JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 After banning DEI at the state level, in Florida colleges and universities, and K-12 public schools, the Florida Legislature passed a bill Tuesday that would extend the prohibitions to local governments as well.<\/p>\n
Bill sponsor State Rep Dean Black (R-Yulee) argued his bill aims to put merit above all else in local government hiring, training, contracting, and spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur work to eradicate this poisonous ideology from our society isn\u2019t done until we eradicate it from our counties and municipalities,\u201d said Black.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n During his debate Tuesday, Black specifically highlighted funding for the LGBTQ organization JASMYN in Duval County as an example of the type of funding the bill would prohibit.<\/p>\n The bill does specify carveouts for state-recognized holidays and observances, including Black History Month.<\/p>\n But Democratic lawmakers raised concerns that vague language in the bill could prohibit much more than intended.<\/p>\n \u201cIt could mean you can\u2019t celebrate Women\u2019s History Month, or Women\u2019s Equality Day, or Diwali, or Chinese New Year, or Easter. This is insane,\u201d said State Representative Christine Hunschofsky (D-Coconut Creek).<\/p>\n Local officials in Jacksonville are taking note, as the bill comes with high stakes.<\/p>\n Intentional violations on the part of government officials would constitute misfeasance or malfeasance, which could result in removal from office.<\/p>\n Councilmember Ron Salem (R-Group 2 At-Large), who chairs the Duval DOGE Committee, noted the DOGE committee has already begun examining some local grant funding for potential ties to DEI programs, projects, and initiatives.<\/p>\n He argued that moving forward, the council will have to be very careful about its funding decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cI know it was a big topic of discussion in last year\u2019s budget. So, if the bill passes and the Governor sign it, I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be scrutinizing the budget for anything that\u2019s related to this,\u201d said Salem.<\/p>\n Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s office told Action News Jax its monitoring the legislation and the city\u2019s legal staff will conduct a full review of its language and implications now that it has been passed in its final form.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 After banning DEI at the state level, in Florida colleges and universities, and K-12 public…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":647497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,5229,7026,257490,275147,60158,9157,10889,142805,16470,225152,12187,11571,3188,723,11561,7310,3005,77156,48908,20027,5603,425,12176,27111,93624,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,275146,275145,263386],"class_list":["post-647496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-america","tag-black","tag-black_history_month","tag-chinese_new_year","tag-dean_black","tag-dei","tag-democratic","tag-diwali","tag-doge","tag-donna_degan","tag-duval_county","tag-easter","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jake","tag-jake_stan","tag-jake_stoan","tag-jasmine","tag-lgbtq","tag-local","tag-mayor","tag-representative","tag-ron_salem","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-womens_equality_day","tag-womens_history_month","tag-yuli"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}