ORLANDO, Fla. – On Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed another trio of new state bills, adding to the huge list of new laws approved this year.
However, DeSantis also vetoed another three bills, issuing letters to explain his decision on each one.
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Below is a full list of the newly signed bills — and those that were quashed.
HB 755 — Critical State Concern
House Bill 755 lets certain public-building/public-works projects skip the usual payment bond requirement when the project is on “Areas of Critical State Concern” land under a 99+=year ground lease with Habitat for Humanity.
It also extends the requirement to spend at least $5 million per year on land acquisition in the Florida Keys ACSC through FY 2035-2036.
The law takes effect on July 1.
HB 4103 — Franklin County
House Bill 4103 creates the Apalachicola Water and Sewer District, an independent special district in Franklin County.
This district is responsible for providing water and sewer services to customers who previously received such services from the city of Apalachicola.
The law took effect immediately upon being signed.
HB 4105 — Port St. Joe Port Authority
House Bill 4105 expands the boundaries of the Port St. Joe Authority, an independent special district.
This expansion includes Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, and Liberty counties.
The law took effect immediately upon being signed.
HB 145 — Government Claims
House Bill 145 increases caps on the recovery of awards against a government entity.
DeSantis’ veto letter reads as follows:
“HB 145 imposes new costs on taxpayers by increasing the damage caps awarded in lawsuits against local government entities. Florida law already provides a well-established and thoughtful claims bill process to review and ultimately determine if a judgment above the statutory limits should be awarded.
For these reasons, I withhold my approval of HB 145 and do hereby veto the same."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
HB 1245 — Biosolids Management
House Bill 1245 would have created new regulations for Class AA biosolids — residuals from the treatment of domestic sewage sludge.
DeSantis’ veto letter reads as follows:
“The bill creates unnecessary regulations related to the use of Class AA biosolids and includes vendor-specific provisions requiring enrollment in fee-based accreditation programs created by an industry trade association, rather than through existing state regulatory mechanisms.
Further, the bill subjects landowners to onerous recordkeeping requirements for irrelevant information to the matter at hand, which would undoubtedly be used to file dubious legal actions.
My Administration’s commitment to improving water quality is clear, and while portions of the bill may support that goal, those can be achieved through the existing oversight of both the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and Department of Environmental Protection. For these reasons, I withhold my approval of (HB 1245) and do hereby veto the same."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
HB 893 — Trust Fund Interest
House Bill 893 expressly allowed a financial institution to hold funds in an interest-bearing account of a lawyer or law firm.
The bill would have required financial institutions to remit any interest and dividends earned on these accounts to entities authorized by the Florida Supreme Court for the purposes of providing free legal services or for other purposes expressly allowed by the Court.
DeSantis’ veto letter reads as follows:
“HB 893 perpetuates an Interest on Trust Accounts (IOTA) Program of dubious constitutionality. The Florida Supreme Court established this program in 1978 and implemented it in 2981 in a series of opinions that were unduly dismissive of constitutional concerns...
Under the Florida Constitution, the Supreme Court has ‘exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the admissions of persons to the practice of law and the discipline of persons admitted.’ Art. V, § 15, Fla. Const. The IOTA program plainly does not regulate attorney admissions or discipline. Indeed, this limited grant of regulatory authority ‘cannot be read to include a plenary power to regulate the business models of lawyers or their firms, to say nothing of nonlawyers and their enterprises’... The Court has never adequately explained how its limited constitutional regulatory authority properly extends to the regulation of financial institutions (through the setting of interest rates) or authorizes it to compel the donation of interest earned on client funds.
Although the Court’s usurpation of regulatory authority long predates the current composition of the Court, we should not perpetuate the errors of the past. Signing HB 893 would, in effect, represent my ratification of the constitutionality of this dubious arrangement. This I am not willing to do.
The Supreme Court’s limited regulatory authority is hardly the only constitutional concern with the IOTA program. Although the Court has attempted to justify the program by noting that it funds the delivery of legal services to the poor, even an admirable social objective cannot justify what Justice Scalia aptly described as a ‘Robin Hood Taking’...
I agree with the ‘many lawyers (who) expressed a strong, common-sense feeling that income earned from the investment of trust funds simply must be deemed in the first instance to be the property of the owners of the funds’... And I share the view that the judiciary’s ‘answer to the ‘taking’ argument is inadequate.’ Id. The IOTA program also raises due process concerns, as it is simply left to ‘the sound judgment of the lawyer or law firm’ to decide whether to place client funds into IOTA accounts, with no input from clients.
Moreover, although the Court has long attempted to justify the IOTA program by reference to the use of funds for legal aid to the poor, HB 893 expressly disclaims any such limitation. Instead, it authorizes the use of interest earned on client funds ‘for such other purposes’ that the Supreme Court may authorize. This improperly delegates regulatory authority to the Judicial Branch and raises various other concerns, including that it allows the Court (through the entity it has established to distribute IOTA earnings) to compel ‘support of certain viewpoints’ with which the clients who own the IOTA funds may disagree...
Finally, although the IOTA program has heretofore been limited to confiscating and redistributing interest earned on ‘nominal or short-term funds,’ HB 893 does not limit its application to such funds. The bill therefore may be read to authorize the Supreme Court to expand the scope of the IOTA program and exacerbate its existing problems. And even if the Court declined that invitation, the putatively ‘nominal or short-term funds’ that remain subject to the program have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in earnings in the past fiscal year alone. HB 893 would ensure that interest on client funds will continue to be skimmed to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, to be redistributed however the Supreme Court sees fit.
For these reasons, I withhold my approval of House Bill 893 and do hereby veto the same."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis