{"id":186192,"date":"2026-03-10T20:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T20:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/186192\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T20:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T20:43:07","slug":"florida-bill-banning-local-dei-spending-heads-to-desantis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/186192\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida bill banning local DEI spending heads to DeSantis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) &#8211; The Florida House has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2026\/1134\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2026\/1134\">passed a bill<\/a> that would ban local governments from spending money on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, sending the measure to Gov. Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The bill would prohibit cities and counties from funding DEI programs and even passing resolutions related to them. Elected officials who violate the ban could be removed from office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rep. Ashley Gantt, D-Miami, said the legislation creates legal uncertainty for local governments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThat will inevitably cause local elected to just not act. And that will have a detrimental impact on the constituents that elected them and elected us,\u201d Gantt said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Gantt said the bill is so vague that it could end cultural events, including LGBT Pride parades across Florida. She noted that while the bill includes carve-outs, local governments may still struggle to interpret the law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWhile we do have 10 to 12 carve-outs, that doesn\u2019t mean that local governments will still have the ability to understand and interpret the law,\u201d Gantt said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">House Speaker Daniel Perez, R, disputed that interpretation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThat doesn\u2019t inhibit the ability for local governments to be able to have a gay pride festival if that is something they choose to do,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Perez said the bill is focused on preventing tax dollars from funding such efforts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cDo we want taxpayer dollars to be used to put on certain events and promoted by local governments? No, we don\u2019t want taxpayer dollars to be used for that,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">State data shows Florida\u2019s Diversity Index is more than 85%. Florida has been removing DEI programs across the state government for several years. The bill extends those restrictions to local governments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The bill now heads to Gov. DeSantis for his signature.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wcjb.com\/newsletter\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a> to subscribe to our newsletter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCJB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) &#8211; The Florida House has passed a bill that would ban local&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4151,28,30,29,2161],"class_list":["post-186192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-dei","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186192","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=186192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}