Why does DeSantis veto Republican proposals? A breakdown.

In his time as governor, Ron DeSantis has vetoed nearly four dozen policy bills and slashed billions more from state budgets passed by a Florida Legislature dominated by his Republican colleagues.

Sometimes, the vetoes leave egos bruised. In January, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson made a jab about DeSantis’ prospects in the 2024 presidential race — one year after the governor vetoed $100 million from a land conservation program that was a key priority of Simpson’s.

“Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?” Simpson said earlier this year on the Deeper Dive podcast.

Although DeSantis has rejected about the same number of bills as his predecessor, Rick Scott, in an average year, the governor’s veto pen has spilled more ink of late. This past session, he vetoed more bills than any other — at a time when Republicans exercised near-total control of the legislative process.

To better understand why DeSantis sometimes clashes with what should otherwise be considered a reliable ally — the GOP-controlled Legislature — The Tampa Bay Times analyzed each of the 47 policy bills killed by the governor since he first took office. (By way of comparison, DeSantis has approved more than 1,500 bills in that time.)

The vetoes can be broken down into categories that suggest a broader purpose, the analysis found. DeSantis nixed a few bills because his team crafted what they felt was a superior version of the same legislation. In eight veto letters, DeSantis cited his concern about Floridians’ pocketbooks. And some measures died to send a political message.

DeSantis has some suggestions

Jeff Brandes, the former state senator from St. Petersburg, saw the business end of DeSantis’ veto pen in 2021. That year, DeSantis killed a bill Brandes sponsored relating to civics education requirements. It had passed the Legislature unanimously.

Brandes said that any time a Republican governor vetoes legislation produced by a Republican-led Legislature, there’s been a breakdown in communication between lawmakers and the governor’s team. Lawmaking is complicated, he said. Breakdowns happen.

“There’s always going to be things that slip through the cracks,” Brandes said. “There’s no perfect way to run public policy.”

But DeSantis has also been clear ahead of some vetoes. In two instances, DeSantis signaled he wouldn’t sign bills that were being debated by the Legislature. Lawmakers passed the bills anyway. He vetoed them, then lawmakers eventually passed different versions crafted with his help.

This pattern played out with 2022 legislation creating congressional maps. It happened again with a bill banning some minors from social media earlier this year.

DeSantis vetoed a bill in June that would have restricted the sale of hemp in Florida. In his veto letter, he laid out specifics about what he’d like to see in future legislation.

“Sometimes he’s got to big dog the process,” Brandes said.

DeSantis hates fees

DeSantis often writes a letter explaining why he’s vetoing a bill. At least eight times, DeSantis said he vetoed a bill because it would cost Floridians too much.

A bill that would have allowed utilities to impose a fee on homeowners and businesses who install solar panels got the axe two years ago because the amount would “contribute to the financial crunch that our citizens are experiencing,” he wrote.

The solar bill was one of several in which DeSantis blamed the increasing cost of living on the federal government. A 2022 measure that would have made some changes to the state’s tax collections had to go because it would add administrative challenges “in a year where the Biden Administration’s policies have led to record inflation and economic turmoil,” DeSantis wrote in his veto letter.

DeSantis has made Florida’s low-tax environment a key part of his pitch to voters here and across the country. But he hasn’t always said no to taxes. The governor signed a 2021 bill requiring out of state businesses to collect online sales taxes — a move some Democrats protested.

Sending a message

DeSantis has rejected hundreds of millions of federal dollars over the years while protesting spending in Washington.

Last year, DeSantis vetoed nearly $30 million out of the budget that would have drawn about $350 million in federal funding for energy rebates. The money would have been accessed by low- to middle-income Floridians to help lower their energy bills.

That year, amid the presidential campaign, DeSantis vetoed a bill that would have made it easier for state agencies to buy electric cars. According to survey figures cited by the Washington Post, electric vehicles are modestly popular among Democrats and wildly unpopular among Republicans. That bill had passed the Legislature with a single no vote, and DeSantis vetoed it without explanation.

Sometimes, the vetoes seem less about sending a message to the feds and more about burnishing DeSantis’ conservative credentials at home. Seven of the bills he’s nixed have been popular bipartisan measures aimed at making the criminal justice system less punitive.

In 2021, DeSantis vetoed a bill that the Legislature passed unanimously that would have allowed people to have their felony juvenile arrest records expunged if they completed a diversion program. He wrote that expunging such records “may have negative impacts on public safety.”

Earlier this year, the Legislature overwhelmingly approved a measure that would allow incarcerated Floridians to remain eligible for in-state tuition at Florida colleges and universities.

“We should not reward criminal activity by providing inmates with the same benefits as law-abiding citizens,” DeSantis wrote in his veto letter.