Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed a $6.4 million program to give free tampons and pads to public school students.
Rep. Kelly Skidmore, a Democrat from Boca Raton, had pushed for a bill to make those period hygiene products free and available at school nurse’s offices and school bathroom restrooms.
Getting their periods was why 1 in 4 students missed class, Skidmore said.
“I’m confident most women can relate to their period starting unexpectedly and at the most inconvenient time and location,” Skidmore said at a House committee during the Special Session last year. “For girls in school, it is no different and they shouldn’t be deprived of attending class and furthering their education five days out of every month.”
Fifteen other states and Washington, D.C., have passed similar legislation to offer free menstrual products, Skidmore said last year.
Previous attempts to make tampons and pads more accessible to schoolchildren who needed them have failed in the Legislature, although lawmakers created new legislation in 2019 that requires prisons to provide free period products for female inmates. The state also repealed taxes on menstrual products in 2017 under a bill that was sponsored by now-Senate President Kathleen Passidomo.
Skidmore could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.
The Menstrual Hygiene Products Grant Program was one of several veto items that drew outcries by Democrats Wednesday. Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando who often criticizes DeSantis, retweeted his veto list and pointed out the hygiene products program was one of the cuts.
DeSantis vetoed $900 million from the budget Wednesday as he cut spending to about $116.5 billion, or about $1 billion less than the current year.
“Some of the stuff I don’t think was appropriate for state tax dollars. Some of the stuff are things that I support but that we have state programs for,” DeSantis said during a press conference.
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