Ron DeSantis urges GOP leaders across the state to pressure lawmakers about Special Session

DeSantis defends use of "illegal alien" in immigration discussions.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is urging Republican leaders around Florida to pressure lawmakers into supporting a Special Session on immigration. He also emailed party members with a similar call to action.

The Governor’s political team invited Republican Executive Committee Chairs and State Committeemen and Committeewomen from every county to a Zoom call held Thursday around noon. While the call was closed to press, multiple sources provided Florida Politics with details from the conversation.

During the call, DeSantis stressed urgency in passing bills to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. He called lawmakers to come to Tallahassee on Monday to take up and quickly pass bills by the end of the week.

The move comes as leaders in the Florida House and Senate resist the Governor’s demand to take up policy ahead of the Regular Session.

DeSantis also sent an email through a Republican Party of Florida address questioning the reason lawmakers remain recalcitrant.

“I was shocked to see the response from Republican leaders in the legislature who claimed that it is ‘premature’ to deliver on the promises we made to voters and that action on immigration can wait,” DeSantis wrote. “Some have even gone so far as to silence members of my administration who are eager to share the ongoing hidden consequences of unmitigated illegal immigration with the public.”

Several staffers for DeSantis spoke at meetings last week on the need to quickly pass policy but were gaveled out. But DeSantis said the state cannot be complacent.

A source on DeSantis’ call said party activists strongly supported DeSantis’ push and anticipate lawmakers will receive a flood of calls as a result.

The Governor touched on several policy areas he wants addressed in the Special Session, including reforms to condo regulations and changes to the petition process for candidates and ballot measures.

But he focused the most energy on several policies he wants implemented surrounding immigration. That includes repealing a law that allows for undocumented immigrants living in Florida to pay in-state tuition at universities, a measure once championed in the Legislature by Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez.

He also wants Sheriff’s Offices around the state funded and authorized to enforce federal immigration policy. DeSantis has threatened to suspend local Sheriffs or prosecutors who neglect to execute such responsibilities.

One emphasis of the call, according to a source on the phone, was the chance for Florida to serve as a leader for other states in crafting immigration policy. DeSantis said the state could become a national model, much as it did with a low-lockdown response to the COVID pandemic.

DeSantis suggested as much in his email to party members as well.

“There isn’t a second to waste. Florida must lead,” he wrote. “Every day that this crisis remains unchecked is another opportunity for crime to occur and acts as a hurdle for President Trump’s important mission in Washington. Making America Great Again requires action at the state level, and with your help, we will get the job done.”

Trump has publicly supported the Special Session.

But Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez thus far have not. The two released a memo the day DeSantis called the Special Session that stated lawmakers still lack meaningful details of what Trump’s administration needs from state Legislatures, and that it would be “completely irresponsible” to get ahead of the new administration.

While lawmakers must come to Tallahassee when the Governor issues a call, leaders could simply gavel in and then out immediately, as happened in 2010 when a partyless Gov. Charlie Crist called a Special Session on oil drilling after the Deepwater Horizon disaster but lawmakers declined to take immediate action.

DeSantis stressed to party leaders that the same outcome cannot happen next week, and lawmakers must take up and pass policies ahead of the Regular Session in March. Otherwise, bills passed likely won’t be implemented until Summer at the earliest.