2023 Legislative Priorities of the League of Women Voters of Florida

Learn about our specific legislative goals pertaining to our areas of focus

2023 Legislative Priorities

The League is a grassroots organization and as such, we focus on the issues that our members care the most about. Each year, our membership is polled to see which issues are most important to them at the current point in time. Every local League is given the opportunity to submit priorities. After tabulating each local League’s submissions, the top four areas become priorities for the annual state legislative session. If a particular issue has not made it into the allocated legislative priority spots, it does not mean the issue is not monitored or acted upon by our state League.

Voting Rights & Election Reform

Remove the voter suppression elements from SB90
Shorten the time between book closing date and an election to ten days
Support automatic registration (opt-out system), same-day voter registration, and improved online voter registration
Support automatic restoration of voting rights for former felony offenders after completion of sentence excluding any additional fines or liens not ordered by the sentencing judge. Amendment 4 excludes persons convicted of murder or felony sex offenders.
Support notifying voters if their Vote-By-Mail ballot has been accepted or rejected and provide a remedy for ensuring the vote of those whose ballots have been rejected.
Support the election of the President and Vice president by direct popular vote. Support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Support state funding of return postage for Vote-By-Mail ballots in all counties when Congressional and Florida legislative offices are on the ballot.

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Education

Promote adequate and equitable funding of public education and oppose use of public funding for the expansion of funding of private education, including through voucher program
Support a curricular framework that has broad common standards developed by educational experts that serves as a guide to local districts, including the historic mandates to teach Holocaust, antisemitism and African American History, and associated messages of tolerance and understanding, and the new standard to teach civics.
Support legislation that would require charter school contracts to stipulate how capital outlay funding and the assets they purchase will be recouped by the school district if the charter school should close or if the building is sold
Support any legislation that promotes diversity and nondiscrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, nationality, and ability status in all publicly funded schools. Oppose any legislation that aims to give tax dollars to private schools that discriminate (in policy or in practice) based on those criteria.

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Reproductive Health & Justice

Defend against passage of any Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (“TRAP”) laws singling out the medical practices of doctors who provide abortions and impose on them requirements that are different and more burdensome than those imposed on other medical practices.
Defend against further taxpayer funding of anti-abortion women’s health centers (also known as crisis pregnancy centers)
Defend against passage of any barriers to abortion access, including: gestational limits, limitations on types of procedures in abortion provision, expansion of state-mandated counseling, waiting periods, or parental involvement with minors seeking abortion care, and efforts to remove abortion access protections from the Florida Constitution

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Environment & Natural Resources

Support legislation focused on improving water quality
Support resiliency and adaptation to Integrative Climate Change and Sea Level Rise
Support funding for completing Everglades Agricultural Area and Florida Forever
Support expanded solar and a elective vehicle network of charging stations.
Protect our natural springs from nutrient runoff and unsuitable uses. (i.e., commercially bottled water).
Promote resource conservation, stewardship and long-range planning, with the responsibility for managing natural resources shared by all levels of government.
Support the preparation and implementation of a new state growth management plan that addresses current needs.
Support intergovernmental stewardship of and fiscal responsibility for the Florida coast, under the management of the state, while recognizing the dominance of nature and the role of the sand transport system.