Florida Senator proposes bill mandating registration and fines for bloggers covering state officials.
Under Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, proposed by Florida Senator Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary), bloggers who write “an article, a story, or a series of stories” about Governor Ron DeSantis, Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature, and who receive payment for doing so, would be required to register with either the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.
Failure to do so would result in daily fines, with a maximum amount of $2,500 per report, not per writer. The bill also requires monthly reports to be submitted, which disclose the amount of compensation received for coverage. The proposed legislation would not apply to newspapers or similar publications.
Additionally, the bill removes provisions of state statutes to require judicial notices of sales to be published on publicly accessible websites and specifies that government agencies can publish legally required advertisements and public notices on county sites if the cost is not paid by or recovered from an individual. The bill would take effect immediately upon approval.
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