Lawmakers convened a special session Tuesday to resolve a $1.4 billion difference between the preferred spending plans of the House and Senate.

The gap between the Senate’s $115 billion budget and the House’s $113.6 billion plan is 1.2 percent of the current budget, but House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, were unable to reach a deal during the regular session that ended March 13.

Major differences on education, health care and environmental spending exist, but for Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, it hasn’t been substantive disagreements that produced the budget stalemate.

“Candidly, I think the problems with respect to the budget have not been about serious and impossible-to-bridge differences between the House and the Senate,” Gaetz told reporters. “Until now it’s been personality, it’s been old grudges and that sort of thing that’s kept us apart. But I think those days are gone. I think there’s a view that we’re going to all lay our swords done and we’re going to get a budget done, get the people’s business done.”

The House and Senate passed a slate of bills to set up formal negotiations between the chamber, to take place throughout the rest of the week. The bills were identical to the legislation passed by each chamber during the regular session, so there was no debate, but House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa wanted more discussion on the floor.

“I would contend that the underlying assumptions for the budget in the bills are not necessarily the same,” Driskell said. “There have been conversations that have been going on for weeks that we haven’t been privy to. And perhaps it would behoove not only this chamber, but also the public, for us to have an opportunity for us to have questions and debate, which is what we would do with any other bill.”

Driskell was joined by seven other House Democrats in voting against advancing the proposed budget from the regular session into conference talks: Rep. Lindsay Cross of St. Petersburg, Rep. Anna Eskamani of Orlando, Rep. Rita Harris of Orlando, Rep. Yvonne Hinson of Gainesville, Rep. Dotie Joseph of North Miami, Rep. Angie Nixon of Jacksonville and Rep. Rashon Young of Orlando.

Driskell and Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman, D-Boca Raton, also called for lawmakers to include a cut to the gas tax in one of the bills.

In light of the surge in gas prices sparked by the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, Berman wants to eliminate the 25.3 cent per gallon tax through the end of the summer.

“That will be significant relief for the people of the state of Florida if we suspend that tax,” Berman said.

Negotiations between House and Senate committees will take place through Friday, then unresolved issues will be subject to talks between budget committee chairmen Rep. Lawrence McClure, R-Dover, and Sen. Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater.

Perez and Albritton sent memos to members last week outlining a plan to vote on the budget the week of May 25. The special session is slated to last until May 29.

 Attorneys representing the family of one of the two men killed in last year’s mass shooting at Florida State University filed a federal lawsuit Sunday against the gunman and the tech giant OpenAI, which they claim abetted the attack.

The family of Tiru Chabba, 45 of Greenville, South Carolina, contends Phoenix Ikner, now 21, planned the April 17, 2025 shooting with the input and assistance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT interface. Robert Morales, the university’s dining coordinator, was also killed in the rampage, and five others were injured.

“(Ikner) literally utilized OpenAI and ChatGPT as his co-conspirator, utilized it as a resource to carry out mass murder and there was nothing in place to prevent that from happening. And so lives were lost,” attorney Bakari Sellers, part the team representing Chabba’s family, told reporters Monday. “That’s the inherent danger. There has to be something in place to prevent that from happening so this, what happened at Florida State over a year ago, does not affect another community.”

The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee, includes battery and wrongful death claims against Ikner, as well as negligence claims against OpenAI.

Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for San Francisco-based OpenAI, rejected the accusation that ChatGPT helped Ikner plan the mass shooting.

“In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity,” Pusateri said in a statement.

Pusateri added that ChatGPT is a general-purpose tool and “we work continuously to strengthen our safeguards to detect harmful intent, limit misuse, and respond appropriately when safety risks arise.”

Pusateri also noted that OpenAI “proactively shared” information with law enforcement after identifying an account believed associated with Ikner.

“We continue to cooperate with authorities,” Pusateri said in the statement.

The lawsuit comes as Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced in April a criminal investigation into OpenAI’s involvement in the mass shooting at FSU.

“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in our initial review is that ChatGPT offered significant advice to the shooter before he committed such heinous crimes,” Uthmeier told reporters at a news conference in Tampa on April 21.

The overall premise of the Chabba family lawsuit is that ChatGPT is a dangerous product that needs voluntary or regulatory changes.

Court records show Ikner had more than 16,000 interactions with ChatGPT over 18 months, which included questions about the best gun, ammunition, and the optimal time and place on FSU’s campus to kill the most people. In the hours before the shooting, Ikner reportedly asked, “If there was a shooting at FSU, how would the country react?”

The Chabba lawsuit states that instead of flagging the question or shifting the conversation to “a human review,” ChatGPT responded: “Here’s how it might unfold: immediate national attention with breaking news coverage and rapid social media spread; political responses from the president, state leaders, and lawmakers that quickly reignite the gun policy debate; and public reactions such as vigils, memorials, protests, walkouts, and renewed activism. Media coverage would likely focus on the shooter’s background and possible motive, alongside stories about the victims, and broader discussion would include campus mental health and cultural factors such as gun culture, isolation, and policing.”

Chabba’s widow, Vandana Joshi, is represented by Sellers and Amy Willbanks of the Strom law firm, Robert Bell III of Osborne, Francis and Pettis, and Jim Bannister of Bannister, Wyatt and Stalvey.

Sellers said whatever information they can uncover will be turned over to Uthmeier’s office. Bannister added they expect to work with Uthmeier’s office.

“We anticipate that there will be some communications with us that are relevant to both the state’s criminal prosecution, the federal prosecution or civil whatever is going on over there,” Bannister said.

Chabba was on campus as an employee of vendor Aramark Collegiate Hospitality around lunchtime just over a year ago when authorities say Ikner opened fire with a handgun.

Ikner, the son of a Leon County Sheriff’s Deputy, was shot and captured after confronting police officers.

A trial for Ikner, who faces two charges of first-degree murder and seven charges of attempted first-degree murder, is scheduled to begin in October.

Ryan Hobbs, lawyer for Robert Morales’ wife Betty, said in April that he and his law partner Dean LeBoeuf are preparing a lawsuit against ChatGPT and its parent company, alleging Ikner was in “constant communication” with the AI chatbot before the mass shooting.

The university was not included in the lawsuit. Sellers said nothing has been resolved with the university, but “we’ve had a great working relationship with Florida State University right now.”

A bill limiting foreign influence from “countries of concern,” including adding penalties for businesses and prohibiting surrogacy contracts with Chinese nationals, was signed into law Friday by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Foreign Interference Restriction and Enforcement (FIRE) Act will “combat pernicious foreign influence” in Florida, DeSantis said.

Before DeSantis signed the bill at the Bay of Pigs Museum & Library in Miami, he took time to comment on Cuba, saying Florida needs a “good neighbor” 90 miles from its shores.

“It is time for the Cuban communist dictatorship to be out to pasture once and for all,” DeSantis said.

The new law (HB 905) bars the state from giving or receiving money from a terrorist organization and establishes a state designation for domestic and foreign terrorist groups.

Current state law lists China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria as foreign “countries of concern.” Under the new law, adoption and surrogacy if any party in the contract is a citizen or a resident of a foreign country of concern will be prohibited.

The provision, added late in the legislative process, drew criticism from Democrats, who argued it could have unintended consequences for parents trying to adopt children from foreign countries.

Bill sponsor Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, said the legislation addressed serious national and state security risks and referred to countries like China entering in surrogacy contracts with American citizens.

“We must remain vigilant and continue to make sure that we protect our great state of Florida from attack by our foreign enemies,” Persons-Mulicka said. “The FIRE Act tells them we are paying attention and think twice before targeting our great state.”

Persons-Mulicka cited the case of a Chinese billionaire who reports say has had over 100 children born in the United States through surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization.

“It’s a really seedy thing,” DeSantis said. “We’re hoping that the Supreme Court is going to interpret the 14th Amendment so that we can put a stop to some of the people that are coming here for a month, having birth, and then going back to China,” he added, referring to a court case challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order nixing birthright citizenship.

The new law also adds restrictions to K-12 and higher education institutions, prohibiting school voucher funds from going to any school that promotes or that is affiliated with a terrorist organization.

While the bill adds penalties to businesses if they conduct unlawful activity in Cuba, it also has a measure to allow companies to do business with the island nation if its diplomatic relations with the U.S. are changed.

“If Cuba was free, it would be an amazingly successful country,” DeSantis said.

Cuba has been ruled by a communist leader since 1959, and many Cubans fled the regime, making their home in South Florida, especially Miami, in the decades since.

The law takes effect July 1.

Responding to a New York Times report, Gov. Ron DeSantis acknowledged officials have discussed closing the detention center the state calls Alligator Alcatraz.

“It was always designed to be a temporary facility, and has made a major impact,” DeSantis said while in Lakeland on Thursday. “And if we shut the lights out on it tomorrow, we will be able to say it served its purpose, because it was responsible for helping with almost 22,000 illegal aliens. And that ultimately is what it’s all about.”

DeSantis added that “they haven’t said they want to wind it down. I mean, it’s been discussed because I think you had a new secretary come in, take a fresh look at these things.”

According to the New York Times story, which cites anonymous sources, Department of Homeland Security officials believe the center is too expensive.

Florida, anticipating federal reimbursement, has spent at least $640 million on the facility that opened July 3, 2025.

DeSantis, though, believes the effort has been worth it to house and later transfer undocumented immigrants out of Florida.

“If we didn’t have that facility, DHS did not have room to put them anywhere. They would have been released back to the public,” DeSantis said of those taken to the facility and another in north Florida called Deportation Depot. “I have no doubt that that has saved lives, and ultimately, it does save taxpayer money because you have all the services that go in to having to pay when people are here.”

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments in a case involving whether a Panhandle couple has the right to sue a gun range next to their property over the noise it makes.

Adrienne and Eugene Gartman first filed their lawsuit against the Southern Tactical Range in 2018, when the sport shooting range set up shop adjacent to their property in the Okaloosa County town of Holt.

But a trial court threw out the suit because of a 1999 law that prevents sport shooting ranges from being sued over noise nuisances, if they were in compliance with any noise ordinances in place at the time they were built or started operating. Okaloosa County has no noise ordinance.

The Gartmans appealed, claiming the law should be struck down because it violates the state constitution’s protections for people to have access to the courts for redress of an injury. A three-judge panel agreed with them, sending the matter to the state high court.

“From the very day this gun range opened my clients were powerless to do anything to stop the gun range or to take care of their noise problems which have rendered their property virtually unmarketable,” Charles Bell, the Gartmans’ attorney, argued.

The justices probed both Bell and Alan Lawson, who represented Southern Tactical Range.

Justice John Couriel pushed Lawson on whether the statute was written too broadly, and whether a more “narrowly tailored” law would still be able to protect gun ranges from exorbitant lawsuits without violating the constitutional right of access to the courts.

“It seems to me that in this case it is not a barrier to certain types of claims, it is a full stop barrier to any accountability at law,” Couriel said.

Lawson noted the law requires gun ranges to be compliant with existing noise ordinances.

Justices also questioned Lawson about a 1973 precedent that requires the Legislature to spell out an “overwhelming public necessity” when infringing on a constitutional right.

While lawmakers didn’t do so for the statute in question, they did outline the necessity to protect gun ranges from lawsuits in a different 2004 law, Lawson noted.

“These statutes are more than closely related; they are inextricably intertwined,” Lawson argued.

Not so, Bell responded. The law didn’t provide findings or legislative intent outlining the importance of shielding gun ranges from suits brought over noise. 

“The Legislature knows how to get around this, they know what to do. They know if they wanted to enact this law they could’ve included findings and talked about how important this is,” Bell said.

But the justices pushed Bell to defend how that argument squares with the presumption of legality that any challenged law carries.

“Why should the Legislature have to do that?” Justice Adam Tanenbaum asked Bell. “It seems odd from an originalist perspective that the people suddenly intended to freeze out the Legislature from ever regulating a certain set of rights.”

Although the appellate decision explicitly said it applied only to the Gartmans, Lawson argued if left intact by the Florida Supreme Court it would open gun ranges up to lawsuits that would threaten their existence.

“(The range) cannot operate without creating noise,” Lawson said. “The Legislature says we have to have them in this state, and they have to go somewhere.”

Florida utility customers won’t bear the additional costs brought by new large scale data centers that power artificial intelligence, under a bill signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday.

The new law (SB 484) was part of DeSantis’ push to impose regulations on AI. The other plank of his plan, aimed at protecting consumers from AI harms, failed to draw full legislative support in his final regular session and a recent special session.

“You should not pay one more red cent for electricity because of a hyper-scale data center as an individual,” DeSantis said during the bill signing event at Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland. “That’s just not right for the most wealthy companies in the history of the world to come in and have individual Floridians or Americans subsidize these hyper-scale data centers.”

DeSantis has considered the measure both “watered down” and “a pretty strong first step.” He disputes job creation numbers promoted by supporters of such facilities and worries about the future effect on humanity from maturing AI technology.

“There’s a lot of things that I’m excited about with respect to technology,” DeSantis said Thursday. “Some of the things you can do with defense and robotics, and medical research, and things like that. But a lot of the power that it is being used is for consumer-facing slop.”

The data center bill requires the Florida Public Service Commission, which regulates electric utilities, to develop what are known as “tariffs” and service requirements to “reasonably ensure that each large load customer bears its own full cost of service and that such cost is not shifted to the general body of ratepayers.”

That would include costs related to connecting to electric systems and increased power transmission and generation costs.

The measure reinforces the ability of local governments to refuse to build data centers in their jurisdictions. But it also allows city and county governments enter into non-disclosure agreements with tech companies for up to 12 months, which would hide data center proposals from the public during that time.

During committee hearings, business lobbying groups raised concerns the centers are being overregulated, with additional permitting not required for other large industrial users, which could offset any economic benefit.

While the data center bill passed through the Legislature, another bill containing the harsher requirements on AI companies, known as the AI Bill of Rights, was thwarted in the House.

House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, repeatedly professed that such individual protections should be addressed by the federal government.

The capacity for the large-scale data centers to consumer vast amounts of water and impose new burdens on electric grids was the center of debate over the bill.

Speaking before a Senate committee in February, bill sponsor Sen. Bryan Avila, R-Miami Springs, said his proposal is aimed at helping Floridians avoid issues already experienced in other states like Virginia, where ratepayers have seen “dramatic increases” with the arrival of the massive, energy-demanding data centers.

“The Global demand for data center capacity will triple by 2030 and it anticipates there will be a 20 to 25 percent annual growth of data center capacity within the United States during that time,” Avila said in reference to a 2025 report from McKinsey & Company.

The DeSantis administration has already taken a skeptical approach to new large data centers.

After the Fort Meade City Commission approved a development agreement in April for a 4.4 million square foot center to be located on the site of a former phosphate mine that is expected to use up to 50,000 gallons of water a day, Secretary of Commerce Alex Kelly questioned the project and called it “fundamentally flawed.”

“This makes very, very clear in a number of ways that our water resources are a public resource, a local resource, a state resource, a precious resource, and they should never be at the mercy of what sounds like a quick deal,” Kelly said of the legislation Thursday.

 Florida’s largest teachers union filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Education, alleging the disparity between traditional public schools and private schools receiving taxpayer vouchers violates the state constitution.

The lawsuit filed in the Leon County Circuit Court by the Florida Education Association was joined by a group of parents, school board members and civil rights organizations. It alleges nearly $5 billion in taxpayer dollars are being sent to private schools and charter schools via the Family Empowerment Scholarship, which aren’t held to the same standards or oversight as traditional public schools.

That discrepancy violates the Florida constitution’s requirement for the state to “make adequate provision for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high-quality system of free public schools,” the lawsuit claims.

“With this lawsuit we are simply asking for accountability, transparency and a basic set of educational standards, which is what every parent wants – regardless of where they choose to send their children,” said FEA President Andrew Spar. “Floridians have made it clear we should be strengthening not abandoning our public schools.”

Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas defended the universal voucher program, saying the program empowers parents.

“Thanks to (Gov. Ron DeSantis), every Florida family has access to universal school choice, empowering them to select the learning environment that best fits their child’s individual needs,” Kamoutsas wrote in a post on X. “We stand unapologetically convicted on the principle of always putting students first!”

As of March, there were an estimated 521,000 students enrolled in private and home school options using voucher funds for the 2025-2026 school year, according to data from the state’s Office of Economic & Demographic Research.

According to the lawsuit, about a quarter of the state’s education budget is going to voucher programs, up from 12 percent in 2021.

In 2023 lawmakers expanded the existing voucher program, which was targeted initially to low-income families, to any K-12 student in the state. The law provides that money from corporate tax credits, which funded the initially program, be used first before general funds are used for the universal voucher program.

Last year, the state’s auditor general found a “myriad of accountability challenges” within the voucher system. The report showed overspending and delays in scholarship payments that resulted in a funding shortfall and a system without proper controls to verify where students who received the voucher payments were being educated.

A bill that would have implemented the recommendations from the report passed the Senate but never received a hearing in the House.

The Florida Department of Education on Tuesday unveiled a new high school U.S. history course eligible for college credit, designed as an alternative to the existing Advanced Placement course.

The Florida Advanced Courses and Tests (FACT) U.S. history course will be available to students in districts that apply to offer the course through a pilot program as soon as this fall. Districts have until May 18 to sign up for the new pilot program. The statewide implementation of the new course is slated for 2027-2028 school year.  

“The FACT U.S. history framework underscores our commitment to instruction grounded in the full scope of our nation’s history, while ensuring materials are free from ideological bias or indoctrination,” Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas said in a released statement.

DOE did not respond to an email and phone call seeking comment. 

The course framework recommends using Wilfred M. McClay’s “Land of Hope: An Invitation to the American Story,” as the textbook.

McClay is currently the Victor Davis Hanson chair in classical history and western civilization at Hillsdale College, a private conservative Christian college that promotes a “classical” approach to education.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has clashed with the College Board, the company that oversees the AP program and tests, over its alleged inclusion of critical race theory in its courses.

In 2023, AP Psychology’s teaching of gender and sexual orientation were deemed to run afoul of restrictions placed on those topics in the classroom by lawmakers. Earlier that year, the DeSantis administration also took issue with the AP African American Studies course, claiming it taught critical race theory in violation of new state laws.

DeSantis then pushed for and won legislation authorizing DOE to add advanced courses as an alternative to AP classes, in collaboration with the State University System and the Florida College System.

The College Board issued an unattributed statement defending its AP U.S. History course.

“AP U.S. History gives students the opportunity to analyze evidence, build critical thinking skills, and engage deeply with required sources like the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and Washington’s Farewell Address,” the statement from the company reads. “We are committed to providing access to high-quality coursework in Florida and ensuring students across the state are ready for college and career.”

According to the framework for the FACT course, it was developed by faculty and scholars in each subject field who reviewed college syllabi and high school standards, but the identities of those who developed the class are unknown.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Monday a new congressional map – drawn by his staff and passed by the Legislature last week – that could help Republicans retain the U.S. House.

“Signed, sealed, and delivered,” DeSantis wrote in a post on X.

The new map makes significant changes to 21 of Florida’s 28 congressional districts, a shift that could flip four seats from Democrats to Republicans.

Republicans currently hold a 217-212 advantage over Democrats in the U.S. House, with one independent member and five vacant seats.

President Donald Trump last year urged GOP-led states to redraw their maps to favor Republicans and give them a better chance of keeping hold of the U.S. House. Texas was the first state to do so, but Democratic-led states like California responded, sparking a tit-for-tat redistricting battle ahead of the midterms.

Democrats have decried the move, saying it’s a blatantly illegal power grab in violation of the state’s anti-gerrymandering Fair Districts laws.

“We will not back down and allow Ron DeSantis to violate Florida’s Constitution,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried posted on X. “These are unconstitutional and violate Florida’s 2010 Fair District Amendment. The fight has just begun.”

Voters approved the Fair District amendment in 2010, which prohibits drawing districts to favor or disfavor incumbents or political parties.

But DeSantis’ general counsel, in a memo to lawmakers ahead of the special session, said the amendment is unenforceable due to a 2025 ruling from the Florida Supreme Court. That ruling knocked down the part of the amendment that banned drawing districts that would diminish the ability for minority groups to elect a candidate of their choice, but left the rest of the amendment intact.

Within hours of the bill becoming law, the voting rights group Equal Ground Education Group and more than a dozen Florida voters filed suit against the new map. 

In the filing in the Leon County Circuit Court, the group alleges the new map violates the Fair Districts amendment. 

“This map is not just flawed, it is a deliberate and unconstitutional attempt to manipulate our electoral system for partisan gain,’ Equal Ground Executive Director Genesis Robinson said in a released statement. 

But there’s little time for the courts to intervene. Qualifying for the U.S. House races starts June 8 at noon and ends June 12 at noon.

DeSantis has pointed to the increase in Florida’s population since the 2020 U.S. Census, and what he says was an error in the tabulations that led to Florida receiving only one new congressional district after the census instead of two as reasons for redrawing the map. Florida, though, has had surges in population in recent history and hasn’t conducted a mid-decade redistricting without a court order.

But the primary reason for the redraw was a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on a redistricting case out of Louisiana. That decision was issued last week, just as lawmakers were debating the redrawing on the floor.

The 6-3 decision undercut the part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that allowed for legislatures to draw maps to ensure representation from racial minority groups. The VRA remains intact but it is more difficult to bring a lawsuit asking courts to redraw minority access districts.

DeSantis anticipated the ruling would eliminate the VRA, but still said he was vindicated by the court’s decision. He had pointed to District 20 in Broward and Palm Beach counties as a racial gerrymander to favor Black voters. The new District 20 is entirely within Broward County.

Members of some public sector unions will need a greater share of their members to vote to keep their organizations alive, after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Friday taking aim at teachers unions.

The bill (SB 1296) will “provide once and for all for the decertification of partisan teacher unions,” DeSantis said before signing the measure at Fort Myers High School. “This is something people have been wanting to see for a long time. We should not have these entities operating if they do not have support from the people they purport to represent.”

The move was decried by Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar, who called the signing of the bill “yet another entry in a long line of betrayals of working Floridians by Gov. DeSantis in favor of out-of-state, billionaire-backed, special interest groups.”

Two Fort Myers Republicans, Sen. Jonathan Martin and Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, filed the bill after a teachers union in Lee County prevented the school district from paying bonuses to teachers who volunteered to work in low-performing schools.

“This bill doesn’t end unions. The unions will end themselves when they lose their way and focus more on politics than on representing employees at the bargaining table,” Persons-Mulicka said.

Under the bill, which takes effect July 1, at least 50 percent of the members of a union or prospective bargaining unit must participate in a vote to certify or recertify a union, and 50 percent of them must approve for the union to remain intact.

Currently, only a majority of the members who vote in the certification election are required to start a union or keep it afloat.

Education Commissioner Anastasio Kamoutsas cited a union election of Florida Agricultural & Manufacturing University graduate assistants where three members were enough to recertify the union.

“Unions will now be required to show clear meaningful support from educators,” Kamoutsas said.

He and DeSantis also expressed frustration at unions for delaying raises for teachers in districts across the state. DeSantis also signed another bill (HB 1279) which makes it easier for school districts to pay teachers more to teach in low-performing schools.

While DeSantis directed his derision at teachers unions, the bill he signed increasing the voting requirements for certification affects other public sector unions, such as nurses and other government workers.

Democrats blasted the bill because it targets those unions that typically support their party but it exempted other first responder unions – police, firefighters and emergency medical technicians – which often support Republicans.

“While wealthy special interests might believe they have the power in the halls of the Florida Capitol, Florida’s public sector workers have the power and support in our communities statewide to show them otherwise,” Florida AFL-CIO President Kimberly Holdridge said in a released statement. “We will organize and come back stronger than ever.” 

Florida’s jobless rate ticked up for a seventh consecutive month, according to a Department of Commerce report released Friday.

The unemployment rate for March was 4.7 percent, reflecting an estimated 523,000 Floridians qualified as out-of-work from a labor force of 11.15 million.

There was a monthly increase of 7,000 unemployed workers, and a jump of 120,000 over the last 12 months.

Florida also shed 22,400 jobs over the last year, with only the education and health services and professional and business services sectors showing growth during that time.

State economists have pointed to new entrants to the job market needing more time to find work, as opposed to people losing their jobs as one of the culprits behind the rise in the jobless rate. They have also attributed a lack of growth in the labor force to an increase in people retiring.

The March report comes as the state received several layoff notifications in the past week that are set to take place this summer.

Peterson Brands advised the state Monday 135 workers will be let go as it closed its Fort Myers plant on July 27.

Also, a national restructuring and sale of assets by Republic National Distributing Company to Reyes Beverage Group will affect 1,046 workers in Florida and 2,774 nationally. The layoffs are set to begin around June 21.

“We are providing this notice to you at this time since there is no guarantee that Reyes will provide employees with an offer of employment as discussions remain ongoing, and it is not yet known who will be needed to continue employment with the Company,” states the Republican National’s “worker adjustment and retraining notification” letter to the state Department of Commerce dated April 22.

The layoffs are expected to affect 363 in Deerfield Beach, 169 in Jacksonville, 121 in Pensacola, and 393 employees in Tampa.

Another 420 workers at Bay Correctional in Panama City and Graceville Correctional in Graceville are listed as potential layoffs as the contract to run the facilities by Management & Training Corporation expires June 30, the end of the state’s fiscal year. The GEO Group will operate the facilities after that date and the letter to the state notes that “many of the staff may be retained.”

Still, the recent advisories don’t indicate an increase in layoffs.

Through the first four months of 2026, Florida has received 105 layoff notifications involving 6,011 positions. In the same period of 2025, there were 87 notifications involving 9,038 workers.

In the monthly jobs report from Commerce, the biggest decline in positions over the past year involves government jobs, with a loss of 12,300 federal positions and 1,600 state positions. Local government added 1,800 workers in the past year.

The state also saw a decrease of 11,500 jobs involving financial activities, 8,700 construction jobs, 7,900 involving trade, transportation, and utilities, 4,500 in manufacturing and 3,000 in the leisure and hospitality field.

Within leisure and hospitality, the decline is driven by a loss of 13,700 positions involving restaurant and hotel jobs.

Meanwhile, education and health services jobs grew by 31,500 over the past year, mostly involving health care and social assistance jobs, which grew by 25,700. Also, the state saw an increase of 9,300 positions involving professional and business services, which includes areas involving administrative and waste services.

The national unemployment rate currently stands at 4.3 percent. A year earlier, the U.S. rate was at 4.2 percent. At that time, Florida’s rate was 3.6 percent.

Florida’s rate has grown in each monthly report released since August.

Among the state’s metropolitan regions, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area maintains the lowest unemployment rate at 3.7 percent, down from 3.8 percent in February. A year ago, the South Florida region had a 3.0 percent jobless rate.

Metro area rates are not seasonally adjusted, while the statewide mark was adjusted.

Next lowest was the tourism-dominated Orlando region at 4.4 percent, followed by the Naples and Tampa regions both at 4.5 percent, Panama City at 4.6 percent, and the regions including Melbourne, Sarasota, Tallahassee and Jacksonville each at 4.7 percent.

The Gainesville and Daytona Beach regions were at 5.1 percent and Lakeland was at 5.4 percent.

The highest rates continue to be for The Villages at 7.8 percent, Homosassa Springs at 6.5 percent and Sebring at 6.1 percent.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday he will quickly sign the new Congressional district map his office put before state legislators this week.

Appearing at a groundbreaking for an interstate interchange in Ormond Beach, DeSantis replied that he will sign the controversial legislation (HB 1D) “as soon as I get it.”

“This is something that we’ve been fighting for a number of years … the fact that we’ve had so much population growth and the districts are really not representative of where Florida is today versus four years ago,” DeSantis said while at Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach. “So we had justification. “

The Florida House and Senate approved the major mid-decade redrawing of the state’s 28 congressional districts Wednesday, a move that could help Republicans retain control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections.

Democrats and voting rights groups have also announced plans to contest the maps in court once signed.

The House voted 83-28 on the changes expected to increase Republican representation in the Florida congressional delegation that currently stands at 20-8.

The Senate voted 21-17, with four Republicans — Sens. Alexis Calatayud of Miami, Ileana Garcia of Miami, Erin Grall of Vero Beach and Jennifer Bradley of Fleming Island — joining 12 Democrats and one no party affiliation senator voting against the proposal.

The bill, though, hasn’t been formally transmitted to his desk.