{"id":248877,"date":"2026-04-27T23:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248877\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T23:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:09:08","slug":"lawmakers-head-back-to-tallahassee-for-special-session-on-redistricting-vaccines-and-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248877\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers head back to Tallahassee for special session on redistricting, vaccines and AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Florida lawmakers are heading back to the State Capitol on Tuesday to take up unfinished business left behind after the regular legislative session ended more than a month ago without a state budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While budget negotiations<\/a> are expected to resume during another session scheduled for May, Tuesday\u2019s special session<\/a> will focus on redistricting and two other key issues that failed to pass earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Gov. Ron DeSantis called the Republicancontrolled Legislature back to Tallahassee to redraw Florida\u2019s congressional maps.<\/p>\n

Redistricting is expected to be the centerpiece of the session.<\/p>\n

The governor has repeatedly pushed for changes to the state\u2019s 20th Congressional District, a seat left vacant after Congresswoman Sheila CherfilusMcCormick resigned.<\/p>\n

Earlier Monday, DeSantis unveiled a new proposed map that would shift four congressional seats from Democratic to Republican control.<\/p>\n

See also: Florida records confirm at least 31 sloths died before Orlando’s Sloth World opened<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition to redistricting, lawmakers will also revisit legislation addressing vaccine mandates and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

One proposal would expand vaccine exemptions for K12 students and create a new optout process for parents. Another measure would revive the governor\u2019s proposed AI Bill of Rights, aimed at increasing transparency, particularly when children interact with chatbots and other AIdriven technology.<\/p>\n

Democratic leaders have criticized the timing and priorities of the special session.<\/p>\n

Democratic State Rep. Rob Long was driving back to Tallahassee Monday afternoon. He said the special session is a waste of time and doesn’t benefit the voters. He believes lawmakers should instead be focusing on issues impacting Floridians right now.<\/p>\n

“When you have districts that are drawn to benefit political extremes, you have a less responsive government at the end of the day,” Rep. Long said. \u201cThere are a lot of things impacting Floridians, especially affordability, and that\u2019s what we should be calling ourselves back here to address. We should be working on our budget right now. We don\u2019t have a budget yet, but we\u2019re doing congressional redistricting. It doesn\u2019t make any sense. It’s really unfortunate, and I hope the legislature gavels in and gavels out and we don’t actually take this seriously.”<\/p>\n

The special session is expected to run through Thursday.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are then scheduled to return to Tallahassee on May 12 to resume negotiations and finalize the state budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Florida lawmakers are heading back to the State Capitol on Tuesday to take up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-248877","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\/248877","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=248877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}