Important Victory: S.B. 956 defeated in Florida

Florida Senate Bill 956 and its companion House Bill 7149 have been defeated in the Florida Legislature.

The House bill was pushed through the legislature by the GOP leadership in the final days of the legislative session. These bills would have dramatically limited the type of IDs that voters could use at the polls, thus reducing voter participation in already underrepresented communities.

The bills would also have restricted voter registration efforts, tied the hands of petition-gatherers (who have a constitutional right to petition their government), and put almost all power over elections in the hands of the Florida Secretary of State, an unelected political appointee. That's just the start of what these terrible bills would have done.

An unprecedented grass root effort was launched by progressive Florida organizations, like the ACLU, Equality Florida and others. We bombarded our legislators with thousands of letters, phone calls and emails. The result: the two infamous bills, which were promoted by right wing elements in the Florida Republican Party were defeated.

Hip! Hip! Hooray!