DeSantis Targets Ballot Initiatives, Taxes

Yahoo

05-03-2025

While saying Florida has been a leader on issues such as cracking down on illegal immigration, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday helped launch the 2025 legislative session by calling for revamping the ballot-initiative process, curbing property taxes and revisiting gun laws.
DeSantis largely stuck to broad ideas, rather than detailed plans, during his annual State of the State address to a joint session of the Legislature in the House chamber. The 60-day session will include myriad issues, including the House and Senate negotiating a budget that likely will exceed $115 billion.
After spearheading efforts to defeat proposed constitutional amendments in November about recreational marijuana and abortion rights, DeSantis reiterated his position that lawmakers should take steps to prevent what he contends is fraud in the petition-gathering process for initiatives.
'We saw the petition fraud that took place with the Amendments 3 and 4 (the marijuana and abortion amendments, respectively), but particularly Amendment 4. We saw how that constitutional amendment process was perverted. We need to clean up the petition fraud, and we need to clean up this out-of-control amendment process,' DeSantis said, drawing an ovation from the Republican-controlled Legislature.
It's not clear how the Legislature might change the process during the session. But changes likely would make it more difficult for groups to gather the hundreds of thousands of petition signatures needed to place measures on the ballot.
Opponents of making it harder to place initiatives on the ballot have long argued that proposed constitutional amendments are needed because lawmakers ignore the wishes of voters. Examples of amendments approved by voters over the past decade are measures that allowed medical marijuana and raised the minimum wage.
DeSantis and other Republicans recently have floated the idea of eliminating or reducing local-government property taxes. While the governor did not provide a detailed proposal Tuesday, he again expressed support for the issue.
Voters would have to approve changes to property taxes through a constitutional amendment. Lawmakers would need to approve a proposal to go on the 2026 ballot, though DeSantis indicated later Tuesday to reporters that such legislation might not pass until next year's session.
As property values have increased, DeSantis said higher assessments have created a 'gusher of revenue' for local governments.
'Taxpayers need relief,' he said. 'You buy a home, you pay off the mortgage, and yet you still have to write a check to the government every year just for the privilege of living on your own private property. Is the property yours, or are you just renting it from the government?'
But in a statement issued in anticipation of DeSantis' address, House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, said the governor 'conveniently fails to explain how our communities would be harmed as a consequence' of ending property taxes.
'He wants the headlines and attention, but he doesn't mention that property tax dollars fund our local public schools, police, firefighters, sanitation workers, and all the other things our local governments do every day,' Driskell said.
DeSantis also signaled that he would support revising state gun laws, including a law that prevents people under age 21 from buying rifles and other long guns and what is known as a 'red flag' law that allows authorities to remove guns if people are found to pose a 'significant danger' to themselves or others. Both laws passed in the aftermath of the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people.
The National Rifle Association is challenging the constitutionality of the gun-buying age restriction, with the case pending at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The House in the past also has supported repealing the age restriction, though the idea has not been approved in the Senate.
While DeSantis used the 31-minute address to outline legislative priorities, he also touted the state's record on issues such as illegal-immigration enforcement. During a special session last month, lawmakers passed a wide-ranging law aimed at helping carry out President Donald Trump's immigration policies.
'No state has done more, and no state did it sooner than we did in the free state of Florida,' DeSantis said.
Lawmakers passed the immigration plan after DeSantis publicly clashed with House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, about earlier proposals.
Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, criticized DeSantis' speech Tuesday.
'The governor should read the temperature of the room,' Jones said. 'He doesn't have as many fans as he used to have, back in the day.'
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