The regular legislative session comes to an end in Tallahassee, Florida. Senators and Representatives are headed back to their home towns as the session ends. This year we found that our profession was under attack from several fronts and various Senators and Representatives. Here is the official legislative report that was given to the executive committee via email.

Take time to thank those that were involved from the Flagler/Volusia Chapter in contacting our local Senators and Local Representatives.

The 2010 session was once again dominated by budget shortfall projections and every special interest fighting for their piece of the budget pie.   Add to that the veto of two Republican backed bills, one dealing with teachers and the other the reinstatement of leadership funds and top it off with Governor Crist declaring that he will be running as and Independent it is a wonder that FSMTA legislation even got a hearing.

 
For FSMTA the 2010 legislature had two focal points:
·     Offensively we were trying to pass legislation dealing with the horrific crime of human trafficking that is rampant in the state of Florida, with traffickers hiding behind individual massage licenses and massage establishment licenses.  HB 633 by Representative Burgin and its senate companion SB 966 by Senator Joyner moved through the legislative process until the last week.  In the House Representative Burgin was successful in passing the bill out of the House with a vote count of 114 yeas and 0 nays. In the Senate the bill passed easily through its first two committees but ultimately died in the Rules committee. The bill was ultimately stopped for first amendment rights issues.  We learned a lot this first year and I feel confident that we will have even a better bill next year.
 
·     Defensively, we dealt with HB 139 by Representative Fresen. all session long.  Although the bill, which dealt with deleting examination licensure requirements for students of certain schools, was never heard in committee, that did not stop Representative Fresen, during the last two weeks of session, in trying to amend on to every health care bill heard on the floor a facsimile of the original bill.  The amendment that would have allowed temporary massage licenses with no examination was also offered by Senator Gaetz on the Senate floor. During the last week of session we saw the amendment show up on SB 752, HB 1503 and HB 1143.  Representative Fresen also tried to get the language placed in the budget conforming bills. We needed lots of help defeating these amendments (over and over again) In the Senate, Senators Joyner, Bullard, Jones and Aronberg were very helpful.  In the House Representative Burgin was tireless in fighting this amendment off.  Also Representatives Fetterman, Saunders and Grimsley deserve FSMTA’s thanks.
 
Other legislation of interest to FSMTA was SB 2272 by Senator Fasano relating to pain-management clinics.  This bill modifies and enhances the regulation of pain management and pain-management clinics in Florida.  Paul Lambert was vigilant in protecting massage therapist under this bill during the whole legislative process. 
 
Another bill that we worked on all session on was SB 752 by Senator Gaetz.  This bill had some relief in it for practitioners that were caught last year in the Gaetz fraud and felony bill SB 1986.  However, this bill did not pass.  We worked closely with other allied health professionals but ultimately Senator Gaetz (sponsor of the bill) was unwilling to amend the needed sections on to other legislation that was moving through the process.