By Alexandra Glorioso, Ana Ceballos, and Lawrence Mower, Tampa Bay Times (TNS)
TALLAHASSEE, FL. In a surprising rebuke of Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida lawmakers overrode one of his vetoes for the first time on Monday and rejected his request for a special legislative session to address immigration.
This week, lawmakers are having their own special session to back President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, which they are dubbing the Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy (TRUMP) Act, rather than supporting DeSantis on his main subject of the past few years.
Additionally, they are thinking about taking away DeSantis’ authority to enforce immigration laws, which the governor utilized to transport migrants to Martha’s Vineyard three years ago.
Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, and House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, essentially charged DeSantis with bringing lawmakers back to Tallahassee to raise his own political image.
Perez stated, “I think special sessions should be used sparingly.” It is not appropriate for them to be publicity stunts.
Some of DeSantis’ immigration initiatives, according to Albritton, could be unconstitutional and unrelated to Trump’s objectives. One such proposal is to criminalize local police who refuse to assist.
Albritton warned colleagues that being in the forefront of a problem isn’t always a sign of a good leader. It all comes down to obeying the leader you believe in. I have faith in President Trump.
In response to X, DeSantis stated that while the law was comparable to his own, it was far weaker.
He commented that naming a law this weak after President Trump, who has been so vocal on this topic, is an insult.
The leadership of the Florida legislature has now consented to come in and carry out their duties, despite first stating that the call for a special session on immigration enforcement was premature.
Years of dissatisfaction with DeSantis’ leadership and handling of the Legislature culminated in the leaders’ remarks.
He has trampled under his Republican colleagues over the past six years, regularly vetoing their agendas and calling on them to return to Tallahassee to enact laws that he bragged about in ostentatious press conferences and during the campaign.
On immigration, Republican leaders are now suggesting that DeSantis be kneecapped.
DeSantis’s ability to enforce immigration laws in the state might be taken away from him and transferred to Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, a Republican with a tense relationship with DeSantis. Simpson was elected to head the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in 2022 after serving as president of the Senate.
Simpson would take over as the state’s chief immigration officer and be in charge of how state and local law enforcement organizations carry out Trump’s immigration policies if state lawmakers adopt the idea.
FILE: On January 15, 2024, in West Des Moines, Iowa, Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, addresses supporters at a caucus night reception. (Charlie Neibergall, File/AP Photo)AP
DeSantis discredited the notion. He implied that farmers who depend on migrant labor don’t want changes when he wrote on X that stakeholders in the agriculture department frequently reject enforcement actions.
According to DeSantis, granting enforcement authority to the state government’s agricultural branch guarantees that enforcement never takes place. To put it briefly, it gives the fox control over the hen house.
Additionally, lawmakers on Monday overrode the governor’s veto of over $56 million for legislative support services from the previous year. The funds were intended to support The Florida Channel, which provides public broadcasting of legislative proceedings and meetings, the state’s economists, and roughly 200 legislative staff members.
Among the $56 million, lawmakers said they thought DeSantis was focusing on one particular provision: financing a study on how credit card company fees affect sales taxes. Credit card corporations were thought to benefit from the veto.
Perez informed Congress that this veto was, at best, an attempt to undermine the independence of our distinct department of government, and at worst, a misinterpretation of the significance of the appropriation.
When he called for the veto, he said that since DeSantis took office, the governor’s office budget had increased by 70%.
Many lawmakers were taken aback by the actions.
Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, the only lawmaker to vote against overriding DeSantis’ veto, stated that it is “clearly unprecedented.”
Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami, declared that the king had fallen.
The new law might be passed by lawmakers as early as Tuesday morning.
More than $500 million would be allocated to a new Office of State Immigration Enforcement within Simpson’s office, according to their 75-page proposal. 149 new jobs and grants to train local police to respond to federal immigration orders would be funded with the funds.
Additionally, it would remove a state statute that has been in effect since 2014 and that DeSantis has previously tried to repeal, which grants tuition to students who are in the country illegally attending Florida’s public institutions and colleges.
In a joint statement, Perez and Albritton responded to DeSantis’ criticism by accusing him of not reading their legislation and of making offensive and serious remarks about Simpson, the local police, and farmers.
They claimed that one of DeSantis’ claims that local law enforcement would not assist federal immigration officials under their plan was a flagrant fabrication. Additionally, it was utterly false for him to say that Simpson has no authority over any law enforcement. They wrote that there are 200 sworn officials in the agriculture department.
DeSantis’ assertion that the department’s stakeholders would not want to enforce immigration rules was also criticized by them.
This ludicrous claim disparages the diligent farmers who toil day and night to ensure that food is available on Florida grocery store shelves. Albritton and Perez authored.
The actions mark the unexpected conclusion of a rare two-week impasse between DeSantis and lawmakers.
In September, DeSantis started urging a special session to deal with the condominium issue. However, the governor did not formally order them back to Tallahassee until earlier this month, when Trump took office.
Legislators were ordered to return to the Capitol, but Perez and Albritton had the final say over what they would do, and they swiftly opposed the plan.
At first, DeSantis put up a bold plan that included storm assistance, immigration and condominium reforms, and changes to the citizen initiative procedure for amending the state constitution.
According to Perez and Albritton, the concepts were immature and possibly reckless, and DeSantis failed to include any substantive specifics or even bill text.
They wrote that they should wait to see what the president will offer, even if they backed Trump’s immigration program.
Since then, DeSantis has subtly abandoned condominium changes while launching an effort to embarrass state lawmakers by threatening them with repercussions if they disobey him on X and Fox News.
Perez criticized attempts to intimidate lawmakers on Monday, claiming that some lawmakers’ personal telephone numbers were included in emails and texts sent to Floridians.
Perez stated that it is unacceptable to attack this body and all of you. Threats will not sway this House.
DeSantis’ request for a special session was previously interpreted by Senator Randy Fine, a Republican from Melbourne Beach, as Florida indication that a shambling man was becoming irrelevant.
“The whole thing was always a stunt to do a special session on four topics for five days without a bill,” Fine said on Monday.
In the past, emergency situations have usually prompted special legislative sessions with a predetermined agenda.
In his 15 years in the Legislature, Senator Ed Hooper, a Republican from Palm Harbor, said he had never been so unaware of what was going to happen during a special session.
“We’ve come up here without really knowing a solution or having a clear plan, which is kind of unprecedented,” Hooper said.
Tampa Bay Times, 2025. You can visit tampabay.com. Tribune Content Agency, LLC is the distributor.
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