Strong-arming in the Florida Senate

A recap of the eighth week of the Florida Legislature's 2026 session, plus a preview of week nine.

Photo credit: The Florida Senate

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Editor’s note: The 2026 session of the Florida Legislature is underway, so we have temporarily turned our weekly “Florida in Five” feature into a roundup of news, notes and bill movements from the session.

The Florida Senate — an institution that once fiercely protected the independence of individual senators — has become as heavy handed as the Florida House.

Consider three bills on the brink of passing despite bipartisan opposition in the Legislature’s upper chamber.

The first is Senate Bill 1296, a piece of legislation that would curtail the collective bargaining rights of most public-sector workers in Florida. The bill was written, in part, by a think funded by right-wing billionaires across the country — and it is being heavily lobbied by the DeSantis administration, which sees it as an opportunity to finally bust Florida’s public school teacher unions.

As recently as a week ago, the bill seemed potentially stuck in the Senate Fiscal Policy Committee, where several Republicans opposed it — including Sen. Corey Simon (R-Tallahassee), a former NFL football player who knows better than most the importance of having a union in your corner and whose district includes tens of thousands of government workers.

So Senate leaders agreed to soften one of the bill’s most onerous provisions: A requirement that workers who want to form or keep a union win an election by a majority of all employees in the workplace — rather than a majority of employees voting in the election.

An amendment, sponsored by Simon himself, changed the election rules to require at least 25 percent of all employees vote in an election and pro-union workers to win by at least 60 percent of those ballots. The change effectively lowered the winning threshold to 15 percent of all employees — but only as long as a full quarter of the workforce participated in the election.

It was just enough to squeeze the bill through committee by a single vote.

“I hope we can continue to work on some changes that I think would make this bill better,” Simon said, shortly before casting the decisive vote.

Sen. Corey Simon debates on Senate Bill 1296 during a Senate committee hearing. (Source: The Florida Channel)

That’s not what happened. Instead, as soon as the bill was clear of the Fiscal Policy Committee, Senate Republicans raced to get it on the floor and essentially undo Simon’s work.

A floor amendment, filed at the last minute by bill sponsor Sen. Jonathan Martin (R-Fort Myers) with the backing of Senate GOP leadership, raised the threshold again — though it did so in a more subtle way.

Senate Bill 1296 now requires at least 50 percent of all employees to vote in an election and the pro-union side to win by at least 50 percent of those ballots. Superficially, that means workers could form a union as long as 25 percent of the workplace votes in favor of it.

But they would still need to make sure at least half of all employees participate for the election to count. If 100 percent of the ballots were in favor of a union — but only 49 percent of workers voted — the union would fail.

The full Senate then passed the legislation by a 21-14 vote. Five Republican senators voted against it to no avail — including Simon, 96 hours after he could have single-handedly killed the bill in committee. The legislation is now ready for a final vote in the Florida House.

A similar sort of maneuvering occurred with Senate Bill 1632, an incendiary proposal that would give the governor and Cabinet the power to designate advocacy groups as “domestic terrorist organizations.”

The idea has sparked warnings from civil rights activists who say Florida leaders could use the law to target ideological or religious organizations that they do not like — for example, by canceling taxpayer-funded vouchers for students at Islamic schools while continuing to fund vouchers for kids at Christian or Jewish schools or by expelling university students who protest the war in Iran or promote Palestinian statehood.

That bill ran into a roadblock in the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, where two Republicans on the eight-member panel — Simon and Sen. Ileana Garcia (R-Miami) — expressed concerns during a lengthy hearing in which dozens of people testified against it.

But it, too, slipped through by a single vote after both agreed to temporarily support it — seemingly on the expectation that supporters would make changes to the legislation at its next committee hearing.

“There is another stop [for] this bill, provided it makes its way through this committee,” Simon noted, just before announcing he would support the bill for now.

“Like Sen. Simon, I will vote in favor of it today,” added Garcia, the committee chair. “I don’t know about next time.”

Sen. Ileana Garcia (R-Miami) debates on Senate Bill 1632 during a Senate committee hearing. (Source: The Florida Channel)

It didn’t matter at that point. As soon as the bill was through that tight spot, Senate leaders pulled out of its final committee and sent it instead straight to the Senate floor.

Once in front of the full chamber — where Senate leadership commands a GOP supermajority and most senators represent far redder seats than Garcia or Simon — the domestic terrorism bill, now known as House Bill 1471, passed by a much more comfortable margin. Simon flipped to yes while Garcia remained a no, though neither of their votes mattered all that much by that point.

And then there’s Senate Bill 354, the so-called “Blue Ribbon Projects” bill. Pushed by a team of lobbyists hired by one of Florida’s largest landowners, the legislation would allow city-sized developments on rural tracts of cattle pastures and timberlands — with minimal input or oversight from neighboring residents or local elected officials.

The proposal has spurred a cross-partisan coalition of opposition that appears to include at least eight Republican senators, many of whom represent rural communities in Florida targeted by the bill. One of the leading opponents is Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, a Republican from Naples who chairs the Senate Rules Committee, which was one the panels Senate Bill 354 needed to pass this session.

Passidomo, a former Senate president herself who understands the levers of power in Tallahassee as well as anyone, had initially planned not to hear the legislation in her committee. That would have killed it right there.

But she eventually relented after she said she “was prevailed upon by several senators.” Supporters then managed to muscle the bill through her committee — yet again by just one vote.

And yet again, Senate leadership immediately scheduled a full vote on the suddenly un-stuck legislation — where it soon became crystal clear where the pressure to pass the Blue Ribbon Projects bill is coming from.

On the floor of the Florida Senate, Passidomo delivered a plaintive speech asking her fellow senators to vote down the bill. “There’s lot of lobbyists that have been working on this bill, and I know they’ve been telling you a lot of things,” she said at one point. “But it’s wrong.”

Immediately after she finished, Sen. Jim Boyd stood up to support it.

Boyd, a Republican from Bradenton, is about to take over as president of the Senate, which makes him the most powerful person in the chamber right now. He also raised at least $50,000 from the landowner lobbying for the Blue Ribbon Projects bill shortly before the session began, records show.

Boyd not only came out in support of the bill; he also took an unusually personal shot at Passidomo while he did so. “I don’t often do this,” Boyd said, pausing for just a beat before he not-so-subtly insinuated that Passidomo was a hypocrite for opposing the legislation.

Sen. Jim Boyd debates on the Senate floor in favor of the “Blue Ribbon Projects” bill while Sen. Kathleen Passidomo sits behind him. (Source: The Florida Channel)

In this instance, at least, all the strong-arming failed. After a few more minutes of tense debate, Senate leaders were forced to postpone the Thursday morning vote when it became clear they did not have the number they needed.

Yet.

Because this battle is not over. On late Friday, the man Boyd is about to replace as presiding officer — outgoing Senate President Ben Albritton (R-Wauchula) — acknowledged in response to a question that supporters of the Blue Ribbon Projects bill are working behind the scenes on a potential amendment that could pick off enough opponents to pass it.

“My understanding is there’s work going on for that now,” Albritton told senators, just before gaveling the Senate to a close for the week. “I think the most important thing for this body is to do what we do — and that is to talk about these issues and try to come to some conclusion.”

Clarification: This story has been updated to explain in more detail the union election thresholds in Senate Bill 1296.

Billtrack

In honor of the best show on TV, here’s a look at some of the bills on the move from the past week of session:

• House Bill 33: Renames a road in Miami after Charlie Kirk and a road in Fort Lauderdale after Donald Trump. Passed the Senate by a 27-10 vote (vote sheet). Previously passed the House of Representatives by an 82-30 vote (vote sheet). Goes to the governor to sign or veto.

• House Bill 175: Establishes a regulatory framework for issuers of a type of cryptocurrency known as stablecoin. Passed the House of Representatives by a 102-2 vote (vote sheet). Passed the Senate by a 37-0 vote (vote sheet). Goes to the governor to sign or veto.

• Senate Bill 290: Enables the state to sell land purchased for environmental conservation to agricultural companies. Passed the House of Representatives by a 94-10 vote (vote sheet). Previously passed the Senate by a 38-0 vote (vote sheet). Goes to the governor to sign or veto.

• House Bill 655: Lets lawyers for property owners and local government leaders hold secret pre-suit settlement talks when the property owner notifies the government of a potential claim under the state’s Bert Harris Act. Passed the Senate by a 37-0 vote (vote sheet). Previously passed the House of Representatives by a 116-0 vote (vote sheet). Goes to the governor to sign or veto.

• House Bill 927: Requires cities and counties to let developers use private contractors to review development applications and to issue building permits earlier in the development process for residential subdivisions. Passed the House of Representatives by a 110-0 vote (vote sheet). Passed the Senate by a 33-0 vote (vote sheet). Goes to the governor to sign or veto.

• Senate Bill 246: Authorizes an Ultimate Fighting Championship-branded license plate. Passed the House of Representatives by a 109-0 vote. (vote sheet)

• Senate Bill 354: Makes it easier to develop city-sized projects on tracts of rural land that are at least 15,000 acres in size. Temporarily postponed by the Senate.

• House Bill 399: Weakens anti-sprawl protections for rural land around Orlando and Miami. Also forces Miami Beach to approve a proposed water park at the Fontainebleau Hotel despite local opposition. Passed the House of Representatives by a 71-38 vote. (vote sheet)

• Senate Bill 482: Require artificial intelligence companies to give parents access to all interactions their children have with chatbots. Passed the Senate by a 35-2 vote. (vote sheet)

• Senate Bill 620: Moves qualifying dates for Congressional races in order enable a new round of Republican gerrymandering before the 2026 election. Passed the Senate by a 37-0 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 657: Enables a supermajority of residents in a subdivision to dissolve their homeowners’ association. Passed the House of Representatives by a 108-2 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 693: Restricts access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program, commonly known as food stamps. Passed the House of Representatives by a 79-30 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 725: Empowers the Board of Governors and State Board of Education to restrict voter registration drives and other elections-related activities on college campuses. Passed the House of Representatives by an 81-30 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 833: Authorizes private schools with up to 150 students to open in any area zoned for commercial or mixed-use development and to operate from retail stores, day cares, theaters and other business. Passed the House of Representatives by an 85-22 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 989: Expands laws that force Floridians to buy most new cars from middleman car dealers rather than directly from vehicle manufacturers. Passed the House of Representatives by a 109-1 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 905: Eliminates in-state tuition for students enrolled in Florida universities through linkage agreements with international universities, prohibits surrogacy or pre-planned adoption arrangements if any party is a citizen or resident of certain countries, and enables the governor to suspend state laws restricting trade with Cuba if the American government ousts the Cuban government. Passed the House of Representatives by an 86-20 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 981: Orders the Department of Environmental Protection to develop a plan to breach the Rodman Dam and restore the flow of the Ocklawaha River. Passed the House of Representatives by a 107-3 vote. (vote sheet)

• Senate Bill 1134: Forbids local governments from supporting diversity programs and enables the governor to suspend local elected officials who violate the prohibition. Passed the Senate by a 25-11 vote. (vote sheet)

• Senate Bill 1028: Requires state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to create a program through which surplus lines insurance companies could take over policies covering condo buildings and businesses and forces Citizens to hire a private vendor to manage the program. Passed the Senate by a 33-1 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 1217: Strips local governments of the power to enact policies intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change. Passed the House of Representatives by an 80-29 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 1279: Caps out-of-state enrollment at the University of Florida and other top-performing public universities to no more than 5 percent of fall freshman classes. Also enables state universities to obtain their accreditation through a new state-controlled accrediting agency rather than an independent accreditor. Passed the House of Representatives by an 84-25 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 1283: Blocks anonymous complaints against police officers or prison guards unless they come with corroborating evidence. Passed the House of Representatives by a 94-5 vote. (vote sheet)

• Senate Bill 1296: Imposes new collective-bargaining and labor-organizing restrictions on teachers, bus drivers, utility workers and most other public-sector employees — including raising the threshold needed to win union elections while simultaneously making it more cumbersome for employees to vote. Exempts unions representing police officers or firefighters from the restrictions. Passed the Senate by a 20-14 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 1421: Requires state agencies to identify state-owned lands that can be leased to private companies for cattle grazing. Passed the House of Representatives by a 102-8 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 1451: Blocks a voter-approved referendum in Gainesville that is intended to restore local control of the city-owned electric company, GRU, after the Legislature took that power away from the city and gave it to a board appointed by the governor. Passed the House of Representatives by an 81-26 vote. (vote sheet)

• House Bill 1471: Gives the governor and Cabinet the power to designate advocacy groups as “domestic terrorist organizations” and impose sanctions on the groups and people who support them. Passed the House of Representatives by an 81-26 vote (vote sheet). Amended and passed by the Senate by a 25-11 vote (vote sheet). Goes back to the House.

• House Bill 1551: Makes it harder to sue gun manufacturer Sig Sauer in cases where someone is injured when one of the company’s guns allegedly fires without anyone pulling the trigger. Passed the House of Representatives by a 75-29 vote. (vote sheet)

The week ahead

The House and Senate will both hold floor sessions every day this week. Each chambers is scheduled begin at 1 pm on Monday and in the morning every other day of the week. Click here to find contact information for House members. Click here to find contact information for senators.

Bill that could be heard at any point

• The Senate could hear Senate Bill 354, which would allow the state’s largest landowners to put city-sized developments on rural cattle pastures and timberlands with minimal input from neighboring residents or local elected officials.

• The House could hear House Bill 995 or Senate Bill 1296, which would impose new collective-bargaining and labor-organizing restrictions on teachers, bus drivers, utility workers and most other public-sector employees — including raising the threshold needed to win union elections while simultaneously making it more cumbersome for employees to vote.

• The House could hear House Bill 1471, which would give the governor and Cabinet the power to designate advocacy groups as “domestic terrorist organizations” and impose sanctions on the groups and people who support them.

• The Senate could hear Senate Bill 1756, which would allow anti-vaccine parents to opt out of mandatory immunization requirements and send unvaccinated children to schools. The bill would also let pharmacies sell Ivermectin without a prescription — but with immunity from lawsuits over negative health effects.

• The Senate could hear Senate Bill 1758, which would restrict access to health insurance through the state’s Medicaid and KidCare programs and food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program, commonly known as food stamps.

• The House could hear House Bill 7031, which would “decouple” Florida from multibillion-dollar tax breaks for corporations that were passed as part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

Monday

• The House of Representatives will hear Senate Bill 1028, which would require state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to create a program through which surplus lines insurance companies could take over policies covering condo buildings and businesses — and force Citizens to hire a private vendor to manage the program.

• The House of Representatives will hear Senate Bill 302, which could block construction of a proposed cruise port at the mouth of Tampa Bay.

Tuesday

• The Senate will hear Senate Bill 7036 or House Bill 1071, which are omnibus packages dealing with PreK-12 education. The House bill would give the State Board of Education the power to make public schools show students an anti-abortion cartoon as part of health education courses and to prohibit schools from supporting diversity programs. The Senate bill would require public schools to teach students about the history of Florida agriculture. Both bills allow small private schools of up to open in any commercial zoning district and operate from retail stores, movie theaters, and other commercial venues.

Wednesday

• The Senate will hear Senate Bill 208 or House Bill 399, which are omnibus development packages. The House bill would weaken anti-sprawl protections for rural land around Orlando and Miami and force Miami Beach to approve a proposed water park at the Fontainebleau Hotel despite local opposition. The Senate is expected to consider an amendment that would undermine rural boundaries in Orange and Seminole counties. Both bills limit the discretion local governments have to deny development applications on the basis of incompatibility with surrounding residential areas, authorize manufactured homes anywhere site-built homes are allowed, and order a study on the effects of removing an urban development boundary in Miami-Dade County.

• The Senate will hear House Bill 167, which would make it harder to sue the Mosaic Co. and other phosphate-mining companies for claims related to radiation exposure on redeveloped former mines.

• The Senate will hear Senate Bill 1334 or House Bill 991, which would require Florida voters to prove their citizenship by providing copies of documents such as a passport or birth certificate when they register — or if state officials identify already-registered voters as potentially ineligible. The House bill would also prevent university students from using their student IDs as identification when they vote.

• The Senate will ahear Senate Bill 7038 or House Bill 1279, which are omnibus packages dealing with higher education. Both bills would enable state universities to obtain accreditation through a new state-controlled accrediting agency rather than an independent accreditor. The House bill would cap out-of-state enrollment at the University of Florida and other top-performing public universities to no more than 5 percent of fall freshman classes.

• The Senate will hear Senate Bill 7046, which would force county school districts to share local property taxes with charter schools they never approved. The bill would also strip local governments of the power to enact policies intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change. And it would create a tax break on tickets to the Miami Open tennis tournament.

Reading list

• Affordability is Floridians’ top issue. Lawmakers aren’t addressing it. (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

• Distrust and dysfunction: Inside the Florida Legislature’s 2026 mess (Politico Florida)

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis backs a new bill targeting unions; those who support him won’t be affected (CBS Miami)

• Republican Florida Legislature discusses, but shoots down, Medicaid expansion (Florida Phoenix)

• ‘Nazi heaven’: Inside Miami campus Republicans’ racist group chat (Miami Herald) ($)

• Proposal to lower Florida electricity bills dies after FPL lobbying, sponsor says (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

• ‘Constitutional trainwreck’: Florida lawmakers seek surveillance crackdown (The Florida Trib)

• After a 67-year gap, Florida may be about to legalize naturopathic medicine (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

• Florida House approves scaled-back UTC District that Benderson would control (The Bradenton Journal)

• Republicans from Tallahassee to Miami disagree on developing a booming Florida (Miami Herald) ($)

• How UF’s law school got faculty to ‘bend the rules’ for James Uthmeier (Miami Herald) ($)

• Neighbors only want one answer on data center: No (Stet News)

• A data center could be coming to the greater Tampa Bay area. Locals are not happy. (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

• Florida gets over 20,000 weather modification claims — but no evidence — since new law passed (Politico Pro) ($)

• Mining giant Mosaic seeks federal approval to expand its waste pile near Tampa Bay (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

• Florida tech projects are over budget and behind schedule. Can the Legislature fix them? (Politico Pro) ($)

• New records show Florida officials burned more than $1.2 million per day on ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ (Florida Trib)

• Taxpayer dollars flood pregnancy centers. Oversight hasn’t followed. (States Newsroom)