Florida Legislature 2025: 5 questions as DeSantis, lawmakers find new balance of power

The last time Florida lawmakers gathered for a regular session, Gov. Ron DeSantis was still running for President and dominating the legislative agenda.

Now, as lawmakers prepare to kick off another 60-day regular session Tuesday, Donald Trump is President, having elbowed DeSantis out of the GOP primary, and the governor is fresh off a bitter fight with Republican legislative leaders over stricter immigration enforcement.

That fight ended with the Legislature passing many of DeSantis’ proposals but leaving out several key pieces, such as restrictions on money illegal immigrants send back to their home countries and removing his power to transport the undocumented to other states, such as Massachusetts.

Lawmakers also overturned a budget veto of $57 million in legislative support funding during the spat – the first veto override since 2010 and the first budget veto override of a Republican governor since the GOP takeover of Florida in the late 1990s.

The episode shows a new dynamic between DeSantis and the latest legislative leadership duo of House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, who preside over GOP supermajorities in their respective chambers.

DeSantis is still massively influential with the GOP-controlled Legislature, but not as utterly dominant as he once was, such as when the Legislature catered to his wishes on Congressional redistricting, provided him a state plane and hid his travel records from the public, and changed the resign to run law ahead of his run for President.

In the meantime, Florida faces several chronic issues lawmakers may tackle in the next two months: big insurance rate increases, looming condominium costs driving out owners and continuing recovery needs from hurricanes, to name but a few.

Here are five questions to be answered during the upcoming session:

During the squabble over immigration enforcement, both DeSantis and the legislative leaders claimed the mantle of Trump, saying he supported their preferred approach to the issue.

It’s an indication of the prime importance of Trump and his approval for Republicans pushing their agenda in the Capitol – something that’s likely to recur across many issues during the session.

For instance, DeSantis and lawmakers have already borrowed Trump’s creation of a federal Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) to brand their own efforts to trim perceived fat from Florida’s $117 billion budget.

An executive order signed by DeSantis this week created a Florida version of DOGE – a task force empaneled for one year to find bloat in state universities and local governments, while aiming to slash 700 state government positions and numerous boards.

More: Gov. DeSantis establishes Florida version of DOGE, will cut positions, audit universities

There is a pair of bills, however, to give the Legislature more power to scrutinize and halt new rules issued by state agencies and repeal obsolete regulations. State Rep. Tiffany Esposito, R-Fort Myers, filed one (HB 305) that would also require agencies to state whether a proposed rule would adversely affect small businesses or increase regulatory costs.

“Florida will continue to lead in the DOGE movement,” Esposito said in an X post touting the bill.

When U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Naples, officially jumped into the 2026 governor's race Tuesday evening, he was quickly endorsed by a handful of Republican lawmakers. Those included some who have sparred with DeSantis and his staffers online, such as state Sen. Randy Fine, R-Melbourne Beach, and state Rep. Juan Porras, R-Miami.

DeSantis was skeptical of Donalds' candidacy, despite the pre-endorsement he received from Trump, saying Donalds has been out campaigning for other Republicans rather than in the middle of pushing conservative victories in Florida. Meanwhile, DeSantis also spoke highly of the prospect of his wife, Casey, succeeding him as governor.

There's 21 months until November 2026, but if a battle over the GOP nomination for governor breaks out early, it could affect legislation in the 2025 session should DeSantis target lawmakers backing Donalds.

As the veto override shows, lawmakers have a new readiness to push back on DeSantis' agenda if it clashes with their own – regardless of 2026 considerations.

Perez has set up committees to look into more possible overrides of other DeSantis line-item vetoes for the current budget. It’s unclear, however, if Albritton and the Senate would go along with any further overrides.

The Senate could present its own version of pushback to DeSantis. It has to confirm or reject hundreds of appointments made by DeSantis, and there’s already been resistance to one in particular from GOP members.

Fine amended a bill to strip Scott Yenor, DeSantis’ pick for the University of West Florida Board of Trustees, from another board. The Legislature’s only Jewish Republican who has repeatedly clashed with DeSantis, Fine has said Yenor is “antisemitic” and an “idiot” for comments he made regarding the fitness of people who aren’t Christian white males for political office.

Fine, though, is set to leave the Legislature nearly half-way through the session on March 31, as he’s poised to win a special election for an open U.S. House seat.

Also, DeSantis has three key allies in the Senate ready to rebut any pushback to his agenda, as they did during the immigration fight: Sens. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, Jay Collins, R-Tampa, and Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers.

Albritton has laid out two main priorities ahead of session: A bill to buttress rural communities in education, health care and infrastructure, and legislation to give the Legislature greater authority to scrutinize and reject spending by water management districts.

The water bill (SB 7002) allows the Joint Legislative Budget Commission, a panel of 14 members of the House and Senate, to reject budget plans of the water management districts if they use state money.

It also requires the South Florida Water Management District to provide greater detail on its spending related to the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. The bill includes $1.5 billion for environmental projects around the state, including for Everglades restoration projects.

DeSantis has clashed with the Senate in the past over water policy. In 2022 he vetoed a bill that was a priority of then-Senate President Wilton Simpson, now the state's elected agriculture commissioner. DeSantis blocked it over fears it would throw up regulatory hurdles for Everglades restoration projects. The bill (SB 2508) was sponsored by Albritton.

The bill for rural areas (SB 110) carries a price tag of $119.3 million, and as lawmakers face a projected shortfall in three years and are looking for ways to reduce spending, the bill could face skepticism in the traditionally more budget-hawkish House.  

Previous coverage: Senate plan aims to boost health care, education and more in rural Florida communities

Perez hasn’t been as explicit in touting his to-do list for session. In fact, he's said he doesn’t have one.

Laying out a set of priorities, as Perez explained in his speech during the Legislature's organization session in November, could be seen as a way of boosting himself rather than addressing an issue.

“I make a speech, announce a priority, give it a fancy name, promise to spend a bunch of money, and then pat myself on the back when the bill passes, claiming that my speakership was a grand success,” Perez said. “Except when the dust settles, the new law doesn't actually make a difference. It doesn't really solve the problem I claimed I was worried about. It's a game of labels and leverage for the purpose of ego and credit.

“I understand the game. I'm opting not to play.”

But there were clues in the rest of his speech about his agenda. He said the state government was “flush with cash” and cautioned members not to give themselves “a free pass in Florida” by comparing themselves to the debt-ridden federal government.

“We buy land that we can't keep track of, much less manage competently,” Perez said. “We spend millions of dollars on failed IT projects. How much money has been spent on Capitol renovations only to have parking garages that leak water and flood?”

Related: A decade of disruption: Longtime Florida Capitol renovations complicating access for years

One of the other issues Perez spoke about was property insurance. Skyrocketing rates in recent years have stabilized for some homeowners within the last year, but many homeowners still face spikes in premiums.

DeSantis and some GOP lawmakers point to the legislation passed in December 2022 that restricted payments lawyers receive in lawsuits over disputed claims – a major gripe of the insurance industry that touted massive losses over the previous three years.

But Perez and Albritton indicated they’d crack down on insurance companies taking advantage of the new laws to stiff legitimate claims.

“In my experience Floridians are realistic. They understand that there are tradeoffs. They understand that in a state battered by hurricanes, insurance will be a challenge,” Perez said in his November speech. “But they need to know that our state's insurance laws are not being written by and for the insurance companies.”

Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.