No special session is good news for Florida | Editorial
Special sessions of the Florida Legislature are never a wise idea in the months before an election, so it’s good to hear that Gov. Ron DeSantis says he has “no plans” to call one.
Better yet, he should flatly promise that he won’t. Having “no plans” leaves wiggle room to change his mind.
There is a way, however, for the Legislature’s leaders to close that door.
They could do it, and should, by promptly sending him the next fiscal year’s budget to sign or veto. It has been in their hands for two months now.
The budget as a weapon
So long as the $117.5 billion spending bill is vulnerable to his vetoes, it’s useful as a political negotiating tool to force legislators to do whatever he might want of them.
The budget is packed with local projects that matter greatly to their sponsors.
Once the budget is signed, all that leverage is gone.
DeSantis broached a special session possibility in March on a podcast with Sean Hannity, saying he wanted to empower Florida law enforcement officers to arrest undocumented immigrants, as Texas would be doing under a new law that federal courts have blocked temporarily.
While saying he has “no plans” now, DeSantis also said “of course I’ll do more immigration,” which he’s confident legislators would approve.
“But as of now, we’re moving forward with the budget,” he said.
After two months, nothing
As of now, nothing is happening on the budget. Although the House and Senate approved it on March 8, House Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo still haven’t gotten around to sending it to the governor.
That’s the last step, an essential one under the Constitution, before a 15-day clock runs on the governor’s decision to sign it, veto it or veto specific line items while approving others.
It’s a public document, so DeSantis and his staff know what’s in it. It can be presumed that he’s already decided what he likes and what he doesn’t.
There’s no good reason for him not to act on it and a very good reason why he should.
The sooner the better
The state agencies, school boards, counties, cities and assorted nonprofits that depend all or in part on state money need to plan for what they’ll have and how to spend it before the next state fiscal year begins July 1. The sooner they know, the better. (For cities, counties and school districts, the fiscal year begins Oct. 1.)
But so long as he doesn’t act on it, all 160 legislators have an incentive to be nice to the governor, who vetoed $510.8 million of their projects last year. He didn’t state a reason for any of those vetoes, even though the Constitution’s plain text requires that he explain them. It was doubtful they were legal, but the Legislature didn’t challenge them.
The Legislature’s minority Democrats are fearful of a special session, and rightly so. They worry that it would be used to muddy the November ballot with deceptive alternatives to Amendment 3, the initiative legalizing non-medical marijuana use, or Amendment 4, the abortion rights initiative.
Dirty tricks are always an inherent danger in any short special session.
Florida isn’t overwhelmed with undocumented immigrants. The ones here now are essential to three pillars of the state’s economy: agriculture, construction and hospitality. The anti-immigrant laws he’s already passed have impacted employers, particularly in agriculture.
In his ambition to get elected president someday by being tougher than Texas Gov. Greg Abbott or former President Donald Trump, DeSantis has signed laws increasing jail terms for driving without a license, denying licenses to undocumented immigrants, and preventing cities and counties from honoring ID cards issued to them elsewhere.
Any new law prompting mass police arrests would not only hurt Florida’s industries even more but would also lead to innocent people being thrown in jail.
Excessive police power
The Legislature has already given DeSantis too much police power, especially considering how he has been sending state law enforcement officers to the Texas border and plans to use the Florida State Guard — for which no real need exists — to intercept migrants at sea.
The Miami Herald has found that one of the State Guard’s recent recruits is a former Miami police captain “whose long history of citizen complaints, alleging beatings, false arrests and harassment made him notorious in the city he swore to protect and serve.”
He is Javier Ortiz, 44. The city had fired him but rescinded the order on the condition he give up his issued weapon, take a nighttime desk job and commit to an early retirement.
That followed investigations by the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into nearly 70 complaints, including 18 allegations of excessive use of force. The city settled some of them for nearly $600,000, the Herald said. His record is redolent with racism.
His recruitment reflects badly on DeSantis’ management of the powers he already has, and is another reason why a special session is a sleeping dog that should be left alone.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email us at letters@sun-sentinel.com.