JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Tensions between Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida House are once again red hot as House members spent their President’s Day holiday, advancing a proposal to limit the power of Florida’s Chief Executive.
The bill, unanimously passed through its one and only committee stop on Monday, would block the Governor from using a state emergency fund on immigration.
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“This bill, all it does is ensure some accountability with taxpayer dollars. We’re asking our locals to do it every day with every bill we run up here to tighten the budget, to watch out. We’re just asking to do the same thing within ourselves,” said bill sponsor State Representative Phillip Griffitts (R-Panama City).
The bill would limit the use of the emergency fund to “natural” emergencies only, like hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Over the past two years, the Governor used more than half a billion dollars from the fund to prop up the state’s immigration enforcement efforts by fronting the money for state-run detention centers like Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot.
Under the House proposal, if those efforts were to continue, the legislature would have to sign off, but as it stands, the House doesn’t appear to have any funding for those detention centers in its budget.
The Governor’s communications team was quick to condemn the House bill.
“Florida House “Republicans” are trying to defund Alligator Alcatraz and other detainment centers across the state. Floridians did not vote for this," said DeSantis’ Communications Director Alex Lanfranconi in a social media post.
But State Representative Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville) is supportive of the House plan.
“Half a billion dollars of our taxpayer money has gone towards funding an expensive political ploy,” said Nixon.
She noted the bill also requires quarterly financial transparency disclosures and prohibits the fund from being used to purchase planes, boats, and cars.
Additionally, it requires any federal reimbursements, like the $608 million expected to pay the state back for its detention centers, to go back to general revenue.
“The Governor has not shown himself to be a good fiscal steward of taxpayer dollars, and we need to make sure that our taxpayer dollars are spent correctly and are spent on taxpayers,” said Nixon.
The Florida Senate already passed a clean extension of the emergency fund, which is set to lapse at midnight Tuesday, without new restrictions.
The two chambers will likely have to come to some sort of agreement in the coming days to avoid any major disruptions to the state’s ongoing immigration enforcement efforts.
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