By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida<\/p>\n
Lawmakers remain in a holding pattern, with no concrete progress made on the budget. Legislative leaders issued memos to members saying they won\u2019t need to return to the Capitol next week because there\u2019s no agreement on allocations \u2013 top line numbers for the spending plan.<\/p>\n
When talks between the House and Senate to allocate funding for different parts of the fiscal year 2026-2027 spending plan crashed in early March, requiring extra time for budget talks for the second consecutive year, a general \u201cmid-April\u201d timeline was given for the return.<\/p>\n
That led many to anticipate lawmakers to take up the process on April 13, with the work overlapping the five-day special session Gov. Ron DeSantis called for congressional redistricting that begins April 20.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, April 8, House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, sent separate memos telling lawmakers no deal on allocations has been reached and they aren\u2019t ready to begin formal negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I believe we are making great progress, it will not be necessary for you to return to Tallahassee prior to the special session called by Governor DeSantis,\u201d Albritton wrote. \u201cWe will share a schedule for that special session as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perez called \u201cexternal speculation\u201d of a special session next week \u201cnot accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The special session for congressional redistricting is still moving forward, although the motivating reason DeSantis gave for calling the session hasn\u2019t come to pass.<\/p>\n
DeSantis cited a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on a Louisiana redistricting case\u00a0as the primary reason to redraw Florida\u2019s congressional districts.<\/p>\n
He believes the ruling, when it comes, will strike down part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that allows districts to be drawn on racial grounds to address historic discrimination. That would require, DeSantis claims, the state to redraw some districts in South Florida.<\/p>\n
Despite the lack of a ruling, though, DeSantis doesn\u2019t think lawmakers need to wait. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know how that Supreme Court case is going to come out at this point. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s much of a dispute about that,\u201d DeSantis said while at a bill signing event at the University of South Florida. \u201cAnd I think Justice Alito is writing the opinion. So, us looking at our map, understanding the issues in that case, and fixing it, I think that\u2019s appropriate whether the decision comes before we do it or after.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll obviously come sometime between now and the end of June,\u201d DeSantis added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida Lawmakers remain in a holding pattern, with no concrete progress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-229698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229698","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=229698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}