In his first six years in office, Gov. Ron DeSantis got nearly everything he asked from the Legislature, passing an avalanche of conservative legislation that propelled him into a leading GOP contender for the presidency.
But entering the last two years of his second term, he’s entered a rift with Republican legislative leaders over immigration enforcement, and many GOP lawmakers are signaling a new era of oversight that could disrupt his agenda.
After another round of social media sniping by DeSantis staffers, criticizing Republican leaders for the “weak” immigration bill they passed this week, Sen. Randy Fine, R-Melbourne Beach, told them to be prepared for a hearing into their online activities.
“Thanks for reminding me we need to hold that oversight committee meeting on what you do and the rest of Team #RinoRon do all day to justify your six figure taxpayer checks other than play on social media,” Fine said in an X post directed at Christina Pushaw, now a senior management analyst in DeSantis’ office and one of his former spokespeople.
Pushaw garnered national attention for her combative approach to political messaging, particularly on social media, where she frequently engaged in heated exchanges with critics, journalists, and political opponents.
“Keep your calendar free February 11,” Fine added. “Tell your colleagues too.” Pushaw responded: “Isn’t this beneath you?”
Fine is chairman of the Senate Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee, a panel with oversight authority on many DeSantis-controlled agencies.
But his time in the Legislature is dwindling: He just prevailed in a GOP primary for a seat in Congress he is expected to win in the special general election. Under the state’s ‘resign to run’ law, he had to quit his Senate District 19 seat, which is effective March 31 – the middle of the regular session that starts March 4.
Initially a DeSantis supporter, Fine flipped in 2023 and endorsed President Donald Trump in the GOP presidential primary. He’s heavily criticized DeSantis and frequently sparred online with his staffers ever since.
New era of legislative oversight into the executive branch?
The newfound impetus towards aggressive oversight could extend towards the budget, too.
Lawmakers signaled as much when they voted to override a pair of DeSantis’ vetoes that slashed $57 million for legislative services. The money he cut goes toward 200 employees that help lawmakers with information technology services, economic and budget forecasting and policy oversight, among other things.
DeSantis vetoed the funds because of a line requiring a study of credit card processing fees. The Legislature had been using reserve funds to pay for the services before its veto override, the first since 2010.
The override came during the special session convened by House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, after rejecting the session called by DeSantis on immigration enforcement.
Perez said he’ll be creating workgroups to ensure the DeSantis administration is implementing laws correctly, and reviewing DeSantis’ vetoes for more possible overrides – or budget reinstatements – in the future.
“We have a legislative blind spot. We tend to be so fixated on the next thing, that we don’t always pay attention to the last thing,” Perez said ahead of the override. “It will be my intention that such reinstatements should be a part of every floor session until we bring the 2025-2026 House budget to the floor.”
The new posture towards DeSantis is a sharp change: At DeSantis’ request, Republican lawmakers have passed bills to ban diversity, equity and inclusion policies in schools and universities, discontinue transgender care for minors and restrict discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
When the former CEO for Disney spoke out against one of those measures, the governor asked for and got the Legislature to pass a measure putting a Disney-controlled special district under his purview.
Even when the Legislature attempted to diverge from DeSantis, such as in 2022 when it passed a Congressional redistricting map similar to the prior districts, they eventually catered to his demands. DeSantis vetoed their map and insisted on his own version that was more favorable to Republicans.
DeSantis was typically ahead of the curve in many policies and other GOP-led states soon followed suit. He gained a national following and started looking at a run for President.
Legislators helped him in that regard, too, changing the law so he didn’t have to resign as governor to run, buying him a new state plane and making his travel records secret.
But even during his presidential run, DeSantis started to get GOP defectors. Fine and a dozen other Republican legislators endorsed Trump instead of DeSantis. The vast majority of Republicans, though, backed DeSantis and many of them traveled to Iowa and knocked on doors on his behalf.
After Iowa, lawmakers weren’t as quick to fall in line
Trump trounced DeSantis in the Iowa caucus and his influence with the Legislature began to wane. His push for a special session before the end of 2024 to address a condo affordability crisis went unheeded.
With the rejection of the special session he called this week, the reticence of Republican leaders to acquiesce to his agenda burst into a public revolt.
DeSantis believes Perez and Albritton are caught up in “inside baseball” and don’t want him to “get a win,” insisting he doesn’t have “pride of ownership” and just wants a strong bill that takes advantage of Trump’s executive orders to expedite deportations and use local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws.
One of the biggest issues he has with the bill pushed by Perez and Albritton is a provision moving immigration enforcement under Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, which DeSantis believes is unconstitutional.
DeSantis thinks the bill is so weak he’s threatened to fund primary challengers to GOP lawmakers who support it. That applies to gubernatorial candidates running to replace him in 2026, too.
“Anybody that wants to run for governor, if you’re not willing to come out now and oppose this swampy piece of legislation you are not going to get elected governor in this state, I can guarantee it,” DeSantis said Thursday. “This is hot. This is something that people remember.”
In all, seven out of 114 Republicans in the both chambers voted against the bill (SB 2B) on Tuesday.
Democrats, meanwhile, stuck in superminority status in the Legislature, welcomed the new approach to DeSantis.
“DeSantis only has two years left in office, he can’t run for governor again,” House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa said. “So just by the nature of that, he’s already a weaker governor than he was two or three years ago.
“… I think that might be why we’re seeing the Legislature perhaps take some strides and strategies they weren’t willing to do before.”
Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: GOP lawmakers signal more oversight of DeSantis amid immigration fight
