Minutes of FAC Legislative Committee meeting, April 9, 2025

Accomplishments since last monthly meeting to “Change the Narrative”

1. The weekly email campaign to all 160 legislators was organizationally established and kicked off.  Emails went out for two consecutive weeks.  The first email addressed the Senate & House bill “Registration for Sexual Predators and Sexual Offenders”.  The second email addressed allowing neurocognitive diseases to be considered throughout the criminal justice system.  Thank you to all who have volunteered to send out emails!
2. FDLE responded to the first email as sent to Rep. Trabulsy who forwarded it (through her aide Sasha O’Kane) to FDLE.  The FDLE response was an attempt to mollify legislators but achieved another communication link for us.

Presentations at this meeting and next initiatives

Legislative updates

All tracked bills that affect our people are moving through the Senate and the House.  They are expected to pass and to be sent to the Governor in May for approval.  Please see the FAC website (FloridaActionCommittee.org, under the TEAMS tab, legislative, legislative update) for the details that Jerry shared with us.  Once session is over and the governor as approved the bills, a synopsis of the final offense and registration changes will be uploaded to the FAC website.

Email campaign

Many people have signed up to send emails over the next 50 weeks to tell their stories about the elderly on the registry and lack of nursing home care OR tell their stories about dementia and the need for consideration for all offenses in the criminal justice system. More volunteers are most welcome – we have several weeks still available.  Please contact us at [email protected] to say “yes” and pick a week.   We have email template language, can help you write your story (1 short paragraph), and have the legislators email addresses.

Proposed 2026 bills 

1. There was action on the neurocognitive/dementia proposed bill.  Rep. Overdorf, who has expressed interest in sponsoring the bill, asked Rep. Baker (a prosecutor) to review what is in statute relative to this proposed bill.  Two statute sections that are related: Insanity Defense 775.027 and Involuntary Confinement 916.15.  Both of these address mental problems that are assumed to be “curable” via drugs or therapy.  Neurocognitive disorders (e.g., Alzheimer’s, PTSD, traumatic brain injury) are not curable but are degenerative.  We will be seeking legal and legislative advice on a solid approach to enable success with this bill in 2026 or in following years.  
2. Following good discussion, we will be contacting the Florida Healthcare Association to work with them on best approaches for providing nursing home care to registrants.  We will also be reaching out to the larger hospital systems in Florida as they recognize this problem as a financial burden as well as a moral dilemma.