TALLAHASSEE
A bill that has the potential to save the lives of Floridians who overdose on drugs nearly died in the final chaos of the 2015 session.
The measure (HB 751) cleared the House floor in a 118-1 vote at 1:01 p.m. on April 28 – 14 minutes before House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, abruptly ended the House’s regular session, effectively killing scores of other bills that were moving between the House and Senate in the final week of the annual session.
Crisafulli ended the House action three days before the scheduled end of the session because of a deep dispute with the Senate over the state budget and the expansion of Medicaid. The Supreme Court later ruled the House’s early adjournment violated the state constitution.
One of the survivors of the final minutes of the House’s action was a bill filed by a freshman lawmaker, Rep. Julio Gonzalez, R-Venice, that will increase the availability of a medical antidote that can reverse drug overdoses if used quickly.
State Rep. Julio Gonzalez
such as police officers and EMTs, as well as family members and others who know Floridians who are struggling with drug addiction. More than 2,500 Floridians died from opioid overdoses in 2013.
As of midday Friday, Gov. Rick Scott had not received the bill, but he is expected to sign it once it reaches his desk.
The bill’s dramatic passage in the waning minutes of the session was one of several legislative lessons for Gonzalez, an orthopedic surgeon elected to the House last November who was participating in his first session as a lawmaker.
The bill initially cleared the House floor in a 113-0 vote on April 16. But as the bill moved to the Senate, Gonzalez said the Florida Justice Association, a trial lawyer lobbying group, raised questions about the level of liability protection being given to doctors, pharmacists and others who would be involved with the antidote.
He told the trial lawyers and the Florida Medical Association, which lobbies for the doctors, to work out a resolution on the liability issue.
Gonzalez said the back-and-forth negotiations that occur on most major bills was another lesson he learned in his first session. Gonzalez said once you file a bill’s language “all of sudden you go from a guy who has an idea to being a broker, because the next thing you know you have people descending upon on you from places that you had no idea were going to have an interest in the issue.”
Gonzalez said he saw his role as working between the competing interests to resolve the differences to keep the legislation moving forward.
On his antidote bill, the trial lawyers and doctors reached an agreement. “Believe it or not, they talked to each and they came to a consensus,” Gonzalez said. He told them to amend the bill while it was in the Senate and he would support the provision when it returned to the House.
Late in the next to last week of the session, Gonzalez said rumors began to circulate that the House was preparing for an early adjournment. But on Friday, April 24, Gonzalez said the talk seemed to be more rumor than fact and the Senate amended the bill, with the liability language compromise, meaning the bill would have to return to the House.
GonXalez said Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, had felt strongly enough about the importance of the legislation that he was prepared to reject the amendment and simply pass the bill out of the Senate to the governor _ if that is what it took to save the bill.
But at that point, it didn’t seem necessary. And on Monday, the final week of the session, the Senate voted 39-0 for the amended bill, sending back to the House that evening.
With a little more than an hour left in the session – a fact known only to handful of House leaders – Gonzalez’s bill was added to a list of bills coming from the Senate – technically known as “messages” – that would be taken up on the House floor early Tuesday afternoon.
At 1:01 p.m., the House gave its final approval to Gonzalez’s bill. At 1:15 p.m., the House was finished.
“Then the next thing you know within a few minutes of it passing … the whole thing ended. I was shocked as to how close we came to the buzzer on that,” Gonzalez said. “I sat back and went: ‘Wow.’”
WINNER OF THE WEEK: Citizen safety. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported that Florida’s annual crime rate is the lowest it has been in 44 years. Based on data through 2014, the FDLE said the crime rate fell 4.9 percent last year compared to 2013 to reach the new low. Overall, violent crimes dropped 0.7 percent while nonviolent crime fell 4.1 percent.
LOSER OF THE WEEK: Florida Democrats. While the Democrats have struggled in recent political races, one bright spot has been their ability to win big city mayoral campaigns. But that trend was reversed this week when former state Republican Party Chairman Lenny Curry ousted Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown in a city election. Republicans say the Jacksonville victory may bode well for the party in the upcoming presidential race _ where the GOP has struggled in the last two elections _ while Democrats downplayed the long term significance of the loss.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “There is absolutely no free money out there,” Gov. Rick Scott told the inaugural meeting of his Commission on Healthcare and Hospital Funding, a panel set up to look into taxpayer financing of hospitals, health maintenance organizations and other facilities.
