If you follow the rest of the tweets, you’d think the Florida Legislature wants to shut down minorities peacefully redressing complains to the government.  They issued a statement explaining in a bit more detail why they are opposing the bill, but I don’t know what they read. Here is the bill in its final form awaiting for the Governor to sign. You can compare what the ACLU says and what the bill says on your own, but I will give you my IANAL analysis anyway.

HB1 is designed to chill and criminalize Floridians for exercising their First Amendment right to protest.

OK, please do explain and point out the relevant sections.

By redefining “rioting,”

First strike: There is no new definition of riot anywhere in the bill. And Florida already has a section on its statutes (chapter 870) relating with affrays and riots.

 the bill grants police officers broad discretion in deciding who could be arrested and charged with a third-degree felony at a protest and fails to provide protection for people who have not engaged in any disorderly and violent conduct.

Again, very wrong. Here is the text in the bill (bold are mine):

(2) A person commits a riot if he or she willfully participates in a violent public disturbance involving an  assembly of three or more persons, acting with a common intent to assist each other in violent and disorderly conduct, resulting in:
 (a) Injury to another person;
(b) Damage to property; or
(c) Imminent danger of injury to another person or damage to property.

Although mistakes may and will happen, the bill does not target people who truthfully engaged in a peaceful march but the assorted asses that are looting the Foot Locker, trying to set fire to vehicles and/or businesses and attacking people having dinner.

In Florida, a felony charge strips people of their voting rights.

A felony conviction strips a citizen of his/her voting rights. These people are supposed to be lawyers.

This bill would also hinder local governments from determining how to allocate law enforcement resources to address critical needs in their local communities. It allows the Governor, with the Cabinet, to usurp control of a city budget and amend it to their liking at the appeal of any county commissioner or state attorney, regardless of whether local elected officials approve of changes made in the budget.

“ZOMG! DeSantis is not gonna let local governments pave the roads or fund school lunches for poor kids being starved by Eeeevil Republicans!”  But what the bill actually says is:

If the tentative budget of a municipality contains a funding reduction to the operating budget of the municipal law enforcement agency, the state attorney for the judicial circuit in which the municipality is located,

That part of the bill is narrowly defined to cover a reduction in the operating budget for Law enforcement and Judicial offices. And the kicker is that it is not just a member of the Executive descending from Tallahassee and intervening, it actually establishes a process where it is an elected member of the community who disagrees with the deduction, has to appeal via a petition to the Administrative Commission of the Executive Office of the Governor and with a bunch of details described in the bill to get things started. It is not just a sweeping take over of the operating budget of the municipality as the press release is trying to “suggest.”

It would also shield violent counter-protesters from civil liability for killing a peaceful protester or demonstrator with their vehicle,

Not such thing in the bill. The ACLU is making it sound (how unusual) as if the bill would allow you to run over “peaceful protesters” on purpose. I would like to remind the ACLU that at a minimum, that would be vehicular manslaughter and more than likely just plain old murder.  And we already have in the books a law protecting people from civil liability in case of self-defense, but somehow I doubt the ACLU suddenly forgot about it.

 and make pulling down a Confederate flag a punishable offense for up to 15 years in prison.

And once more, no such thing in the bill (it looks like a recurring thing, doesn’t it? By design perhaps?) The only passage somewhat in the same region of their imagination is this one:

It is unlawful for any person to willfully and maliciously destroy or demolish any memorial or historic property, or willfully and maliciously pull down a memorial or historic property, unless authorized by the owner of the memorial or historic property. A person who violates this section commits a felony of the second degree.

A felony on the second degree does carry up to 15 years in prison.  Snatching a Confederate flag out of the back of somebody’s truck is at best a petty theft charge and only if the cops bother with the arrest.

And of course, they need to close with a Liberal application of the Race Card.

“HB 1 is racist, unconstitutional, and anti-democratic, plain and simple. The bill was purposely designed to embolden the disparate police treatment we have seen over and over again directed towards Black and brown people who are exercising their constitutional right to protest. It was introduced as a political stunt after a year of historic protest, in which millions of Americans joined together to call for an end to the disparate killings of Black people at the hands of police. It is no coincidence that these bills were introduced by politicians who harshly criticized these calls for racial justice and police accountability.”

Holy crap! That has to had maxed out the Race Card, with so much bull.

Here is where I wonder why the Florida ACLU apparently decided to be “less than accurate” about this bill, but it would just be a filler for more post space. Let me say that it it is later revealed that they are fully engaged in seeing that Governor DeSantis is not re-elected and that affected their creative writing vis a vis press releases, I would not be surprised