A.G. Gancarski
Rep. Cord Byrd was elected last year to serve eastern Duval County and all of Nassau. Headed into his first session, the bills he sponsors reflects a mixture of local priorities and the issues that motivated him to run in the first place.
Among them: public safety issues and gun rights.
On Monday, Rep. Byrd discussed a few of the bills he’s sponsoring with FloridaPolitics.com, which cover the aforementioned areas, as well as others.
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One bill worth watching: HB 677, the House version of a Greg Steube bill on the Senate side.
HB 677, said Byrd, is a technical fix/clean up designed to remove previous statutory language that undermined the Castle Doctrine in “stand your ground” self-defense cases, asserting the right to self-defense over a possible presumption of guilt.
The cleaned up bill allows for armed self-defense “if he or she reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself, herself, or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.”
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Another Byrd bill worth watching: HB 949, which requires people convicted of DUIs to pay for and install a mandatory ignition interlock device, which would forestall drunk driving going forward.
The device would have to remain installed for six months at least.
Byrd notes that Mothers Against Drunk Driving is especially enthusiastic about the measure, which Byrd believes will make roads safer.
Despite the DUI conviction, Byrd said, people need to be able to work and function in society. This measure would allow for people to do that, while protecting against a repeat violation.
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Yet another Byrd bill with public safety impact: HB 949, which seeks a $250,000 state match for the city’s COPS Grant.
For the community policing initiative, Jacksonville seeks $250,000, a number it has gotten previously, to match $625,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice, and $294,211 in local monies.
Byrd related that this was a priority of the staff of Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, and as someone with family that has worked in law enforcement, the representative thought this would be natural for him to sponsor.
“It seems like there’s a murder every day in Jacksonville,” Byrd related.
Though that’s an overstatement (reports the Florida Times-Union, there have been 22 murders in two months this year), the public safety issue is an ongoing stress point for Jacksonville pols.
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It’s not all public safety and guns for Byrd, however.
HB 3267 seeks $5 million for the University of North Florida’s targeted high-tech infrastructure program.
Of the total, $3 million would go for equipment, and $2 million would go for an “innovation annex.”
Byrd noted that various high-tech industries have contacted the university, noting the need for training for the jobs that exist locally.
These are the kind of jobs, Byrd said, that are actually needed in today’s workplace.
