Winning Concrete Results
Stopping The Big Water Grab
In 2004, Florida PIRG and the Florida Water Coalition put a stop to attempts by Florida’s largest developers to allow water diversions from the rivers and lakes of north Florida to support sprawl in central and south Florida.
Fighting For Identity Theft Protections
In 2006, Florida PIRG worked with state legislators to pass a strong identity theft protection law allowing consumers to place a padlock on their credit reports when their personal information may have been compromised—thus stopping would-be identity thieves from opening new accounts under a victim’s name.
Fighting For Fair Phone Rates
In 2006, Florida PIRG supported the successful passage of legislation that repealed an anti-consumer provision in a law that had allowed the providers of basic local phone services to automatically raise their rates by 20 percent every year, without any justification or review by the Public Service Commission.
Demanding Meaningful Property Insurance Reforms
In 2007, Florida PIRG worked with a coalition of groups representing almost 1 million Floridians, to make sure that the Florida Legislature passed an insurance reform package that would offer immediate rate relief, require insurance companies to justify their rate requests, and put an end to a Panhandle exemption that has lead to irresponsible development on the Gulf Coast.
Defending Our Right To Participatory Democracy
The ballot initiative process is the most powerful tool Floridians have to directly tackle important issues. In 2006, state legislators filed four bills that would have taken power away from Floridians by dramatically restricting the use of ballot initiatives. Florida PIRG, working with the Save the Voters’ Voice coalition, successfully defeated all four of these attacks on our democracy.
Challenging Predatory Lending
After a hard-fought three-year campaign, in 1999 the Florida Legislature passed a Florida PIRG-backed bill that capped interest rates from car title loan lenders to 30 percent APR from a previous cap of 294 percent, protecting the most vulnerable Floridians from legalized loan-sharking.
Holding Corporations Accountable For Abuses
Florida PIRG worked with other state PIRGs to convince President Bush to sign a new accounting and corporate reform law, holding executives and boards of directors liable for the accuracy of company books and the actions of their auditors.
