State Sen. Jeff Brandes tweeted Monday that he has more than enough responses from lawmakers to get the ball rolling on a special session to address rising home insurance rates.
Brandes, a Republican from St. Petersburg, didn’t wait for Gov. Ron DeSantis or Legislative leadership to line up lawmakers for a special session on property insurance.
As of 1pm, within one business day of the sending out our letter, we have received more than enough responses from legislators calling for a special session on property insurance. We will be submitting our final count to the FL DOS at 5pm today.
— Jeff Brandes (@JeffreyBrandes) April 11, 2022
Now, he says, the Secretary of State will poll lawmakers, and the special session it could start in about a month. DeSantis says he supports what Brandes is doing.
[C]learly, you know, we have dysfunctions in that market that could be, that could be fixed,” the governor said Monday. “You’ve already seen different insurers go out. We need to have a viable market where people are able to get policies at an affordable rate. So I thank him for what he’s doing. I think we will get there.”
Some Democrats, like Orlando Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith, criticize GOP leaders for focusing the 60-day regular session on “invented problems” instead of issues like this one affecting families.
“They prioritized ‘Don’t Say Gay,” a 15-week abortion ban and stopping wokeness as opposed to stopping soaring property insurance rates,” Smith said during a press conference Monday.
Next week, lawmakers will hold a special session on congressional redistricting after DeSantis vetoed their map.
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