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2025 Florida Legislature Report

 

 

 

Submitted by Barbara DeVane, Written by Equal Ground

As confirmed the prior week, neither chamber of the legislature met last week, but we will see movement this week. The House and Senate have released schedules for the week, announcing that they have reached agreements on joint allocations and will be meeting this week beginning Tuesday, more details on that schedule can be found here. The Joint Legislative Budget Commission will meet this Wednesday June 4th at 11am to go over specific budget items, particularly appropriations to various departments including the Departments of Commerce, Financial Services, Corrections, Health, Transportation, Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and the Agency for Healthcare Administration. This commission comprises both senators and representatives including both Democrats and Republicans and the lone No-Party Affiliate, former Senate Minority Leader Jason Pizzo.

DeSantis vetoed HB 6017, “An act relating to Recovery of Damages for Medical Negligence Resulting in Death”, this bill sought to close what proponents call the “free kill” loophole, which prohibited adult children of single persons, and parents of single adult children, who die due to medical negligence from suing the party at fault (medical provider/institution) and collecting damages. The governor shared his reasons for the veto here, he states that the bill will not deter “bad actors” from negligent care, it will just drive up healthcare costs for Floridians because it lacks guardrails like caps on damages and attorneys fees.

      Silencing the Voice of the People

Last week the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) filed a motion to intervene in Florida Decides Healthcare (FDH) v. Byrd, the federal lawsuit against the State of Florida for the passage of HB 1205 into law. The judge granted their motion to join the case in defense of the newly passed law that vastly restricts the process to get citizens-led amendments referred to the ballot in Florida. This will allow RPOF to strengthen the state’s case to keep this law on the books, and allow additional resources to flow to aid the defense. This law is one of the most controversial passed this session, as it was not only a priority of Governor DeSantis, but was also a clear strategic effort to silence the will of Florida voices, and to further quell the progress of grassroots organizations that has been won in recent elections.

The preliminary injunction hearing took place on May 22nd, the judge has not made a ruling yet, if he grants the injunction then this law will not go into effect until the full hearing is heard and ruled in favor of the state. Florida Right to Clean Water (RTCW), the group working to get a clean water amendment on the 2026 ballot, also intervened on the case and now join FDH, League of Women Voters (LWV), and others as plaintiffs on the case.
 

The FL Budget

As we have shared in previous updates, balancing a budget is the only constitutional requirement of the legislature at each annual session, yet this year lawmakers could not reach consensus within the allotted 60 day session, so the session has been extended from May 2 to June 6th and now will finish even later than that. After weeks of back and forth both the House and Senate will be back in Tallahassee this week and they say they are prepared to pass a budget. They have reached a negotiated budget agreement that includes $2.25 billion in recurring revenue reductions.

Key components of the agreement are:

  • Elimination of business rent tax, totaling $900 million
  • Permanent sales tax exemptions valued at $350 million
  • Debt reduction measures totaling $250 million

In addition to these cuts, the agreement includes a proposal for a constitutional amendment to raise the cap on the Budget Stabilization Fund (BSF) from 10% to 25%.

Edited by Judi Marraccini, legislativeFLNOW@gmail.com

 

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