Florida’s HB1 Is Dangerous & Racist: Here’s How To Fight It
Local democracy is a powerful ally for racial justice. Our virtual roundtable shows how we’ve begun to use it to take down DeSantis.
Decades of local organizing, coupled with the Black Lives Matter movement and the fury and protests ignited by the murder of George Floyd, catalyzed significant momentum for police reform across the country.
This momentum is promising, but many states have begun using a lesser-known legal tool — preemption — to sanction racist and dangerous policies, stripping the community and local government of its agency to reform policing.
And HB 1 is a potent illustration of its destructive power.
9 cities have filed a lawsuit challenging HB 1 brought by Public Rights Project, Community Justice Project, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Come behind the scenes of this litigation and gain firsthand insight into the galvanizing power of communities — and this coalition — coming together.
// LiJia Gong
HB 1 gives Florida’s executive branch — Governor DeSantis and the cabinet —the power to commandeer local budgeting processes. If a local budget proposes a funding reduction to the budget of the local police department, a state attorney — so that’s the DA equivalent in Florida or any local commissioner, including a commissioner who, you know, maybe did not vote for the funding reduction to the police — can appeal that budget to the administration commission, which is made up of the governor and the cabinet.
And once this appeal process has been triggered, the city basically loses control of its budget while the governor and cabinet have full authority to revise the municipalities police budget, line-by-line behind closed doors and without the level of community input, widely guaranteed in the local budgeting process.
HB 1 really sets forth no legislative standards or limits to cabin the governors revision of the local budget. This is kind of classic preemption in a way or novel preemption, depending on how you, how you look at it.
// Marissa Roy
Preemption is a legalistic way of describing when one layer of government takes power away from a quote unquote lower level of government. So we have our three tiers of government — federal government, state, government, and local government.
And though there is a hierarchy there, there’s an understanding that local governments in particular are what are called general governments. They’re the government that is closest to the people there, the government that is really providing for most of the day-to-day needs.
And the ways that we interact with government from trash service to library services, to the provision of rapid COVID testing and all of the pandemic responses that had to be carried out—those were carried out by local governments.
Local governments need general flexibility so that they can innovate and so that they can really listen and take in community feedback and respond in a way that’s meaningful to the community.And in a way that matches unique community leader needs that might vary from city to city.
Now, some preemption is going to be okay because naturally local governments, as small units, there might need to be some consistency among them within a state.
So for example, a state might need to set some basic minimum standards. What minimum wages throughout the state, or what traffic speed limits are throughout the state—or in the pandemic context, what COVID requirements are going to be for employers so that someone who lives in one city, but works in another can have that clarity.
But what we’ve been seeing more often is this aspect of preemption being used in a way to target local innovation and target local responsiveness to community needs.
For example, 25 states have taken the power away from local governments to be able to pass a high minimum wage and a living wage 21 states have taken away the power for cities to require paid sick leave.
So we’re starting to see that this is not about maintaining consistency or good governance or good interaction between state and local governments. It’s really about state local state governments, trying to prevent local governments from working on behalf of communities of color and workers in particular.
One of the other troubling trends in preemption is that it targets not only targets a city’s ability to innovate and to be responsive to local governments, but in the way it does. So by taking away power, it actually takes away some of the core abilities of a city to function, some of the core authorities that they need to just do their day-to-day tasks. And one of those is budgeting.
// Gail Johnson
I was one of the commissioners that spearheaded this effort in Gainesville, Florida, and we absolutely are the ones that are close to the people, right? We’re the ones that are accountable to our constituents. We see them in the grocery store—we get our kids play soccer together and basketball.
Local decision making power is absolutely essential to having an effective democracy. And HB 1 was absolutely meant to have a chilling effect on how we allocate resources, but more specifically how we allocate money within our budgets.
There are layers to what we consider when we make budget decisions. There’s tax revenue, there’s our general fund transfer, there’s workforce needs their union negotiations and requests, there’s community input. Our budget process is entirely too nuanced to be hamstrung by a mini Trump—AKA DeSantis—who is abusing his power to play to his base and a bid for the presidency essentially.
That’s why it’s so important that we remain and we retain local control of our budgeting decisions.
// Berbeth Foster
We see litigation as being a vital aspect to protecting the rights of all of the community organizers that we work with to ensure that one, they have the right to protest in the streets of Florida—that they will be treated equally under the laws here in Florida—but also to ensure that things they are demanding, which is appealing to their local governments and seeking to re-imagine public safety.
That’s the very thing that tens of thousands of Floridians took to the streets last year, demanding from their local officials and for HB 1 to explicitly, not just combat and attack the rights of Floridians to protest, but also try to thwart the very demands that they were making … really this HB 1 municipal case is a crucial element in recognizing and pushing for the rights that all of our community organizers are seeking.
// LiJia Gong
Hopefully everybody can see the ways in which the attacks on local democracy and racial justice and efforts to transform policing really came together in this horrific bill.
And I hope everybody understands why we really all came together and needed to fight back. The work that we are all doing is in kind of a movement and partner ecosystem—we’re all supporting a greater whole and are necessary pieces and components.
We’re talking about lawyers, storytellers, and communicators advocates, organizers, and activists just want to emphasize his was really such a hugely collaborative effort and I think that’s part of why it is so strong.
Gail has been, as you can probably tell from her speaking has been totally unwavering. She is someone who leads with heart with values and vision and someone who inspired community. And honestly, all of us working on this case. She’s also sort of such an inquest, an inclusive leader, who we’ve been able to trust every step along the way.
That was essential, a key element and ingredient in making this all happen and getting our first city of Gainesville on board.
// Marissa Roy
There’s a sense that the job of the city attorney is merely to protect the municipal corporation and in the most risk averse faction possible. From a legal point of view, that’s certainly understandable, but it takes a very narrow view of what a city can do and who a city really acts on behalf on—whether a city is simply a self-perpetuating corporation or whether it’s an entity that’s supposed to be representative and reflective and responsive to the people.
What we encountered was a reticence, a more traditional viewpoint of cities should not be engaging in civil rights. ‘Litigation cities should not be suing the governor of Florida, even if they disagree with legislation because they could invite that response.’
So as a collective, as a group of movement lawyers, it was very important for us to help show each of the city commissioners, what the potential for their role and what the potential for their litigation power could actually be— what they could achieve through the courts, what it would mean for the people to see their city stand up for their rights and stand up for the ability to be responsive in the budgeting process.
What is the role of a city when the state government abuses its authority? What is the role of the city when the governor takes a direct hit at communities of color and tries to prevent meaningful reform, what can cities do?
What should cities do? Should they be on the sidelines and just do their job day to day, or should they fight for their communities?
// Berbeth Foster
HB 1 really is about an effort by the state, by the governor and by the legislature to really stop this re-imagining that communities are calling for.
And so I think one of the lessons that we are learning through this process is trying to keep that narrative centered and to ensure that communities and community organizers who are pushing for that very thing, don’t feel that this just becomes a case about preemption and that this is not just a case about local autonomy, but it really is about the demands that they are bringing forth to their local officials that they want them to answer to.
No matter how this litigation turns out, are we building stronger communities and building stronger ties with people like commissioner Johnson who are really in this fight with the people? And that’s really one of the lessons that we want to encourage anyone who wants to take on this fight with us — remember that those ties and those connections are really crucial and vital.
// Marissa Roy
Combating preemption is, is really just a Step A—the Step B is then making sure that when the local authorities are protected, it’s used in ways that lift up the voices of communities and respond to their needs meaningfully and reflect their values.
Cities have started to listen to their constituents—they haven’t always been allies. I think that’s a very important to acknowledge historically, that they haven’t always been allies they’ve in many ways, built the police state that has persecuted communities of color and Black and brown communities. But they’ve also started to listen in 2020 and that is what states are targeting.
In the fiscal year 2020 and 2021, we saw 24 bills authored in nine states targeting city’s ability to reduce police budget . Ultimately four states passed bills: Florida, Texas, Georgia, Missouri.
That’s why this trend and preemption is really important to start combating early.
This mission to bridge the gap between the laws on our books and equitable enforcement can be bridged anywhere. It is something that is universal, that is throughout our country and I think we just need to find the opportunity is to really uplift that and to figure out the partnerships to make that a reality.
// Gail Johnson
One of the big moments for me, it was literally when the fourth vote happened and it was an I, and at that moment, everything came to the forefront, all of the hours of meetings that we had, right?
All the back and forth, is it going to pass is not going to pass, and all the communications that we had—it was just like a big release for me, like, oh my God, it worked! Everything, every ounce of energy that we put into this paid off! I don’t think anybody on this call can actually imagine the amount of time that went into this entire effort from everyone, from the attorneys and the communications, the organizers—there was so much energy that went into that.
I feel like this one moment and one vote that was like, ah, thank you, it’s working.
// Jon Miller, Legal Director, PRP
The teamwork has been amazing— all the ways that members and different members of the team have contributed and brought their expertise and brought their strength and their connection to the work—whether that’s writing a complaint, connecting with politicians and local leaders across the state, connecting with community organizations…it happened.
And it happened from the very beginning from the very first meeting when we appeared before the Gainesville commission to the filing of the complaint, and the rollout and will continue.
It’s really just been an incredible honor to be on this journey with everybody.
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