FLORIDA – Florida lawmakers wrapped up the regular legislative session Friday with no budget and plans to reconvene next month, ending what political experts called an “unproductive” session even as legislators approved more than 100 bills.
Lawmakers left unresolved a roughly $1.4 billion gap between the House and Senate budget proposals and are scheduled to return in April to address both redistricting and the budget.
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Among the measures that passed both chambers and are headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk:
- An increase in pay for high school coaches, an issue the local station has reported on for years.
- A bill that would allow some staff at state colleges and universities to carry firearms on campus if they enroll in a program, and that would require institutions to adopt an “active assailant” response plan.
- A prohibition on using city and county funds for programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, commonly known as DEI.
Several high-profile proposals failed to advance, including measures to ban vaccine mandates for schoolchildren and legislation intended to provide protections related to artificial intelligence; neither made it past the House.
DeSantis has said he prefers a special legislative session devoted solely to property tax issues, a move backed by Senate President Ben Albritton.
“The first six years of Gov. DeSantis’ administration, he basically got anything he wanted through the legislature, probably 90% of what he wanted,” Matthew Corrigan, a political science professor at Jacksonville University, said. “The House under Speaker Perez has really put its stake in the ground in saying, ‘Listen, we’ve got separation of powers here, we want to be a co-equal branch of government,’ and so that has really slowed a lot of things down.”
Lawmakers will return in April to negotiate the budget differences and to consider redistricting plans.