Florida House Speaker Perez looks to review more DeSantis budget vetoes

Jeffrey Schweers, Orlando Sentinel on Feb 7, 2025

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – After successfully orchestrating one budget veto override, Florida House Speaker Danny Perez has set up committees to review other items that Gov. Ron DeSantis cut last year, including spending for the arts, criminal justice and healthcare.

Perez assigned House members to four workgroups that are scheduled to begin hearings on Tuesday to review the governor’s cuts made last summer. The groups are composed of members of several standing House committees and their chairs and are authorized to meet for up to 10 days.

All senators will have a chance to be involved in the workgroups since the work will take place within the Senate appropriations committees.

Once they finish reviewing the vetoes, the groups will make recommendations for further legislative action to Perez.

The action comes after the Legislature stood up to DeSantis during a special session last week, rejecting his proposals to help the Trump administration achieve its goals for immigration enforcement. Instead, the Legislature approved its own immigration enforcement plan, which has yet to be presented to the governor. DeSantis has threatened to veto it but also said Monday that a compromise immigration bill was imminent.

During that same special session last week, Senate President Ben Albritton and Perez orchestrated a legislative override of two vetoes by DeSantis — a first for the Republican-controlled Legislature since DeSantis, a fellow GOP member, was first elected governor in 2018. The budget veto overrides originated in the House because the budget passed as a House bill.

The money DeSantis vetoed totaled more than $50 million for legislative services. Those services include a government oversight office, a bureau that researches Florida’s economy and population, employees who maintain many of the state’s websites, including a searchable lobbyist database, House and Senate websites that provide bill texts and analyses for the public to view, and the Florida Channel, which streams videos and live fees of legislative meetings and news conferences.

Within those line items was money to study interchange fees charged by companies that take up to 3.5% of every credit-card transaction they process.

The governor’s vetoes that will likely be reviewed by the new groups include $32 million in arts grants he characterized as “woke” or of a sexual nature that he deemed inappropriate, forcing hundreds of organizations to scramble for the lost funding.

Among the programs he targeted were the popular fringe festivals, including the one held in Orlando each year. The Orlando Fringe Festival was slated to get $70,000 last year.

This week, DeSantis rolled out a budget for next year that restores $27 million in arts funding, as long as the programs it grants are family- friendly.

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