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U.S.|Republican Lawmakers in Florida Rebel Against DeSantis in Rare Power Move
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/us/desantis-florida-trump-immigration.html
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In a special session on Monday, leaders seemed to be declaring their independence from a governor who has wielded so much power that legislative sessions have become largely predictable rubber stamps.
Jan. 27, 2025, 4:23 p.m. ET
For six years, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida could count on Republican state lawmakers bending to his will, giving swift approval to his ambitious legislative priorities with hardly a whiff of protest.
Those days appear to be over.
On Monday, in a remarkable sequence of events at the State Capitol in Tallahassee, Republican legislative leaders asserted their independence. They rejected Mr. DeSantis’s call for a special session on illegal immigration, called one of their own instead and, in an exceedingly rare move, overrode one of his budget vetoes.
They even aimed some public disdain his way.
“I believe special sessions should be used sparingly and should not be stunts used to generate headlines,” Daniel Perez, the new House speaker, said from the chamber floor.
Mr. Perez and Ben Albritton, the new Senate president, introduced their own immigration bill, characterizing it as a way to back President Trump on illegal immigration — much like Mr. DeSantis did when he made his own proposals.
But the legislators’ reproach of Mr. DeSantis was not really about immigration policy. The incoming leaders, speaking simultaneously to their respective chambers, were staging a dramatic break with a governor who, from the time he took office in 2019, had methodically expanded his executive powers — often, it seemed, at the expense of a pliant legislature.
“Sometimes leadership isn’t about being out front on an issue,” Mr. Albritton said on the Senate floor. “It’s actually about following the leader you trust. I trust President Trump. And I trust Florida law enforcement.”
