Speaker of the Florida House Daniel Perez addresses the body after receiving unanimous support to hold the position during the House organizational session on Nov. 19, 2024. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)
House Speaker Danny Perez is a political player, but on Tuesday during the House post-election organizational session the 37-year-old Miami Republican said he isn’t going to play the Tallahassee game.
After being unanimously voted Speaker of the House, Perez promised to usher in a new era in Tallahassee with less talk, more action. Also, leaner budgets. He said he wasn’t going to disclose his priorities for the 2025 session because doing so gives the news media an easy framework for their narrative.
“It’s what’s expected. I make a speech, announce a priority, give it a fancy name, promise to spend a bunch of money, and then pat myself on the back when the bill passes, claiming that my speakership was a grand success,” Perez said in his acceptance speech.
“Except when the dust settles, the new law doesn’t actually make a difference. It doesn’t really solve the problem I claimed I was worried about. It’s a game of labels and leverage for the purpose of ego and credit. I understand the game. I’m opting not to play.”
Instead of identifying a legislative wish list, Perez said his priority is to serve the people of Florida.
“The actual people of Florida. Not the online social media activists, not the lobbyists or interest groups, not the institutions that dominate our political conversations,” he said.
“I’m more interested in talking about the small business owner in Jacksonville, the abuela in Miami-Dade, the single mother in Orlando, the entrepreneur in Tampa. We are the Florida House of Representatives. We are the People’s House, and it is the people of our state who should be our priority. We aren’t a debate society, and we shouldn’t be the House of Talk. We should be the House of Action. We should pass laws that really matter to the lives of real people facing real problems.”
The Legislature has over the past two years passed bills that limit access to abortion, prevent minors from receiving gender-affirming care even with their parents’ approval, ban the use of state funds for such care, and place hurdles in the path of adults who seek it.
It also passed legislation mandating and enforcing that bathroom use in public buildings be separated by sex assigned at birth and banning minors from attending adult live performances such as drag shows. The Republican-led Legislature embraced these proposals as Gov. Ron DeSantis launched a failed presidential run.
Perez has in the past indicated no interest in bringing up those issues and reiterated that sentiment Tuesday saying, “The people of Florida do not need or want us to tell them what to think or how to live.”
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Real problems
When accepting the speaker-designate role last year, Perez said property insurance remained a priority for him. In his speech Tuesday, he hinted that sweeping legislation passed during two special sessions that provided $3 billion to the insurance industry and protected companies from lawsuits hasn’t produced enough results.
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Perez said homeowners understand that the state gets hit by hurricanes and property insurance will be a challenge. Homeowners in Florida pay the highest premiums in the nation.
“But they [residents] need to know that our state’s insurance laws are not being written by and for the insurance companies,” he said to a faint round of applause.
Spending crackdown
Perez intends to take a close look at state spending, a message he pushed last week when he announced a revamped House committee structure. He touched on the need to curb state spending in his organization speech, noting that when he was first elected to the House the state’s budget was $82 billion. It has grown by about $40 billion since then, he said.
“State government has become so flush with cash that we have lost any sense of discipline. We make purchases following natural disasters with little to no inventory control. We buy land that we can’t keep track of, much less manage competently. We spend millions of dollars on failed IT projects. How much money has been spent on Capitol renovations only to have parking garages that leak water and flood?” Perez said. “We need to build a state budget that values value.”
While lawmakers consider hundreds of pieces of legislation when they convene in Tallahassee, the only bill they are required to annually pass is the General Appropriations Act, or the state’s fiscal year budget. It is required to be balanced, although bonding is allowed.
In a media availability following his remarks, Perez promised an “across the board” examination of state spending.
“If you listen to the speech, I talk about state government being flushed with cash. Are we using it properly? That goes across the board. Everyone has to be held accountable. We have to have transparency. Where is the dollar being used? Why is it being used and how is it being used? Across the board we will be looking into the budget.”
DeSantis has been criticized for using state resources to defeat Amendment 3, which would have legalized adult recreational use of pot, and Amendment 4, which would have enshrined abortion rights in the state Constitution.
The governor used agencies including the state Department of Health and Agency for Health Care Administration, which are funded with taxpayers’ dollars, to beat back passage of the proposed initiatives.
When asked about it Tuesday, Perez said: “Any sort of taxpayer dollars that has ever left the Legislature for whatever use will be under scrutiny and we’ll be looking at it.”
The minority party
Florida Democrats had hoped to pick up enough seats in the November elections to crawl out of their superminority status. That didn’t occur. In fact, there are fewer Democrats in the chamber now.
Newly installed House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell noted the overwhelming Republican majority but said “the people we represent are far more evenly divided on many of the most important issues that will be raised amongst us.”
Driskell said the Democratic caucus would continue to act as the “loyal opposition” whose “voice is heard, despite the obvious math of the vote count.”
Regarding abortion rights, Driskell said that despite Amendment 4’s failure at the polls it did receive a majority, 57%, support from voters. Given that, the House minority leader said: “I am hopeful that we can revisit the restrictions currently placed on women and their ability to have agency over their own bodies and give medical professionals the clearer guidance they have been asking for.”
Legislative leaders have said they don’t intend to address Florida’s abortion or marijuana laws this session.
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