Legislative Team Update July 2025

FOUR BILLS:

One board member has a drafted bill, written by another board member, pertaining to people on the registry who are cognitively unable to fulfill the 60+ registry requirements, yet required to do so by statute. Next week she will be sharing it with a representative that said he is interested in seeing such a bill.

Several FAC members have donated a lot of their time to write three “beautiful” bills: one dealing with neurocognitive limitations; one expanding the current Romeo and Juliet clause; and the other addressing the lack of nursing homes.

The Romeo and Juliet bill has been presented by one of our members to a possibly interested Senator and an interested Representative.

The Diagnosed Neurocognitive Disorder bill is in near final form and will be discussed with
potential legislative sponsors in July as well as the Florida Alzheimer’s Association and the
Office of Elderly Affairs.

The Nursing Home bill is in early stage of discovery which means what are the actual problems
for nursing homes and how to resolve them with support from nursing home organization(s),
AARP, and Office of Elder Affairs.

Several board members were on a Zoom call with leadership from the Florida Health Care
Association (FHCA: lobbyist for Florida nursing homes) to discuss the lack of nursing home care in Florida, reasons, and solutions. FHCA is keenly interested and aware of the problem. Several
times in the past, legislators have come to them for help; however, the long-term endurance to
succeed did not happen. FHCA believes the best two solutions are to either 1. Establish a
nursing home for difficult to place individuals (former felons/registrants) and/or 2. Remove
individuals from the registry when they need to be in a long-term medical facility. A company
(iCare Health Network) in Connecticut currently has 11 nursing homes for justice impacted and
hard-to-place individuals in New England. One of our board members talked with the ICare VP, Business Development, and they are very motivated to expand into Florida. However, a word of caution, their business model relies on Medicaid which is now undergoing significant cuts. The second option requires legislative action. Therefore, we will be preparing documentation to submit to FHCA for their legislative committee meeting in August with the hope that they will support a bill to “remove individuals that need long-term medical facilities from the registry.” We will be reaching out to the Florida Office of Elder Affairs as well for support.

EMAIL CAMPAIGN:

In our FAC email campaign, we now have two to three people sending 160 emails per week to
our legislators, asking for a bill that would allow people on the registry who need long-
term health care to expeditiously petition for removal from the residency restrictions and sex
offender registry to be accepted by a nursing home.

At first our members were only receiving the typical canned responses; but so many emails
have now been sent that, in some cases, the legislators are sending personal replies: whom the
author of the email should contact to try to have such a bill started; offering consideration
and/or support if such a bill is filed; expressing their awareness that many people are
contacting their office about the lack of nursing homes that will accept people on the registry;
and some are asking for more information. SO, WE HAVE THEIR EARS AND DO NOT WANT TO
LOSE THEM.

DELEGATION MEETINGS:

It is time to organize for the delegation meetings which begin in September of this year. Our legislative chairs are drafting five speeches which will be improved by legislative team members. We are seeking two leaders to organize this initiative this year along with our legislative chairs – so we build strength and continuity.

Each of these actions will be discussed on our next legislative team call in August.

There is a momentum building. Onward and upwards.