Our Voice
Our Florida
Building a Better
Democracy for All
May 15, 2025
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TALLAHASSEE — Describing the law as “substantially overbroad,” a federal appeals court Tuesday upheld a preliminary injunction blocking a 2023 Florida law aimed at preventing children from attending drag shows.
A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, backed the Central Florida venue Hamburger Mary’s in a First Amendment challenge to the law. The state appealed in 2023 after U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell issued a preliminary injunction.
Tuesday’s majority opinion said that “by providing only vague guidance as to which performances it prohibits, the act (the law) wields a shotgun when the First Amendment allows a scalpel at most.”
“The Constitution demands specificity when the state restricts speech,” said the 81-page majority opinion, written by Judge Robin Rosenbaum and joined by Judge Nancy Abudu. “Requiring clarity in speech regulations shields us from the whims of government censors. And the need for clarity is especially strong when the government takes the legally potent step of labeling speech ‘obscene.’ An ‘I know it when I see it’ test would unconstitutionally empower those who would limit speech to arbitrarily enforce the law. But the First Amendment empowers speakers instead. Yet Florida’s Senate Bill 1438 (the law) takes an ‘I know it when I see it’ approach to regulating expression.”
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May 12, 2025
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President Trump has ordered federal agencies to abandon the use of a longstanding legal tool used to root out discrimination against minorities, a move that could defang the nation’s bedrock civil rights law.
In an expansive executive order, Mr. Trump directed the federal government to curtail the use of “disparate-impact liability,” a core tenet used for decades to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by determining whether policies disproportionately disadvantage certain groups.
The little-noticed order, issued last month with a spate of others targeting equity policies, was the latest effort in Mr. Trump’s aggressive push to purge the consideration of diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I., from the federal government and every facet of American life.
The directive underscores how Mr. Trump’s crusade to stamp out D.E.I. — a catchall term increasingly used to describe policies that benefit anyone who is not white and male — is now focused not just on targeting programs and policies that may assist historically marginalized groups, but also on the very law created to protect them.
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State Voices Florida is a statewide civic engagement organization committed to bringing together progressive 501(C)(3) organizations to work together in building power around civic issues. If the progressive movement works together and speaks with one voice, great things will happen.
We believe everyone should have the right to vote, and voting should be simple and easy. We also support reproductive rights, environmental justice, criminal justice reform, economic justice and affordable housing for everyone.
Along with our partner organizations, we use data and technology, people-powered campaigns, and coalitions to collectively build a multiracial democracy that allows every Floridian to thrive and live in their full dignity. We are a member of the State Voices Affiliated Network, a network of state-based coalitions, advocates, and organizers fighting for a healthy, multiracial democracy.
We have over 100 partner organizations. They range from large national organizations with hundreds of employees to small nonprofits based out of a single county or even a single neighborhood. We provide support and tools to nonprofit partners regardless of size, to improve infrastructure while increasing capacity for all of our partners.
The Path to Power and Equality
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
CIVIC ACCESS
CIVIC REPRESENTATION
