A bill that would clear the way for a Florida version of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cleared the Florida House Wednesday. It now will head to the Senate Rules Committee for further deliberation.
The House passed the joint resolution, HB 1325, by a vote of 82 to 32. If the Senate takes up and approves the measure, a proposed Constitutional amendment would appear on the 2026 general election ballot.
According to the bill’s analysis, the proposal would need to clear at least 3/5 of the membership of both the House and the Senate for final passage.
If approved in its current form, it would eliminate the lieutenant governor’s position and replace that position with a commissioner of government efficiency.
That person would have the power to audit, investigate and report on waste, fraud and abuse within state and local governments.
It’s unknown if the senate will take up this resolution.
Former State Sen. Randy Fine filed the companion bill on that side. He’s now serving as a U.S. Congressman after winning a special election earlier this month.
The bill was introduced to the Florida legislature by Republican State Rep. Tiffany Esposito. She said the bill would pave the way for a Florida DOGE, or “FLOGE.”
The Florida department would be similar to the department currently run by tech billionaire Elon Musk at the federal level.
The Florida DOGE would look to improve the state’s efficiency by looking at three specific things:
- A cost-benefit analysis from new regulations.
- A mandatory eight-year expiration date for outdated rules.
- And expanded legislature oversight on agency rule making.
“We were DOGE when nobody was even talking about it,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said about the plan in February. “Before it was even cool to do. We’ve worked hard to make this government as efficient and effective as possible.”
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried voiced her opposition to the plan.
“Ron has consistently passed the largest state budgets in Florida’s history, illegally spent millions of taxpayer dollars to run political campaigns to take down Amendments 3 & 4 and just allocated $250 million to fund his political stunt on immigration. Don’t lecture us on wasting taxpayer dollars,” Fried said.
The Florida bill proposal comes as DOGE looks to cut more federal jobs.