INSIDER
Nearly a month after leaving the Capitol without passing a budget, House and Senate leaders said Friday night they had reached an agreement that will clear the way for lawmakers to begin hammering out details of a spending plan Tuesday.
Florida lawmakers are still nowhere close to agreeing on a budget for the next fiscal year. That means the legislative session that was supposed to wrap up Friday will not end on time.
Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said philosophical differences are stalling progress with the state budget, specifically over tax relief plans.
With the Senate and House unable to reach agreement on tax cuts and spending, lawmakers will not finish negotiations on a new state budget in time to end the legislative session as scheduled next week.
Student survivors of last week’s deadly shooting at Florida State University are urging legislators to block an effort to reverse a law passed in the wake of the 2018 Parkland shooting that raised the state’s gun-buying age from 18 to 21.
Students who experienced a shooting at both Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 and Florida State University days ago have sent a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis demanding he reject a law that would lower the firearm purchase age back to 18 years old.
A bill aimed at preventing a return of efforts to build golf courses, pickleball courts and resorts in state parks is ready to go to the full Florida House.
As the Florida House and Senate prepare to negotiate a new state budget, among the big issues they will face is a push by Senate President Ben Albritton, a citrus grower, to help the state’s struggling citrus industry.
Gun rights advocates have been fighting to overturn a Florida law setting the minimum age to buy a gun at 21 since the day the measure was signed, in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018.
Senator Randy Fine has introduced a bill for the 2025 Florida legislative session that would permit individuals under 21 to purchase firearms. Senate Bill 94, aims to repeal a law that currently prohibits licensed firearms dealers from selling or transferring firearms to those younger than 21.
An architect of a controversial bid to fly migrants from Texas to a Massachusetts resort town in 2022 has been named to guide Florida's new state board of immigration enforcement.
Florida lawmakers are gaveling in another special legislative session on immigration, aimed at leveraging state and local resources to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
After a special session late last month spiraled into a clash between Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida lawmakers will meet in another special session this week to pass a package of bills targeting illegal immigration — with DeSantis’ support.
On the eve of a special legislative session called by Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican lawmakers Sunday filed a flurry of bills to crack down on undocumented immigrants and place additional restrictions on the ballot initiative process.
Senate President Ben Albritton on Monday suggested phasing out a decade-old law that allows some undocumented immigrant students, known as “Dreamers,” to receive in-state tuition rates at Florida universities and colleges.
State senators are off to a quick start filing bills as they gear up for the 2025 legislative session, which begins March 4.
On Tuesday at the RNC in Milwaukee, the incoming head of the Florida Senate called on former St. Johns County sheriff David Shoar to drop out of a Florida Senate race.
The proposal (HB 547) by Rep. Heather Fitzenhagen, R-Fort Myers, seeks to ban hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. On Monday, the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee unanimously backed a similar proposal (SB 200) by its chairman Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee. Lawmakers did not pass similar bills during the 2019 session, with Republican leaders balking at the proposal to ban matrix acidization. Other proposals that would have only banned hydraulic fracturing went further but did not ultimately pass. Senate Agriculture Chairman Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said Monday he hasn't seen enough change to warrant refiling the bill that would only address hydraulic fracturing for the 2020 session.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A proposal backed by environmentalists to ban fracking in Florida eased through a Senate committee Monday. The proposal (SB 200), approved unanimously by the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, would ban hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. A separate proposal to ban fracking without addressing matrix acidization may not even return in the Senate for the 2020 session, which begins Jan. 14. Opponents of fracking also argue that banning fracking without targeting matrix acidization would create a loophole for oil companies. A House version to ban fracking without addressing matrix acidization also did not make it through all its assigned committees.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida farmers might not be held back from planting hemp next year even if the federal government has not signed off on long-awaited rule changes. State lawmakers this year approved a measure (SB 1020) that created a program to regulate cultivation of hemp, addressing issues such as the licensing of growers. Many farmers view hemp as a potentially lucrative new crop after Congress in 2018 legalized industrial hemp as an agricultural product. Hemp, which hasn't been grown in Florida legally since the 1940s, has already attracted interest from more than 1,000 farmers. State rules will not cap the number of growers or the allowed acreage for hemp, which could replace or be rotated with existing crops, Bell said.
