TALLAHASSEE (FBW) – The Florida Legislature capped its 2004 Session near midnight April 30, with the House finally capitulating to the Senate on a bill which will place on November’s ballot a constitutional amendment requiring parents to be notified of a minor seeking an abortion.

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Parental notification is one of a number of issues that Florida Baptists monitored during the session. Others included measures related to gambling, capital punishment and vouchers for private school students.

In the final hours of the session, which some described as a sort of “showdown” between the House and the Senate, lawmakers passed a $58 billion budget, reached agreement on a universal pre-kindergarten measure and agreed to disagree on a slew of other bills that have been in process since the beginning of the session March 2.

Bill Bunkley, legislative consultant for the Florida Baptist Convention, told Florida Baptist Witness the session illustrated the deeply held differences between lawmakers.

“This year’s session was another example of the clashing that can take place not between selected parties, but within the context of philosophical differences,” Bunkley said. “A clearly conservative House, working with a clearly moderate to liberal Senate, was unable in the closing days to meet at a halfway point in order to compromise on legislation.”

Showing a marked departure from last year when gambling bills dominated the legislative landscape and lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on the budget, this year the session was a “mixed bag” for those concerned with moral issues, Bunkley said.

“A lot of things didn’t happen,” said Bunkley. “But, on the other hand, there was not a lot of major restructuring in the area of non-profits, religious organizations were opted out on some of the universal Pre-K requirements, pull-tabs were vetoed, and we remain hopeful about the parental notification process.”

About an hour before the adjournment of the session, Bunkley said the House voted 93-24, along party lines, to accept the Senate’s version of the Constitutional Amendment regarding parental notification.

“I am pleased that the voters of Florida will have an opportunty to decide if parents should be notified if their minor daughter is seeking to have an abortion,” Bunkley said. “Florida Baptists should remain prayerful, not only for a successsful vote, but for all other aspects of the process leading up to a November vote, including the education of the public.”

In 1989, the State Supreme Court struck down a law that required a minor to get a parent’s consent before obtaining an abortion.

The parental notification issue came to the forefront last July when the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a 1999 parental notification law violated a minor’s constitutional right to privacy.

In this session, Speaker of the House Johnnie Bryd (R-Plant City), initially sponsored a broad parental rights bill that would have sought to amend Florida’s Constitution to ensure “parents have a fundamental right to raise, educate and care for their children.”

In subsequent weeks, Byrd set aside the bill to support a more narrow measure. Byrd co-sponsored HJR1 with Rep. Sandra Murman, (R-Tampa), which the Senate had rejected early on because it did not provide for exceptions or judicial by-pass.

In the end, the bill that passed both chambers contained vague exceptions for judges to not require some minors to notify parents when seeking an abortion.

Another measure not receiving an expected last minute push, was a bill exempting juveniles from the death penalty. The Senate passed HB 224 April 27 with a 27-12 bi-partisan vote. The bill’s sponsor was Sen. Victor Crist (R-Tampa).

The House’s version of the bill died before it could make it to the floor for a vote. April 29 the Christian Coalition of Florida had released an Action Alert urging support of the bill.

The organization’s release quoted research from Colorado-based Focus on the Family which said, “people 17 years old and under are not as developed mentally as a person who is 18 and up.

“Therefore, it is inappropriate to end the life for a crime committed as a minor,” the release continued.

Receiving wide-spread attention also was an April 22 editorial “Florida should ban juvenile executions,” by Florida Baptist Witness executive editor James A. Smith, Sr., who while supporting capital punishment for adults, urged Byrd to support or allow a vote on the bill.

An April 25 editorial in the St. Petersburg Times, quoted Smith’s editorial, and credited him for the “original thought” that the bill could be viewed “in the same light” as the parental notification one, in that “a minor’s parents should be notified before she has an abortion.”

The Times’ editorial references action by the Missouri Supreme Court to throw out the death penalty for minors in that state, and says that since 1976 “only seven states have actually executed prisoners who were juveniles when they committed their crimes.”

Calling on House Speaker Byrd to “think more deeply about it,” the Times’ piece quotes from Smith’s editorial: “In both matters, the principle is the same. The law should recognize that minors must be treated differently (as it does in other laws related to minors). In the case of minors seeking abortions, at the very least, parents must be informed about such an important and life-changing medical procedure - no matter how politically correct abortion is.

“In the case of capital punishment, the law should recognize the difference of minors’ moral cupability,” the Times’ continued to quote Smith, “no matter how politically incorrect it may be to shield minors from the death penalty.”