He touched on an array of previous legislative victories, careful to note the GOP-led Legislature’s role.
Floridians will eventually see lower property taxes, business tax cuts, budget cuts and new restrictions on petitions for constitutional amendments – if lawmakers follow Gov. Ron DeSantis’ agenda for the legislative session.
DeSantis laid out his proposals in a 30-minute State of the State speech to the Legislature on Tuesday, the first day of the 60-day regular legislative session.
He touched on an array of previous legislative victories, careful to note the GOP-led Legislature’s role. DeSantis enters this session after signing a new law last month to stiffen immigration enforcement by state and local law enforcement.
But the legislation was passed after a battle with Republican legislative leaders, House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula.
“Working together, we have amassed a record that is without peer anywhere else in the entire country,” DeSantis said. He urged lawmakers to cut property taxes, eliminate a tax on business rents and roll back restrictions on firearms.
Perez and Albritton, along with their Republican members who enjoy a supermajority in the Legislature, will likely accommodate many of his recommendations. But DeSantis’ agenda could meet some resistance in a Legislature that is more prepared to push back on his plans than in recent years.
For instance, DeSantis urged lawmakers not to meddle with the changes to property insurance laws they passed in December 2022, removing one-way attorney fees for those who successfully sue their insurer. He pointed to 11 new companies coming to the state while some have received small rate reductions as proof the reforms worked to stabilize the insurance market that saw skyrocketing premium hikes.
“The fact is this the Florida Legislature has devoted more time and effort to address insurance reforms over the last few years than in the entire history of the state,” DeSantis said. “I hope that the Legislature continues these efforts.”
But Perez scolded insurance companies, pointing to a study, first reported by the Tampa Bay Times, that was done in 2022 but withheld from lawmakers, showing some companies moved profits to other sister entities to avoid scrutiny from regulators and the Legislature. He said he’s ordering House committees to issue subpoenas and requiring industry witnesses to give testimony under oath during meetings.
“We have an obligation to make sure that government works for the people and it isn’t the playground for a group of insiders,” Perez said earlier in remarks to the House. “We are the public’s watchdogs.”
Albritton, too, pledged to hold insurers to greater scrutiny amid higher rates.
“We’ll hold insurance companies accountable for the rates they charge and the services they provide when disaster strikes,” Albritton said in his own remarks in the Senate. “They aren’t going to manipulate the system. And neither is any other industry. Not on my watch.”
Democrats also are seeking more oversight of insurance carriers. House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa wrote to Perez and DeSantis last week asking for investigations of insurers in light of the study. She also slammed DeSantis’ rosy picture of the property insurance market.
“Many of his comments today about property insurance sounded like he was in a different state. He talked about property insurance rates coming down,” Driskell said Tuesday after the speech. “That absolutely is not the feedback we get from our neighbors on the ground.”
DeSantis also wants to see more sales tax holidays on specific items, including one this summer for firearms and ammunition. Perez, though, warned against a proliferation of sales tax holidays and instead urged his members to find more meaningful, longer lasting tax cuts.
And on gun laws, DeSantis asked lawmakers to reverse laws passed after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland in 2018 that left 17 dead, including 14 children. The Legislature banned rifle sales to those under 21.
“We need to be a strong Second Amendment state so let’s get some positive reform done for the people of Florida,” DeSantis said.
Some GOP lawmakers have filed bills to repeal that provision in recent years, but they haven’t passed. Moreover, Albritton has said he opposes a move for open carry – allowing firearms to be carried openly in public – because law enforcement officials are against it. DeSantis, though, has said he’ll sign such a bill if it passes the Legislature.
At a press conference immediately after the State of the State speech, DeSantis said he wanted to re-evaluate the state’s red flag law, for example. It allows law enforcement to remove guns from someone who is deemed a threat to themselves or someone else.
DeSantis said he has a problem when the law puts the burden on the person to convince a court they are not a threat. The burden should be on the government, he said: “I think it’s a huge due process violation.”
For Democrats, though, that would be reneging on a bipartisan deal after the Parkland massacre that beefed up school safety measures along with the gun control provisions.
“It seems to me that we’re breaking our promise to the parents and students of Parkland,” Driskell said. “You heard the Governor wanting to walk that back. I don’t think anything he mentioned would make Floridians safer.”
DeSantis also called the state’s homestead exemption “not adequate” to protect taxpayers and backed putting a referendum on the 2026 ballot for property tax cuts.
This year, Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, has filed a bill (SB 852) requiring a study of getting rid of property taxes altogether and making up the difference with budget cuts and sales tax increases.
“We can’t set price control and say, ‘Okay, you know, we’re going to say eggs are $1 a dozen.’ If I could do that, I would. That’s just not the way it works,” DeSantis told reporters. “But the taxes, that’s solely in control of government and ‘we the people’ to be able to decide how that’s going. So I’m excited about the prospect of providing relief.”
(This story was updated to add new information.)
Ana Goni-Lessan contributed. Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.
