Floor Vote for

Vote After Roll Call:

Yeas

• Hage
  02/24/2022 12:36:58 PM
• Shoaf
  02/24/2022 02:04:33 PM
• Trabulsy
  03/02/2022 05:59:16 PM

Explanations of Vote:

• Joseph -
  The Florida Civil Rights Act ("FCRA") is the underlying statute amended by CS/HB 7, and it is read in conjunction with the jurisprudence of Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. Within this jurisprudence are disparate impact or disparate treatment claims, which call for an examination of the adverse impact of facially neutral policies. Despite efforts to inform the bill sponsor of the potential consequence of perpetuating discrimination in pursuit of "colorblind" policies, the bill sponsor insisted he wanted to focus on blocking discrimination on the "front end"—i.e. discriminatory intent. Irrespective of "intent," the current law recognizes the reality of a discriminatory "effect" of policies, notwithstanding seemingly based on "merit, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness." Anti-discrimination laws were designed to reign in those with nefarious discriminatory intent that use facially neutral policies to narrowly target discrimination. Even without a discriminatory intent, the discriminatory impact is still wrong, illegal, and needs to be corrected. Contrary to CS/HB 7, existing anti-discrimination law requires a substantial legitimate justification for the discriminatory policy or practice, and assessing whether there is a less discriminatory alternative to achieve the same legitimate objective but with a less discriminatory effect.