TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature will revamp immigration laws this week but issued a sharp rebuke Monday to Gov. Ron DeSantis that included overriding a budget veto from last year.
The House and Senate started and quickly ended a special legislative session that DeSantis called — and then immediately opened their own special session and released proposed immigration legislation. The moves came after DeSantis angered House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, by calling a special session that they said was premature.
“The Florida Legislature matters,” Albritton said. “Our opinions matter. Our voices matter. The Florida Constitution says so.”
Perez told the House, “I believe special sessions should be used sparingly. They should not be stunts designed to generate headlines. And the truth is, I dislike special sessions because they inhibit the very thing the legislative process should encourage, the push and pull of meaningful conversations that lead to the development of good and better ideas. Special sessions should be reserved for those issues that truly cannot be addressed in the normal course of the legislative process. Most of the issues raised in the proclamation for Special Session A (the DeSantis call for the special session) simply do not meet that threshold.”
DeSantis on Jan. 13 called the special session to address a series of issues, including making changes to help carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Other issues DeSantis wanted lawmakers to take up include making changes in the ballot-initiative process, providing aid to hurricane victims and addressing issues that have increased costs for condominium associations and residents.
DeSantis posted a statement Monday on X that said the Legislature's immigration proposal is "substantially weaker than the proposals I outlined and that are necessary to ensure that Florida leads on fulfilling the Trump Administration’s mandate to enforce immigration law and deport illegal aliens."
"This is a unique moment in American history," DeSantis said in the statement. "We are either going to reclaim our sovereignty, uphold the law, and protect our citizens or allow this moment to slip away. We need strong immigration legislation that ensures Florida is doing everything it can to assist this important federal mission. The Legislature’s bill is a bait-and-switch tactic trying to create the illusion of an illegal immigration crack down, when it does anything but."
DeSantis clearly rankled legislative leaders by calling the special session — and then tried to ratchet up pressure on lawmakers to go along with his wishes, particularly on immigration.
While he didn’t directly link the actions to DeSantis, Perez said that “in the last week, attempts have been made to bully members of this House, including sending out mass emails and text messages with members’ personal cell phone numbers on them. Attacks on this body, attacks on all of you, are not acceptable. This House will never be moved by threats.”
The Legislature’s pushback Monday came after GOP lawmakers have largely gone along with the hard-charging governor since he took office in 2019.
But Rep. Mike Caruso, a Delray Beach Republican who filed a series of bills that would have helped carry out DeSantis’ special-session priorities on immigration and the ballot-initiative process, questioned the Legislature’s clash with DeSantis.
"Republicans got their power because we stayed together for the last six years, and as a result, we got a super-majority, and now they have the governor and the speaker going at each other,” Caruso said. “That's not a way to lead this state.”
While speculation had swirled for two weeks about whether lawmakers would go along with DeSantis’ special session wishes, perhaps the most surprising move Monday was their nearly unanimous override of a DeSantis budget veto from last year — the first time the Legislature has overridden DeSantis.
DeSantis vetoed $57 million from the Legislature’s budget that Perez said funded a variety of “backend operations.” Perez said the Legislature had to dip into reserves to avoid firing employees or shutting down operations.
“This veto was at best a misunderstanding of the importance of the appropriation or at worst an attempt to threaten the independence of our separate branch of government,” Perez said.
House members voted unanimously to override the veto, while the Senate voted 35-1. The only opponent was Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, a Spring Hill Republican and DeSantis ally.
“As a staunch fiscal conservative, I don't believe in veto overrides for the purposes of increasing the budget,” Ingoglia said
After ending the DeSantis-called session and opening their own session, the House and Senate released identical bills (HB 1B and SB 2-B) that address immigration issues. With the annual regular legislative session starting March 4, lawmakers will not use the special session to address the other issues raised by DeSantis, such as making changes to condominium regulations.
Albritton and Perez said they consulted with the White House after Trump last week issued executive orders about cracking down on undocumented immigrants.
“I want criminal illegal immigrants to be deported efficiently and effectively, and the best way to do that is to follow the leadership of President Trump,” Albritton said.
The House and Senate scheduled committee meetings Monday afternoon to consider the bills, with Perez saying the full House is expected to vote Tuesday.
A summary released by the House and Senate said the bills include repealing a 2014 law that allows undocumented-immigrant students to avoid paying higher out-of-state tuition rates at Florida colleges and universities if they meet certain criteria.
Also, according to the summary, the measures would provide $500 million to help local law-enforcement agencies in fighting illegal immigration
Among other things, the measures would name Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson as the state’s chief immigration officer and establish the Office of State Immigration Enforcement within his department’s Division of Law Enforcement.
DeSantis' statement blasted that part of the bill.
"By giving enforcement power to the agricultural arm of state government, it ensures that enforcement never actually occurs," DeSantis said in the statement. "In short, it puts the fox in charge of the hen house."