Florida Senate - 2021                          SENATOR AMENDMENT
       Bill No. HB 1-B
       
       
       
       
       
       
                                Ì741132mÎ741132                         
       
                              LEGISLATIVE ACTION                        
                    Senate             .             House              
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                Floor: 1/FC/2R         .                                
             11/17/2021 07:08 PM       .                                
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       Senator Farmer moved the following:
       
    1         Senate Amendment (with title amendment)
    2  
    3         Delete everything after the enacting clause
    4  and insert:
    5         Section 1. The Legislature declares that the
    6  misrepresentation of science and the partisan politics that
    7  prompted the consideration of proposed laws that ban, restrict,
    8  or penalize mandatory vaccines by private businesses are
    9  condemned.
   10         Section 2. This act shall take effect upon becoming a law.
   11  
   12  ================= T I T L E  A M E N D M E N T ================
   13  And the title is amended as follows:
   14         Delete everything before the enacting clause
   15  and insert:
   16                        A bill to be entitled                      
   17         An act relating to COVID-19 mandates; providing
   18         legislative findings; providing an effective date.
   19  
   20         WHEREAS, the United States of America and the State of
   21  Florida have a long history of mandates and regulations tied to
   22  the health and safety of citizens during outbreaks and
   23  pandemics, including mandatory quarantine and vaccination, and
   24         WHEREAS, during the Revolutionary War, 90 percent of deaths
   25  among American troops were caused by disease, with the smallpox
   26  virus being the most vicious of all, to the point that General
   27  George Washington mandated inoculation of all American troops,
   28  beginning with the Battles of Morristown and Princeton, and that
   29  action is credited with victory at the Battle of Saratoga, which
   30  tipped the scales of the war, and
   31         WHEREAS, in 1889, Leon County ordered quarantines to
   32  protect local residents from the outbreak of yellow fever, and
   33         WHEREAS, in 1895, the State of Florida empowered the
   34  president of the Florida State Board of Health with the duty to
   35  investigate, and the authority to quarantine during, emerging
   36  viruses, including yellow fever and cholera, and other
   37  infectious diseases, and this authority was expanded further in
   38  1901 and 1906, and
   39         WHEREAS, in 1971, the State of Florida enacted a law
   40  ordering the State Board of Education to require immunization of
   41  all children against a litany of dangerous diseases, including
   42  polio, smallpox, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus, as a
   43  condition of attendance in the public schools, and
   44         WHEREAS, the principle of separation of powers through the
   45  establishment of three separate but equal branches of government
   46  is one of the fundamental underpinnings of our nation and our
   47  state, and
   48         WHEREAS, s. 1, Article IX of the State Constitution
   49  guarantees that adequate provision must be made by law for a
   50  uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high-quality system of
   51  free public schools, and
   52         WHEREAS, s. 4, Article IX of the State Constitution
   53  establishes local control over education by granting local
   54  county school boards the authority to operate, control, and
   55  supervise all free public schools within their school districts,
   56  and
   57         WHEREAS, the State of Florida has a long and distinguished
   58  history of protecting and promoting public records and Sunshine
   59  Laws, including the first public records law in 1909, which
   60  provided the right of inspection of formal records and opened
   61  meetings to all Floridians, followed by expansion of that law in
   62  1967, and recognition of the importance of public records laws
   63  by their enshrinement in the State Constitution in 1992, and
   64         WHEREAS, world history reminds us of long conflicts between
   65  religion and science, beginning with the Inquisition and
   66  continuing to the Renaissance, during which artists, professors,
   67  and others were persecuted as heretics for depicting or
   68  believing in science or other newly emerging truths that
   69  conflicted with religious beliefs, and during which those
   70  believing in science were forced underground to avoid
   71  persecution, jail, or death, and
   72         WHEREAS, irrational hysteria against science reached
   73  perhaps an all-time high during the time of the first smallpox
   74  vaccines in England, where unreasonable mistrust of the newly
   75  developed vaccine included false stories of births of half-cow
   76  babies, and
   77         WHEREAS, today, we have seen an increase in entirely
   78  unfounded rumors and the citing of false science regarding the
   79  dangers of vaccines, claims that exceed the dangers of COVID-19
   80  itself, and
   81         WHEREAS, all objectively established and recognized science
   82  is unanimous as to the inherent and extreme dangers of COVID-19
   83  and as to the fact that vaccines represent our country’s best
   84  option to avoid extreme sickness and death, and
   85         WHEREAS, since 2020, the Senate has followed the Centers
   86  for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug
   87  Administration protocols and recommendations for protection
   88  against and testing for infection of COVID-19, including the
   89  institution of mask mandates and mandatory testing for all
   90  Senators and staff, and
   91         WHEREAS, former President Donald Trump and, now, Governor
   92  Ron DeSantis have embarked on a path of misrepresentation of
   93  established science and the perpetuation of fraud on the
   94  American people, all in the name of red-meat, partisan politics
   95  at the expense of the very health and lives of all Americans
   96  and, in the case of Governor DeSantis, all Floridians, and
   97         WHEREAS, the hypocrisy and inconsistency of our current
   98  Legislature is best seen when comparing proposed anti-vaccine
   99  mandates that have been filed and promoted under the guise of
  100  the right to privacy and independence when the same Legislature
  101  and Governor seek to eliminate a woman’s right to determine her
  102  own medical health, and
  103         WHEREAS, data, statistics, and current evidence show that
  104  such places as schools, where mask mandates have been invoked,
  105  have had markedly lower infection rates than places without mask
  106  requirements, and
  107         WHEREAS, recent data and polling reveal that a strong
  108  majority of Floridians favor mask mandates in crowded public
  109  spaces, including schools, and that a majority of Floridians
  110  have been vaccinated, NOW, THEREFORE,