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Anti-abortion legislation progresses

The Tribune has a misleading article up today with a headline screaming about $300 per hour consultants. House Speaker Johnny Byrd brought in an expert to write an anti-abortion bill, and the guy has billed the Leg about $50,000 so far.

The Florida House is paying a Washington- based conservative legal scholar $300 an hour to counsel lawmakers on pending legislation that appears to be going nowhere this session.

Jonathan Turley, a nationally recognized law professor at George Washington University, has earned nearly $50,000 helping lawmakers draft a sweeping parental rights amendment sought by House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, R-Plant City. That proposal was abandoned after Senate leaders refused to consider such a broad erosion of privacy rights for minors.

$300 per hour may or may not be excessive, but the Tribune seems to be going to great lengths to manufacture a controversy where there is none, as the article only mentions one person who is openly critical of the arrangement.

The real story here, which the archly conservative Tribune may well be happy to obscure, is the fact that an ani-abortion “Parental Notification” amendment almost certainly will be on our ballots this November, as this SP Times headline points out:“State abortion measure nears ballot”:

State lawmakers could require parents to be notified before minors get an abortion, under a proposal approved Tuesday by the Florida House.

The measure, approved 93-25, would ask voters in November to amend the Florida Constitution and give the Legislature the authority to require parental notification.

It also would reverse a Florida Supreme Court ruling last fall that allowed minors to get an abortion without a parent's knowledge.

The bipartisan vote was far more than the three-fifths majority required to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot.

A similar proposal passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 5-3 vote and was amended to more closely match the House measure. It is poised to go to the Senate floor.

If the Senate approves, the proposal would appear on the Nov. 2 ballot.

House Speaker Johnnie Byrd sponsored the measure (HJR 1) and made it one of his top priorities.

Only Democrats voted against it, arguing that it undermines the privacy rights of minors.

The proposal marks the Legislature's third attempt to deal with minors getting abortions. The state Supreme Court struck down a 1989 law that required a minor to get a parent's consent to an abortion. Last year, the court ruled that a 1999 law requiring parental notification also violated minors' privacy rights guaranteed by the state Constitution.

"Last summer when the Supreme Court struck down parental notification, it actually almost drove a stake through my heart," said Rep. Sandra Murman, R-Tampa. "Parents have a right to know if their minor child is going to have an abortion."

The Senate version differs from the House version by allowing judges to make exceptions to the parental notification requirement, such as when incest or abuse is involved.

The House did not include that provision because it already is covered in federal law, Byrd said.
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While 35 other states have parental notification laws, nine have had legal challenges preventing laws from being enforced, said Rep. Anne Gannon, D-Delray Beach.

Other opponents said the proposal is little more than an anti-abortion measure.

"This bill is about abortion and placing obstacles on young women so that they cannot or will not have an abortion," said, Rep. Nan Rich, D-Weston.

Here’s what’s happening: Johnny Byrd had his consultant work up a bill that would have restricted much more than abortion. His bill was so restrictive that it never would have passed the Senate. So Johnny had his consultant write up a bill that would only deal with abortion. This re-written bill is now known as the Parental Notice bill. The original was known as the Parental Rights bill. It looks like the Notice bill, which passed in the House yesterday, will pass in the Senate and therefore be on the ballot this November in the form of a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution.

The Tribune’s reference to “legislation that appears to be going nowhere” refers to the Parental Rights bill, but since the whole point of their story seems to be that Johnny’s consultant is a waste of money, they may have intentionally clouded the fact that the same consultant wrote a similar bill that is going to pass.