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Florida Lawmaker Declares 16 Year Olds Are ‘Not Children’ But ‘Youth Workers’ Amid Labor Shortage
In late August Hurricane Idalia, the strongest tropical storm to hit northern Florida since 1896, killed four people and caused up to $20 billion in damage. In September, thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis’ anti-immigrant law that has been called “draconian,” clean-up and rebuilding has been hard. Migrant workers have been fleeing north, to Georgia and other states, terrified of being arrested.
Nationwide, Republicans have been attacking President Joe Biden for what they call the “border crisis,” an influx of undocumented immigrants that not only started before the Biden administration, but was worsened by President Donald Trump according to former top national security, border security, and customs officials. House and Senate Republicans are now demanding any funds to help Ukraine and Israel be tied to funds to “fix” the border.
At the state level, Republicans including Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, have been shipping undocumented immigrants out of their states to points north, to spots like New York City, Philadelphia, Massachusetts’s Martha’s Vineyard, and even the official residence of the Vice President, the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
Last year on Christmas Eve, in 18 degree weather, “busloads of migrants were dropped off in front of Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington, DC,” according to CNN. Many were “asylum seekers from Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru and Colombia,” not used to sub-freezing temperatures. Some were dressed only in tee shirts.
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“Governor Abbott abandoned children on the side of the road in below freezing temperatures on Christmas Eve without coordinating with any Federal or local authorities,” the White House said in a statement.
There are no accurate figures for how many migrants have been shipped from Republican-run states like Texas and Florida, but they number at least in the tens of thousands. In October, Axios reported Gov. Abbott had shipped over 50,000 migrants to points north, including Chicago, NYC, L.A., D.C., and Philadelphia – all run by Democrats. Gov. DeSantis has a $12 million budget to send migrants out of his state, and is believed to have spent $615,000 to fly about 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. He “has vowed to use ‘every penny’ of the $12 million allocated to his administration for migrant transports,” CNN reported.
And now, as unemployment under President Biden continues to remain extremely low – below 4% for nearly a full two years – “the longest such streak since the late 1960s,” and as the COVID-related inflation has plummeted from 9% one year ago to 3.1%, as gas prices continue to drop, media outlets and think tanks are pivoting to reporting on the worker, staffing, and labor shortage.
“We hear every day from our member companies—of every size and industry, across nearly every state—they’re facing unprecedented challenges trying to find enough workers to fill open jobs,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported late last month. “Right now, the latest data shows that we have 9.5 million job openings in the U.S., but only 6.5 million unemployed workers.”
The labor shortage is caused in part by a long-term declining U.S. birth rate and decline in immigrants allowed to work in the U.S. Experts say without immigration, the U.S. population will start to decline.
“The U.S. labor force will shrink, and America risks stagnation and declining living standards without immigrants, according to new research,” Forbes reported in August. “Immigrants can boost the U.S. working-age population and offset America’s falling birthrate and the retirement of Baby Boomers. U.S. elected officials must decide whether to change immigration laws and policies to bolster America’s labor force and prevent decline.”
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As a result, Republicans across the country have been working to reduce or remove child labor protections to help fill the lack of able-bodied workers.
“While federal agencies are ramping up enforcement of child labor protections in response to increasing violations, industry groups are working to roll back child labor protections via state legislation,” the Economic Policy Institute reported in May. “Already in 2023, seven bills to weaken child labor protections have been introduced in six Midwestern states (Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and South Dakota) and in Arkansas, where a bill repealing restrictions on work for 14- and 15-year-olds has now been signed into law. One bill introduced in Minnesota would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work on construction sites. Ten states have introduced, considered, or passed legislation rolling back protections for young workers in just the past two years.”
And now, Florida.
Contributing to Florida’s labor shortage are Governor DeSantis’ policies during the COVID pandemic. Florida had the 18th-highest per capita COVID death rate in the U.S. 92,520 people reportedly died, ranking the state third in total COVID deaths.
But also, DeSantis’ immigration laws are scaring workers into fleeing the state.
Now, one Florida Republican lawmaker sees a solution: children. And she has a bill to put them to work more.
“The Republican-backed bill, fed to Rep. Linda Chaney by the right-wing Foundation for Government Accountability — a think tank that wrote the bill — would gut the state’s current restrictions on child labor for older teens, which were originally established to prevent work from interfering with a child’s health, safety and education,” Orlando Weekly reports. “Backed by industry groups representing restaurant and hotel owners, the proposed bill would get rid of state guidelines on when 16- and 17-year-olds can work and would limit local governments’ ability to enact stronger regulations in their communities. The bill, for instance, would make it legal for employers to put older teens to work on overnight shifts, even if they have school the next day.”
State Rep. Linda Chaney on Wednesday explained her legislation to weaken Florida’s child labor protections.
“This bill is not about children,” the Republican lawmaker told her colleagues. “This bill is about 16- and 17-year-olds. These are youth workers that are driving automobiles. They are not children.”
Florida Republicans are having a hearing about rolling back child labor laws.
When asked about the danger to kids and rising child labor violations, bill author Rep. Linda Chaney says:
“These are not children. These are 16 and 17-year-olds. these are youth workers.” pic.twitter.com/7PMEn2Mr3S
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) December 13, 2023
Rep. Chaney went on to explain that under her bill, a child could legally work the overnight shift, perhaps midnight to 6 AM, at a gas station or 7-Eleven, for example, on a school night, and could do so without parental consent.
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She said, “it is up to the individual and their parent how they choose to work and again, there’s no mandate in this bill of when or where they work, they may choose to work 35 hours. There is also school choice,” she said, of Florida’s massive school voucher program. “There’s a lot of differences of children in youth schedules now. So they may not be going to school during typical school hours. So for them to choose, they have the right now to choose what best fits their individual situation.”
When asked if the child has to “get parental consent to take that job if they’re 16 or 17?” Chaney answered, “No.”
Florida’s new child labor bill has a curfew so minors aren’t working dangerous jobs at 1 am, right?
Actually, no.
According to Rep. Linda Chaney, it’s up to the child’s boss how late they work, no matter how dangerous it is. pic.twitter.com/mXGURDTAY2
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) December 13, 2023
Chaney “said she filed the legislation in part to provide more labor for Florida’s tourism industry,” Florida-based reporter Jason Garcia wrote at Seeking Rents. “Being in a tourist area of Florida and knowing the needs of the hospitality industry…I felt this was a common-sense bill.”
Watch the videos of Chaney’s remarks above or at this link.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
