The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, legal and advocacy 501(c)(4) organization and freedom's watchdog in the Sunshine State.
Florida's 2020 legislative session begins January 14, 2020, and ends sixty-days later March 13, 2020. During this legislative session, we will work on a broad range of issues including, but not limited to: criminal justice, free speech, reproductive freedom, immigrants’ rights, and LGBTQ+ rights.
The ACLU of Florida is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to protecting and strengthening the civil rights and liberties of all Floridians. As a nonprofit membership organization with over 130,000 members and supporters in Florida and more than 1.6 million supporters nationwide, we advance this mission through litigation, advocacy, and education. Visit our webpage to read about our 2020 legislative priorities.
Do you want to help protect civil rights and civil liberties in Florida? You can also check out our Legislative Advocacy Toolkit, sign up to receive email updates and action alerts, volunteer with us, and return to this web page regularly to stay up to date on our legislative priorities in 2020.
We are monitoring hundreds of bills that span the breadth of the ACLU’s policy concerns. Below is a representative sample of several of the bills that have been filed that we will be actively working on throughout this legislative session. The list includes bills that we will proactively attempt to pass and those that we will actively defend against. This list is not all-inclusive, and instead is a representative sample of bills that either pose significant threats to civil rights and civil liberties, or that create opportunities to advance constitutional and civil rights.
Removes references to state attorney's discretion to direct file juvenile; revises discretionary direct file criteria; provides for opportunity for judicial hearing to reverse direct file; revises provisions concerning housing of children held in detention.
Prohibits holding child being prosecuted as adult in jail or other facility intended or used for detention of adults.
Removes provisions allowing state attorney to request court to certify children of certain ages who commit specified crimes for prosecution as adults; revises circumstances under which state attorney may file information in cases involving children.
Prohibits holding child being prosecuted as adult in jail or other facility intended or used for detention of adults.
Removes provisions allowing state attorney to request court to certify children of certain ages who commit specified crimes for prosecution as adults; revises circumstances under which state attorney may file information in cases involving children.
Prohibits DOC or local government from subjecting youth to solitary confinement except under certain circumstances.