State senate bill would require bloggers critical of state legislators, governor to register with state
A controversial bill introduced by Florida State Sen. Jason Brodeu, R-10, is garnering national attention for proposing that all bloggers who criticize state legislators or the governor’s office would have to register their blog with the state and submit monthly reports or face fines and legal action.
The measure brought enough attention that even former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took to Twitter to denounce the bill.
“The idea that bloggers criticizing a politician should register with the government is insane,” Gingrich stated. “It is an embarrassment that it is a Republican state legislator in Florida who introduced a bill to that effect. He should withdraw it immediately.”
Under the nine-page bill (Florida Senate Bill 1316) proposed by the Seminole County Republican, bloggers critical of state legislators and the governor would have to register with the state “Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics, as applicable, within a specified timeframe.”
Bloggers, defined as those who publish opinions on websites that are not newspapers websites, would be required to file monthly reports to the state or face fines.
If a blogger writes about a state elected officer and receives compensation for the post, the bill requires that the blogger register with “the appropriate office” and “file monthly reports” with the state.
If the blog post concerns an elected member of the state legislature or an officer of the governor’s executive branch, the report must include the individual or entity that compensated the blogger for the blog post, the amount of compensation received from the individual or entity, regardless of how the compensation was structured and the dates of compensation, the web address for the blog and the date of the blog posts.
The law would empower a magistrate to issue fines of $25 per day per report for each day late, not to exceed $2,500 per report.
If the report in question relates to a post about a member of the Legislature, the report would need to be filed with the Legislative Lobbyist Registration Trust Fund. If the report in question relates to a post about a member of the executive branch, the report would be required to be filed with the Executive Branch Lobby Registration Trust Fund.
Jeremy Redfern, deputy press secretary for Gov. Ron DeSantis, said in an email “We saw it when the news broke, and our (communications) office is reviewing the bill. Legislation is derived from the legislature, and in recent years, over 3,000 bills are filed each year in Florida. As usual, the governor will consider the merits of a bill in final form if and when it passes the legislature.”
A message left with Brodeur seeking comment was not returned.
Brodeur, of Sanford, represents a district outside of Orlando that covers all of Seminole County and a part of Orange County. In a Twitter post Sunday, he stated “Do you want to know the truth about the so-called ‘blogger’ bill? It brings the current pay-to-play scheme to light and gives voters clarity as to who is influencing their elected officials, just like how we treat lobbyists. It’s an electioneering issue, not a free speech issue.”
The bill has been derided online for threatening free speech and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Some have compared it to a similar law which went into effect in Russia under Vladimir Putin in 2019.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-37, who represents parts of Broward County and Miami-Dade County, said Monday that the bill is “a perfect example of going too far and not having sensical kind of ideas.”
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