For decades my fellow Republicans quoted Thomas Jefferson: “The government closest to the people serves the people best.” As the heirs of Ronald Reagan, we know local control is most responsive to and best serves the people, believing Reagan when he said “Local government meeting local needs — that’s a fundamental principle of good government.”
I have been a Republican since 1999 and very involved in the philosophy of the conservative movement, including as president of FSU Law’s Federalist Society and president of my school’s College Republicans.
The conservative preference for local government can be difficult for those in higher office to accept; it’s human nature for them to think they are more enlightened. But a core conservative value is humility and that underpins why local control is vital. It’s also a conservative principle that incentives matter. Senators from Miami and Ocala have no incentive to be responsive to the preferences of Seminole, Orange, Volusia and Lake County residents.
Local control is a bedrock Florida idea. The Florida Constitution provides for county and municipal governments to be set up by charter and then exercise local control over local issues. Seminole, Orange and Volusia are charter counties with constitutionally mandated control over their own local decisions.
Sadly, the Florida Legislature has abandoned this core principle of conservatism in exchange for something else: growing its own power through a process known as preemption. Using preemption, distant legislators unaccountable to Central Floridians have eaten away at the authority of our local governments to make the decisions their citizens want.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in our ability to weigh in locally on how we grow.
Floridians deserve the ability to shape how growth changes our own communities. Locally, we have had extensive conversations with our elected officials on how to maintain our quality of life through reasonable growth regulations. Our community has decided that it wants to protect green and rural areas, minimize sprawl, and increase smart urban density.
Those local preferences were reflected in a green wave within Central Florida’s 2024 elections, with conservation-minded commissioners reelected in Seminole County. Seminole’s Rural Boundary was reinforced with 82% voter support; Orange County created its own Rural Boundary with 73% of the vote; Kelly Martinez Semrad and Nicole Wilson were elected as commissioners in Orange; and 80% of Lake County voters approved a conservation land acquisition program.
But legislators in Tallahassee thought they knew better than our local residents. These legislators had forgotten the conservative values which told them to respect our local decisions, so in 2025 bill after bill reflected their and their donors’ desires to allow development at all costs. Republican legislators introduced multiple bills to preempt local growth regulations. These bills failed due to mobilized and engaged citizens, from moms who know unchecked sprawling growth means hours wasted driving, to outdoorsmen who see rural Florida being turned into concrete and rooftops.
However, Tallahassee legislators had another trick up their sleeves: They slipped preemption language into a bill about hurricane disaster recovery, SB 180. This language preempts local authority to manage growth in every Florida county. Now, developers are using the bill to try and eradicate Orange County’s Rural Boundary. Seminole has been forced to abandon its Rural Enclave program.
In the 2026 legislative session, legislators have already put the same preemption language which caused outrage in the failed 2025 proposals into a new bill, SB 208. If enacted, this bill will be the end of Seminole County’s Rural Boundary. These legislators are not deterred, because they are unmoored from the principle of respecting local control.
Whether the GOP senators and representatives who support preemption bills agree with the impacted local policies is irrelevant. As Republicans, we are supposed to be skeptical about top-down power and provide space for local governments to work with their citizens.
We expect our state elected officials to work for the people, not the donor class. We expect them to stand up to those in Tallahassee who are taking away our residents’ right to self-determination, even if they are within their own party.
Citizens should not be forced to police legislators 250 miles away. Local control is constitutional, conservative and practical for our communities.
Don’t allow the sway of big money in Tallahassee to remove your ability to have a say in how your community grows. Demand that your state elected officials vote against preemption of our local control.
David Bear is the managing attorney of Bear Legal Solutions and president of the nonprofit Save Rural Seminole.