So far, over 1,000 bills have been filed for consideration by lawmakers during the 2025 Florida legislative session. Most of those bills have no chance of becoming law.
The influence of political parties, powerful politicians and lobbying impacts a bill’s future long before it sees its first committee. In this part of our series Florida Legislature 101: a Quick Guide to the Process, we unpack how that power plays out in the legislative session.
The most powerful people in the state’s legislative branch are the Senate President and House Speaker.
Both positions are elected on two-year terms by their chamber’s members, and are tasked with managing the chamber’s operations, presiding over its meetings and setting a tone for each session. They also usually champion a priority bill package each year on a policy area of particular interest to them.
University of Central Florida Political Science Professor Aubrey Jewitt said if the leaders don’t like a bill, they can just decide to not schedule it for a vote.
“They do have the authority to actually run the house floor and the Senate floor, so when all the members are together, debating and discussing bills, and so that gives them some authority, because They can actually control the process when they're actually on the floor,” he said.
Other legislators with significant influence are committee chairs. Appointed by the chamber’s leaders, they can also shut down bills, Jewitt said.
“A bill, if it's going to become a law, it's got to go through a committee where it's debated and discussed and potentially amended, and then it has to be voted out favorably by that committee. Committee chairs the biggest power they have is they decide the agenda for the committee. So, if they're against a particular bill or set of bills, they just never bring them up on the committee. And if they're not brought up, then they can't be debated and discussed, and the bills just basically die in committee,” he said.
But elected officials aren’t the only figures that have significant control over the legislative process. To Barry University Political Science Professors Sean Foreman, lobbyists employed by special interests groups and corporations play a large role in most political bodies. He said that’s especially true in Florida.
“Why lobbyists and why interest groups are powerful? One reason is because of the term limits on the legislature. That's what the studies show, and we have seen over the two decades that we've had term limits, that it actually strengthens lobbyists because they're the ones with more information and more connections when you have turnover in the offices. So, term limits actually made lobbyists more powerful in Florida. Also, money talks. Money talks in politics and elections, and we have very strong business related groups that give money to the candidates,” he said.
But lobbyists’ roles often go beyond just giving advice to the legislature. Longtime political reporter Jason Garcia of the Seeking Rents podcast pointed out some lobbyists have been behind directly writing bills that help their industry. He saidto a bill passed last year that he says was especially controversial.
“Probably the most controversial bill passed last year was a piece of legislation that essentially prohibits communities in Florida from helping workers and helping workers in the sense of making sure that employers like farm workers and construction companies are providing basic heat stress protections to people working in100 degree heat, making sure that employers provide like things like clean drinking water, or making sure that government contractors pay a living wage,” he said.
Garcia said the law prohibits local governments from creating those requirements.
“What we saw was that legislation was written in large part by lobbyists, specifically lobbyists for the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the big business lobbying group that represents a bunch of Agriculture companies and theme park companies and the largest companies in the state. And so, what you find is lobbyists end up doing a lot of the work that you would normally expect to be done by legislators themselves,” he said.
For citizens looking to make their voices heard this legislative session, Garica argues it’s important they understand most decision-making from lawmakers doesn’t happen in public.
“So many decisions getting made behind the scenes, and that often what plays out in public, in committee hearings and on the floor, is orchestrated and scripted. And so it is important for people to realize that they need to engage as early as possible in this process,” he said.
Another important player in how this session will play out is Governor Ron DeSantis. He can veto bills and veto items in the budget. Jewitt thinks he has been more active than most previous governors in using that influence on the legislative process.
“DeSantis, in particular, he's been very powerful because he's been so popular amongst Republicans, he can threaten, or at least even if he doesn't say it out loud, there's the threat that the governor, if you cross him or don't go along with them, that he might support someone else in a primary election, and thus maybe you'll be out of a job if you go, you know, disagree with him or don't go along with him,” he said.
But since DeSantis lost his 2024 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, legislative leaders in Florida have been more willing to stand up to him. It remains to be seen how legislative Tallahassee’s power players will navigate that dynamic during the legislative session.