2010-2011

The Florida State Public Affairs Committee (SPAC) was very busy in 2010-2011 with three legislative priorities: Foster Care, Cybercrimes and Booster Seat Legislation. Delegates narrowed their focus and developed a signature statement of “Protecting Florida’s Children”. Delegates interacted with every State Senator and State Representative to develop relationships and educate them on our legislative priorities.

Booster Seat Legislation

Due in part to herculean efforts on the part of our delegates all over the state and their efforts within their own leagues, we had great success furthering our mission of having children in booster seats after the age of 3. The first house bill ended up with 75 co-sponsors (amazing!) and when that bill died in a committee that was headed by an opponent of this bill, it was then added to a transportation bill in the Senate which went back and forth before dying at 3 am amongst much political rallying on the final night of session.

Based on the current climate in our state capitol, we are VERY proud to have had such a successfully positive influence with this issue in Tallahassee and continue education and advocacy at our local League levels.

Foster Care

All states receive federal dollars to be used to help pay for children currently in the foster care system. Florida was granted a ‘waiver’ to allow these dollars to also be used to help prevent children from actually entering the system in the first place. This is referred to as the Title IV Waiver, and has been an incredibly successful program.

This year, we helped educate our elected officials about the importance of this money and the success of the program, and this program is successfully continuing. We also worked to increase the age of children in the foster care system to 21, and legislation permitting that went a long way this session, but did not ultimately pass. We also worked to educate our legislators as to current abuses in the foster care system and how potentially those could be alleviated.

Cybercrimes

SPAC worked with Senator Benacquisto and Senator Bogdanoff to support bills that they had related to sexual images of children online and issues pertaining to cyberbullying. Unfortunately, those particular bills did not pass this year, but another bill that we supported regarding ‘sexting’ (lessening the crime of sending naked pictures across cell phones for children under the age of 18) did pass and is awaiting the signature of our Governor.

Interested in finding out more? Visit: www.jlflspac.org