As we enter the fifth week of Florida’s state-lawmaking session, our legislative roundtable series continues in a conversation with State Sen. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, who represents Senate District 23, which covers portions of Sarasota and Charlotte Counties. In the 2017 legislative session, Sen. Steube successfully championed more bills through the legislative process than any other state lawmaker.
Our conversation will touch on a broad spectrum of proposals including a bill to ban ‘sanctuary city’ policies in Florida. That bill was held up last week in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Steube chairs. We’ll also touch on firearm legislation, human trafficking, campaign financing and a series of bills Steube is sponsoring that stoke the debate over state oversight versus local control. Plus, despite early reports that a proposal to ban fracking would not be heard, we learned late last week that a Senate committee will take up the bill Monday afternoon. Senior Environmental Policy Specialist with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, Amber Crooks joins us for a closer look at the bill, why the ban proposal has failed in recent years, and the known risks of hydraulic fracturing in Florida’s unique limestone geology.
