A bill that would protect historical memorials, including controversial monuments to the Confederacy erected after the Civil War by White citizens' groups, moved through a committee in the Senate, powered by a Republican supermajority on the Senate Committee on Governmental Oversight and Accountability.
No Democrat supported this measure.
Sen. Jonathan Martin's bill (SB 1122) would impose penalties on local officials who removed those and other historical monuments after July 1, 2024. That mirrors a House companion in key ways, including potential removal from office by the Governor, as well as civil penalties and required restitution for monument restoration from the responsible lawmakers' personal accounts.
The measure is intended to "protect Floridian and American history," the sponsor said. Though he was reluctant to champion Confederate monuments explicitly, Democrats and members of the public, many of whom remember the bill from 2023's attempt, made the point that the gist of the bill was a way to give the losers in historical conflicts equal time with the winners.
The Senate bill would also give standing to any aggrieved party to sue if a monument was "removed, damaged, or destroyed on or after October 1, 2020," as long as they used the edifice for "remembrance," a loose term with a wide variety of meanings. That was the date the Christopher Columbus memorial was removed from the St. Petersburg Pier.
Martin was asked about local removals of monuments not honoring the seditionist side of the Civil War, and he noted that the bill "protects non-Confederate monuments" such as the Museum of Black History.
"If you read the paper, you'd think the bill only protects Confederate history, which there could be nothing further from the truth," the Senator said, lumping the Civil War losers in with "American history" writ large.
"Is this more about celebrating the people who fought for the continuation of slavery and not about history?" asked Sen. Tracie Davis of Jacksonville.
After a moment to figure out his words, Martin said "absolutely not," adding that if that had been the intention, it would have been in the bill explicitly.
"You took a minute to answer that question. I think I expected an 'absolutely not' a little quicker than that," Davis responded.
Davis asked Martin about using private funds to remove a monument, as Jacksonville did. Martin said his bill would allow the removal of the Mayor if it was passed and she removed the monument after that.
"I'd hope for the people that live in your community that they have access to American history on the streets," Martin said. He added that elected officials "would do everything they can to protect history and make sure it's present" by maintaining monuments, language that would cover the Jacksonville structure erected during the Jim Crow era to try to reinforce historic racism and racial divides that still haunt the city to this day.
In debate, Davis noted that the state's Governor just last year posited that slaves benefited from slavery, a position memorialized in the state's educational standards.
Martin said the bill's intent is to "ensure all monuments and memorials" remain intact in the state, and that his legislation meant these could only be relocated for construction purposes, and must be returned to their original locations within 12 months. It does allow for contextual markers or memorials to be near the monuments.
Martin's bill, a companion to a similar House bill from Rep. Dean Black, comes after the Republican legislator from Jacksonville watched his hometown remove a monument to the "Women of the Southland" from the city's formerly named Confederate Park, now Springfield Park.
HB 395 likewise proposes state "protection of historical monuments and memorials" and authorizes "all actions to protect and preserve all historical monuments and memorials from removal, damage, or destruction."
There are some minor differences between the bills regarding the mechanisms of enforcement. The Senate version contemplates a $1,000 penalty for the personal accounts of culpable officials in addition to restoration costs, while the House version envisions a $5,000 fine. The House bill's retroactive provision goes back to 2017, meanwhile, even before the time period the Senate product would cover.
Martin said the retroactivity was intended to "protect as much historical monuments as possible" and have an "honest discussion" without a "rush to remove monuments."
"Going back to 2020 isn't that far," he said. "They're still around and they can still be returned to where they were. It isn't too late to do the right thing."
Martin also said he was opposed to referendums in cities that would authorize removing monuments because those votes might offend former residents who left for suburbs because of White flight.
He asserted it was "important to remember (that) many of the people who used to live in cities have moved to the counties or just outside the city limits or lived in one county and might have moved to another county."
"It's important that individuals who grew up in what used to be a smaller town that's now a much larger town have the ability to go and see those historical markers, that they remember when they were kids or that their grandparents took them to, that they can share that history with their kids and their grandkids."
Assuming this bill passes and these minor differences are resolved by the supermajority GOP legislature, it's not entirely certain what Gov. Ron DeSantis will do.
"Since this legislation is still subject to the legislative process (and therefore different iterations), the Governor will decide on the merits of the bill in final form if and when it passes and is delivered to the Governor's office," asserted Press Secretary Jeremy Redfern last year, using language he's used previously when asked about bills that haven't yet passed.
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