GOP-led Florida Legislature to open session with eye on voters in Florida, Iowa

TALLAHASSEE – The Republican-dominated Legislature opens the 2024 election-year session advancing policies aimed at appealing to Florida voters who are trending more conservative, while also looking to charge up Gov. Ron DeSantis’ fading presidential campaign.

The 60-day session kicks off Tuesday. And DeSantis promises to be there to deliver his annual State of the State address. 

“Florida’s success is proof positive that when you establish a foundation of governing on conservative principles and protect the freedom of your residents, success will follow,” DeSantis wrote to legislative leaders about his opening day plans. “I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish together over the next year.”

But there’s no doubt that the Iowa caucuses — coming six days after Florida’s session opening — are weighing on the governor. His White House dreams could end that day with a lackluster finish behind the Republican runaway leader, Donald Trump.

“I don’t know if winning or losing the Iowa caucuses is going to change his outlook at all,” House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa said about DeSantis. “But I think it may embolden Republican members in the Legislature should the governor lose, to feel that they don’t have to be so lockstep with him.

“Losing the Iowa caucuses will take a lot of wind out of the governor’s sails,” she added.

DeSantis likely to get some home cooking from GOP at Capitol

On Day One of the session, though, there’s certain to be a show of Republican love for the governor. The House, for example, will open the session with its own swipe at Washington, a frequent DeSantis target.

In a purely symbolic move, resolutions calling for a national constitutional convention to approve a balanced federal budget and congressional term limits are expected to be approved by the GOP supermajority. It’s an early sign of the bounty of election-year politics expected to course through the two-month session.

Republicans now hold a roughly 700,000-voter edge over Democrats in Florida, a 6% lead, and the session will be a showcase for bills aimed at attracting these GOP partisans in November.

Republican leaders have talked of tamping down the culture war fights of recent sessions, when hardline GOP stands on LGBTQ issues, abortion, and diversity programs in schools and workplaces dominated.

But some divides are sure to appear. Measures already in play include bans on government “Pride Day” flags and the removal of Confederate monuments.

Scrap already looms over child labor changes

Just outside the realm of cultural values, a divide between Republicans and outnumbered Democrats is growing over a GOP-backed plan supported by the state’s business lobby which relaxes laws limiting the hours 16- and 17-year-olds can work.

Many Democrats have ripped it in Dickensian terms, likening it to a call for the return of workhouses.

The legislation also bars local governments from setting stricter limits on teen-age workers, just one of many bills that expand state control over city and county governments by restricting permits, fees and land-use standards.

The primary task — in fact a constitutional duty — bringing lawmakers to the Capitol is approval of a state budget for 2024-25, which will probably hover around $120 billion. That looms as a final act before lawmakers’ scheduled March 8 finish.

Renner, Passidomo have priorities

House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, have teed up their own priorities for session.

Renner is calling for imposing new limits on children’s access to social media sites, echoing a growing theme that the internet can have, as the speaker said, a “devastating effect on kids.”

Passidomo’s signature plan is a “Live Healthy” package of legislation intended to improve access to health care, help meet the workforce needs of hospitals and divert patients from emergency rooms to more appropriate care settings.

While improving health care is on Passidomo’s to-do list, she and other Florida Republican leaders steer clear of voicing any support for the Affordable Care Act, approved under President Obama.

Florida remains one of only 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid coverage and received the additional federal dollars that come with the move. The ACA became fully implemented a decade ago, but the Republican Legislature and DeSantis, like his predecessor, now-U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, continue to stiff-arm it.

'Deregulating' public schools

Along with “Live Healthy,” the Senate also is where a push to “deregulate” public schools has emerged.

After years of the Florida Legislature promoting taxpayer-financed vouchers for private schools, Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, is touting the idea of giving public schools some of the same relaxed regulatory oversight. His plan would ease back on public school testing and accountability, some financial requirements and hiring standards.

The approach has been questioned by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a longtime proponent of testing and for schools not advancing students who fail to meet grade-level standards.

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The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, typically is at odds with many GOP school initiatives. But it’s taking a wait-and-see approach to the deregulation effort.

“It seems like a deregulation plan that gets rid of some things and adds other regulations in other areas,” said FEA President Andrew Spar. “But some of it we could go along with. We’ve always wanted more local control rather than the state.”

In fact, the proposal’s approach to flexibility on teacher salaries, including allowing multi-year contracts, has earned early praise from the FEA.

Aging prison system needs billions of dollars in upgrades

Like public schools, which serve 2.9 million students, another Florida institution lawmakers may address is the state's correctional system, specifically its crumbling prisons.

With 85,000 inmates, lawmakers have been told by consultants that it will cost taxpayers between $6.3 billion and $11.9 billion over the next two decades to maintain, modernize and keep up with a forecasted surge of inmates.

Lawmakers could begin budgeting the overhaul this year, with air-conditioning one of the first areas drawing focus: About 75% of inmates now housed in facilities don't have it. Some warn that continuing to confine inmates without A/C in sweltering Florida summers could subject the state to even more costly lawsuits.

Staffing shortages and turnover also plague the aging prison system, where Florida’s oldest lockup, Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, has been operating since 1913.

Always look for tax cuts in an election year

Tax breaks are always popular – especially in an election year, when lawmakers look to woo voters and campaign donors with giveaways. 2024 should be no different.

DeSantis has recommended $1.1 billion in tax cuts, including a half-dozen sales-tax holidays for Florida consumers. But with Floridians still paying some of the highest property tax rates in the nation, and experts warning that relief is nowhere in sight, a big share of the DeSantis tax-cut package is directed toward homeowners.

He’d set aside $431 million to ease the insurance impact by imposing a one-year exemption on taxes, fees and other assessments on homes valued up to $750,000 and a permanent insurance premium tax exemption on flood insurance policies.

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The governor has estimated the tax relief will represent a 6% savings on the average homeowners’ policy costs.

But that may not go far.

The Insurance Information Institute has said the average cost of home insurance has more than doubled in the last three years. And it’s likely to keep going up in 2024.

“If we continue to see significant increases years after year here in Florida, the increase is going to far outweigh the savings,” Mark Friedlander, an institute spokesman, told a West Palm Beach TV station.

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.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida Republican lawmakers to advance DeSantis conservative policies