Citrus County’s top 2025 story is still in the making.

County Commissioners came close to approving ballot language for a November local-option sales tax referendum, but held off while still determining whether voters will back it or not.

Citrus is the only county in Florida to never have a voter-approved penny sales tax. Collier County sunset its local sales tax after reaching a predetermined financial goal.

While Citrus County officials, community leaders and citizens have bantered about the sales tax the past several years, an early January call to action by the blogger Just Wright Citrus started the conversation moving in earnest.

Officials estimate a 1-cent sales tax would generate about $25 million annually, with one-quarter of that coming from tourism spending.

Wanting to start the process while at the same time removing themselves from it, Commissioners tasked the Citrus County Chamber of Commerce with gathering citizen input to test the waters for a referendum.

The Chamber created a steering committee for town hall meetings and opened up a website for public input. In all, over 700 people participated in the survey, which showed 57% support for a referendum.

As for how the money should be spent, survey participants overwhelmingly chose road resurfacing and repair as the top priority.

The steering committee recommended Commissioners approve a 1% sales tax referendum with all the money collected for road improvements.

County Commissioners in October reached consensus to do just that. They supported Commissioner Jeff Kinnard’s idea to set the tax at four years, giving the county time to establish a track record of projects, then asking voters later to extend the tax.

Commissioner Holly Davis, however, had a different idea that caught traction in December. Commissioners delayed a vote on setting the referendum to allow time for the North Florida Land Trust to conduct a “greenprinting” survey of Citrus County.

Davis said the survey, aimed at targeting land for conservation, is unrelated to the sales tax. North Florida Land Trust will be paid $43,000 from private donors for the survey, which is expected to the county by March 31.

Simultaneously, the Trust for Public Land is polling to determine what uses voters would support for a sales tax.

Commissioner Janet Barek said she doesn’t know why the county wants to ask voters their views on the sales tax when the chamber survey showed support for road resurfacing.

“I can’t see supporting something that will take us down a rabbit hole,” she said.

Davis disagreed.

“We need to know what the voters want,” she said.

Road repair and capacity is among the county’s biggest challenges. A consultant’s report said the county has $714 million in unfunded road needs. It now spends about $16 million annually on roads.

At the start of 2025, a looming race for Governor spurred speculation about who would run. But heading into 2026, nobody appears as well-positioned as U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds.

With an endorsement from President Donald Trump in his pocket and upward of $40 million deposited in the bank, the Naples Republican may be better positioned for a run than any candidate for Governor — certainly any Republican — ever. Political consultant Ryan Smith boasted in an end-of-year campaign memo called Donalds “the most dominant gubernatorial candidate in Florida history.”

Donalds sounded strong as he launched his campaign in March from a restaurant in Bonita Springs.

“My plan for Florida is bold and clear,” Donalds told the crowd. “Fix the insurance prices, build new roads, finish restoring the Everglades. Make Florida the financial capital of the world, and ensure our kids master math, reading, writing and reasoning.”

That doesn’t mean he scared off any competition. House Speaker Paul Renner, who served alongside Donalds in the Florida House, threw his hat in the ring in September. Azoria CEO James Fishback also made a splash online as he openly courted groypers and the far right. Meanwhile, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and former U.S. Rep. David Jolly both filed to compete for the Democratic nomination.

But in a state that leans far more Republican than when Gov. Ron DeSantis first won office by a recount margin, the GOP Primary feels like the race to watch — assuming it’s not already over.

“Byron isn’t just leading the Florida Governor’s race, he is dominating it in unprecedented fashion,” said Matt Hurley, a Naples-based political consultant. “President Trump is behind him completely and totally. His financial war chest is growing at a rate few can truly fathom (wait until you see what he raises in 2026).”

Other political developments also served Donalds. DeSantis appointed former Attorney General Ashley Moody, the top vote-getter in Florida in 2018 and 2022, to the U.S. Senate. Former Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, meanwhile, won a Special Election for Congress. That leaves the only statewide candidates who boasted victories in 2018 and 2022, besides term-limited DeSantis, focused on new jobs in Washington. Though once rumored as gubernatorial hopefuls, both now appear content on the Hill.

Other potential contenders, such as Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, would have a higher hill to climb with late entries into the race. While not insurmountable, most now expect Simpson to seek re-election, and more are suggesting Collins look for his own route to Congress (though he denies interest). First Lady Casey DeSantis, the only contender whom polls have shown as competitive with Donalds, has only shown decreasing interest in a run herself

Meanwhile, Donalds has a distinct “been there, done that” aura regarding Washington. In fewer than three terms, he managed to build a strong relationship with Trump, earn the trust of leadership and even court significant support for bids for Speaker — twice.

Lawmakers from Southwest Florida feel confident the Naples wealth manager will soon move into the Governor’s mansion.

“He’s done a great job as a State Representative and as a Congressman, and he’ll do a great job as our Governor,” said state Rep. Adam Botana, a Bonita Springs Republican. “He needs to keep working, and I look forward to seeing him in the Governor’s Mansion.”

That doesn’t mean he lacks detractors or skeptics. An association with U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, a New Smyrna Beach Republican who spoke at Donalds’ campaign launch before a series of scandals surrounded him, led to Donalds recently distancing himself from a onetime ally. DeSantis has yet to weigh in on who he wants to succeed him in office, but many of the Governor’s online supporters have heavily critiqued Donalds for shifting positions.

But with ties in Washington and Tallahassee, support from establishment and MAGA leaders, and made-for-cable news charisma, Donalds appears on track to win Florida’s biggest race next year and become Florida’s first Black Governor.

“He maintains an insurmountable polling dominance in the primary, and massive leads in every single hypothetical general election matchup. Regardless of how you feel about him personally, he maintains an unbreakable stronghold on the future of Florida politics,” Hurley said.

“The ‘competition’ is scrambling in his rearview while he’s charging toward the Governor’s mansion. He is simply in an unstoppable position as 2025 comes to a close. It will take an act of God to stop his momentum.”

Daniel Perez may not be a household name. The House Speaker has never appeared on a ballot outside of Miami-Dade, and even there serves as one of 16 lawmakers for the populous county.

Yet no politician in Florida changed the trajectory of Sunshine State politics this year like the presiding officer in the Legislature’s lower chamber. After six years of stunning legislative compliance under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Perez proved himself an effective adversary, defying and denying the Governor’s demands on repeated occasions.

That started with once unthinkable overrides of DeSantis’ budget vetoes, continued with the dismantling of a cherished program of First Lady Casey DeSantis, and is still lingering amid a legally sensitive redistricting of Florida’s congressional lines.

For many lawmakers whose careers unfolded in the shadow of DeSantis’ mighty executive power, the change proved refreshing.

“I’ve witnessed firsthand, prior to Danny, fear of hurting DeSantis’ feelings or offending him being prioritized at the expense of good government and oversight,” said Rep. Alex Andrade. “He’s allowed the Legislature to fulfill its constitutional operations again.”

Andrade, of course, proved to be one of the sharpest thorns in DeSantis’ side during the Perez era. As Chair of the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, the Pensacola Republican led a House investigation that probed $10 million awarded by the Hope Florida Foundation to nonprofits that, in turn, immediately gave that money as political contributions to campaigns fighting constitutional amendments on abortion and marijuana.

The scandal led the Senate to put multiple confirmations of DeSantis appointees on hold and the Legislature to defund more than 450 Hope Florida posts, not to mention an ongoing grand jury investigation in Leon County. It also arguably derailed the First Lady’s ambitions to follow her husband as Governor.

But lawmakers in the House said all that oversight wasn’t so much driven by animus on Perez’s part, but rather on simply empowering the Legislature to act appropriately as watchdogs. If anything, it’s more a byproduct of a restructuring of the House to work bottom-up, instead of top-down. Individual lawmakers had the power to independently pursue both oversight interests and good policy.

Rep. Will Robinson, a Bradenton Republican who ran against Perez for Speaker in 2019, said Perez has empowered individual Representatives like no leader he served under in the last seven years.

“Every Speaker talks about making it more of a member-driven process. But in reality, you have the Speaker’s priorities, the Chairs’ priorities, and they funnel down to members,” Robinson said.

“If you notice, last Session there was no HB 1 or HB 3 — or HB 5, 7 or 9. In my experience, when they have those leadership bills, everyone in the Republican caucus knows those are untouchable, It’s like a consent agenda. But Speaker Perez said this would be a member-driven process in committees and in the engagement with all members. That’s how you make good legislation.”

That obviously wasn’t well received by all. The Governor labeled the Hope Florida investigation a “manufactured fraud.” And that wasn’t even the first time DeSantis leveled intense critiques at the House.

Tensions started just weeks after Perez officially took the gavel as Speaker. After DeSantis called a Special Session so the Legislature could grant him power to enforce President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, Perez balked.

Along with Senate President Ben Albritton, a major voice in agriculture, the Legislature met for Session but then gaveled out and launched their own process. The Legislature passed a bill that would instead have empowered Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson. Predictably, the Governor bristled at the snub.

“How many of these guys ran and asked for your vote and said they were going to kneecap the state’s ability to combat illegal immigration? Not one of them did that, and yet, that’s what they voted on,” DeSantis said of the bill.

Perez withered the worst criticisms coming out of the Governor’s Office and proved more willing to respond in public. After DeSantis urged Republican Party of Florida leaders to blanket lawmakers with demands to pass his bill, Perez held a Q&A hosted by the state party and decried the Governor’s bill as a power grab.

“He wants his own state guard, with his own bureaucrat picking up the illegal aliens and shipping them off to another portion of the world, wherever it is that they originate from,” Perez said.

Ultimately, DeSantis vetoed the Legislature’s bill with as little ceremony as offered to his own proposal. But while that legislation failed to become statute, the episode caused a conversation between the executive branch after years of the Governor witnessing pure acquiescence.

DeSantis in February signed a package of newly signed immigration measures shaped in negotiations with a coequal branch of government, and one that also assigned oversight power to the entire Cabinet and not just the Governor’s Office.

But Perez didn’t only demonstrate pushback against the command of the Governor. Months after locking arms with Albritton on the immigration bill, Perez stood at the Speaker’s dais and issued a stunning rebuke of his Senate counterpart as a budget framework fell apart.

“As presiding officers, as elected officials, our word is our bond. Breaking our word, breaking a deal, is breaking faith not only with one another, but with our institutions,” Perez said.

Whomever deserved blame for the budget talk collapse, the friction resulted in an extended Session that ran until June, when lawmakers finally produced a $115 billion budget. That total came in around $500 million under DeSantis’ proposal at the start of Session, though the Governor would later find another $600 million to veto himself. Ultimately, the lengthy process reduced a budget lower than the prior fiscal year, a move toward austerity unseen in years.

But the stage already appeared set for the next war between lawmakers and DeSantis as well. While the Governor wanted lawmakers to eliminate property taxes in the state, Perez favored a more deliberative approach and appointed a select committee to develop multiple proposals. One of those could end up on the ballot in 2026, but it will be crafted by the Legislature and not rubber-stamped.

Where all this leaves Perez heading into 2026 remains unclear. While a property tax proposal has already advanced in the House and will likely come up for a vote in the 2026 Session, Albritton said the Senate wants to take things slow. Meanwhile, DeSantis believes none of the proposals to emerge so far goes far enough toward eliminating property taxes altogether.

Meanwhile, the House emerged as a leader in starting the conversation on redrawing Florida’s congressional lines. Perez in August announced he would appoint a Select Committee on Redistricting. He later named Rep. Mike Redondo — whom Perez endorsed in a 2023 Special Election and who is now in line to be Speaker in 2030 — to lead it.

On the mapmaking front, other states already kicked off a cartography war in 2025, either at Trump’s urging in Republican-controlled states or in direct response to it by Democrat-led ones. California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Utah already implemented new maps ahead of the Midterms. The White House has made clear it wants Tallahassee to maximize GOP opportunity in 2026.

But while other states moved quickly and with brazen partisanship, Perez treaded more carefully, promising a detailed review of legal ramifications in a July ruling from the Florida Supreme Court case upholding the current map. In this instance, DeSantis and Albritton both want to move even slower, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court could issue a ruling in the spring that offers new guidance on use of race in crafting political boundaries.

Perez believes waiting too long will create more problems.

“It’s inconsiderate of our members to say that in May, when hopefully we’re home, you’re going to have to come back to Tallahassee and take a week off or whatever you have going on with your family because certain parties didn’t want to address an issue that was before us right now in the immediate moment. I think that’s irresponsible,” he told POLITICO.

It’s unclear how much political capital Perez may bring with him into the 2026 Session. With relationships fractured with the Senate and Governor’s Office, he may become isolated. But he’s shown there to be a strong foundation under the House, and an ability to get results against long odds in the past.

Moreover, he’s not working alone. Andrade said the true strength in Perez’s agenda is that he doesn’t bring his own list of scores to settle but rather advocates for the lawmakers within his caucus. Budget talks didn’t center around the Speaker’s personal priorities, and he didn’t bet his reputation on any single policy achievement so much as on the respect afforded to the Fourth Floor.

“While obviously don’t want sessions year in and out where it’s always contentious between the legislative and executive, the pendulum swung back to a more stable position under Danny,” Andrade said. “Getting along without sniping at each other is not the same as kowtowing to the Governor.”

The high drama in Tallahassee garnered attention and may even have made Perez some friends in Washington. When Trump visited Florida to tour Alligator Alcatraz, an immigrant detention center set up in the Everglades, the President reportedly insisted Perez be invited to the event and given a prominent seat at public events.

Months later, Trump’s political team urged Perez during a visit to Washington to run for Florida Attorney General against appointed incumbent James Uthmeier in a GOP Primary. Perez ultimately passed on that, and Trump later endorsed Uthmeier.

But that leaves Perez in a familiar position: heading into Session with nothing to lose.

Despite cries online from an army of pro-DeSantis accounts, constitutional checks prevent the Governor from forcing Perez from his leadership position, and term limits mean he isn’t eligible for re-election in 2026. DeSantis also cannot seek another term as Governor.

That all means DeSantis will spend his last year in power with Perez as Speaker. And while DeSantis appears to still harbor presidential ambitions and a legacy to protect, Perez’s goals seem largely focused on strengthening his institution after he’s gone. His members still love him for that, as much as the online trolls hate him.