![]() ![]() Say a developer is about to destroy some wetlands that filter the water in a nearby lake, and a government agency is going to let it happen. Rights of Nature laws are a way to add teeth to environmental-protection rules that some companies routinely flout or that some government agencies refuse to enforce. This time, a group of environmentalists pushed for a referendum on whether Orange County should adopt a local “Rights of Nature” law. Rick Scott and the Legislature to pass a law that forbids cities and counties from making businesses provide sick-time to their workers - or any other kind of benefit, from health insurance to retirement plans.Īnd this all happened yet again in Orange County just two years ago. ![]() Smaller businesses would have had to provide sick time, too, but it could have been unpaid.īut before the vote on the referendum could happen, lobbyists for some of the biggest low-wage employers in Orlando - particularly Disney World, Universal Studios and Darden, the corporation that owns Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants - raced to Tallahassee to get state politicians to intervene. This was a modest proposal: Businesses with more than 15 employees would have had to let their workers accrue one hour of paid sick time for every 40 hours they worked. Ten years ago - once again in Orange County - a coalition of worker and public-health advocates got a referendum onto the local ballot that would have required businesses in Orange County to provide their workers with earned sick time. That’s because the Florida Legislature has passed a law that makes it nearly impossible for cities and counties to enact local rent control. That’s how much Orange County voters want this. She didn’t get as many votes as rent control. Val Demings got more votes in Orange County than any other politician on the ballot. ![]() Her husband is the mayor of Orange County. She used to be the chief of the Orlando Police Department. Orange County is a Democratic-leaning county, and the Democrat at the top of the ticket this year was Val Demings. I got one - one - piece of mail urging me to support it.Īnd yet, rent control didn’t just pass. I live in Orlando and, at one point, I got seven pieces of mail in two weeks warning me of all the terrible things that would happen if I were to vote in favor of rent control. A coalition of corporate landlords, apartment developers and real-estate agents spent roughly $2 million advertising against this rent-control referendum. Voters in Orange County - the county that includes Orlando and is the beating heart of Florida’s low-wage tourism industry - approved a local referendum calling for rent control in what has become one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the country. For all the focus on the Republican wave that swept across Florida this week, people in Orlando delivered another message, too: ![]()
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