No. SB 1172
Filed under Insurance.
Administrative Procedures; Specifying that hyperlinks to material incorporated by reference are provided by the Department of State; requiring agencies to include a summary of their intended action on each rule identified for review within a specified timeframe; providing that the director of the Division of Administrative Hearings is appointed for a specified term from a certain list submitted by the statewide nominating commission; requiring that an agency’s regulatory plan include a list of existing rules scheduled for review during the next 12 months, a 5-year schedule for review of all rules, and a summary of the agency’s intended action for each rule identified for review in the next 12 months, etc.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDThis bill adds a statewide nominating commission to the law governing administrative law judges, who decide disputes between citizens or businesses and state agencies. Full-time judges must now be appointed from a list of three names the commission submits.
Judges serve 4-year terms and face a performance review before reappointment, and can be removed for cause. They are also barred from private law practice while serving, and a director can now investigate and recommend discipline against them.
Separately, the bill changes agency rulemaking procedure: it requires Department of State approval before an agency publishes a rule correction, and it eliminates a standalone annual report on planned rule changes that used to go directly to the Senate President and House Speaker.
In medical-negligence arbitration, a separate section removes the carve-out that used to exclude the administrative law judge from arbitrator pay rules, so defendants must now cover that judge's fee like any other arbitrator's.
AIInstead of the Administration Commission simply appointing administrative law judges on its own, it must now choose from a list of three people nominated by a new statewide nominating commission, made up of members appointed by the Florida Bar, the Governor, and the commission itself.
AIBefore a judge's 4-year term expires, the nominating commission must review the judge's conduct and decide whether performance was satisfactory, and report that finding to the Administration Commission at least 6 months before the term ends.
AIThe division's director may now receive or open complaints against any administrative law judge, investigate them, and recommend removal or discipline -- a reprimand, fine, or suspension -- to the Administration Commission, which did not exist in the statute before.
AIWhile serving, an administrative law judge is now barred from engaging in private legal practice, and no one may be nominated for the job unless they have been a Florida Bar member in good standing for the previous five years.
AIThe Administration Commission may appoint an experienced attorney as a temporary administrative law judge, without going through the nominating commission, to cover for an absent or disqualified judge, but that attorney may not serve more than 120 successive days.
AIAn agency that publishes a notice correcting an error in its rulemaking notice can no longer do so on its own; the Department of State must approve the correction notice before the agency publishes it.
AIAgencies no longer have to send the Senate President and House Speaker a standalone yearly report on their intended action for each rule under review; that information instead becomes part of the agency's general regulatory plan.
AIMedical-negligence arbitration law used to make the defendant pay all arbitrators' fees except the administrative law judge's. That exclusion is deleted, so a defendant must now pay the judge's arbitration fee along with every other arbitrator's.