Posted on 03/02/2023 1:33:29 PM PST by semimojo
Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.
Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.
In the bill, Brodeur wrote that those who write “an article, a story, or a series of stories,” about “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,” and receives or will receive payment for doing so, must register with state offices within five days after the publication of an article that mentions an elected state official.
If another blog post is added to a blog, the blogger would then be required to submit monthly reports on the 10th of each month with the appropriate state office. They would not have to submit a report on months when no content is published.
For blog posts that “concern an elected member of the legislature” or “an officer of the executive branch,” monthly reports must disclose the amount of compensation received for the coverage, rounded to the nearest $10 value.
If compensation is paid for a series of posts or for a specific amount of time, the blogger would be required to disclose the total amount to be received, upon publication of the first post in said series or timeframe.
Additional compensation must be disclosed later on.
Failure to file these disclosures or register with state officials, if the bill passes, would lead to daily fines for the bloggers, with a maximum amount per report, not per writer, of $2,500. The per-day fine is $25 per report for each day it’s late.
The bill also requires that bloggers file notices of failure to file a timely report the same way that lobbyists file their disclosures and reports on assessed fines. Fines must be paid within 30 days of payment notice, unless an appeal is filed with the appropriate office. Fine payments must be deposited into the Legislative Lobbyist Registration Trust Fund if it concerns an elected member of the legislature.
For writing about members of the executive branch, fines would be made payable to the Executive Branch Lobby Registration Trust Fund or, if it concerns both groups, the fine may be paid to both related trust funds in equal amounts.
Explicitly, the blogger rule would not apply to newspapers or similar publications, under Brodeur’s proposed legislation.
In additional to the blogger regulations, the bill also removes provisions of state statutes to require judicial notices of sales to be published on publicly accessible websites, and specifies that a government agency can publish legally required advertisements and public notices on county sites if the cost is not paid by or recovered from an individual.
Should the bill pass, it would take effect immediately upon approval.
STUPID JASO BRODEUR!! DeSantis needs to take him to the woodshed.
That is evil!
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1316/?Tab=BillText
The registration requirement BS starts on page 5.
Wowza.
Absolutely crazy.
what’s up with your destroying desantis’s reputation for doing what we floridians elected him to do?...
Note to Florida: You are still only one stolen election away from a Gov Andrew Gillum...
SECURE YOUR ELECTIONS.
not Florida ... one specific senator with a brain fart ....
Nobody is going to need to get paid to say this legislation is dangerously insane—so crazy I am surprised no leftist in California didn’t think of it first.
Remove him and his companions for illegally violating the 1st Amendment.
Looks like a bad idea to me.
Is that serious? That’s insane.
Oh, hell no.
Has DeSantis agreed to this?
Who is this clown?
note to mewzilla...
desantis won by 19 percentage points last year (2022)...
educate yourself...
your willful ignorance is on full display...
We have a new Florida Man doing crazy stooopit shiite
Born in Daytona Beach? THAT explains it!
This seems stupid, probably not authorized by the governor. Maybe to be credentialed, get a pass to attend as a reporter, that makes sense, but everyone else, no way. I presume there is something going on here to embarrass the governor or it is just be mis-reported
Does DeSantis support this?
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