As leaders in Tallahassee debate tax cuts, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is making clear that he favors Speaker Daniel Perez’s approach.

The Naples Republican, who served two terms as Florida Governor, told Florida Politics he likes the proposal unveiled by the Florida House to cut sales taxes.

“We cut taxes over 100 times saving families over $1 billion when I was Governor so I think the state should cut taxes in every possible way,” Scott said. “Speaker Perez’s plan to cut the sales tax would help every Floridian — especially poor families like mine growing up.”

Perez, a Miami Republican, wants to see Florida’s sales tax rate cut from 6% to 5.25%.

“By reducing unnecessary expenditures and cutting wasteful spending, we are ensuring that taxpayers see more of their dollars at work for them — and back in their pockets, too,” Perez said when the House budget was released.

He published the plan with a budget that is $4.4 billion lower than a budget released by the Florida Senate and $2.7 billion less than one proposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Scott’s support for Perez’s tax proposal also shows he favors a different tactic than DeSantis in delivering savings to Floridians. DeSantis, the Republican who succeeded Scott as Governor, wants to cut property taxes in the state, and has sounded cool to sales tax cuts.

Senate President Ben Albritton, a Wauchula Republican, has said he will carefully deliberate on both approaches.

But Scott has picked sides, and said he likes the proposals coming out of the Florida House.

“I will always believe in Florida job creators and the Florida economy, but the cost of living has gotten really high over the past few years, our job growth rate has slowed down and our unemployment rate has ticked up,” Scott said.

“I think the Speaker’s focus on finding cost savings in the state budget combined with this tax cut would be great for our state’s economy.”

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A House bill that is rooted in the belief that aircraft in the skies over the state are seeding dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere is going to the floor of the chamber for full consideration.

The House Natural Resources & Disasters Subcommittee approved the “Weather Modification Activities” bill (HB 477). The measure, if approved by the full Legislature, “prohibits certain acts intended to affect temperature, weather, or intensity of sunlight within the atmosphere of this state.”

The proposed legislation stems at least in part from the chemtrails conspiracy theory. It’s a decades-old, debunked belief that contrails, the white lines of condensed water vapor that jets leave behind in the sky, are actually toxic chemicals that the government and other entities are using to do everything from altering the weather to sterilizing and mind-controlling the populace.

Rep. Kevin Steele, a Tallahassee Republican, sponsored the bill and told the subcommittee members he understands there is skepticism about the claims regarding chemtrails. The measure would ban such activity from taking place.

“It’s a fact that they can do this, whoever ‘they’ is, and they shouldn’t be allowed to do that in the state of Florida,” Steele said. “I started the process as a naysayer and … now I’m in the middle.”

Bradford Thomas, a recently retired Judge for the Florida First District Court of Appeals and former prosecutor, is far from being in the middle. He already testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment and General Government in March when that panel was considering a similar measure sponsored by Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia (SB 56) that calls for similar measures for aerial spraying activity.

Thomas ramped up his concerns before the House subcommittee. He reiterated that he has noticed what he calls chemtrails above the skies of Crescent Beach while strolling along the shore just south of St. Augustine. Thomas said the activity will harm Florida on a large scale.

“If this is not curtailed, this is going to destroy coastal tourism in the state of Florida,” Thomas said.

Other residents supporting the bill spoke before the subcommittee Tuesday and said they believed activity in the skies is being done to include “solar radiation modification,” “aluminum spraying in the atmosphere,” “marine cloud brightening” and “toxic polluting.”

Augustus Doricko, founder of Rainmaker, a cloud-seeding geoengineering startup company, testified before the subcommittee that there is indeed cloud seeding going on. But it’s already heavily regulated and the proposed measures before the Legislature isn’t really necessary.

Cloud seeding “can be used to mitigate the risk of wildfire,” Doricko said.

The measure still has another reading set before the House State Affairs Committee.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson exercised his power of the gavel Tuesday in an unusually aggressive effort to squash a proposal for new parents in Congress to able to vote by proxy, rather than in person, as they care for newborns.

His plan failed, 206-222.

In an unprecedented move, the House Republican leadership had engineered a way to quietly kill the bipartisan plan from two new mothers — Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of St. Petersburg and Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado. Their plan has support from a majority of House colleagues. Some 218 lawmakers backed their effort, signing on to a so-called discharge petition to force their proposal on the House floor for consideration.

But Johnson, like GOP leaders before him, rails against proxy voting, as President Donald Trump pushes people back to work in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic work-from-home trend.

A procedural vote Tuesday tested who had the tally on their side — the speaker or the plan’s sponsors. Nine Republicans joined all Democrats to sink the GOP leaders’ effort.

“If we don’t do the right thing now, it’ll never be done,” said Luna, who gave birth to her son in 2023.

Pettersen, with a diaper over her shoulder and 4-month-old son Sam in her arms, stood on the House floor and pleaded with colleagues to turn back the GOP leadership’s effort to stop their resolution.

“It is unfathomable that in 2025 we have not modernized Congress,” she said. “We’re asking you to continue to stand with us.”

Johnson had drawn the line against proxy voting as unconstitutional.

“Look, I’m a father, I’m pro-family,” the Republican speaker said late last month. But “I believe it violates more than two centuries of tradition and institution. And I think that it opens a Pandora’s box, where ultimately, maybe no one is here.”

It’s the first time in modern House history that the leadership was taking the extraordinary step to try to halt a discharge petition when it’s this far along. Next steps are uncertain.

Luna used the discharge petition process as she and others grew frustrated that House committees and party leaders were not bringing the proxy-voting proposal forward. Instead, she and others gathered the majority signatures needed, 218, to discharge it from limbo, and force it to the floor for action.

At a rules committee hearing early Tuesday, the GOP-led panel tucked a provision into the routine rules process that would have prohibited not just this discharge petition but any others that try to push proxy voting forward.

Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the panel, said a discharge petition has never been halted before at this stage — a remarkable move from Republicans who often campaign as the party aligned with family values.

“Given the chance to actually support families, they turn their backs,” he said. “A majority of the chamber is upending what the majority in this chamber wants.”

Republicans countered that Luna, who led the discharge effort, did not go through the regular process of waiting for their resolution to be brought to the floor through normal procedure. And they criticized the temporary proxy voting policy that Democrats put in place during the pandemic that they said was abused by member absences.

“You have to come to work, you have to be present,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican, during a committee debate.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican and the chair of the Rules Committee, decried what she called the “laptop class” in America that doesn’t have the luxury of working by proxy. “Members of Congress simply need to show up for work,” she said.

About a dozen women have given birth while in Congress over the years, and there are many new fathers as well. One, Rep. Wesley Hunt, a Texas Republican, had dashed back to Washington for votes in 2023 after his wife had just given birth and their son was in an intensive care unit.

Many new and existing parents were among the eight other Republicans who joined Luna to push ahead past the leadership.

Luna’s petition opens the door for the House to vote on a resolution that would allow new parents serving in Congress to designate a proxy — another member of Congress — to vote on their behalf for 12 weeks.

Republicans had barred proxy voting once they took control of the House from Democrats in 2023. The new resolution, which includes specific procedures on how the new parent would deliver voting instructions, would mean a change in their House rules.

The resolution from the mothers allows proxy voting for lawmakers who have given birth or pregnant lawmakers who are unable to travel safely or have a serious medical condition. It also applies to lawmakers whose spouses are pregnant or giving birth.

Under the resolution, qualifying lawmakers may designate a proxy to cast a vote for them for up to 12 weeks.

Luna, who is among the House’s more conservative lawmakers, made headlines for her steadfast support of Trump. But she resigned this week from the archconservative House Freedom Caucus, saying she could no longer be part of the group if members “broker backroom deals” against its values.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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