There have been stories in the press recently suggesting that the culture war issues are fading away. Such stories are premature.

Jason Garcia is an investigative reporter in Florida who keeps watch over the daily corruption in politics in his blog “Seeking Rents.” In this post, he tracks the bills that were passed. If you think the Republican majority is moderating its ideology, read this.

Garcia writes:

Two weeks into this year’s session of the Florida Legislature, one of the Big Business lobby’s top priorities seemed to be in trouble.

Republican leaders in the Florida House of Representatives were muscling a bill through their chamber that would, among other things, stop cities and counties across the state from enforcing local laws that require government contractors to pay higher wages or businesses with outdoor workers to follow heat-safety rules.

But the legislation — House Bill 433, which records show was written at least partly by lobbyists for the Florida Chamber of Commerce— faced a more difficult path forward in the Florida Senate.

To have any hope of passing, the Senate version of the bill first had to clear the chamber’s Commerce and Tourism Committee, where Republicans held a slim, 4-2 majority. And one of the Republican members was Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez of Miami, where more than 28,000 workers were facing potential pay cuts under the bill. Rodriguez is also one of four Republican senators in Tallahassee elected to swing districts with help of spoiler-candidate schemesorchestrated by GOP political strategists using Big Business money.

Even if Senate Bill 1492 somehow survived that stop, it would then have to get through the Senate’s Community Affairs Committee. And the chairperson of that committee — the person who, at least ostensibly, decides which bills to put on the agenda and which to let die without a hearing — was Sen. Alexis Calatayud, another Republican from Miami sitting in a possible tossup seat.

So the Senate sponsor — Sen. Jay Trumbull (R-Panama City) — offered a compromise. He agreed to remove the part of his bill that would have wiped out living wage laws in places like Miami. The scaled-back version of the bill would only stop communities from establishing their own heat-protection rules, which wasn’t something that any city or county had done yet (though Miami has been considering one).

“I felt that for our purposes— in this committee, on this particular bill, today — that it would be better just to have us just talk about the heat issues in the bill,” Trumbull told the committee that day.

The compromise was enough to get SB 1492 through the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee by a single vote.

The compromise was also enough to get the bill onto the agenda of the Senate Community Affairs Committee — where it once again survived by a single vote.

The compromise was also a fraud.

Because seven weeks later — on the final day of the Legislature’s 60-day session — Republican leaders in the Senate decided to take up the House version of the bill anyway. Just two hours before gaveling this year’s session to a close, the Florida Senate voted 24-15 to pass HB 433, which, though it had been tweaked, largely resembled the legislation that senators had seemingly abandoned before.

(The House bill is actually even worse for workers, because it would also prohibit local communities from passing “fair work week” laws that require businesses to give hourly workers advance notice of their weekly schedules.)

The bait-and-switch ultimately accomplished two goals for Senate Republican leaders.

It helped them sidestep a couple of tough committees in order to pass a priority bill for the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which records show gave more than $400,000 last year to a fund controlled by Senate GOP leadership. 

But it also helped them protect their potentially vulnerable incumbents. Because both Rodriguez and Calatayud were ultimately allowed to vote against the bill — but only after their votes no longer mattered. 

Garcia then lists the other bills that were passed by the Legislature before it recessed.

They included:

Loosening child labor laws (having banned undocumented immigrants, the Legislature had to make it easier for businesses to hire teenagers)

Permit school districts to hire religious chaplains to counsel students in school

Lower the standards for teachers in “classical schools,” the charter schools based on the Hillsdale College curriculum

Extend Florida’s “Stop Woke Act,” which limits teaching about racism or sexism, to education-preparation courses

“Reduce regulations on natural gas pipelines, prohibit offshore wind energy, and erase most mentions of climate change from state law.”

Moderation? No.