Winners and losers emerging from the 2025 Legislative Session
Far from normal: The 2025 Session saw leader clashes, stalled budget, distrust, forcing a lengthy extension.
“A return to normalcy.”
That’s how we led our 2024 edition of this column. Well, so much for that.
The 2025 Session was anything but normal. It started with new House and Senate leaders aligning to directly confront the Governor via veto overrides, stripping him of authority in higher ed, campaigning for ballot amendments, threats of investigation into the First Lady’s charitable arm, and more.
Some of those efforts stalled. As the Session progressed, that interchamber relationship regressed, leading to spats between the Senate President and House Speaker over a bevy of bills, personal barbs between chambers, and a budget that is still not close to being resolved.
Hence, unlike in years past, we won’t even be able to comment on the fallout of appropriations work in this column, though we expect plenty of coverage in the weeks ahead as a budget deal takes shape.
Instead, we’ll focus on what lawmakers and lobbyists were able to accomplish before the scheduled 60 days expired and what issues moved or were left on the cutting room floor.
But back to that talk of normalcy. What we described last year was the legislative degree, reasserting its independence from the Governor’s Office after years of Ron DeSantis flexing his muscle in Tallahassee.
Some culture war bills died. DeSantis vetoed a social media bill before hammering out another version. Those battles, though, paled compared to what we saw this year.
Like so much of recent political history, the 2025 Session was another example of a pendulum that needed correction, nevertheless swinging too far in the opposite direction. Now, we’re looking at a massive five-week extension to power through multiple unresolved bills, even beyond the budget, and the three top leaders in Tallahassee all distrust one another to some degree.
Far from normal: The 2025 Session saw leader clashes, stalled budget, distrust, forcing a lengthy extension.
But that begs the question: What is “normal” now as DeSantis gets even closer to terming out?
As we wrote then, last year was “the way Session is supposed to work. ” There were some quibbles, to be sure, but the big stuff got done.
Is 2025 a preview of how Sessions will work going forward, at least through next year when all the same players return?
That’s a question we’ll have to answer next March (or April?). For now, we’ve got more than enough to talk about after a roller coaster 60 days.
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Charter schools — Charter schools gained additional footholds this Session through the passage of multiple bills. One measure (HB 1105), which sponsor Danny Burgess described as an “amazingly big education train,” makes it easier to convert public schools into charter schools by only including parents in the voting process. It also requires school districts to proportionally share discretionary surtax revenue with charter schools based on enrollment. Another (HB 443) by Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez and Reps. Alex Rizo and John Snyder enables charter schools to increase enrollment beyond previously approved levels. While not all the charter-focused bills passed this year, these major ones did, due in part to the efforts of lobbyists like Natalie Brown, Matthew Herdon, Natalie King and Ron Pierce of RSA Consulting Group; Andreina Figueroa of ADF Consulting, David Ramba, Allison Carvajal, and Evan Power of Ramba Consulting Group; Kenneth Kniepmann of Cardinal Consulting; and Rep. Susan Valdés, who carried HB 1105 in the House.
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