Anti-groomer bill clears Florida House panel, lawmaker wants pedophiles ‘hunted,’ prosecuted

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Legislation creating offenses for lewd and lascivious grooming in Florida passed its second committee assignment on Monday.

Reps. Taylor Yarkosky, R-Montverde, and Douglas Bankson, R-Apopka are the sponsors for HB 1135.

Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, is the sponsor for the Senate version, SB 1238.

The bill unanimously passed the Florida House Justice Appropriations Subcommittee.

The anti-grooming bill would make it a third degree felony for any person above the age of 18 to use sexually inappropriate communication and conduct with someone under the age of 16 in order to entice, excite, or compel them to participate in illegal sexual activity, according to the bill text.

Yarksosky said that the bill comes “full circle” with the legislation from the previous session that allowed for the death penalty for individuals who raped a child under 12.

“In Florida, we’re taking a stand, you do this in the grooming world, all the way to raping a child under 12, and you are going to be hunted, you are going to be arrested, you are going to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” he said.

Democratic members of the committee and speakers from the public expressed concerns with the legislation, claiming it would make sex ed more difficult to teach.

“This is dealing with exploitation versus protection,” Bankson said in response. “When it comes to education, health, these other facilities, these are about health and welfare, these are about warning children.”

“So education helps to protect them from these things,” he said. “We do not intent to do that within this bill, but rather, there’s a form and a pattern that law enforcement has been able to fair it out through these things.”

John Maurer, the public policy director for Equality Florida, said that the bill is too broad and will impact public school curriculums.

“As written, it sweeps too broadly and risks banning, or at the very least, chilling important conversations where there is no harmful intent,” he said.

Dr. Paul Arons, a retired physician from the Florida Department of Health, also spoke against the bill.

“Words have consequences,” he said. “This bill could achieve its purported purpose if it simply stated, ‘a person 18 or over who maneuvers a person less than 16 into unlawful sexual activity commits a felony.'”

“Lewd and lascivious behaviors are already prohibited in Florida law and the word ‘grooming’ has taken on a purposeful and specifically anti-LGBTQ connotation,” he added.

Ryan Kennedy from the Florida Citizens Alliance spoke in favor of the bill and the importance of it to protect children and families.

“At the Florida Citizens Alliance we have particularly taken interest in the areas of sex trafficking and human trafficking when it comes to our minors because, as we’ve seen from multiple reports, Florida ranks amongst the highest in the country when it comes to this,” Kennedy said.

“We think the language in the bill is good. We need a definition in place to codify what this is, because again, the purpose, from our perspective, is we need to stop the acts before it happens,” he said. “We don’t want it to get to the point where someone is becoming sex trafficked because of decisions that they had made under false pretenses or because of the grooming that has taken place with them.”

Rep. Mike Beltran, R-Riverview, spoke in favor of the bill and commented on the public testimony opposition.

“I’ve said this before, I’m going to say it again, we’re passing generally applicable laws that apply to everyone,” he said. “I’ve looked at the text of this law, I don’t think it targets, I don’t think there’s any intent in the heart of any of the sponsors to single out any group.”