TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A controversial anti-rioting bill championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis is moving quickly toward passage in the House, but is likely to stall in the Senate.

Triggered by the mostly peaceful protests after the police killing of George Floyd, sponsor Rep. Danny Burgess - R-Zephyrhills - said House Bill 1 would protect against agitators who destroy properties during public disorder.

Opponents say it's intended to silence and criminalize Black protesters and allies. Speaking at a Criminal Justice Reform panel by the League of Women Voters of Tallahassee, Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, said lawmakers can file any bill they want, which doesn't mean it will become law.

"Ninety percent of the bills in the Senate never see the light of day and will not become law," said Brandes. "And so, you know, if you want to talk about a bill that's before a committee, and an amendment that's before a committee that I'm going to have to vote on, I'm going to tell you what I think, in general. But I don't talk about bills that aren't going to make a committee agenda."

The bill's Senate companion has yet to be heard, and its chances are slim, since Brandes chairs two and sits on the other of its three committee stops. Florida is among 11 states attempting to pass similar legislation.

Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida - a group that opposes the bill - said no one should sit back and assume that cooler heads will prevail on this issue.

"One of the things the bill does is make it such that you can hurt protesters and then, sort of claim self defense," said Kubic. "I think folks across the state, from all sorts of backgrounds, are saying, 'That's not who we are.' And I think that is having an impact; I think legislators across the political divide are hearing that message."

Under the bill, anyone charged with a rioting-related offense might be left in jail until their first court appearance or a court determines bail. It also would penalize local governments that "de-fund" police agencies.

The bill has a final stop in the House Judiciary Committee before it can be heard on the floor - but again, no traction in the Senate.


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Hispanic Heritage Month began in mid-September and runs through Oct. 15, and a financial institution in Washington state is finding unique ways to serve Hispanic members of its community.

Newrizons Credit Union in the western Washington town of Hoquiam offers a variety of financial services to people, regardless of whether they are even members of the credit union. Its chief executive, Ynette Gibbs, said one of the services it provides is helping people with low incomes file their tax returns.

"That helps the Hispanic community, because they get to know a financial institution that's asking for nothing from them," she said, "and they're providing a service that allows them to legally file their taxes, whether they themselves are legal in the country or not."

Gibbs said folks who don't have legal status need to provide an individual tax identification number, or ITIN, to have their income taxes done. She noted that they also can open bank accounts with that number. Gibbs said some of the biggest obstacles to serving Hispanic community members are language and a lack of overall trust in financial institutions.

Another way Newrizons builds trust with this community is through internships for local high school students. Also, Gibbs will be speaking on a National Credit Union Administration panel next month about the credit union's 'Pathway to Citizenship' program.

"That's a program where we marry together the concept of a savings account and a line of credit," she said, "particularly focused on paying the costs of gaining citizenship, which can be a 10-year process."

In a 2017 report, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. found about 30% of low-income Hispanic households didn't have bank accounts. Gibbs said some rely on payday lenders because of their lack of trust in traditional financial institutions. She said credit unions such as hers are willing to take a chance on folks who may not have had the chance to bank elsewhere.

"We're more open to getting to know that person and helping them," she said, "when others may not be willing to, or just don't see the value in that sector to serve."

Members of a Texas group working to end mass incarceration thought they were making headway, but now they're not so sure.

Faith in Texas has ideas for how Dallas County could reduce the prison population by 25%, and received support from a county judge to draft a proposal.

Joe Swanson, lead community organizer for the group, said the reform talks have stalled, and the Dallas County commissioners have appointed a committee to determine if a new jail should be built. Swanson emphasized reform is an important conversation, especially because people of color are incarcerated at significantly higher rates than white people across the country.

"We can either put our heads in the sand, and close our ears and our eyes and pretend that's just a coincidence," Swanson pointed out. "Or we can do something about it, in a way that's not just the status quo of, 'Well, new jail.' And I think that's really important to name; this is systemic racism at work."

One commissioner argued a new jail might be appropriate, because the county has a dated criminal justice system, and needs new ways of doing things. Faith in Texas will rally supporters at Thanksgiving Square tomorrow beginning at 2 p.m., to make sure they know about the proposed new facility and what it could mean for incarceration reform.

It is estimated Black men make up 13% of the U.S. population, but 35% of those who are incarcerated. Swanson worries an emphasis on new jail construction could permanently stall discussions about alternatives the county could pursue.

"As far as we can tell from the outside looking in, it's been people pointing fingers at each other to the reason why our jail population is so high," Swanson observed. "Rather than trying to sit down at a table together to coordinate an effort to reduce the jail population."

The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but holds almost 25% of the world's prisoners, about 2.2 million people, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

Every election, thousands of people are disenfranchised from voting because they are incarcerated. But Houston's Harris County Jail has shown the two are not mutually exclusive.

In 2021 a polling place was available at the jail for the first time.

Maj. Phillip Bosquez, of the Justice Housing Bureau for the Harris County Sheriff's Office, said many of those incarcerated are pretrial detainees and not serving a sentence for a felony conviction, making them eligible to vote. He assumed implementation would be daunting, but acknowledged he was proved wrong.

"Logistically in a system this size, the third largest in the country, it wasn't as hard as we thought," Bosquez recounted. "We got it accomplished, and we've had four elections, and we're set up for the big election coming in November."

Researchers with the Sentencing Project have found the vast majority of those incarcerated are eligible to vote but face significant barriers.

In the past 25 years, half the states have expanded voting access to people with felony convictions. Opponents argued felons should not be allowed to vote while incarcerated because they say voting is a privilege, not an absolute right of citizenship.

Durrel Douglas, founder of the Houston Justice Coalition and jail-based Voting Initiative organizer for The Sentencing Project, was instrumental in bringing voting to the city's jail. He said just 13 of the 26 people eligible cast an in-person ballot for this year's primary, and while it is a small number, he believes it is a right to be protected, and noted minority communities are primarily affected.

"When we think of who's typically behind bars, it's disproportionately Black people and brown people," Douglas pointed out. "Expanding this access to those who otherwise wouldn't have access to the ballot is huge when it comes to expanding access to democracy."

Douglas believes jails could and even should serve as voting locations in all states.

"There are high concentrations of people that are in jails every day," Douglas emphasized. "Some 549,000 people on any given day that don't have access to the ballot, just because they're in jail."

In addition to Houston, jails in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., also have introduced polling places for those incarcerated on Election Day.