His deal with his presidential marketing campaign as an alternative of the session — an important a number of months for lawmakers within the state — has left legislators pissed off. He hasn’t rolled out an extended line of coverage initiatives he desires from legislators or communicated to legislative leaders what he desires achieved.
“We actually don’t know what this session is about, which is odd,” mentioned state Rep. Fentrice Driskell, the chief of the Home Democrats.
It’s fairly a outstanding turnabout for a governor who has a number of instances pressed legislators into motion, together with pushing them to carry particular periods over his battle with Disney and to point out solidarity with Israel after the Hamas assaults. DeSantis has been some of the highly effective governor in Florida in a long time and holds sizable clout with the Legislature.
Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, whereas assembly with reporters in early December, mentioned she had referred to as DeSantis to press him on his legislative priorities and that the governor had quipped about getting every part he had wished the earlier 12 months.
And DeSantis has made that time repeatedly on the marketing campaign path in Iowa this previous week as he maintains that he had “over delivered” on his guarantees to Florida voters.
It was recent off his resounding reelection win in November 2022 that DeSantis pressed his GOP allies within the Legislature to enact a sweeping set of legislative proposals. Lawmakers finally handed payments scrapping hid weapons allow necessities, banning abortion after six weeks of being pregnant, prohibiting gender affirming medical take care of minors and opening up personal college vouchers to any household that wished them.
A DeSantis ally, given anonymity to talk freely, mentioned the goal was to guarantee that he couldn’t get outflanked on the proper through the presidential marketing campaign.
DeSantis did launch a funds framework in early December that lays out spending priorities, together with a spherical of tax cuts and extra cash on signature objects equivalent to instructor pay will increase and Everglades restoration. However past that, legislators have been left with little steerage from the governor.
State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill), who’s near DeSantis and helped shepherd a number of of the governor’s priorities final 12 months, insisted DeSantis and his administration have been actively engaged heading into this 12 months’s session.
“He’s nonetheless going to have his imprint on the session,” Ingoglia mentioned. “I do know the governor’s crew … have been engaged in numerous items of laws. To say they don’t seem to be energetic will not be giving them credit score.”
Florida’s annual legislative session is going down whereas DeSantis is in the course of a vital make-or-break interval for his presidential marketing campaign. He’s at the moment locked in a battle with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley over who would be the most important challenger to former President Donald Trump, who stays out in entrance in response to polls in the important thing early nominating states equivalent to Iowa.
DeSantis, together with a lot of his marketing campaign crew, is embedded in Iowa because the Jan. 15 caucuses draw nearer. This week, earlier than the kickoff of the Florida legislative session, DeSantis is crisscrossing the state as he tries to win the state outright or mount a good second place exhibiting that would assist him regain momentum. New Hampshire’s main comes every week afterward Jan. 23, with the South Carolina main following a month later.
The prospect that DeSantis might be targeted on his presidential marketing campaign and never what’s occurring again house is a whole reversal from latest years — though it wouldn’t be unprecedented. Earlier GOP governors would let legislative leaders set the tone and agenda of the session and never weigh in, particularly on controversial proposals.
Passidomo and Senate Republicans are already pushing forward with a number of main proposals, together with a rewrite of college rules and testing requirements that has drawn opposition from former Gov. Jeb Bush and his supporters. Passidomo can be pushing an initiative to spice up the variety of medical professionals working within the state.
However even when the governor isn’t enjoying a significant position, there may nonetheless be some heated battles between Democrats and Republicans.
Democrats have already sharply criticized a invoice that might loosen up the state’s youngster labor legal guidelines and permit 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds to work full time. Republicans have additionally sponsored payments to decrease the age-buying requirement for rifles that was adopted within the wake of the Parkland bloodbath, bar authorities businesses from requiring staff to make use of sure private pronouns about their coworkers, and a measure that might require college students to be taught that the Democratic Celebration within the nineteenth Century supported slavery.
“My suspicion is that will probably be extra of the identical,” Driskell mentioned. “The session will in all probability begin easily however then the floodgates will open.”