Florida’s Legislative Session Ends, The Impact is Just Getting Started

Florida’s Legislative Session Ends Today, The Impact is Just Getting Started – Top 3 Takeaways – May 5th, 2023 

  1. It ends today. What started with Governor DeSantis’ State of the State speech built off of his “Framework for Freedom Budget”, comes to a close today. 60 days and thousands of bills later, a small fraction of which have passed, the state legislative session is set to come to a close. With the benefit of the Republican supermajority in the state legislature this year, there’s no need for overtime, as has often previously been the case for there to be an agreement on a budget. And as for what’s happened along the way, what DeSantis asked for, DeSantis has received. As for what he specifically asked for in his State-of-the-State speech...  An additional $2 billion in tax cuts over last year’s tax cuts including permanently eliminating sales tax on all baby supplies. Check. Pharmaceutical drug reforms. Check. Tort reform. Check. Accelerating infrastructure projects by a decade. I can’t speak to the potential outcomes, but his infrastructure requests were met. Affordable housing. Check. Accelerating the Everglades Restoration Project and establishing The Indian River Lagoon Protection Program. Check. Permanently banning vaccine, mask and related mandates. Check. Establishing protected medical speech, whereby physicians can’t be punished for offering a contrary medical opinion to the consensus. Check. Increasing teacher’s salaries, passing a Teacher’s Bill of Rights (protection from union pressures), expanding school choice and expanding parental rights in education. Check, check, check, check. He called for preventing gender reassignment procedures for minors. Check. Increased penalties for drug trafficking and human smuggling. Check. Passing mandatory E-Verify and related disincentives for illegal immigrants. Half-Check. The final version of the bill which cleared the legislature made E-Verify mandatory and closed loopholes for businesses with 25 or more employees – leaving many small businesses unaccountable to the new law. Instituting mandatory bail minimums for crimes, check. passing Constitutional Carry, or the permitless carrying of firearms. Check (though some believe it’s not truly CC because open carrying still won’t be legal) and the banning of Chinese land purchases. Check. That was literally every issue the governor publicly laid out to start the session. And the legislature has delivered on every one of them with two caveats. They went bigger on school choice than what DeSantis called for, by creating universal school choice, which I was thrilled to see, while going smaller on E-Verify by exempting small businesses, which like the governor – I wasn’t so glad to see. Of course, there are a myriad of other issues which were addressed during the course of the legislative session, that list is really just scratching the surface, but the bottom line is that what DeSantis wanted, DeSantis got – with only a somewhat minor exception. 60 days doesn’t sound that long, however so much has happened that it’s easy to lose track. Governor DeSantis promised this session would deliver... 
  2. “Big wins” for Floridians. I suppose whether this session produced “big wins” is to be determined to a certain extent by the eyes of the beholder, but from the eyes of this beholder it most certainly did. And that’s because the biggest win of all isn’t one that directly impacts me, but that I’ve been advocating for my entire career. Universal school choice. Kudos to the legislature for delivering the biggest win of all by going even bigger than DeSantis on the most important issue for future generations of Floridians. Starting in January I made the case for how Florida, on the back of our record setting economy, could afford to do it. And the budget just passed by the legislature proved it. While the state session ends today, in my view, the direct impact of what’s taken place will be profoundly positive for this state for decades to come. There’s been no greater predictor as to how one’s life is likely to turn out than where than where a student goes to school. Or doesn’t as the case may be. The introduction of universal school choice means families who are of lesser means will no longer be forced to have to defy the odds for their children to become successful. This will have a disproportionate benefit for minority-majority communities and as they succeed, our communities overall will be greater positioned to succeed. And speaking of the session’s big wins, they’ll help ensure that... 
  3. Florida continues to win big. Something DeSantis started the session bragging about is on track to remain about in Florida going forward. As DeSantis explained... Florida’s the fastest growing state, we’re number one for net migration, we’re number one for new business formations, we’re number one in economic growth among large states. Florida has record employment. We have had the largest budget surpluses over the past two years in the country. And while a handful of other states don’t impose personal income tax, we’re number one for having the lowest per capita state tax and lowest per capita debt in the country. We’re number one nationally for tourism, number one for law enforcement recruitment, while Florida’s crime rate is at a 50-year low and likewise, the lowest of any large state. We’re number one for school choice options in K-12 education and our public colleges are the highest rated in the country. The quality of our infrastructure is the best, we have the top three cruise ports in the world. We’re number one for space manufacturing and flights. It really is an impressive list. And so is the list of accomplishments by the legislature. As DeSantis also said at the onset, we don’t complain, we just produce results which is probably the reason we don’t necessarily realize the extent to which Florida is leading the way until and unless we leave it. DeSantis said this should be the session for Florida to go big and the legislature delivered. 

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