, clear and concise. “I am calling about Senate Bill 512 or House Bill 325 for Vacation Rentals.” Pick one or two talking points to emphasize.
Does the bill change definition of temp residence generally, or only as applied to vacation rentals?
Do hotels and motels fall under the definition of vacation rentals?
(We sometimes evacuate to a hotel during an emergency).
Does it mean we’ll have 2 separate definitions of temp residence, depending on the type of housing?
I need help on answering To Clarify from our FAC members who are legislative scholars and have studied the bill.
Legislative Committee? Any expertise on this question?
Didn’t a similar bill get defeated a few years ago? Talk about finding dumpster bills when all they do is recycle garbage.
I can get a number of family and friends to express their opposition, if only to get our opposition numbers up.
But not from this Call to Action, which requires a busy layperson to plow through the weeds in order to figure out what to do. I’d explain it to them but am having trouble figuring it out myself.
Don’t get me wrong; this is an excellent Call to Action for the dedicated volunteer grassroots activist.
So, what is the dumbed-down version of this Call to Action, allowing the busy non-registrant to register their opposition in just a few minutes?
Last year, for example, I was able to send my people, appearance waiver cards, with the instruction, “fill this out, return it to me, and we’ll get it to the committee.”
I realize at this stage that we’re trying to prevent the need for appearance waivers in the first place. What can the general public do at this moment to register their opposition and get back to work?
Same question for both Calls to Action. If I forward either of them to our supporters as written, they’ll reply, “I’m too busy to figure this out.”
SB 1932 (changing definition of a day and including FDLE in hearings to be removed from registry) : Contact members of Senate Criminal Justice Committee
SB 512 (vacation rental bill): Contact members of Senate Appropriations Committee
HB 325 (vacation rental bill): Contact members of House Ways & Means Committee
See chart at our website: top black bar, click on 2022 Legislation
Please focus on members of the NEXT committee to review the bill.
Not subsequent committees (yet) or non-members.
The first priority is to prevent this language from making it out of committee.
Once the language makes it through all committees and is scheduled for a floor vote, you can still ask your representative to vote no on the floor, but by then it may be too late.
I’m more than willing to be proven wrong here, but I’m pretty sure this is how it works.
My own senator is on the next committee that this is to go before (Appropriations).
His Tallahassee (legislative) office picked the phone right up, confirmed that this bill is on the agenda for Appropriations, though with no particular hearing date set yet. They promised to pass onto him my request that the language opposed by FDLE be struck (my senator is generally a big believer in law and order). Nicest people. Hopefully he gets more messages like this.
By the way, if you call your representative about a bill, call their Tallahassee office, rather than their district office, which fulfills a different function.
This bill (SB 512) has already gone through the Senate Regulated Industries Committee and the Senate Community Affairs Committee and is sitting in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
So the Senate Appropriations Committee is the one we should be contacting now.
HB 325 passed the House Regulatory Reform Subcommittee and is not in the House Ways & Means Committee. So the later committee is the one we should be contacting.
Should have said “is NOW in the House Ways & Means Committee” and “the LATTER committee is the one we should be contacting — House Ways & Means Committee.”
Thank you, Media, for helping us to focus and prioritize.
Suggest successive individual Calls to Action, by committee, until bill is dead.
I agree!
Why doesn’t FAC put all of there talking points that are in these “Calls-to-Action in a published open letter in all if the major Florida newpapers. This tactic will expose the ridiculousness of such restrictive enhancements. The public will then see that thier representatives are coming up with arbitrary and needless revisions that will undoubtedly cost taxpayer money without any data to support said revisions and additions. So let’s not only fight behind the scenes but in the sunshine as well.
We have tried in the past. Media will not publish anything unless it is a story that “sells”.
Why wouldn’t this “sell”…
Arbitrary needless additions and revisions without any actuarial data to support will cost taxpayers more on an already ineffective law.
There us your title for the open letter!
Why not simply send that information directly to committee members before they vote?
If you ARE a Registered Person, I think you NEED to state it unless you just fear backlash. The more who are BOLD enough to put their name to their words, the more likely folks recognize they are dealing with REAL people.
So many registry offices are open Monday – Friday 9 -4 pm. So you arrive at 5 Pm to your destination then check out on Monday at 8am. No time to register but now you have violated probation, um I mean the registry like probation. Now you are screwed.
Where I registered in Florida did registration sweepstakes on M, W, F from 1-4; so how is that even close to 40 hrs opportunities to give them your information. Can’t imagine the chaos for both law encroachment and registrants.
Does my opposition from out of state have any influence or would it be like spitting in the wind?
Here’s the letter I just sent to my State Senators here in Northeast Florida. This may be a good form letter for others to use.
Subject: STOP Senate Bill 512 – NO to Registration of One Day Stays at Vacation Rental Properties!
Greetings Senator Bean,
As a voting constituent of yours, I am demanding you oppose Senate Bill 512 that will require Sex Offenders to register short term stays at vacation rental properties.
Why?
ZERO EVIDENCE this will enhance pubic safety.
It will single out and publicly broadcast vacation rental property addresses on the FDLE website and INVOLVE PRIVATE PROPERTY & BUISNESS OWNERS in a government smear campaign.
It will COST the State of Florida a lot money to implement and maintain.
It will expose the State of Florida to even more LITIGATION proceedings on these registry issues than there already are.
It’s yet another form of unwarranted and unending PUNISHMENT on registrants, their families, friends and in this case private property & business owners.
Please do the right thing and fight against these ever expanding, vague, costly, demeaning and unproductive government regulations!
Yours Truly,
Douglas
Please Note: In the actual email I included my full name, mailing address and phone number.
Thank you.
I’ll do what I can as an honorary FloriDUH resident.
And in related news, Lauren’s Kids, now operating under the moniker “Safer, Smarter Schools,” is likely going to get 2 MILLION in taxpayer funds this year:
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/3955
If this bill becomes law vacation rentals will just ban registrants and their families; which could impact Florida’s tourism. How many registrants and their families will just say hell to Florida even if it’s for a cruise. Last time I checked tourism is the largest sector of Florida’s economy, so why would they want to screw that up. Does anyone do research before proposing a bill or do they look in their crystal ball for votes.
Do you really think they are looking at it from that perspective? They are thinking that so many more people will come to florida believing they are safer in vacation rentals.
FAC 3
I know they aren’t thinking from that perspective otherwise this bill wouldn’t be in the works. Just be nice if they thought about things from a different perspective for a change instead of the how can we make their lives more harsh. Honestly its exhausting, frustrated, and gets the blood boiling.
FAC
I agree but on a different view. Even with the amount of registered people in Florida, even if we were allowed, maybe in my opinion, 10% would book a rental. Keep in mind a large portion of those on the registry are not even living in Florida.
And as soon as a rental is posted I have seen people here lately on the news say they offered someone twice the asking price and still got outbid. The only thing they would miss from us if we all moved away would be the funding for the registry, and apparently they get that anyway due to all the names on it who do not even live here.
I don’t think anyone wants their home or business marked. Vacation homes, hotels etc
I would expect a strong pushback from the the vacation and hotel lobbyists
Does this legislation affect hotels? Curious that no one here seems to know.
Most of us stay in hotels at one time or another. Including, during hurricane evacuations.
Anonymous
What is more likely to happen is when they start having their places listed as a frequent place that Sex offenders (Those on the registry) stay or lodge at, they might start doing registry searches and banning us all together.
Very easy to do, just cancel your reservations like it never existed. And for good measure maybe keep our money just to smear it in our faces. “Ain’t no sex perverts staying in my rental home declares the owner!”.