Ten bills passed either the House or Senate this week.<\/p>\n
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 The 2026 Florida legislative session is barely underway, but the gloves are already off in Tallahassee \u2014\u00a0with strained relationships, emotional debates and divisive issues dominating week one.<\/p>\n
The tone for week one set before speeches even began, with House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, alleging Gov. Ron DeSantis didn\u2019t shake his hand or even look in his direction ahead of his state of the state address.<\/p>\n
The exchange reopened wounds from last session when disagreements between the two over tax reforms contributed to the session running over by 45 days.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether the governor wants to be petulant and not shake the hand of a partner, that’s on him,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n
Tensions did not calm in the following days either, with the House ultimately passing a bill Thursday after nearly three hours of debate that would expand the state\u2019s wrongful death act to cover fetuses at any stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis bill legally is a dumpster fire,\u201d said Rep. Michele Rayner, D-St. Petersburg. \u201cIt is a slap in the faces of women who struggle to find bodily autonomy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not about abortion,\u201d said Rep. Hillary Cassel, R-Dania Beach. \u201cAnd too often, when we talk about a pregnant woman, it always goes to the side of the mother that didn’t want the child.\u201d<\/p>\n
The House also focused on gun laws, passing a bill that would lower the age requirement to buy a rifle from 21 to 18 \u2014 a measure that was put in place back in 2018 in the wake of the Parkland school shooting that left 17 dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cRolling back this law would once again place lethal weapons into the hands of teenagers at their most vulnerable developmental stage,\u201d said Rep. Yvonne Hinson, D-Gainsville.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In total, 10 bills passed either the House or Senate this week, some with flying colors, like Senate President Ben Albritton\u2019s Rural Renaissance Bill \u2014 that would give $200 million in funding to rural communities to improve access to schools, healthcare, housing and infrastructure \u2014 and a bill by Rep. Dana Trabulsy R-St. Lucie, seeking to repeal Florida\u2019s \u201cFree kill\u201d law.<\/p>\n
Just because these bills have passed one chamber so early on in the session doesn\u2019t mean they will pass both. The bill regarding age requirements to buy rifles, for example, has made it past the House four years in a row now and will likely have another uphill battle this year when it makes its way to the Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten bills passed either the House or Senate this week. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 The 2026 Florida legislative session…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":{"0":"post-121394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-tallahassee","9":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","10":"tag-tallahassee-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}