It’s not news that Ron DeSantis doesn’t much care for Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez.
But just in case you forgot that dynamic, the governor took the opportunity during a ceremony in Madison Thursday afternoon to torch Perez yet again. In this case, the governor went on a verbal tear for nearly 10 minutes (with one break) to express anger and frustration with the Miami Republican, claiming he “has a personal agenda.”
Unlike other Republican leaders who have served with DeSantis since the governor took office in January 2019, Perez has acted more independently since taking over as Speaker of the House in November 2024, and that has bothered the governor for well more than a year now.
“All you have to do is, like, copy and paste what has been done,” DeSantis declared about what the Legislature should be doing — in other words, approving the governor’s priorities. “That’s what folks want. They want us to continue with what’s been successful.”
DeSantis’ pique regards the fact that while the House voted nearly unanimously to approve his congressional redistricting map last month, which could generate as many as four additional seats for Republicans this fall, the chamber rejected two additional measures that the governor included in the session’s call that the Senate had previously supported.
Those measures would have ended vaccine mandates for school kids and created guardrails around artificial intelligence. On the first day of the special session on April 28, Perez, a father of three young children, told reporters that he felt “uncomfortable” about children going to school with measles, mumps, or chicken pox.
And he said he preferred to defer implementing any AI regulations to the federal government, taking a cue from President Donald Trump. As a result, no member of the House filed companion legislation to bills on those topics that had been re-filed in the Senate to address in the special session.
‘Throwing his members under the bus’“The Speaker said, ‘Nobody filed a bill on this so we can’t move forward,’” DeSantis said on Thursday.
“Now, do you believe nobody filed a bill, or were they told not to file a bill? So, he’s basically throwing his members under the bus, saying that they were too lazy to file legislation? I don’t believe that’s true. I think they told them, ‘Don’t file on this.’”
Although the Legislature did erect some guardrails around AI data centers that have become increasingly unpopular in the United States, the House opted not to take up a bill described as the AI “Bill of Rights.”
That bill would have banned companion chatbots – AI systems that mimic emotional connection — from speaking to minors without parental consent, and require bots to remind users they are not human.
The governor noted that the bill passed the Senate during the regular legislative session on a 37-1 vote, and that polls show Floridians supported the legislation. A survey from the University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab in early March found that 86% of respondents supported specific AI regulations, such as requiring chatbots to identify themselves as being AI and prohibiting creation of sexually explicit altered images.
“Obviously, it was something that I supported. And look — not that I go by polls — but I guarantee you, if you tell people, ‘Do you think that there needs to be a framework for artificial intelligence to be able to protect individual freedom and the well-being of children, or do you think the 10 wealthiest companies in human history should just be able to do whatever they want?’ I think it’s about 90% are in favor of having a framework, right?’” DeSantis said.
“So, that got to the House. And again, he said, nobody filed a bill. Well, people had wanted to do this in the House. I know. I’ve talked to the House members to do it. So, is it true that nobody filed a bill? And if that is true, then I think that the constituents are going to go to these House members and they’re going to say, ‘You had a special session. You had a chance to lead Florida.’”
The bill on vaccines would have allowed families to seek exemptions from certain vaccination requirements for children attending K-12 schools based on their personal beliefs. State laws already allow exemptions for medical or religious reasons, but some lawmakers hesitated to show support amid polls showing a majority of Florida voters were against eliminating all vaccine requirements.
The vaccine measure, re-introduced during last month’s special session, had also been approved by the Florida Senate during the regular session. DeSantis said that even if the proposals lacked support from leadership, Florida citizens deserved to hear the bills debated.
“Here’s the thing: Even if you don’t fully agree with those bills, our voters wanted to see, they wanted to see action. They wanted to see debate. So, file a bill and amend it, don’t just say, ‘Oh nobody wanted to do it,’ because we know that is not true when that is said.”
A claim that a 2025 bill would have made Florida a ‘sanctuary state’DeSantis brought up legislation from early 2025 on undocumented immigration that he said would have made Florida a “sanctuary state.”
At the time, both Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton rejected DeSantis’ call for a special session on immigration, the first indication the new leaders were showing more independence than their predecessors had earlier in the DeSantis era.
When they did convene, both chambers voted on a measure that would have made Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson the state’s chief immigration officer, not DeSantis. However, after DeSantis vetoed that bill, they passed legislation putting control of immigration enforcement under a new State Board of Immigration Enforcement consisting of the governor, the commissioner of agriculture, the attorney general, and the chief financial officer.
DeSantis signed that bill with Perez and Albritton standing behind him and said all was forgiven. “I have no hard feelings at all. You know, these are not easy issues,” DeSantis said at the time. “There were differences of opinion about how to go about it, the timing, the substances, and we brought it all in for a landing, and we’re better off as a result of having done that.”
A year-and-a-half later, though, he’s still angry about what initially went down.
“He passed a bill which would have made Florida a sanctuary state,” DeSantis said of Perez on Thursday.
“And it actually eliminated — I think it’s unconstitutional — but it eliminated the power of the governor to be involved in immigration enforcement at all. It would basically make the governor of Florida a sanctuary governor. By statute. And we opposed that. Once people saw what was in there, the opposition was fierce, and we were able to veto that and get the bill we have today.”
DeSantis went on to say, “Who elected these Republicans? Is there any Republican voter that voted in ’22 or ’24 to make Florida a sanctuary state? Is there anybody here who was hoping your Republican representative would make Florida — I don’t think so.
“Because it wasn’t about what was best for the state, they just didn’t want the fact that I was calling for this and, no, we can’t give the governor a win. That’s the line of thinking — that’s fine, but man, what a bad vote. One of the worst votes that members of this Legislature have taken was that sanctuary state vote in January of 2025.”
The Phoenix reached out to Speaker Perez’ office for comment but did not get an immediate response.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
