It took six long years, but Florida lawmakers stood up on Monday once and for all, drawing a line against Gov. Ron DeSantis and his bullying.
This long-simmering revolt was way overdue. It was a desperately needed declaration of independence by lawmakers against a governor who has had his way for far too long.
Fed up with DeSantis’ grandstanding, the Republican leaders of the Legislature rejected his call for a special session to pass a state response to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and to further restrict statewide ballot initiatives.
Instead, Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez substituted their own anti-immigration proposal for the governor’s and put Trump’s name on it — literally. The proposed Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy (TRUMP) Act shifted power on immigration enforcement away from DeSantis and rejected his heavy-handed proposals to punish sheriffs who refuse to aid in an immigrant crackdown.
Albritton especially went out of his way to repudiate DeSantis’ agenda, telling senators he would never be a part of “hanging local law enforcement out to dry — no way no how.” The Senate leader was also careful to align himself with the White House by declaring “I trust President Trump” while never mentioning DeSantis. It was a smackdown, pure and simple.
Totally the wrong approach
On the substance of the special session, it is still completely wrong for the Legislature to rush through a state immigration enforcement program when it’s a federal responsibility. Beyond that, legislators are acting in a slapdash manner on such short notice that the people of Florida are excluded from participating.
A special session of the Legislature is the antithesis of transparency. Public hearings can be called on two hours’ notice in a Capitol that’s a six-hour drive from heavily populated South Florida.
A complex piece of legislation passed in haste and motivated purely by partisanship with little or no public input is virtually guaranteed to create problems.
The inch-thick bills (HB 1-B and SB 2-B) got their only committee reviews on Monday, though Perez created three large select committees to give more members input on the details.
Punishing ‘dreamer’ kids
A flashpoint of debate is a Republican plan to end a decade-old Florida program that offers much less expensive in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who attend state colleges and universities after graduating from a Florida high school.
An estimated 6,500 students, known as “dreamers,” benefit from the Florida program.
Republicans, who created the in-state fee waiver in 2014, now say it has become a magnet for illegal immigration and prevents some state residents from getting into state schools. But Democrats say it’s cruel and petty to punish young people who had no control over coming to Florida and who are striving to complete a degree to lead productive, successful lives.
“It’s not their fault they don’t have (legal) status,” protested Rep. Anna Eskamani of Orlando, who, with other Democrats, tried and failed to strip the bill of its most punitive provisions in a 90-minute, sparsely attended hearing.
An erosion of trust
The full-blown legislative revolt on display in Tallahassee Monday exposed a lack of trust between a governor and Legislature of the same party in the 26th year of complete GOP control of the executive and legislative branches in Florida. It does not bode well for a smoothly run regular session that will begin in five weeks.
The question is how DeSantis will react to such blunt rejection — and the early signs are not good.
He took to X on Monday to lambast the legislative immigration proposals as too weak, including one part of the TRUMP Act that declares Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, an elected member of the Cabinet, as Florida’s chief immigration officer.
Simpson and DeSantis have an icy relationship and Simpson is a former Senate president who is close to leading senators and is widely considered to be a candidate for governor in 2026.
With Florida’s vast agricultural industry so reliant on illegal immigrant labor, DeSantis wrote, “It ensures that enforcement never actually occurs. In short, it puts the fox in charge of the hen house.”
For lawmakers, the implication is impossible to ignore.
DeSantis has the power to veto any anti-immigration bill he doesn’t like, leading to potential gridlock on the issue that is their party’s No. 1 priority nationally.
Speaking of vetoes, the Legislature will override DeSantis’ veto of $56.7 million in the current budget that pays the salaries of hundreds of legislative employees.
All of those staff members still have their jobs. DeSantis said he vetoed the expenditures because they included related language requiring a study of a dispute between credit card companies and retail stores that he opposed.
The details of the dispute are obscure. The larger point is that it’s believed to be the first time that a Republican Florida Legislature will override a Republican governor’s veto — another clear sign that lawmakers are finally fed up with DeSantis.
For a governor who’s termed out of office in 2026, it could be a very long couple of years.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.