Paul Renner wants a Special Session to immediately roll back property taxes to 2024 levels

Former House Speaker Paul Renner is urging the Legislature to immediately call a Special Session and roll back property taxes to 2024 levels right now.

Renner, who is running for Governor, has been among Republicans advocating for property tax relief.

“I am calling on elected leaders to come together and take decisive action to make Florida more affordable now,” Renner said in a statement. “They have the power to do it through legislative action, as occurred before in the 2006-07 legislative session.”

“Our residents deserve a tax rollback before their property taxes go up again in 2026 and this can easily be accomplished within the next two weeks before Christmas,” Renner added.

The Legislature is scheduled to reconvene for the Regular Session on Jan. 13.

Republicans have been openly criticizing each other on the best way to put an initiative on the ballot next year for voter approval.

The House has proposed eight plans to lower property taxes. Gov. Ron DeSantis has criticized that effort for not going far enough to help Floridians, saying they would be destined to fail. He wants one clear plan brought forward to eliminate homestead property taxes.

“There’s not one proposal that people would get excited about. Not one. They’re total half-measures, which is not what people are asking for,” DeSantis said this Fall.

The back-and-forth comes as House leaders and DeSantis have been at odds with each other for months on a variety of issues, from immigration to Hope Florida.

In his latest plan, DeSantis pitched redistributing state dollars to help poorer counties make up for lost tax revenues as part of the Governor’s plan to eliminate homestead property taxes. If Florida does so, it would be the first state to have both no homestead property taxes and no state income tax.

“I’m putting in my budget the revenue to totally backfill every one of those rural counties. So they’re not going to miss a single thing,” DeSantis said on “Fox & Friends” this week.

Renner opined on the situation Monday as he tries to win statewide office.

“Our residents expect leadership, not division,” Renner said in his statement. “Floridians are losing faith in conservative leadership due to inaction. We need to stop the back and forth, or promising relief a year or two from now while delivering nothing meaningful and immediate.”