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.
Alexander Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay would tell this “Republican” to go pound sand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers
has desantis agreed to what?...
does he?...
Brodeur is in the wrong party. With his instincts he is more fascist than a devotee of a constitutional republic.
He had better not.
Blatantly illegal. A total violation of the First Amendment.
or what?...
I’m reasonably certain SCOTUS would disagree.
He has disqualified himself as president being a neocon, if he supports this fascist legislation then he isn’t fit to be governor either.
By getting people to talk about "some Republican in Florida is trying to use government power to limit free speech there" he's probably hoping to make Dims argue for free speech and against their own censorship ways.
And leave him there.
All we know is that DeSantis was elected.
We don’t know if Deep State tried and failed.
Chose not to try.
If Deep State wants DeSantis right where he is because he’s a way to go after Trump.
Did you ever take time to read that 130+ page bill that FL passed in August?
I’ll bet you haven’t.
It does NOT secure FL’s elections.
And since early, mail-in, ballot harvesting, easy absentee, RCV-enabled voting machines et al. are all still there to be used, FL is still one election away from disaster.
If you love your state, work to secure its elections.
why do you insist on being stuck on stupid???...
I hope this is not true.
He wants to expose pay to play bloggers, but this isn’t the way to go about it.
Is he doing this to try and make DeSantis look bad?
I don’t support fascism whether it comes from the left or the right. Is that stupid?
i live in florida...
worry about your state...
worry about your governor...
worry about your state’s election procedures...
you act like a karen...
you’ve been spreading lies about desantis...
you’re part of the problem...
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