There won’t be a need for new road signs on U.S. 41 anytime soon.

Sen. Joe Gruters of Sarasota is withdrawing bill language (SB 1058) that would have named a stretch of highway spanning seven counties after the freshly christened Gulf of America.

The legislation proposed designating the portion of U.S. 41 between S.R. 60 and U.S. 1 in Miami-Dade, Collier, Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota, Manatee and Hillsborough counties as “the Gulf of America Trail.”

But the Senator tells WFLA the controversial name change proposal created an “unnecessary distraction of my own making.”

It’s uncertain whether the provision will be addressed by a withdrawn bill or just an amendment. The television station reports that Gruters still intends to pursue another plank of the proposal: requiring School Boards to “adopt and acquire” materials using the Gulf of America name.

This is the second Senate bill to address the Gulf of America nomenclature.

Sen. Nick DiCeglie’s measure (SB 608), which was filed earlier this month, would change 92 statutory references in Florida law to refer to the body of water along Florida’s west coast as the Gulf of America.

Both bills have House companions.

Rep. Juan Porras is carrying the House version (HB 549) of Gruters’ bill. Rep. Tyler Sirois is sponsoring the House version (HB 575) of DiCeglie’s proposal.

Tallahassee Republicans have quickly embraced the new name for the body of water that was called the Gulf of Mexico without controversy until earlier this year.

Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson is backing the President’s preference regarding government documents, pushing for changes on behalf of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Simpson’s goal is to rename the body of water as the Gulf of America “as quickly as possible … in all department administrative rules, forms, maps, and resources.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis was the first state official to use the new name in an executive order declaring a State of Emergency over a Winter storm last month. That order said the inclement weather was headed to Florida across the “Gulf of America.”

The declaration came the same day Trump made the name change official in his own executive order.

Despite the unity demonstrated by Florida Republicans, the name change has been controversial in some quarters domestically and beyond.

The Associated Press hasn’t accepted the Gulf of America designation.

“The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences,” the news organization announced last month.

The AP has not been allowed at certain White House events in the wake of its decision, as the Trump administration has stood by the renaming of the body of water.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also rejects the name change, meanwhile, with her argument predicated on the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“If a country wants to change the designation of something in the sea, it would only apply up to 12 nautical miles. It cannot apply to the rest, in this case, the Gulf of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said, as reported by NPR.

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When Florida Republicans promised a bold conservative agenda this Session, Democrats couldn’t help noticing how often policies championed start from lawmakers in the back rows.

Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo of Miami Beach Shores noted in his official response to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ State of the State address that the Governor called for curbing illegal immigration. Yet it was Pizzo who filed the first E-Verify bill for consideration this year.

“While many have talked tough on combating illegal immigration, here we are in 2025, and I — the Democratic Minority Leader — was the first to file the bill requiring E-Verify for all employers, because you are not serious about curbing illegal immigration, if you continue to cower to donors, and not listen to our citizens,” Pizzo said.

Rep. Berny Jacques, a Seminole Republican, later filed another E-Verify bill for all private employers, though that lacks a Republican Senate companion.

Outside DeSantis’ claims of Florida Republicans leading the way on immigration, legislative Democrats said they took note of how many ideas House Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton seized on that have been pursued in the past by those in the minority caucus.

Albritton, in a speech focused on agriculture, raised the subject of food insecurity. “I struggle with the fact that kids in Florida are going to bed night after night, hungry,” he said. “We can and will do better than that. Please join me in this important fight.”

Democrats said they have already been engaged in that battle. House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat, led a letter last year to DeSantis, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and Department of Children and Families Secretary Shevaun Harris calling for the state to participate in the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer program.

“We are sure that Florida’s executive branch ultimately shares our Caucus’s belief that bureaucratic barriers, administrative anxiety, or status quo stagnation should not stand in the way of efforts to ensure every Floridian has the freedom to be healthy, prosperous, and safe,” the letter closed.

Meanwhile, the appetite of Republican lawmakers for investigating allegations of insurance companies hiding profits while denying claims, something called for by Perez in his opening day remarks, follows a call already issued by Driskell last month.

“We must hold those responsible to account, including assisting appropriate officials in pursuing criminal prosecutions if warranted,” she wrote in a letter to Perez. “We must be able to marshal all the facts into a comprehensive legislation solution that appropriately balances consumer protections with long term insurer viability. We must make sure this never happens again.”

Pizzo also noted that not only did many of the solutions to problems now championed by Republicans start as Democratic proposals, but the problems themselves arose after decades of Republican control of state government in Florida.

He also expressed frustration that the Legislature has instead chased a series of right-wing buzzwords talked up as problems.

“I have never pushed to install, or even expand, CRT, ESG, DEI, or ‘Wokeism.’ For none of these lower your property insurance, your rent, nor will they result in your kids’ GPAs getting higher or their test scores,” he said. “And like many of you, I’ve wondered how, with more than 30 years of majority control in the Legislature and executive branches, how any of these issues were so insidious, that they festered into such an instant concern.”

That criticism comes as Pizzo considers his own run for Governor in 2026.

But for now, he said he hopes Republicans speak in earnest about tackling critical issues of the day.

“Many of my Democratic colleagues have filed bills that addressed housing cost concerns, economy, jobs, and education. I look forward for those to be agendaed and to be heard by our colleagues in a nonpartisan, productive fashion,” he said.

“And against all evidence to the contrary, I hold out faith and hope in the decency of our members, and the vast power we hold — that their call to service, once rooted in amplifying the voices of struggling families, the hopes of small businesses, the need to invest in community resiliency, to leave our sons and daughters an environment better off then we found it, will ring louder than the disruptive and divisive whispers of special interests.”

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