Florida's Latest News

DeSantis suggests delaying session on redistricting

Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested Tuesday that he might delay a special session to draw up new congressional maps, which is scheduled to begin next week.

At a Tallahassee news conference, he said “it will happen within the next couple of weeks,” but that he had not made a decision on it.

“I have had people say, you know, they still haven’t done a budget. There’s this, there’s that, could you do a little bit different timing?” he said. “The answer is, I haven’t made any decisions on that.”

State lawmakers are scheduled to return to Tallahassee on Monday, but they currently have nothing to discuss.

Lawmakers — who haven’t been given any schedule for next week and haven’t been working on their own suggested maps — have been waiting on the governor to produce one.

Uthmeier grows his fundraising lead in Florida attorney general race

Attorney General James Uthmeier raised $1.91 million in the first quarter of 2026, surpassing the $336,000 raised by Democratic challenger José Javier Rodríguez, according to numbers posted by the Division of Elections website.

The quarterly total, generated through his personal account and a political committee, increased Uthmeier’s overall effort to $8.26 million as he seeks to retain the Cabinet office he was appointed to by Gov. Ron DeSantis in February 2025. Of the overall haul, Uthmeier had $7.43 million on hand as of March 31.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez, a former legislator from Miami who was assistant secretary for employment and training in the Department of Labor under President Joe Biden, has now raised more than $1 million. Of that, $489,700 was available on March 31.

“The support we’re seeing across the state makes clear Floridians are ready for accountability, to take on corruption, and to lower costs for families,” Rodriguez said in a news release.

Leon schools face $30 million deficit without sales tax extension

If Leon County voters don't approve the school district's half-penny sales tax extension which covers construction, maintenance and transportation, the district could be looking at a deficit of about $30 million next school year.

Superintendent Rocky Hanna said the board will have to approve the ballot language for the initiative by May and send it to Leon County commissioners for approval to add it to the Nov. 3 ballot.

"I would never take anything for granted and we need to approach this like it's the inception," Hanna told the board during an agenda preview meeting April 13.

To be clear, state law prohibits the board from promoting or organizing campaigns in favor of the sales tax extension.

The issue will be further discussed at the 6 p.m. April 14 meeting when the board and the final vote is April 28.

Florida unemployment rate higher than national rate for first time in nearly 5 years

Florida’s unemployment rate climbed to 4.5% in January, pushing Florida’s rate higher than the national rate for the first time in nearly five years.

FloridaCommerce, the state’s economic development bureau, released the January unemployment report this month. The agency’s regular monthly reports were disrupted by the government shutdown in October through early November, and the bureau has been slowly returning to publishing regular data.

The January rate is up by 0.2 percentage points from December’s figure of 4.3% in the Sunshine State.

“There were 499,000 jobless Floridians out of a labor force of 11.12 million. The U.S. seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3% in January,” a FloridaCommerce news release said.