By Gray Rohrer News Service Florida
It’s the second straight year a dispute between the House and Senate has led to extra time. There’s a $1.4 billion gap between the House’s $113.6 billion spending plan and the Senate’s $115 billion plan, but the schism between the two chambers, which each has a Republican supermajority, runs deeper.
The House has refused to take up the ‘Rural Renaissance’ bill, which is the top priority of Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, and the Senate hasn’t taken up two health care bills pushed by House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, meanwhile, has spoken more with lawmakers in other states than he has with Florida legislators this session, even as his priorities have failed to gain traction. He’s visited Idaho and Kentucky and spoken with New Hampshire lawmakers to press for amendments to the U.S. Constitution to require a balanced federal budget each year and to impose term limits on congressmembers.
Perez has largely resisted DeSantis’ agenda, while Albritton has mostly gone along with it; the bad blood from last year remains.
“It’s the same people coming back to the same place with the same grudges trying to do the same thing in the same way. So surprise, surprise it doesn’t seem to work,” said Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, a former Senate President.
So even as the session comes to a close on Friday, it’s far from the end of the Legislature’s work.