Governor teases Special Session to abolish homestead property tax

Gov. Ron DeSantis says another Special Session may be in the works to develop a ballot initiative on eliminating property taxes that can actually pass muster with voters.

DeSantis says clear and simple language is necessary to achieve the 60% support needed to amend Florida’s Constitution. And it may not be possible to get that during the hurly burly of the 60-day Legislative Session that starts next week.

“I don’t know that it necessarily is something that you do in the Regular Session either. We’ll see what happens. I think there’s some value in teeing something up that the voters see (and) going up (to Tallahassee) to do this. And then voters can talk to their members about what they want to do,” DeSantis said just minutes after announcing an April Special Session for congressional reapportionment.

The Governor believes that for a big issue like his proposal to let voters decide on eliminating property tax on homesteaded properties, the Regular Session doesn’t permit adequate focus to create a singular product.

“You get into a Regular Session, you know, it’s 60 days. There’s things flying all over the place, and things kind of sneak through at the last minute,” DeSantis explained.

The Governor also said that a unified, clear product would benefit Republicans politically in November, saying it would “get people to be excited about voting.”

“You may not get the same turnout we got in ’22. People were really excited to vote in ’22 — a different context, different environment,” DeSantis said.

“For the legislators to put this on, I think it’ll be really beneficial for them because I think they’ll be able to juice more turnout for their elections. And that’s not the main reason you do it. The main reason is because it’s right substantively. But I do think it does have that added bonus on top of it.”

The House has a number of proposals working their way through the process. But DeSantis doubts the Senate will pass them, and says that even if the Senate did, the process would be more perilous.

“If you put multiple possible amendments on the ballot, that means none will pass. Let’s just be clear, because you may like this iteration, you may like that. So even though maybe 60% want property tax relief, your view may be different (on) how do you do it, right? And so that’s a guaranteed way to kill it,” DeSantis said.

“If you want to get something to pass, you’ve got to go with one vehicle. I don’t think the Senate would put all that stuff on anyways, but you got to go with one vehicle.”

DeSantis also suggested that his product still isn’t ready for its big reveal, especially because a significant amount of voters might not understand what they’re looking at on the ballot.

“We’re working hard to get it right, and there’s a lot that goes into it because you got to get it passed, right? So voters, how are they going to respond when they read this?” DeSantis explained.

“A lot of voters don’t understand the amendments. That’s just a fact. I mean, they tell me that. Very smart people tell me they don’t understand. So you’ve got to write it in a very clear and concise way where everybody knows, you know, what we’re looking to accomplish here. And there’s different iterations. You also have to have the structure of it right. You’ve got to get the votes, you’ve got to do all that. So we’re doing that. We’re working very hard on it. We have worked very hard on it. We’ve got a lot of great data now to work off of, but we’ve got more work to do.”