Lawmakers in Tallahassee approved the state budget, and also addressed property insurance during the session, and President Joe Biden hits the campaign trail after his State of the Union address.
Lawmakers pass state budget as session ends
It is finally over. Lawmakers Friday wrapped up the 2024 legislative session by passing a slew of bills and putting a bow on next year’s fiscal budget.
Another year. Another session in the books.
The final order of business Friday was the Florida budget. It weighs in at $117 billion dollars, including $1.5 billion in purported tax breaks.
In all, lawmakers passed 258 bills. Among them is a major plan banning most minors from social media.
“We address that this year in a way that I think puts us ahead of other states, will be sustained legally and is also effective,” State House Speaker Paul Renner said.
Other highlights include a bill to ban sleeping in public, and regulations on short-term rental properties.
But for Democrats, there is no reason to celebrate. If these new Republican-led policies go south, they say they know who to blame.
“When you get a supermajority situation, if anything goes wrong in the state, it’s kind of like, you have all the power and you have all the control, so it’s on you,” State Sen. Jason Pizzo said.
For example. Democrats wanted more substantial action on property insurance, saying rate hikes are becoming too much for Floridians to bear.
Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell argued that the Republican-controlled Legislature did not do much to relieve the insurance burden on the state's property owners.
"They had every chance and opportunity to do it," she said. "If Democrats were in power, we would. Look at our platform."
Now this session comes during an election year and both parties are saying that they believe voters should judge them on the fruits of their labor.
Republicans, Democrats torn on impact of property insurance bill
While some may argue that Florida's property insurance crisis didn't get enough priority in the legislative session, there were some bills taken up, and it’s now up to Gov. Ron DeSantis to approve the measures lawmakers did pass.
Homeowners across the state say they’re struggling to pay skyrocketing insurance premiums.
Lawmakers did pass a few items aimed at doing that, but will it be enough?
As time ran out on Florida’s legislative session, lawmakers took action on property insurance premiums.
“I’m encouraged we’re headed in the right direction, and I think homeowners will start to see some real relief in the next year,” State Sen. Jim Boyd said.
Boyd said his bill, designed to make changes to Citizens’ property insurance, the state’s insurer of last resort, will help homeowners by allowing other carriers to take on some of the many customers Citizens took in when private insurers fled the state.
“The insurance commissioner told me last week that he’s starting to see a downward trend in rates," Boyd said. "That doesn’t mean it you get your homeowner’s bill in the mail tomorrow and it’s going to be a lot lower. It’s still working to that end."
But Democrats say it gives more relief to insurance companies than homeowners.
“We have a Citizens bill that’s going to kick people off Citizens, which is not going to offer them more relief," State Rep. Anna Eskamani said. "We have a tax break that right now can maybe give you $63 annually off your insurance taxes.”
Part of the state budget would eliminate the tax on insurance premiums for one year.
“But it’s really just a pass-through tax break for the property insurance industry, so we continue to give the industry relief, but not really any relief for Floridians," Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said. "What might amount to a cable bill for a homeowner is going to be hundreds of millions of dollars for the property insurance industry."
Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers agree that boosts to the My Safe Florida Home program should help. That will offer more money to homeowners, including low-income ones, to make storm-ready improvements to their homes, which should also reduce their rates.
“It’s already yielding premium reductions and their data shows it’s about eight or nine-hundred dollars per policy, those who have hardened their homes, that they're seeing savings on their insurance, so that’s significant,” Boyd said.
But Democrats insist, it’s not enough.
“We know that’s on top of people’s minds," Driskell said. "Florida’s in an affordability crisis, so it truly was a session of missed opportunities, and for me it’s really ending in a whimper."
Biden hits campaign trail after State of the Union speech
President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign announced Friday that it had notched record fundraising figures in the hours during and after his State of the Union address.
The incumbent Democrat's 2024 campaign is looking to take the momentum from Thursday’s address — and the seemingly certain Biden-Trump rematch further cemented on Super Tuesday — directly to voters on the road in March, announcing a new battleground state swing and ad blitz.
On Friday, the campaign announced Biden’s high-stakes election-year address powered its best fundraising day since the incumbent president kicked off his reelection bid nearly a year ago.
Biden’s team first logged its most lucrative single hour from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday — an hour that included the president’s entrance into the House chamber and the first half hour of his speech. The record was broken in the 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. hour and then again from 11 p.m. to midnight, the campaign told reporters on a call Friday.
The campaign is now hoping to convert the energy into what it has billed a “Month of Action” in March, launching a fresh travel swing through battleground states and a new ad blitz.
“Thanks to the unprecedented grassroots support we received this month, we will dramatically expand our volunteer engagement, scale up our battleground staff, launch our coalition groups and invest in new paid media campaigns,” Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told reporters on Friday.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will personally touch down in every swing state, Chavez Rodriguez added. The effort kicked off less than 24 hours after the State of the Union with a visit from Biden to Pennsylvania and Harris’ stop in Arizona on Friday.
Saturday will see Biden hit Georgia and Harris make a trip to Nevada. Next week, the president will hit the road again, stopping in New Hampshire on Monday, Wisconsin on Wednesday and Michigan on Thursday.
“We firmly believe that this race is going to be won on the ground, across key states, that are core to our multiple pathways to 270,” Chavez Rodriguez said. “And everything we're doing this month to kick off the general election is grounded in that premise.”
Coinciding with the swing state tour, Biden’s campaign is launching a $30 million ad buy over six weeks, which deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty noted amounts to more than the campaign spent in all of 2023.
We're going to be reaching voters through television, connected TV and other digital platforms to start to cement the choice of this election, bringing the president's message from last night directly to voters where they consume their media,” Flaherty said. “We will be making sizable buys and Hispanic, African American and AANHPI outlets and radio.”
It comes as this week made it all but certain that November will be a rematch between 2020 rivals Biden and former President Donald Trump following Super Tuesday — which saw the pair dominate their respective parties’ nominating contests and led to Trump’s last remaining well-known challenger, Nikki Haley, end her bid for the White House.
Campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon referred to the moment as a “key juncture” in this year’s presidential election.
“This is the key juncture where we are in the general election when there's a clear choice for the American people,” O'Malley Dillon told reporters. “This campaign is really built to make sure that we're doing the work that we need to to make that choice clear, and in really stark contrast to what we're seeing on the other side.”
Campaign finance reports for January 2024 showed Trump’s principal campaign committee ended the month with less than $30.5 million in the bank; Biden’s main committee, on the other hand, rounded out January with $56 million in cash reserves.
Trump’s cash on hand figure for January marked a decrease from the $33 million he had in the bank to start the new year, and it stands in contrast with the $10 million Biden added to his cash chest over the month.
According to filings, Trump recorded raising $8.8 million in the first month of the election year while Biden’s principal campaign committee brought in $15 million.
The filings for January include just the figures for Trump and Biden’s main campaign committees. But the incumbent president’s campaign on Wednesday touted its $130 million war chest among all of Biden’s fundraising entities, which includes his other joint fundraising committees and the Democratic National Committee.
Among all of those entities, the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign said, Biden notched $42 million toward his reelection effort in January.