If at first you don't succeed… throw "sex offenders" in there.

Last week we posted about a bill concerning privacy rights and drones. To get their bill to pass, one legislator suggested that sex offenders might use drones to leer at children.

While this really happened, the post was intended to be satirical, but at the same time a serious illustration of how legislators are using the “sex offender” hysteria to try to get legislation through.

Let’s call it “pulling the sex offender card”! A bill to ban pit bulls can’t get through committee? Suggest that “sex offenders” might use the puppies to lure and abduct children and it’ll sail to the governor’s desk!

Today another legislator tried to pull the sex offender card to get her way. The legislature voted on a bill that would provide financial help to public employees who adopt special needs children. Sounds like a winner, right? Well Lakeland Republican Kelli Stargel didn’t think so and proposed an amendment that she hoped would get her way, when that failed, the St Petersberg Blog reported “Stargel was undeterred after having her first amendment denied, and proposed a second amendment that would deny sex offenders the opportunity to adopt children in Florida. But Gaetz said state statute already covered that provision. That amendment went down on a voice vote.”

It’s becoming commonly used, but a very pathetic tactic.