John Kennedy| Capital Bureau | USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA
Show Caption
TALLAHASSEE – Florida lawmakers ended a two-month legislative session filled with divisive, conservative policies condemned by critics as cruel but craftedto powerGov. Ron DeSantis’ expected bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
In one of the last acts Friday, the House and Senate approved a $117 billion state budget backed by a $1.3 billion package of tax cuts whichcould fuel DeSantis’ national messaging about his skills leading Florida’s go-go economy.
“You do this political stuff, there’s chatter and there’s campaigns...but at the end of the day, it’s, 'OK, what are you going to do if you actually get in office?'” said DeSantis, flanked by Republican lawmakers in the Capitol’s Cabinet room after session.
“Are you going to lead? Are you going to deal with issues that are out there?” he said, adding, “I think this Legislature said, 'We’re going to tackle all these issues and take all the meat off the bone.'”
Framing the session with what is a likely theme of his anticipated national campaign, DeSantis said, “A lot of other states can learn a thing or two about how we do it in Florida. “
Unlike past years, when the session’s final day often lurched past nightfall amid a frenzy of last-minute bill passing, lawmakers finished at 10:59 a.m. Friday, following a low-key finale.
In a rare moment of unity in a combative session, Republican supermajorities in both chambers were joined by Democrats in unanimously approvingthe new state spending plan for the year beginning July 1.
DeSantis v. Disney: GOP lawmakers give governor more muscle ahead of court fight
Rifle age lowered: DeSantis backs changing post-Parkland mass shooting law by lowering age to buy a rifle to 18
Fact check: No, National Guard is not blocking Disney World entrances; claim is satire
DeSantis presidential run-up: DeSantis gets conservative wish list to campaign for president. Will it matter?
But for many, Florida’s 2023 session will be remembered for the hard-edged policy steps lawmakers delivered in response to demands by DeSantis, whose political muscle was enhanced by his 19% victory margin in gaining re-election last fall.
Republicans in the House and Senate advanced new restrictions on abortion, undocumented immigrants and transgender Floridians, along with bans on socially conscious investing by governments and diversity programs at public universities.
Democrats said the session was dominated by efforts to push down some of the state’s most vulnerable residents, illegal aliens, women and the state’s LGBTQ community.
Transgender health care: Restrictions pass Florida Legislature, head to DeSantis
Florida's trauma session: How this year’s Florida legislative session reopened wounds, left scars
“There wasn’t any ‘give’ on these bills,” said House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa. “I just can’t imagine the level of tone deafness it takes to have people come and pour their hearts out to you and tell their stories and say, ‘Please don’t pass this bad LGBTQ bill because it’s going to hurt'...and to still press that green button for a ‘yes,’ anyway.”
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said, “Floridians are being steamrolled by DeSantis’ extreme, ‘Florida blueprint,’ and working families are footing the bill."
She added that “DeSantis got his wish list,” but at the “expense of finding real solutions to the issues that Floridians are facing,” including runaway property insurance costs.
Republican leaders sense the roster of controversial bills will spawn costly legal challenges, another hallmark of the DeSantis era. Tucked into the state spending plan is at least $8.5 million in taxpayer money for litigation costs anticipatedto defend measures the governor enacts.
The robust budget has political shading. But it also reflects the state’s strongeconomy, providing significant increases in school spending, children’s health programs and road improvements, while still setting aside$10.9 billion in reserves.
But House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, said the Legislature focused on making Florida more affordable for residents, along with advancing measures to help children.
“If you’re looking for one big winner in this session, I think it’s children. We stood up for children and we defended childhood,” Renner said, citing approval of the nation’s biggest expansion of private school vouchers, more money for health insurance and a controversial ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Renner also was a leading proponent of the measure intended to bar most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, one of the strictest in the country. The new standard will take effect if the Florida Supreme Court upholds legislation approved last year that set 15-weeks of pregnancy as the deadline.
Planned Parenthood organizations have sued to overturn the 15-week law as unconstitutional. But the court, with a majority appointed by DeSantis, is being asked by Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody to reconsider its 1989 ruling which held that the state's constitutional privacy right protects abortion access.
DeSantis didn’t shed much light on his presidential plans, sticking to a well-rehearsed script.
“Look, I’ve always said we were going to see this through, and that’s what we’re going to do,” DeSantis said of the session, bill-signings and likely budget vetoes still to come.
“You know, what happens in the future? Look, people will get on that relatively soon,” he added. “I mean, you’ve got to either put up or shut up on that, as well.”
DeSantis won’t be sticking around the Florida Capitol long. He’s headed Saturday for Wisconsin’s rural Marathon County and a Republican Lincoln Day dinner.
Heavily Republican Marathon County has been strongly allied with former President Donald Trump – where the county’s GOP pushed unsuccessfully for Wisconsin electors to support him, even though he lost the state in the 2020 presidential contest to Democrat Joe Biden.
DeSantis has been running a shadow campaign in advance of his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, which he has said he wouldn’t act on until after the two-month session ended.
DeSantis is expected to soon open a presidential exploratory committee. A full-blown announcement is being targeted for June, according to those close to the Republican governor.
DeSantis’ popularity, though, has been fading, under steady political and personal attacks from Trump, who, polls show, he is now trailing by more than 30% among Republican voters.
DeSantis remains the closest rival to Trump among current and possible Republican contenders. But he has stumbled in recent weeks even as an allied political committee is spending significantly across key primary states and a weeklong trade trip to Japan, South Korea, Israel and the United Kingdom drew middling reviews, at best.
But at the Capitol, flanked by Republican lawmakers, DeSantis was greeted like a hometown political hero.
GOP lawmakers through the session were devoted to pumping up the governor’s political aspirations, even clearing up any questions by changing the state’s “resign-to-run" law to exempt “persons seeking the office of President or Vice President of the United States.”
DeSantis bristled when asked about how he squared the policies he sought from lawmakers with the vast number of Floridians who came to Tallahassee, opposing the new abortion law, immigration restrictions, and measures directed at transgender residents.
Protests outside the House and Senate chambers were frequently led by LGBTQ activists, faith leaders, women’s groups and union members opposed to new restrictions on public employee organizations.
More than a dozen people were arrested Wednesday evening during a sit-in outside the Governor’s Office in the Capitol, protesting a broad array of issues advanced this session.
“How many of these people were paid to come?” DeSantis said. “I mean like, honestly...some of this stuff is just totally manufactured.”
John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @JKennedyReport
