TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — With just days remaining in the 2025 legislative session, Florida lawmakers are facing a legislative traffic jam of budget gridlock, political scandals, and leadership shakeups that have made the scheduled May 2nd end date appear more like a suggestion than a deadline.
Republican leaders in the House and Senate remain locked in a high-stakes standoff over the state budget, with billions in spending and tax cuts at the center of the disagreement. On Monday, the budget negotiations dragged on, with no apparent breakthrough in sight.
Chambers are fighting over top-line numbers that are billions apart, particularly on how to structure tax cuts. The Senate is advocating a more moderate approach, while the House continues to insist on a $5 billion reduction in sales taxes.
House Speaker Danny Perez (R-Miami) didn’t hide his frustration during remarks on the floor last Thursday.
“We moved $1 billion towards them, and they refused to move one penny towards us. The Senate's expectation seems to be that the House should adopt the Senate budget with only slight modifications,” said the Speaker. “That position is not only unacceptable, but it is patronizing.”
Senate leaders say progress has been made since then. Senate Budget Chair Ed Hooper (R-Palm Harbor) confirmed the upper chamber extended its seventh offer as of Monday afternoon. Senate President Ben Albritton (R-Bartow) expressed optimism that a deal could be reached, but it would likely only be an extension into next week.
“I think we're getting closer,” said Hooper. “I mean, you know what the priority of the speaker is, and we are trying to meet him at an affordable number.”
All of this unfolds under the cloud of an ongoing scandal surrounding the Hope Florida program. A recent investigation by Rep. Alex Andrade raised serious questions about whether Gov. Ron DeSantis’s former chief of staff, now Attorney General James Uthmeier, inappropriately funneled $10 million from the welfare assistance initiative into a political committee.
“As legislators, we're fully informed at this point of what happened, sufficient to guide our own decisions as legislators,” Andrade said, ruling out subpoenas. He has suggested wire fraud and money laundering may have occurred.
Both DeSantis and Uthmeier have denied wrongdoing, framing the accusations as politically motivated. Still, the scandal followed the governor to a public appearance in the conservative town of Destin, where he was heckled by critics.
“Hey man, hey man, we got a good that that's a that's a fraud,” DeSantis shouted back. “You should be ashamed of yourself for peddling those bogus narratives.”
Democrats, meanwhile, have been quick to criticize the dysfunction.
“Floridians were not clamoring to rename the Gulf of Mexico or weaken the laws protecting our children who work jobs,” said House Minority Leader Rep. Fentrice Driskell (D-Tampa). “Instead, Florida families are struggling with an affordability crisis made worse by Trump's economic chaos in Washington, DC…”
But the minority party is also grappling with turmoil of its own. Sen. Jason Pizzo (NPA-Hollywood) stunned colleagues by resigning as Senate Minority Leader and leaving the Democratic Party altogether to become an independent.
“Here's the issue, the Democratic Party in Florida is dead, but there are good people who can resuscitate it, but they don't want it to be me,” Pizzo said.
Sen. Lori Berman (D-Boynton Beach) stepped into the leadership role unexpectedly and offered a more optimistic assessment.
“I had no idea this was coming. I did not wake up yesterday morning and think that I was going to finish the day off being the minority leader of the Senate Democrats,” she told us Friday. “I actually think the caucus is doing really well. We’re 10 people. We're really unified. We're calling ourselves the tenacious 10. And you know we were all in a state of shock, but we realize we have one week of session left, and we need to join together and work together to finish strong.”
Even if lawmakers reach a budget agreement soon, they face another challenge: Florida’s constitutionally mandated 72-hour “cooling off” period before any final vote, meaning the deal would need to be ready by this Tuesday to adjourn on time. That looks practically impossible at this point.
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After the Desir family lost their car due to flooding during Hurricane Milton, they received a much-needed boost: a replacement car six months later.
