Florida Legislature’s leaders leave plenty of work for their successors

TALLAHASSEE — When lawmakers wrapped up their annual legislative session on Friday, they celebrated legislation aimed at the state’s practical problems, including health care, affordable housing and school choice.

With a Republican supermajority in the House and Senate — and Gov. Ron DeSantis focused more on a presidential campaign at the beginning of session than on culture war issues at home — legislative leaders forged ahead with what they said were commonsense solutions for Floridians.

“I think we’ve fixed a ton of problems,” House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, said Wednesday. “We’ve set in motion major reforms during the last two years.”

And yet, when Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, end their terms as legislative leaders later this year, they will leave behind a daunting to-do list.

Health care reforms passed this year still leave an estimated 789,800 Floridians without health insurance. Years of property insurance reforms haven’t lowered Floridians’ sky-high homeowners and automobile insurance premiums. Passidomo’s attempt to create more affordable housing has done little for low-income Floridians so far.

House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat, said the policies sent a message to Floridians.

“Republican leadership in Florida cares about you,” she said, “but only so much.”

Insurance, health care still issues

Even though Floridians’ painfully high homeowners insurance premiums are the top issue among their constituents, lawmakers’ main relief this session was a modest tax cut that could save people at most a couple of hundred dollars.

Passidomo and Renner said they needed to wait as past reforms took hold. They pointed to moves they made after gaining power in November 2022 to make it harder to sue insurers, which the industry blamed for rising costs. (Lawmakers have not conducted studies on the causes of rising premiums.)

“I don’t think we want to do anything that’s going to have a chilling effect on the insurance market at this time,” Renner said last week.

In the meantime, premiums have not gone down, and some lawmakers say the crisis is unresolved.

“At our political peril, we ignore this issue,” said Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers.

This year, Passidomo’s main priority was to resolve the state’s shortage of doctors and nurses. She made clear that her plan did not include expanding Medicaid.

Six bills passed this session to make it easier to license out-of-state doctors and pay doctors’ student loans, and to make health care prices more transparent and the system better coordinated for patients, among other things.

While the legislation boosts free and low-cost clinics, it does nothing to expand coverage to nearly 800,000 uninsured low-income Floridians who don’t qualify for Medicaid. Hospitals are required to treat uninsured people for emergencies but not their chronic illnesses, such as cancer.

Research compiled by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation shows expanding Medicaid could also boost the number of doctors.

Passidomo said she didn’t believe such experts. There is no point in expanding Medicaid when shortages were leading to monthslong delays to see a doctor, she said. Florida is one of 10 states, nearly all led by Republicans, that haven’t expanded Medicaid.

“Expanding Medicaid does nothing,” Passidomo said this week.

Lockstep with DeSantis

Passidomo and Renner entered their two-year terms in leadership as conservatives in lockstep with DeSantis, and they efficiently carried out his culture-war-heavy agenda.

Last year, the Legislature passed a six-week abortion ban one year after passing a 15-week ban. Driven by DeSantis’ expected run for president, legislative leaders injected right-wing orthodoxy into state institutions and pushed policies that targeted the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues and certain aspects of Black history.

The legislation generated national headlines that boosted DeSantis’ presidential profile.

DeSantis had few priorities in the Legislature this year, and the Senate and Passidomo quashed many of this session’s most controversial bills, including preserving Confederate monuments and barring pride flags on government buildings.

Instead, legislation focused on things like addressing some of the complaints about last year’s affordable housing bill.

The 2023 bill, a Passidomo priority, banned rent controls while creating tax breaks for new construction. The measure, with its $711 million price tag, was hailed by affordable housing advocates as a historic investment.

But the legislation quickly triggered outrage in communities across the state as developers proposed tearing down historic buildings or constructing high-rises next to single-family homes.

City and county officials complained that it just helped developers avoid millions in local taxes without providing much affordable housing for lower-income residents.

In its first year, fewer than 500 apartment units meeting the definition of affordable for the lowest-income residents qualified for tax credits, data showed.

This year, Passidomo and lawmakers addressed some of the complaints about high-rise units but didn’t address apartment builders’ tax credits.

“It’s absolutely absurd,” Pasco County Commissioner Jack Mariano said after watching the bill pass. “It doesn’t help the regular working people.”

“No comprehensive vision”

Lawmakers tried to address other real-world problems but faced criticism that they didn’t go far enough.

Amid rising homelessness attributed to a lack of affordable housing, they required counties to remove homeless people sleeping in public spaces, such as sidewalks and parks.

Homeless people instead could go to county-created camps where they could receive services.

But with only a $10 million boost in funding, the legislation doesn’t provide for resources to create those camps and provide those services, Democratic lawmakers said. Removing people, instead of treating them, seemed to be the bill’s intent, they said.

Lawmakers this session also devoted $100 million toward repairing the state’s crumbling and overcrowded prison system, but it’s still likely not enough. A state-sponsored report estimates between $6 billion and $12 billion needs to be spent over the next 20 years.

“There is no comprehensive vision, and only a handful of legislative leaders have stepped up to point this problem out,” said former Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes, who founded the Florida Policy Project to come up with best practices for the Legislature.

Floridians’ costs still high

Renner said this week that the goal of being in power is to “help Floridians,” and one of the best ways to do that is to return their money to them.

Lawmakers continued their series of sales tax holidays for school supplies and other items, but there will be fewer of them than last year. Another program will cut tolls by 50% for frequent commuters.

One of the health care bills prioritized by the House prevented hospitals from collecting medical debts after three years, which could help Floridians avoid one of the leading causes of bankruptcy.

But lawmakers passed legislation that could lead to lower wages and tougher work conditions.

They preempted counties from adopting stricter guidelines for working in the heat.

And starting in 2026, tens of thousands of workers may see their wages reduced in 11 municipalities — including Miami-Dade and Broward counties and the cities of Miami Beach and St. Petersburg. That’s because lawmakers this year blocked local governments from requiring contractors to pay more than the state’s minimum wage, set to become $15 per hour in 2026.

They also voted to allow lenders to charge higher interest rates on consumer loans, which divided Republicans in the Senate.

“It’s just a money grab,” Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, told colleagues before voting against it.

Renner’s priority this year was to ban kids 13 and younger from using social media. Teens aged 14 and 15 would need a parent’s consent.

He said the bill could have an immediate impact on saving the lives of kids, who are experiencing rising rates of suicide and depression.

The legislation is likely to be challenged in the courts, however, and it might never take effect.

On Friday, legislators celebrated as the session came to an official end in the early afternoon.

DeSantis held a news conference in the Capitol. He hailed what he called “the most productive, consequential two years in the history of the state of Florida.”