Dear Friend,

Now that we’ve completed the first week of the 2026 Legislative Session, we’re restarting our weekly Session Update newsletters. 

Below you’ll find information on dozens of bills that moved forward during Week One of the session – from dangerous bills attempting to impose a back-door abortion ban and weaken gun-safety laws to bipartisan reforms meant to keep conservation land out of the hands of developers and to make sure farmers have the tools they need to fix broken tractors. 

We also have updates on the immigrant detention facility in the Everglades, the state’s private school voucher programs, and the latest on the property tax debate.

The pace will start to pick up in Week Two, as we’ll see more committee meetings, more bills, and more amendments – often with ugly changes that some special interest is trying to slip by without anyone noticing. So be sure to follow us on our social-media channels –  Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube – where we provide real-time news updates and calls to action. 

The Florida Legislature is a tough place right now. But nothing is inevitable – particularly if we all work together, get engaged, and make our voices heard. 

Onward,

In its first full floor session of 2026, the House of Representatives attacked abortion access, rolled back gun-safety reforms, and targeted immigrants

On Thursday, we held our first full-floor session in the House of Representatives, where, unfortunately, we passed some truly deranged bills. 

At the top of the list is House Bill 289, which is better known as the “Abusers’ Bill of Rights.” This bill would give a fertilized egg some of the same civil legal rights as a living child – and then enable someone who impregnates another person to file a wrongful death lawsuit over the loss or termination of a pregnancy. This would lead to situations where an abuser could try to sue a doctor who helps their victim obtain an abortion.  

But the danger goes even beyond horrific individual situations. The goal of legislation is to try and further the notion that a fertilized egg is, from the moment of conception, the legal equivalent to a living person under the law – and to give extremist lawyers like Attorney General James Uthmeier more legal ammunition to persuade courts to completely ban abortion and strike down laws around contraception, in vitro fertilization and other issues related to bodily autonomy and reproductive health. 

House Bill 289 passed the House by a 76-34 vote. 

The House also passed House Bill 133, a backwards bill that would undo one of the bipartisan gun-safety reforms enacted after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in February 2018. 

Shortly after the tragedy – in which a 19-year-old purchased a gun and used it to kill 17 people and injure 18 others – the Florida Legislature and then-Gov. Rick Scott raised the legal age to purchase firearms in Florida from 18 to 21. House Bill 133 would lower the legal gun-buying age back to 18. 

House Bill 133 passed by a 74-37 vote. 

Unfortunately, that’s not it. Because the House passed House Bill 197, which would require all employers, regardless of size, to check the documentation status of all workers through the federal E-Verify system. 

This is yet another bill that feeds into the ugly anti-immigrant agenda, both in Tallahassee and nationally –and on top of that E-Verify is a faulty system that has mistakenly flagged workers who are legally in our country as undocumented and unemployable.

I voted no on all three of these bills – each of which passed the House last year too but were stopped in the Florida Senate. We’ll have to see if the Florida Senate refuses to pass them again this session. 

So who did the House help? 

A giant mining corporation

Before passing any of those extremist social bills, the House did a favor for one of the biggest corporations in the world – by passing House Bill 167, a bill written by lobbyists for Mosaic Co., the multibillion-dollar phosphate-mining and fertilizer-manufacturing company that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign contributions. 

House Bill 167 would basically exempt Mosaic from a powerful environmental law meant to hold corporate polluters accountable for claims related to radioactive materials it leaves behind on land it has mined for phosphate. Mosaic, which is one of the largest landowners in all of Florida, wants to sell more of its former mines to real-estate developers – but it doesn’t want to risk future lawsuits from people who buy homes or rent apartments built on that land who may be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. 

House Bill 167 passed by an 87-24 vote. 

House votes to repeal “free kill” law again

Thankfully, we did pass a few good bills off the House floor, too. 

One of them was House Bill 6003, which would repeal something known as Florida’s “free kill” law. That law blocks parents from pursuing wrongful death lawsuits on behalf of an adult child who dies as a result of a medical malpractice when that adult child has no children of their own who could pursue a claim. It also blocks adult children from pursuing lawsuits when a parent dies as a result of malpractice when that parent has no surviving spouse to pursue a claim.  

These are essentially loopholes that can allow a dangerous doctor to get away with malpractice. 

House Bill 6003 passed by an 88-17 vote. You might remember we, as a Legislature, passed a bill last year to eliminate the free kill law – but Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed it. Perhaps the governor will have a change of heart this year. 

Senate passes voucher accountability bill 

Over in the Florida Senate, senators passed a big bill that will, hopefully, lead to improved accountability and administration of Florida’s private school voucher programs. 

Among other things, Senate Bill 308 would create stricter tracking standards, by assigning unique identifications to every participating student and requiring documentation with applications. The Department of Education would be required to cross-check applicants against school enrollment data and all the voucher programs would have to undergo annual audits. 

Irresponsible property tax plans keep moving forward in the House

Unfortunately, we continue to see a bunch of half-baked and dangerously irresponsible property-tax proposals in the Florida House of Representatives. 

The latest one is House Joint Resolution 203, which, if passed by voters, would eventually eliminate city and county property taxes on all homestead properties. 

What makes this such a reckless idea is that it would rip a $20 billion hole in local government budgets across the state. That would mean one of two things: Either cities and counties are going to have to dramatically cut spending on local services (how does once-a-month trash pickup sound?) or taxes are going to go way up somewhere else (how does a 50 percent increase to the state sales tax sound?).

But my Republican colleagues in the House keep hiding the ball on this point. They refuse to provide any details in their proposals about how they will make up for all this lost revenue. That’s because they know the consequences will be extremely unpopular, so they are trying to conceal them from voters until it is too late. 

This would also make Florida’s tax system, which is already the most regressive state tax structure in the entire country, even more punishing on working families. We’d be giving an enormous tax break to owners of homes worth $10 million or more – and then, in all likelihood, raising the sales tax, which takes a bigger bite of working- and middle-class budgets, who spend a larger share of their income than super-rich families do. 

There’s no question that Florida families are suffering under a cost-of-living crisis. But that’s driven more by property insurance than by property taxes. And yet the Florida Legislature is doing nothing to meaningfully reduce the price of property insurance – because that would mean standing up to insurance lobbyists for once. 

There are also many smarter ways in which we can deliver property tax relief to families who really need it, without devastating local public services or steering unnecessary tax breaks to owners of ultra-expensive homes. 

As the ranking member of the House Ways & Means Committee, I voted no on House Joint Resolution 203. 

An update on the Everglades immigrant detention facility

The DeSantis and Trump administrations are still holding roughly 1,500 people at the inhumane immigrant detention center they built last year in the middle of the Everglades. 

That’s according to a brief update a Senate committee received last week from Kevin Guthrie, the DeSantis-appointed director of the Division of Emergency Management. 

Guthrie also acknowledged that roughly 15,000 people have passed through the facility, commonly known as “Alligator Alcatraz” – many of whom, I should note, do not have any violent criminal record. The DeSantis and Trump administrations even briefly locked up a 15-year-old boy with no criminal record, detained in this inhumane prison camp. 

I’m still a part of a federal lawsuit in which we are trying to have the facility shut down, using environmental laws that the DeSantis and Trump administrations broke when they rushed to build the detention facility last summer. That case is still ongoing. 

A bunch of pro-developer bills begin moving

The Senate Community Affairs Committee passed Senate Bill 354, which supporters are calling the “Blue Ribbon Projects” bill, but is really, at least right now, just suburban sprawl on steroids. 

The bill would let owners of giant tracts of rural land – properties that are 10,000 acres or more in size – have their properties rezoned for development without any input from residents in the community where the development would occur and without having to go through a vote of the local county commission or city council. This would have enormous ramifications around Florida, including for all the rural ranchlands between Orlando and Melbourne. 

An identical bill in the House (House Bill 299) has already cleared one committee, too, which means the Blue Ribbon Projects bill is now very much in play this session. The sponsors have promised to make significant changes, although it’s hard to imagine what kind of changes would warrant completely cutting the public out of what are really community-altering decisions. 

Meanwhile, the House Natural Resources and Disasters Subcommittee passed House Bill 479, another preemption bill for developers. This one would eliminate local wetlands buffer ordinances if they are more stringent than the minimum protections set by the state. 

One development bill had some positive changes. The Senate Judiciary Committee amended Senate Bill 208, which began as another preemption that would have essentially forced cities and counties to approve any housing development up 100 acres in size without any public hearing or vote, if the project was next to any kind of existing residential development. 

The revised version is much different and better: It basically requires cities and counties to set objective standards for “compatibility” with surrounding land uses. Compatibility is one of the criteria that local governments use to evaluate proposed residential developments, and the goal here is to have clear and predictable rules that everyone from local residents to real-estate developers understand from the start.  

Favors of Philip Morris, Big Sugar and casinos: A look at corporate bills on the move 

Here’s a quick look at some of the special-interest bills that moved forward last week: 

• The Senate Fiscal Policy Committee passed Senate Bill 290, the so-called “Farm Bill.” There’s a lot in this one – including some really problematic provisions. One part of the bill would preempt local governments from setting any kind of rules around gasoline-powered leaf blowers, which are noisier and worse for the environment than electric-powered ones. Another, even more dangerous part of the bill, would empower Big Sugar to sue environmental groups, news media, and even MAHA activists who criticize the industry and its impacts on public health. 
• The House Civil Justice & Claims Committee passed House Bill 655, which allows property owners and local governments to negotiate in secret when a property owner files a claim under the Bert Harris Act. This is one of those bills that just tilts the scales further in favor of developers, and I worry that allowing more secret meetings with a developer’s lawyers will lead to more local governments caving in to Harris Act threats. 
• The Senate Regulated Industries passed Senate Bill 754, which is basically a permanent tax break for Philip Morris and other companies that make “heated tobacco products” like Philip Morris’ IQOS device and nicotine-infused “HeatSticks.” 
• The Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee passed Senate Bill 838, which would let car companies charge extra fees when someone pays their car loan by credit card or an electronic payment system like Zelle.
• The House Industries & Professional Activities Subcommittee, which is one of the committees I serve on, passed House Bill 881, which would allow Gulfstream Park – a horse-racing track and casino in South Florida – to end live racing but still keep its gambling licenses for slot machines and poker games. Florida is home to many horse farms, particularly around Ocala, and a lot of Floridians work in horse breeding and training. Many of them are concerned that this kind of “decoupling” legislation could devastate their industry, so I voted no. 
• Another one of my committees, the House Economic Infrastructure Subcommittee, passed House Bill 7009. The bill would would make permanent a public-records exemption that allows the Public Service Commission – the state agency that decides how much monopoly utilities like FLorida Power & Light can charge for electricity – to kick the public out of public hearings if there is going to be discussion out of a utility’s “proprietary” business information. I don’t think we should ever keep the public out of hearings about things as important as electricity rates, so I voted no. 

On the bright (and bipartisan) side: 

Protecting conservation land and helping farmers fix broken tractors

A couple of good, bipartisan bills to note: 

The House Natural Resources & Disasters Subcommittee passed House Bill 441 and the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee passed Senate Bill 546, a pair of matching bills that would require state agencies to provide at least 30 days’ notice and a detailed public explanation before they can sell or swap any state conservation lands. I’m proud to co-sponsor this legislation, which was inspired by the DeSantis administration’s attempt last year to sneak a land swap through that would have given pristine land within the Guana River Wildlife Management Area near St. Augustine to a private developer. 

The Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee passed Senate Bill 806, a “right to repair” bill for farm equipment. Right to repair bills require manufacturers of expensive equipment that is critical to folks’ everyday livelihoods – like tractors and combines, which are for farmers – to share access to the information, parts, and tools necessary to fix the equipment when it breaks. The goal is to ensure that people can find cost-effective repair options rather than always forcing them to buy expensive new replacement equipment. 

I’m sponsoring another right-to-repair bill for wheelchairs and personal mobility devices. That legislation – which is also bipartisan – is House Bill 487, and it has already passed through its first committee. 

A bill that would let prosecutors claim someone is in a gang because of their IG posts

I also wanted to flag some potentially concerning criminal legal bills that began moving during the first week of session. 

They are House Bill 429, which passed the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee, and Senate Bill 536, which passed the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. And they would give prosecutors additional ways to argue that a defendant is a member of a criminal gang, including by citing the use of “gang-related language” on social media as evidence, or if they happened to be seen a couple of times with someone else who is in a gang. 

This is significant because if prosecutors can obtain a gang-member designation for a defendant, the defendant would face longer potential prison sentences. That could increase the leverage prosecutors have to pressure people into pleading out to crimes rather than risking a trial.