Cities Reinforce Collective Strength

Relationships prove to be pivotal in an unusual session

by Casey Cook, Florida League of Cities

From a process standpoint, this session was the most unusual one in Florida’s history. Access to the Capitol and committee rooms was limited due to COVID-19 restrictions. Meeting with legislators was restricted in the Senate and only allowed by appointment in the House. To testify about a bill, you had to speak to a screen at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center several blocks from the Capitol; in essence, it was a virtual meeting.

While the challenges of this session made the job of a lobbyist much harder, it reinforced how important our members are to protecting Home Rule. Your voices are what drives change, which was proven more this year than any other. (Read how cities continued to make their voices heard this session in the Advocacy in Action feature on p. 46.)

LEGISLATIVE RECAP

The 2021 Legislative Session was highlighted by a major triumph for Florida’s cities with Governor Ron DeSantis signing into law Senate bill 50 on sales tax fairness, a Florida League of Cities legislative priority that levels the playing field for local businesses in our communities with their online competitors. This change will help ensure that money spent by Floridians stays in our state and supports our businesses, retains jobs and strengthens our municipalities.

This session proved that you don’t necessarily have to kill a bill to be successful in protecting Home Rule. While session began with another round of proposed preemptions that threatened Home Rule and your city’s ability to make decisions locally, some of the bills that passed were significantly watered down from their original proposals. For example, the League worked with various stakeholders to minimize the original building design preemption. The bill, which passed both chambers, now allows cities to continue applying design standards through planned unit developments or an architectural or design review board if the city has one. Although it seemed like the odds were stacked against us initially, member and citizen advocacy efforts alongside our lobbying team helped significantly reduce the impact of harmful legislation affecting municipal government.

While many preemption bills were diluted in their impact on municipalities, others were also successfully killed, thanks to your help. A bill preempting vacation rentals was shut down for another year. The original bill would have preempted all regulations of vacation rentals to the state, including the inspection and licensing of vacation rentals. The League worked with various stakeholders to amend the bill throughout session to narrow the preemption, but it was your overwhelming impact on key legislative decision-makers via phone calls, emails, letters and social media posts that ultimately helped turn the tide on this issue. The Senate and House companion bills died in their committees.

Casey Cook, Florida League of Cities director of legislative affairs, speaks at the post-session webinar.

Together, we made a significant difference this session. Relationships, such as getting to know your legislators and making sure they know your city well, were much of what led to our success. But this effort is a year-round one that doesn’t just end with sine die.

WHAT’S NEXT

To continue our success with protecting Home Rule, I encourage you to keep up your advocacy post-session. Have candid conversations with legislators to discuss how they voted, and publicly thank the legislators who helped your city. Invite legislators to speak at council meetings and regional league events, attend local budget hearings and tour essential facilities such as your community redevelopment agency or wastewater plant.

These advocacy efforts will be crucial as we prepare for the next session and face many of the same issues, particularly with an early session ahead. The 2022 Legislative Session will start on January 11. The FLC Legislative Policy Committees will begin meeting in June to set the legislative agenda for the League and Florida’s 411 municipalities.

Education is one of our best tools for ensuring local voices continue to make local choices. Many individuals in the legislative process have never served locally, so they don’t understand or appreciate the role of local government. Part of our job is to educate our local legislators on this role and the concept of local decision-making, and summertime is the best time to do that.

Establish credibility and build relationships with your state leaders to help them better understand local government and potentially prevent preemption before it’s even proposed. These relationships with your state lawmakers are critical to our cause. This is all about building a base of supporters and defenders of Home Rule, but to do this, they must understand what we’re fighting for.

Casey Cook is the director of legislative affairs for the Florida League of Cities.

FLC HOLDS LEGISLATIVE ACTION WEEK

The Florida League of Cities held its first-ever Virtual Legislative Action Week during week three of the 2021 Legislative Session, March 15-19. While this week looked different than previous years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the League had a full schedule of events.

The week kicked off with a Monday morning Legislative Briefing. Members heard from the FLC lobbying team about major bills and messages that needed to be shared with legislators. That afternoon, a virtual welcome for newly elected officials and staff provided an overview of FLC services and advocacy training. On Tuesday evening, League members from around the state met online for a networking social hour.

Steven J. Vancore, president at VancoreJones Communications (clockwise from upper left), League Second Vice President Jolien Caraballo and League President Tony Ortiz spoke to participants.

Wednesday and Thursday were centered around advocacy. While the FLC Advocacy Committee meets regularly during session to bolster the League’s advocacy efforts, registrants of Legislative Action Week were invited to join in the discussion and learn how meetings with legislators were going and what steps were needed to assist the FLC lobbying team.

Building Stronger Cities Through Effective Advocacy was a two-part webinar focused on President Tony Ortiz’s Building Stronger Cities priority, followed by a discussion with Second Vice President Jolien Caraballo on how to hold an effective meeting with your legislator. (For more on Ortiz’s priority, see p. 38.)

Virtual Legislative Action Week concluded with a live webinar version of On Tap at the Cap with the FLC lobbying team. The webinar provided an update on bills that moved that week at the Capitol, what to look out for the rest of session and where to focus advocacy efforts.

All of the week’s events had significant turnout and great discussion. Thank you for participating in Virtual Legislative Action Week and for your ongoing advocacy efforts.