Special Florida House panels are teed up during this week to scrutinize Gov. Ron DeSantis’ line-item budget vetoes, setting up possible overrides amid a dispute between the governor and Republican legislative leaders over immigration enforcement plans.
House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, on Thursday assembled four “combined workgroups” to examine DeSantis’ vetoes in the fiscal 2024-25 budget, which took effect July 1. The governor in June vetoed close to $950 million from the spending plan approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
The move to delve into vetoes comes two weeks after the House and Senate overrode a $57 million DeSantis veto for “legislative support services” in the budget — the first time the Legislature has overridden a DeSantis veto during his six years as governor.
Lawmakers overrode the veto during a special session focused on helping to carry out President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The special session was dominated by a clash between legislative leaders and DeSantis.
Perez said DeSantis’ veto of the $57 million caused the Legislature to dip into reserves to avoid firing employees or shutting down operations.
“This veto was at best a misunderstanding of the importance of the appropriation or at worst an attempt to threaten the independence of our separate branch of government,” Perez said on Jan. 27.
The House workgroups announced Thursday will focus on vetoes in health services, justice services, water programs, and libraries, cultural and historic preservation, according to a memo Perez sent to lawmakers. The House calendar blocked out potential meeting times for the groups Tuesday through Thursday.
DeSantis’ vetoes included $32 million for arts and cultural grants, causing consternation for museums and other recipients throughout the state. When asked about vetoing the arts money, DeSantis pointed to “Fringe Festival” funding he said was an inappropriate use of state dollars.
During last month's special session, Perez said he wanted veto reviews to be part of the “regular legislative work” for House members.
A governor’s veto creates a check on the legislative budgeting process, Perez acknowledged.
“However, the governor’s staff also makes mistakes. They sometimes act on less-than- perfect information and make decisions using faulty criteria. The constitution corrects for potential flaws in that system of checks by providing a system of balances,” Perez added.
The workgroups “can systematically review” vetoed budget items to identify “an appropriate candidate to bring before the body for reinstatement,” Perez said at the time.
“It will be my intention that such reinstatements should be a part of every floor session until we bring our 2025-2026 House budget to the floor,” the speaker said.
The regular legislative session will start March 4, with committees and subcommittees meeting this month to prepare.
Perez’s announcement about the House’s veto review came as a standoff over immigration plans continues to linger.
Lawmakers last month snubbed a plan floated by DeSantis and instead approved a measure that would make Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson the state’s immigration czar. The legislation (SB 2-B) would give Simpson’s office oversight of nearly $500 million in grants to state and local law-enforcement agencies to assist with the Trump administration’s illegal-immigration efforts.
DeSantis harshly criticized the plan, saying he would veto it and threatened to funnel money to candidates he supports in next year’s Republican legislative and gubernatorial primaries. DeSantis on Monday adopted a more conciliatory tone and said he and legislative leaders were having “great discussions” and would “land the plane” on the immigration issue.
Amid the standoff, the governor announced an agreement between the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to authorize specially trained Florrida Highway Patrol troopers to investigate and arrest undocumented immigrants.
A federal program, known as 287(g), delegates “specified immigration officer duties” to state and local law enforcement agencies “to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of aliens who undermine the safety of our nation’s communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws,” a description on ICE’s website says.
DeSantis said the agreement would speed up the deportation process for people who are in the country illegally and allow troopers to become deputized immigration officers.
“This agreement will give FHP expanded power and authority to interrogate any suspected alien or person believed to be an alien, as to their right to be into the United States. If they are found to be in violation of proper immigration status, they will be further detained in process for state or federal offenses. This means that FHP state law-enforcement officers will be empowered to arrest and detain aliens attempting to unlawfully enter the United States,” DeSantis said.
Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles director Dave Kerner, who joined DeSantis at a news conference Friday and oversees the highway patrol, said the agreement “will help build a state immigration enforcement infrastructure that will affect generations of Floridians to come.”
The Trump administration is overhauling the 287(g) program, which was effectively put on hold during former President Joe Biden’s time in office. Sources close to the process said that, as of Friday, federal officials have not finalized changes to the program.
William Smith, a trooper who is president of the Florida Highway Patrol chapter of the Florida Police Benevolent Association, said it was unclear what the federal-state agreement would entail.
“The agency has not been very forthcoming with any information for the troopers, or anybody, about how we’re going to do anything, other than the fact the executive director is getting us involved in all this stuff. But they’re not telling the people that are going to actually do the work what they’re going to do,” Smith told The News Service of Florida in a phone interview.
Smith said troopers are assisting with immigration enforcement in Texas, the Florida Keys and along the Atlantic Coast.
“We’re understaffed. We’re underfunded. And we’re underpaid. We’re the largest state law enforcement agency in Florida, so anytime something has to be done, he (DeSantis) just tells us to do it by executive order,” the union leader said.
