Jesse Scheckner
They say taxes are one of life’s two certainties. Republican Reps. Vicki Lopez of Miami and Toby Overdorf of Palm City will continue to have an outsized role next Session in whether that remains true for Florida homeowners.
House Speaker Daniel Perez is keeping the pair at the helm of the chamber’s Select Committee on Property Taxes, which he empaneled in April with the goal of developing a legislative roadmap to mitigate — or possibly eliminate — the local levy.
Overdorf told Florida Politics on Monday that the panel will meet in Tallahassee on Sept. 22 and 23, ahead of the 2026 Legislative Session, to develop a ballot item for next November.
“A lot of our members are going to report back their findings from their homework assignments over the Summer and all of their various public meetings they conducted around the state,” he said.
“We’ll start to formulate some stuff probably in October and potentially have more of an idea and direction of where we’re going to go come November, so hopefully we’ll maybe have something by December. This is truly being brought forward with the interest of putting money back in the pockets of Floridians.”
Lopez and Overdorf, who both work as consultants, convened the panel twice last year so its 37 members could consider multiple proposals Perez proffered as a “springboard” for tax relief talks and hear from subject experts.
Florida’s Constitution prohibits a state property tax but authorizes counties, municipalities, school districts and certain special districts to impose them.
Any sweeping, substantive change to that would require a constitutional amendment by statewide referendum.
“We’ll probably have other peripheral bills that don’t require a constitutional amendment but still affect property taxes,” Overdorf predicted.
Lopez said by text that, for her, affordability is Florida’s top priority.
“As Co-Chair of the Select Committee on Property Taxes, I’m focused on working with my colleagues to explore every option that protects our families and communities,” she said. “I look forward to continuing these conversations later this month.”
Nearly three-fourths of the Select Committee’s members are Republican, which is larger than the GOP’s share of the House. But that still proved too much for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who criticized the panel for having “some of the most left-wing Democrats in the state.”
“This is a total dog-and-pony show,” he said in early May.
At the time, DeSantis and Perez were still in a heated feud, with the former decrying what he called the “least productive Florida House” in modern history and the latter attributing that criticism to an “emotional and upset” Governor who isn’t used to not getting his way.
But if DeSantis is truly interested in eliminating or significantly cutting property taxes across the state, he appears to be more invested in cause than effect. In June, he vetoed a $1 million budget earmark that would have funded a study on the potential impacts abolishing property taxes would have on Florida’s economy.
