{"id":500,"date":"2008-03-11T18:43:06","date_gmt":"2008-03-11T23:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=500"},"modified":"2008-08-06T12:02:07","modified_gmt":"2008-08-06T16:02:07","slug":"sunshine-law-violation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=500","title":{"rendered":"Sunshine Law violation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the movie being screened just for state legislators<\/a> in any way a violation of Florida’s Sunshine Law? Florida has strict laws governing public records and public meetings. Any meeting of lawmakers must be properly advertised and must be open to the public. So, does having some lawmakers attend a movie that directly addresses two bills before them run afoul of any laws? The News-Press asks around<\/a>, and apparently no one has any heartburn over the issue.<\/p>\n

The invitation to “Expelled” is just for legislators and their spouses, along with legislative aides. The press and public is excluded.<\/p>\n

House Minority Leader Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, asked House general counsel Jeremiah Hawkes if that’s legal — since Florida law requires open meetings whenever two or more lawmakers meet to discuss pending business. Hawkes replied that, as long as they just watch the film and don’t discuss the issue or arrange any future votes, it’s technically legal.<\/p>\n

John Stemberger, head of the Florida Family Policy Council, was asked if it’s a smart political tactic to have a closed meeting. He replied that it’s all right.<\/p>\n

“It’s not a closed meeting — we invited the whole Legislature,” said Stemberger.
\n“There’s no business being discussed. They’re just watching a movie.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the movie being screened just for state legislators in any way a violation of Florida’s Sunshine Law? Florida has strict laws governing public records and public meetings. Any meeting of lawmakers must be properly advertised and must be open … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11,12,7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-84","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":499,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=499","url_meta":{"origin":500,"position":0},"title":"Legislator’s movie date getting noticed","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Word about Rep. Hays' movie invite to his fellow Florida legislators is filtering out to the media. Newspaper blogs are talking up a storm on the event. The Orlando Sentinel has no less than three separate blogs on the subject: education, politics and entertainment. From the politics blog: The House\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Creationism Bills"","block_context":{"text":"Creationism Bills","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":510,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=510","url_meta":{"origin":500,"position":1},"title":"Expelled incompetence","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"For those of you who don't travel the science blogs highway and so don't already know about this, there is an interesting, and even funny display of incompetence surrounding the folks who are screening the movie Expelled around the country. It's relevant to us here in Florida because the movie\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Expelled movie"","block_context":{"text":"Expelled movie","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":503,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=503","url_meta":{"origin":500,"position":2},"title":"A quick analysis","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's my quick take on the whole Expelled mess and the relation to the creationism bills. I've been closely watching the media reports concerning science education in Florida for a few years now. I've seen tidal waves of news coverage when anti-evolution\/anti-science rises from the depths. The Seattle-based Discovery Institute\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Creationism Bills"","block_context":{"text":"Creationism Bills","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":502,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=502","url_meta":{"origin":500,"position":3},"title":"News roundup","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"My apologies for this quick news link dump. The chemistry class I'm taking now is kicking my butt. I hope to have some thoughts on the movie situation up here tonight. In the meantime: Herald Tribune. I'm not buying what Mr. Luskin is selling. Stein and John Stemberger, president of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Creationism Bills"","block_context":{"text":"Creationism Bills","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":504,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=504","url_meta":{"origin":500,"position":4},"title":"Sweeping up the crumbs","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Tallahassee Democrat quite rightly praises lawmakers who passed up seeing the Expelled movie. I have yet to see an official count of how many lawmakers actually went to the movie, but I have heard from sources that the number is in single digits. But the evening at downtown's IMAX\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Creationism Bills"","block_context":{"text":"Creationism Bills","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":563,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=563","url_meta":{"origin":500,"position":5},"title":"Reaction sent to media","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The following reaction was sent to the media earlier today following the anti-evolution bill debate in the Florida House. The St. Petersburg Times education blog, the Gradebook, has already linked to it. Florida Citizens for Science response to today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s House debate on HB 1483 and SB 2692 concerning the teaching\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08"","block_context":{"text":"\"Academic Freedom\" bills '08","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=23"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}