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Tag: Erin Grall

  • Florida drivers can’t hold their phones on the road, new bill says



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    A Florida bill banning drivers from holding their phones on the road was re-filed Tuesday, one week before the start of the 2026 legislative session.

    Republican Sen. Erin Grall’s bill, revived from last session, would expand the Sunshine State’s ban on texting while driving to cover holding or “supporting” a handheld device while on the road.

    This means drivers would not be able to make calls from their phone, hold it, or even rest it on their laps if the bill becomes law. If passed, it would take effect on Oct. 1.

    “‘Handheld manner’ means holding a wireless communications device in one or both hands or physically supporting the device with any other part of the body,” SB 1152 reads. These devices could range from phones to laptops to gaming devices.

    The bill would not apply to first responders or include small radios or in-vehicle systems.

    Drivers who violate the law while moving through either a school zone or past construction workers would be slapped with a $150 fine and 3 points off their licenses. A subsequent offense would include a $250 fine and 3 more points against the license, and a third offense would include a $500 fine, 4 points against the license, and a 90-day license suspension.

    Where did the bill come from?

    Tallahassee resident Demetrius Branca has been a leading advocate for a hands-free driving law, which would mirror those of 30 other states plus Washington, D.C. In 2014, Branca’s 19-year-old son Anthony while on his way to Tallahassee State College was killed by a distracted Comcast driver.

    During the 2024 session, when the measure passed the House but was never scheduled in the Senate, Branca blasted then-chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, Nick DiCeglie, during a Pinellas County legislative delegation meeting. The two engaged in a sharp exchange, but DiCeglie changed course when the bill reemerged during the 2025 legislative session, the Phoenix previously reported.

    “I looked at the statistics,” DiCeglie said at the time. “I looked at the data, and I looked at what 31 other states did. And I thought of you and I thought of your son, Anthony.”

    Although it passed the Senate that time around, the legislation was never scheduled in the House — a reversal from the year before. Branca blamed Rep. Linda Chaney, who chaired one of the committees that was supposed to see the bill.

    “You stopped it cold,” Branca told her at a Pinellas County legislative meeting. “After all the work, all the testimony, all the grieving parents who begged you to act. You chose to not let it through. That was not leadership, that was political cowardice and I’m standing here to look you in the eye and tell you to your face.”

    In 2023, distracted driving resulted in the deaths of 3,275 people, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which reported that “texting is the most alarming distraction.”

    This year, Grall’s bill has yet to have a House companion.

    Her office did not immediately return a request for comment. The 2026 session begins on Jan. 13.

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    Trump claimed the tribe worked against his immigration efforts, the basis he used to veto a flood protection project in the Florida Everglades

    It also would prevent migrants illegally in the country from participating in state-funded adult general education programs

    DeSantis stayed quiet in the first days following the operation — even though Florida boasts the largest Venezuelan community in the nation





    Liv Caputo, Florida Phoenix
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  • Florida bill would ban public colleges from admitting undocumented students



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    Undocumented immigrants in Florida won’t be able to attend public universities if a sweeping new education bill passes the state Legislature.

    The 32-page SB 1052, filed Monday by Vero Beach Republican Sen. Erin Grall, instructs public colleges and universities to exclusively admit students who are “citizen[s] of the United States” or “lawfully present therein.”

    It also would prevent migrants illegally in the country from participating in state-funded adult general education programs, which include classes for GED and English as a second language that help “adult learners gain the knowledge and skills they need to enter and succeed in postsecondary education,” as defined on the Department of Education’s website.

    This builds off of a provision in a Feb. 2025 law that nixed all in-state tuition for undocumented college students.

    Grall’s bill comes amid a crackdown on undocumented immigration that surged in early 2025 when President Donald Trump re-took office. Trump’s administration soon imposed a deportation quota for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, increased the cost for certain work visas, and supported states like Florida that are building their own detention centers.

    Florida became the first and only state to require all 67 counties to enter into 287(g) agreements, which are state- and local-level partnerships with ICE.

    SB 1052, which doesn’t have a companion measure in the House yet, also would strike the requirement for a gender-equity plan in intercollegiate athletics.

    Although the measure still demands universities comply with the Title IX prohibition on discrimination in athletic programs, the Florida College System would not have to draw up plans to consider equity in sports offerings, participation, availability of facilities, scholarship offerings, and funds allocated for administration, recruitment, comparable coaching, publicity and promotion, and other support costs.

    This would rewrite a 2001 state law requiring these plans as extensions of Title IX protections.

    Grall’s bill includes a waiver certain tuition fees for active members of the Florida State Guard.

    Grall’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The 2026 legislative session begins Jan. 13.

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    DeSantis stayed quiet in the first days following the operation — even though Florida boasts the largest Venezuelan community in the nation

    The ruling on assisted reproduction methods raises a new complication for couples seeking to have kids with outside help

    The bill would allow doctors to issue certifications for up to 10 70-day supply limits of smokeable medical marijuana, rather than three.





    Liv Caputo, Florida Phoenix
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  • Florida Senate panel OKs fetal wrongful death bill



    Credit: Erin Grall for Florida/Facebook

    By a razor-thin margin a Senate panel Tuesday passed a bill that would allow lawsuits for the wrongful death of fetuses at any stage of development in the womb, even if the fetus wouldn’t have been able to survive outside of the womb.

    The Senate Committee on Judiciary voted 5-4 to advance the bill, SB 164, by Sen. Erin Grall, a Republican from Fort Pierce.

    Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, a Republican from Naples, and Sen. Tom Leek, a Republican from St. Augustine, voted against the bill, along with Sen. Lori Berman, a Democrat from Boynton Beach, and Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat from West Palm Beach.

    Democratic Sen. Rosalind Osgood, who also serves on the Senate Committee on Judiciary, wasn’t in attendance, nor was Sen. Nick DiCeglie, a Republican from St. Petersburg. Senate documents show both senators had excused absences.

    In a prepared statement, Michelle Grimsley Shindano, Planned Parenthood Florida Action’s director of policy and government affairs, blasted the vote.

    “SB 164 could be the beginning of a slippery slope where the state treats embryos and fetuses as ‘persons’ under the law. If embryos and fetuses were granted the same rights as a pregnant patient, that would take away the patient’s right to make health care decisions that are best for their body and specific situation, including in emergencies. That means lawyers, not doctors, will be consulted if that patient needs health care, including in an emergency,” she said.

    Under current law, damages for the death of an unborn child are not recoverable under the state’s wrongful death act, which allows for recovery of medical or funeral bills and the past and future pain and suffering. However, per a 1997 Florida Supreme Court ruling, damages may be recoverable for “negligent stillbirth” in a common law case. Those damages are limited to mental pain and anguish and medical expenses incurred incident to the pregnancy.

    Common law refers a body of law developed through judicial decisions and precedents, not by statutes.

    Defining “unborn child”

    Specifically, the bill defines “unborn child” as a “member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”

    That definition alarmed abortion-rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers on the panel who said the proposal was a back door to further reduce access to reproductive health care.

    Proponents of the legislation also had concerns with the definition of unborn child saying it would exempt from potential lawsuits in vitro fertilization providers. IVF is a fertility treatment where an egg is fertilized by sperm in a lab, then the resulting embryo is transferred to a woman’s uterus.

    Grall said the bill updates Florida’s statute to reflect a post Roe v. Wade environment and fetus viability. Grall, who has unsuccessfully pushed the legislation in the past, also sponsored the state’s six-week abortion ban.

    “Roe has been thrown out as the basis for determining when a life deserves the protection of the state. And in the state of Florida, we have decided that that is at six weeks, that is very young. We have also decided that in our criminal statute it is when it is in the womb, when in the mother, that is when it deserves protection.”

    The legislation comes as wrongful death cases for fetuses have been brought in Texas and Arizona. In Texas, a man sued three friends of his now ex-wife for $1 million each for helping his then-wife access abortion pills.

    In Arizona, a man accompanied his former wife to her abortion appointment, then, two years later following their divorce, filed a wrongful death suit against the clinic. 

    The Senate legislation comes as the House champions an effort to expand the state’s wrongful death laws to allow parents of adult children and children of single adult parents to pursue wrongful death cases against hospitals and physicians. Florida law bans those groups of people from filing wrongful death suits. Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed legislation earlier this year that would have changed the law. 

    Despite the veto, the House is moving the legislation again this year.

    SB 164 heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice and Senate Rules committees next.

    Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

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    ‘SB 164 could be the beginning of a slippery slope where the state treats embryos and fetuses as ‘persons’ under the law.’

    You may just see the “the “lovechild of Kafka and Flannery O’Connor”

    Named one of Variety’s “10 Comics to Watch”





    Christine Sexton, Florida Phoenix
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  • Wrongful deaths for fetuses, pregnancy crisis center bills filed for 2026



    Credit: via Erin Grall for Florida/Facebook

    A pair of reproductive-related bills have been filed in the Florida Legislature in advance of the 2026 legislative session that starts Jan. 13.

    One proposal, filed by Vero Beach Republican Sen. Erin Grall, would let parents file wrongful-death lawsuits for the death of a fetus at any stage of development.

    As of this publication, Grall’s bill, SB 164 lacked a House companion.

    SB 164 would not allow civil suits to be brought against medical personnel providing assistive reproductive technology, or procedures that involve the handling of human eggs, sperm, and embryos to help achieve pregnancy.

    Neither could lawsuits be filed against a patient seeking reproductive assistance.

    Grall filed similar legislation last year but that bill faced opposition from powerful Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, the former Senate president and chair of the Rules Committee. Passidomo took issue with the bill’s definition of “unborn child” as a “member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”

    The 2026 version of the bill uses the same definition of unborn child.

    The second proposal, HB 6001, was filed by Boca Raton House Democrat Kelly Skidmore. That bill would eliminate from statute the “Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program,” established in 2005 as an initiative of then-Gov. Jeb Bush with the Legislature agreeing to appropriate $2 million for its operations.

    In 2018, the Legislature codified the program into statute passing HB 41.

    Now the program is housed in the Department of Health and legislators have agreed in the current year state budget to allocate $29.5 million to help it operate.

    Skidmore argues that the program is no longer needed because of the state’s six-week abortion ban which, for the most part, bans terminations before many patients know they are pregnant.

    “When we live in a state that has a six-week ban, how many crisis pregnancies do you think there are that we still need to fund $29.5 million for these centers?” Skidmore asked. “What crisis pregnancies are they helping with? There aren’t any, because there are no options for pregnant women. So, this is just false. All of it is false and a misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

    HB 6001 doesn’t have a Senate companion because it is a “repealer bill.” Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez implemented a rule allowing representatives to file one repealer bill per session that does not count toward their seven-bill limit.

    Skidmore said she took advantage of the opportunity.

    “And what surprises me is that the emphasis on the new DOGE office has not raised this as a red flag of inappropriate spending of taxpayer dollars, particularly since there was a recent news story that the lawyer that represents many of these networks gave advice to not provide ultrasounds to pregnant women suspected of having an ectopic pregnancy because it was a high risk of being sued,” Skidmore said, referencing a Massachusetts lawsuit.

    Meanwhile, the most recent available data show that during state fiscal year 2022-23, 21,372 women were provided 132,395 counseling services and 18,238 pregnancy tests were provided by the centers.

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    The language is similar to oaths taken by lawyers, doctors, and public officials

    The legislation would reduce the minimum to buy a firearm in the state from 21 to 18 years of age





    Christine Sexton, Florida Phoenix
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