Unless You’re a Developer, a Lobbyist, or a Fetus, Your Florida Lawmakers Don’t Care for You

By Diane Roberts

Ever get the feeling the Florida Legislature hates you?

It does.

Unless you’re a developer, a lobbyist, or a fetus.

Members are filing hell-born bills for the 2026 session, many apparently designed to torment you, rob your children of their futures, and reduce this state to an ICE-filled, disease ridden, constantly flooding, unaffordable autocracy.

Perhaps you cherish Florida’s natural beauty: the trees, the springs, the beaches, the wetlands.

Enjoy them while you can.

Sen. Stan McClain, R-Ocala, has filed a bill to forbid local government regulation of, and restrictions on, development.

SB 208 would allow all manner of unrestricted housing to be built wherever, whenever, even if the city objects because, say, it violates their comp plans, harms the character of a neighborhood, or pollutes.

You will not be shocked to learn Sen. McClain’s profession is “residential contractor.”

It gets worse: HB 479 would ensure sprawl, clear-cutting, and wetlands destruction can proceed unimpeded by any city or county trying to manage growth or protect local quality of life.

Environmental watchdogs call it “one of the worst water bills” they’ve ever seen.

This stinker’s sponsor is Rep. Randy Maggard of Pasco County. He may have been inspired by his nephew’s desire to build a house in Dade City’s La Jovita Golf and Country Club community, where homeowners pride themselves on living in harmony with wildlife.

As reported by Craig Pittman, it seems Zach Maggard broke an impressive number of rules, running a concrete boat ramp through wetlands and chopping down protected trees.

The project disappeared a bald eagle nest. Naturally, he suffered no consequences.

Next thing you know, his uncle is working to kneecap those pesky ordinances so everybody can go wild monetizing every inch of ground.

If your town wants to protect the wetlands that mitigate flooding, filter your drinking water, and foster birds and fish, or perhaps want to stop a project that would rip out the mangroves that sequester carbon, reduce storm surge, and slow down erosion, or maybe refuse a permit for, say, a huge gas station on top of a cave system connected to one of the state’s most iconic springs, you’ll be flat out of luck.

Of course, the federal government might kill Florida before Florida can kill itself.

The Trump administration wants to narrow the definition of “Waters of the United States” — which are protected by the Clean Water Act — removing protections from 80% of the nation’s wetlands.

They also want to drill in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Anybody remember the BP oil spill?

Control

There’s no aspect of human life the Legislature doesn’t mean to control.

You should not be LGBTQ. Or demonstrate support for LGBTQ people.

Once again, lawmakers want to ban Pride flags outside government buildings.

God forbid somebody display a piece of cloth with a rainbow, signifying inclusiveness and welcome.

“Historical” flags, the Confederate battle flag, for example, will be allowed — in case you’re wondering what Republicans really care about.

Like gay people and flags, women must also be highly regulated.

Sen. Erin Grall has, once again, got her “fetal personhood” bill past the Judiciary Committee.

SB 164 would allow parents to sue for damages over the death of a fetus deemed “wrongful,” even if the fetus couldn’t have survived outside the womb.

That fetus is an American citizen.

“Survivors” could try to recover “lost earnings” of what the bill calls the “unborn child,” defined as a “member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb,” maybe on the theory it might have grown up to become a movie star like George Clooney or start a company like Nvidia and be worth billions.

Grall has long pushed legislation to control women’s bodies.

When Florida passed a six-week abortion ban in 2023, Grall, a sponsor, said, “Abortion has touched every single one of us, and we should grieve for what we have done as a country.”

That incest victim, that 16-year-old who didn’t know she was pregnant until she was past the time limit, would probably disagree.

Since women no longer have reproductive freedom in the Free State of Florida, it might be best if they just refrain from having sex.

“Freedom” in Florida means freedom from compassion for the poor, freedom from learning, freedom from the consequences of racism and prejudice, and freedom from science-based medicine.

Our state surgeon general has decreed children don’t need to be vaccinated against hepatitis B, chickenpox, haemophilus type B, and pneumococcal conjugate virus to go to school.

Now he and Gov. Ron DeSantis want the Legislature to roll back other vaccine mandates, including polio, pertussis, measles, mumps, diptheria, and rubella.

If that’s not enough, Erin Grall has another bill to protect you from your own health.

SB 408 says that if you get a vaccine and it “harms” you, and if that vaccine was advertised in the state of Florida on TV, radio, in print, via product placement, or online influencers, you can sue the manufacturer.

The measure does not define “harm.” Is a sore arm or a low-grade fever “harm”?

Anaphylaxis? Death?

A serious allergic reaction to a vaccine is possible, but it’s vanishingly rare.

Much rarer than, say, getting severely sick or even dying because you think the jab is some evil plot to impair your precious bodily fluids.

This lawsuit nonsense isn’t about sound medicine. The thin (one page) bill might attract all manner of even more extreme amendments.

Go ahead, risk your kid’s health; let your kid become a walking disease factory.

Guns

And if your kid makes it to 18, why not let him or her buy a nice, scary gun?

After 17 died in the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day, 2018, the Florida Legislature did the right thing, passing a bill to limit the purchase of semi-automatic rifles to those 21 and up.

That bill, signed into law by noted liberal Rick Scott, was such an affront to the House of Representatives and their NRA overlords, they keep trying to roll it back.

For three years, House Republicans proposed repealing the law.

Why not go back to allowing 18-year olds to buy themselves a Smith & Wesson M&P 15, just like Nicholas Cruz did?

So far, the Senate has shut these bills down.

But this is Florida and 2026 is an election year, so who knows?

Taxes

Thank God for Republicans’ Klown Kar ideas for eliminating property taxes: a bit of comic relief in these dark days.

The Legislature will consider no fewer than eight proposals, one eliminating non-school taxes altogether (HJR 201), one phasing out non-school taxes over 10 years (HJR 203), another exempting Florida residents over 65 from non-school homestead taxes (HJR 205), yet another limiting assessed value to 3% over three years for homestead property and 15% for non-homestead property, also over three years (HJR 213).

And a partridge in a pear tree.

OK, that last one is made up, but you get the idea.

Ron DeSantis despises all of them.

(He despises a lot of things, but he really loathes what he sees as the House of Representatives’ gaggle of tax-cutting ideas).

The governor calls them “milquetoast,” unserious, and “weak.”

Speaker of the House Daniel Perez points out DeSantis “has not produced a plan on property taxes. Period.”

Perez adds, “I’ve personally reached out to share with him the House’s proposals and he has, so far, not wanted to engage in a conversation.”

A cynical person might suspect DeSantis might be running for higher office in 2028 and wants to claim he “liberated” Floridians from the terrible burden of paying for local police, fire services, libraries, parks, and road repair.

They all need to get a move on if they want to get one (or more!) of these bad ideas onto the 2026 ballot.

In any case, watching the Legislature and our testy governor duke it out will be entertaining, and God knows, we’ll need some fun come January.

Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.