Peggy Gossett-Seidman floats drowning prevention, clean water bills

Image via Peggy Gossett-Seidman.

Republican Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman lives in and represents Highland Beach, an oceanside municipality in Florida, whose 1,350 coastal miles is the most of any contiguous state in America.

Naturally, the safety of people in the water — and of the water itself — is frequently on her mind.

It’s in her legislation, too.

Three of four bills the sophomore lawmaker highlighted as priorities in the 2025 Legislative Session have to do with water.

The first would make mandatory a provision that few can argue shouldn’t already exist: lifesaving rings at every beach that can be thrown by anyone to rescue swimmers in distress.

Florida Statutes include training standards for swimming instructors and lifeguards at public pools. State law includes mandates for life jackets on boats.

But there’s no requirement for lifeguards to be present at beaches and pools, nor are there any requirements for lifesaving rings, also called life buoys, at places where there is a drowning hazard.

That’s a shame considering Florida consistently leads the nation in child drowning deaths, said Gossett-Seidman, who used to work as a lifeguard and give free swimming lessons in Palm Beach County.

She’s now working with a Melbourne-based nonprofit called Drown Zero, which uses funding from local rotary clubs to change that troubling statistic.

The to-be-filed bill would require brightly colored life buoys to be placed in strategic locations at public beaches with signage making clear that they are for emergency use only. They’d be there at all hours, but would most come in handy after hours, when any lifeguards working there may be off duty.

“Many times people are lost because there’s not a flotation device handy,” said Gossett-Seidman, adding that she’s working with the city of Boca Raton on a pilot installation at one of its beaches. “If we have an orange ring at each beach available to be thrown after hours, before hours or when someone’s not looking, we’ll save lives.”

Gossett-Seidman’s second water-focused bill, titled the “Safe Waterways Act,” would streamline reporting and public notification when public waterways are contaminated — an issue of increasing concern in the Sunshine State.

She filed versions of the measure in both years of her freshman term with Senate sponsorship from Boynton Beach Democrat Lori Berman. And it passed with unanimous support this year before Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed it, citing jurisdictional issues.

After talking with the Governor’s Office to “iron out small cracks and details,” Gossett-Seidman said the bill is returning in a form similar to its 2023 iteration and would create an up-to-date website people can visit for information.

“Public safety really needs to be addressed,” she said. “But this is not as big, fiscally, as it was previously entertained.”

Doral Republican Ana Maria Rodriguez will sponsor the bill’s Senate analogue. That’s not because of any falling out with Berman, Gossett-Seidman said, but because the Democratic lawmaker is Vice Chair of an appropriations committee the measure is likely to go before.

“We’ve discussed it,” Gossett-Seidman said. “We’re all fine with it.”

There’s also a third water-related bill in the works with a much narrower focus. This one, she said, would center on preventing drownings of children with autism spectrum disorder, who are 160 times more likely to drown than their neurotypical peers, according to the Autism Society of Florida. And a study published this year by the Children’s Service Council of Palm Beach County found that the number of children with autism who drown yearly is rising.

Based on discussion she’s had with experts on the subject, Gossett-Seidman believes better educating adults who work with autistic children could help to address the issue. So, that’s what the coming bill should do.

“In a nutshell, the bill would require parents whose children have been diagnosed and are in treatment with funding to note that fact (with their educators),” she said. “We can’t require people to take training or swimming lessons, but we can require that they are made aware and strongly encourage a support system in terms of basic training offered to them through their local YMCAs, Red Cross or other community programs.”

A nonaquatic measure Gossett-Seidman’s developing would fine-tune legislation she passed this year to fix “glitches” that caused Florida motorists to have their political party affiliation switched without their consent when they renewed their driver’s licenses online.

The problem had to do with Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles software that gave motorists seeking new or updated licenses to also update their voter registration. If they didn’t re-select their existing party, the system switched them to no party affiliation. Over the prior seven to eight years that the glitch persisted, an untold number of Florida voters were affected.

After the bill passed in the House, Gossett-Seidman told Florida Politics that the “glitches have been fixed.” But she’s since received reports that members of third parties — Green, Libertarian, Independent and others — are still being reverted to no-party voters.

She’s working to follow up on the issue with Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Director Dave Kerner, who worked with her on the prior bill.

“We’re not sure if it’s just part of the old glitch or if it needs to be adjusted or amended,” she said.

Gossett-Seidman, a former journalist and Highland Bach Town Commissioner, won re-election by a comfortable margin last month to the seat representing House District 91.

Her first-term achievements include passing headline-grabbing measures to unseal Jeffrey Epstein’s grand jury records and expressing support for Israel after the attack by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, and more than $12 million in state appropriations for local projects and programs.

HD 91 covers a southern portion of Palm Beach County including Boca Raton and parts of Highland Beach and West Boca. Previously a dependable Democratic stronghold, the district grew more conservative after redistricting in 2022.