Bills we're watching in the 2025 Florida legislative session
Why it matters: There are more than 1,300 bills for the Legislature to wade through, each with the potential to reshape our daily lives.
With the dust settled after last month's legislative revolt against Gov. Ron DeSantis, questions about the GOP's unity linger — though, for now, few bills seem likely to put it to the test.
Here are a few bills we're monitoring:
Gun regulation rollback: State Sen. Randy Fine (R-Melbourne Beach) filed bills to lift the state's age limit on firearm purchases and expand the areas where firearms can be carried, including on college campuses.
State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill), meanwhile, introduced legislation to ban the use of artificial intelligence to detect firearms in public areas; it would be a first-degree misdemeanor to do so.
Another immigration crackdown: Fine's bill (SB 244) would prohibit state universities with acceptance rates below 85% from accepting applications from or admitting undocumented students.
State Sen. Joe Gruters (R-Sarasota) filed legislation to revoke the law licenses of undocumented immigrants on Nov. 1, 2028, unless proof of U.S. citizenship is provided on or before that date.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo (D-Miami) filed a bill to expand E-Verify to all employers, with penalties of up to $10,000 in fines. State Rep. Berny Jacques (R-Seminole) filed a similar bill without the penalties.
Gulf of America: State Sen. Nick DiCeglie (R-Indian Rocks Beach) wants to change all references to the Gulf of Mexico in state statutes to the Gulf of America.
Insurer of first resort: A bipartisan bill (HB 13) aims to require Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to make windstorm coverage available to all homeowners statewide.
How to watch: Looking to keep up with the Legislature? You can watch the House, Senate and committee hearings online at the Florida Channel.
Plus, you can visit www.flsenate.gov to track bills and receive email alerts.
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Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Texas lawmaker who slept in House Chamber after rejecting DPS monitor files lawsuit
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A Texas lawmaker who slept in the House Chamber of the Texas Capitol Monday night filed a lawsuit shortly into her protest, according to online records. That lawsuit claims Rep. Nicole Collier is being illegally confined. 'Representative Collier is under restraint by virtue of the Speaker of the House's order placing her into the custody of law enforcement prior to the Wednesday, August 20, 2025, Session,' the lawsuit says. Collier is refusing to leave the chamber because she would need to be monitored by a Department of Public Safety escort should she do so. Before the House adjourned Monday, House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, ordered the doors to the chamber to be locked. He said that members needed written permission to leave the chamber. But he added an extra step for Democrats who broke quorum and had arrest warrants issued. The speaker said those members would be granted written permission to leave only after agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated Department of Public Safety officer who will ensure they return to the House on Wednesday at 10 a.m. Protest planned Tuesday evening in support of lawmaker who rejected DPS monitoring State Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, refused and was therefore not allowed to leave. 'We have a lawyer working on getting a court to enter an injunction to allow all of us to be free from DPS escorts or DPS trails,' Collier told NBC's Ryan Chandler. 'And so hopefully that's successful, and we won't be here too long. But I am willing, and my heart has not changed. I still believe that this is wrong, and I have no intention to stop.' In a planned public display Tuesday afternoon, some House Democratic members tore up the permission slips required to leave the chamber, and announced they'll join Collier in sleeping inside the chamber Tuesday night, a news release said. 'She's a prisoner of nothing more than her own imagination,' Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) said of the lawsuit. 'This is like bad Kabuki theater, I'm talking like elementary, junior high-level grade dramatic actions that we're seeing here. That's all there is to say, this is pure theater.' 'We conclude that it does': Supreme Court ruling from 2021 Several years ago, members of the Texas House of Representatives fled the state to deny the House quorum to prevent voting legislation they disagreed with in a special session. 'They fled the state to escape the jurisdiction of the House, whose internal rules provide that absent members may be 'arrested' and their attendance 'secured and retained,'' a 2021 Supreme Court opinion explained. Nearly a month after leaving the state, those lawmakers sued 'seeking an injunction prohibiting their arrest.' The Supreme Court ultimately ruled against those members. 'The legal question before this Court concerns only whether the Texas Constitution gives the House of Representatives the authority to physically compel the attendance of absent members. We conclude that it does,' that ruling said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Politico
36 minutes ago
- Politico
White House personnel aide hanging a shingle
With help from Daniel Lippman and Daniel Desrochers FILLING THE SWAMP: A senior White House official is decamping for K Street — the first instance this year of a prominent aide to President Donald Trump leaving for a lobbying gig, your host scooped. — Trent Morse has been serving since January as deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Personnel, which vets candidates for thousands of roles across the federal government. His last day at the White House will be next week, after which Morse will launch his own lobbying shop, Morse Strategies. He will also partner with K Street heavy hitter Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a senior strategic adviser. — Morse is subject to a one-year cooling off period during which he's barred from lobbying the West Wing directly or representing any foreign entities. But he's free to cash in on his front-row seat in the administration by lobbying the rest of the executive branch right away or advising others lobbying the White House. — 'The president's hired some of the best people across the board,' Morse told PI. 'I'll be excited to be on the other side of that now, helping clients navigate it.' — 'There's not a department that I haven't become familiar with or gotten an understanding on how it works,' he said. 'And I think there's a lot of opportunity to help clients navigate the way this administration [works] and how quickly this administration works.' — White House chief of staff Susie Wiles spoke highly of Morse's new venture in an interview, calling him 'an important and integral part of the successes we've had.' A former lobbyist herself, Wiles told PI that clients are clamoring for 'some guidance about the process and some strategic … counsel' about decoding the Trump administration. 'And nobody is better able to do that' than Morse, she said. — Will Moschella, who co-leads Brownstein's government relations practice, echoed Wiles' assessment of Morse. 'He's going to provide what I think is going to be unrivaled insight into the way the president's team is thinking about issues,' he told PI. 'He's been in the middle of a lot of important debates, and knows a lot of the key players throughout the administration, particularly in the agencies, and he'll be helpful in providing those insights to our clients.' — This isn't Morse's first stint as a lobbyist. After stints at HHS, HUD and DOT during Trump's first term, Morse went to work at Wiles' former haunt Ballard Partners, before eventually joining her at Mercury Public Affairs. Morse has been working with Trump's team for the past year — first heading up external and GOP outreach for last year's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and then working for the transition team. Happy Tuesday and welcome to PI. What else is going on out there? Add me on Signal at caitlinoprysko.17 and email me at coprysko@ and you can add Daniel on Signal at danielbarnes.13 and email Daniel at dbarnes@ And follow us on X: @caitlinoprysko and @dnlbrns. ANOTHER ONE: 'Former White House cryptocurrency official Bo Hines is joining the digital assets giant Tether to advise on its U.S. strategy,' POLITICO's Declan Harty reports. Hines recently stepped down as the executive director of the White House's crypto council, which involved 'helping coordinate the passage of a landmark bill regulating so-called stablecoins, which are a type of crypto token pegged to assets like the U.S. dollar.' — 'Bo's appointment demonstrates our commitment to building a strong U.S.-based presence that spans across multiple sectors, starting with digital assets and expanding to new opportunities, including a deep focus on potential further investments in domestic infrastructure,' Tether's CEO Paolo Ardoino said in a statement. — Hines will serve as a strategic adviser for digital assets and U.S. strategy, according to the company, which offers one of the world's most popular stablecoins. FIRST IN PI — WESTERN DIGITAL OPENS D.C. OFFICE: Data storage giant Western Digital is standing up its first office in D.C. as the company looks to expand its lobbying footprint in the nation's capital. Western Digital is one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard drives and semiconductors, which help meet the immense storage demands of data centers used by artificial intelligence companies. The Trump administration is pushing to ramp up construction of the centers as part of its bid for U.S. AI dominance. — The company has tapped Stacey Dion, the former head of global government affairs at Carlyle Group, to lead the new D.C. office. Dion most recently oversaw tax policy work at GE Aerospace, but she previously spent eight years with the Carlyle Group and with Boeing for nearly a decade before that. Before joining the private sector, Dion was an aide to former House GOP Leader John Boehner. — The chipmaker currently has just two outside firms on retainer — BGR Group and the Wessel Group — and has spent just $170,000 on federal lobbying so far this year. BROWNSTEIN TOUTS ACCESS TO TRUMP OFFICIALS IN CLIENT PITCH: As Brazil tries to fight off high tariffs from the Trump administration, the country's top business lobby is in the process of hiring a D.C. lobbying firm, and Brownstein is among the firms vying to get the business, according to a copy of a pitch deck, Lippman reports. — The pitch to the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry, or CNI, says that Brownstein has a proven record of successful outcomes for clients registered under FARA and that its goal is 'to execute a disciplined and proactive influence campaign that enables CNI – and your partners within the Brazilian government – to anticipate and shape policy.' It proposes a fee of $50,000 per month for an initial year-long engagement. — The firm says it has 'strong relationships with President Trump and the officials and agencies responsible for devising and implementing his tariff policies.' — The deck, dated Aug. 1, lists who in the administration the firm can get in front of, including the White House's Peter Navarro and Kevin Hassett, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and USTR Jamieson Greer. For its State Department contacts, it mistakenly says it can reach 'Jacob Herbert – Under Secretary for Economic Affairs (pending confirmation),' referring to Jacob Helberg. — But Navarro pushed back on the pitch deck's claims in a post on Substack today. 'You will NEVER darken my White House door,' he wrote. 'Don't want to trip on your slime.' — The Brazilian government hasn't hired any firms with connections to the Trump administration, according to a search of FARA records, so this effort may be a way to find an alternative way to influence the administration. — A spokesperson for Brownstein told PI that CNI asked them for a proposal a month ago but there's been no follow-up since. CNI didn't respond to a request for comment on the status of its hiring of a firm. LOOMING LARGE: 'Laura Loomer is all the talk in Washington, D.C. The right-wing influencer … touts herself as President Donald Trump's informal adviser and argues—not incorrectly—that she has more power than many people inside it,' Gabe Kaminsky writes for the Free Press. 'What that means, in practice, is mostly getting people fired who she believes are disloyal to the president.' — 'Inside the White House, though, some senior officials have had it with Loomer. They are increasingly suspicious of her true motives, and have speculated that what she says and does is influenced by lobbying firms and companies trying to advance their own interests, according to four White House officials and another Trump administration official.' ICYMI — A4A HIRES SUNUNU: Airlines for America, the preeminent lobby for the biggest commercial and cargo carriers in the U.S., has tapped former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu as the trade group's next president and CEO. The four-term governor would have been a top GOP recruit to run for an open Senate seat next year, but passed on the opportunity — despite a preemptive endorsement from Trump. — Sununu will replace A4A's longtime leader Nick Calio, who will stay on as CEO emeritus through the end of the year. 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ALFORD SPEAKS OUT: 'An antitrust lawyer who was dismissed last month from the Justice Department accused senior officials of cutting deals with favored lobbyists and undermining the independence of antitrust enforcement,' The Wall Street Journal's Dave Michaels reports. — 'Roger Alford, formerly the antitrust division's second-in-command, on Monday said two senior aides to Attorney General Pam Bondi had corrupted the department's typical law-enforcement process for dealing with antitrust lawsuits. The two senior officials were heavily involved in negotiating a proposed settlement in June that allowed Hewlett Packard Enterprise to acquire a competitor, Juniper Networks.' — 'Alford called on a federal court in San Jose, Calif., that is overseeing the Justice Department's proposed resolution to 'examine the surprising truth of what happened.'' He accused Bondi's chief of staff Chad Mizelle of 'favoring outside lawyers and lobbyists with whom he is friends,' per WSJ. 'Mizelle and another top aide to Bondi, Stanley Woodward, played significant roles in how the department settled with HPE and Juniper in June, Alford said.' DOJ and HPE both defended the settlement, and rejected Alford's claims. Jobs report — Christopher Kirchhoff is joining Scale AI as head of applied AI strategy and global security. He founded the Pentagon's Silicon Valley office and is a National Security Council and Google alum. — The National Association of Manufacturers is adding Ted Allen as senior director of corporate finance policy, Reagan Giesenschlag as director of chemicals, materials and sustainability policy and Kevin Doyle as director of international policy. Allen previously was vice president of policy and advocacy at the Society for Corporate Governance. Giesenschlag previously was director of government affairs at the Fertilizer Institute. Doyle previously was an international trade specialist at the Commerce Department. — Talia La Schiazza is joining Qualcomm as manager of policy and legal communications. She previously was policy comms manager at Intel and is a Burson alum. — Bishop Garrison has launched Orange Court Strategies. He most recently was vice president for policy with the Intelligence and National Security Alliance and is a Biden DoD alum. — Forrest Carman is joining Wharton Law as an associate working in the white collar defense and federal investigations practice. He is a Republican National Lawyers Association, America First Legal and House and Senate Judiciary alum. — Jodi Niehoff has joined Medical Alley as senior director of government affairs and communications. Niehoff was previously deputy state director for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). — Adam Greenfield has rejoined Latham & Watkins as a partner in the intellectual property litigation practice. 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San Francisco Chronicle
41 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Even at the grocery store, Texas troopers don't let Democrats out of sight after walkout
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier refused to come to the Texas state Capitol for two weeks. Now she won't leave, and fellow Democrats are joining her protest. Collier was among dozens of Democrats who left the state for the Democratic havens of California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York to delay the Republican-controlled Legislature's approval of redrawn congressional districts sought by President Donald Trump. When they returned Monday, Republicans insisted that Democrats have around-the-clock police escorts to ensure they wouldn't leave again and scuttle Wednesday's planned House vote on a new political map. But Collier wouldn't sign what Democrats called the 'permission slip' needed to leave the House chamber, a half-page form allowing Department of Public Safety troopers to follow them. She spent Monday night and Tuesday on the House floor, where she set up a livestream while her Democratic colleagues outside had plainclothes officers following them to their offices and homes. Dallas-area Rep. Linda Garcia said she drove three hours home from Austin with an officer following her. When she went grocery shopping, he went down every aisle with her, pretending to shop, she said. As she spoke to The Associated Press by phone, two unmarked cars with officers inside were parked outside her home. 'It's a weird feeling,' she said. 'The only way to explain the entire process is: It's like I'm in a movie.' The trooper assignments, ordered by Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows, was another escalation of a redistricting battle that has widened across the country. Trump is pushing GOP state officials to tilt the map for the 2026 midterms more in his favor to preserve the GOP's slim House majority, and Democrats nationally have rallied around efforts to retaliate. Other Democrats join the protest House Minority Leader Gene Wu, from Houston, and state Rep. Vincel Perez, of El Paso, stayed overnight with Collier, who represents a minority-majority district in Fort Worth. On Tuesday, more Democrats returned to the Capitol to tear up the slips they had signed and stay on the House floor, which has a lounge and restrooms for members. Dallas-area Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez, called their protest a 'slumber party for democracy' and said Democrats were holding strategy sessions on the floor. 'We are not criminals,' Houston Rep. Penny Morales Shaw said. Collier said having officers shadow her was an attack on her dignity and an attempt to control her movements. Republican leader says Collier 'is well within her rights' Burrows brushed off Collier's protest, saying he was focused on important issues, such as providing property tax relief and responding to last month's deadly floods. His statement Tuesday morning did not mention redistricting and his office did not immediately respond to other Democrats joining Collier. 'Rep. Collier's choice to stay and not sign the permission slip is well within her rights under the House Rules,' Burrows said. Under those rules, until Wednesday's scheduled vote, the chamber's doors are locked, and no member can leave 'without the written permission of the speaker.' To do business Wednesday, 100 of 150 House members must be present. The GOP wants 5 more seats in Texas The GOP plan is designed to send five additional Republicans from Texas to the U.S. House. Texas Democrats returned to Austin after Democrats in California launched an effort to redraw their state's districts to take five seats from Republicans. Democrats also said they were returning because they expect to challenge the new maps in court. Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back after they left the state Aug. 3, and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott asked the state Supreme Court to oust Wu and several other Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face a fine of $500 for every day they were absent. How officers shadowed Democratic lawmakers Democrats reported different levels of monitoring. Houston Rep. Armando Walle said he wasn't sure where his police escort was, but there was still a heightened police presence in the Capitol, so he felt he was being monitored closely. Some Democrats said the officers watching them were friendly. But Austin Rep. Sheryl Cole said in a social media post that when she went on her morning walk Tuesday, the officer following her lost her on the trail, got angry and threatened to arrest her. Garcia said her 9-year-old son was with her as she drove home, and each time she looked in the rearview mirror, she could see the officer close behind. He came inside a grocery store where she shopped with her son. 'I would imagine that this is the way it feels when you're potentially shoplifting and someone is assessing whether you're going to steal," she said. ___ Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas, and Cline reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
