House Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo laid the groundwork for an ambitious Legislative Session agenda at the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s annual Legislative Fly-In event, drawing attention to education, healthcare, and energy policy.
House Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo set forth an ambitious agenda for this year’s Legislative Session at the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s annual Legislative Fly-In event on Wednesday, highlighting key areas including education, healthcare, and energy policy.
In his opening remarks, Renner underscored the significance of effective leadership and collaborative efforts in shaping what he described as the “session of the century” last year. Renner directly cited a stated synergy between leadership at the top and the unity of purpose across various branches, which he credited for legislative successes.
“I think there are two critical things to success in political leadership. You got to have good leaders at the top, and you got to have unity,” Renner said.
Policy surrounding education saw diverging yet complementary views from the pair, as Renner highlighted the importance of early learning and education as a cornerstone for workforce development, directly focusing on readership rates among schoolchildren, and noting its role in shaping learning outcomes.
On the other hand, Passidomo brought attention to the unintended consequences of recently implemented school choice policies. She pointed out that while these policies expanded options for parents, they inadvertently placed traditional public schools at a disadvantage due to disproportionate regulatory burdens.
“What we’re gonna do is just take away burdensome regulations, and I’m really excited about that,” said Passidomo. “I think it’s gonna be a game changer for our traditional public schools. It levels the playing field. You know, you guys said to us all the time on bills, just level the playing field and it’s on every aspect when we’re doing that, and I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Healthcare also served as a prominent focus, with Passidomo discussing the ongoing shortage of healthcare providers across Florida. She outlined pragmatic solutions as part of her nearly-$1 billion ‘Live Healthy‘ campaign such as an increase of medical residency slots and offering loan repayment options, targeting healthcare workers willing to serve in underserved rural communities.
“Now, I’m not one of those loan forgiveness people at all, but if a physician or a nurse or healthcare worker has racked up such huge debts, then maybe we can help them repay those if you promise to do something in return,” Passidomo said. “And that is serving the rural communities where we have no doctors or some counties that don’t have an obstetrician.”
Echoing her concerns, Renner called for increased patient involvement and transparency in the healthcare system, warning against a single-payer model and advocating for a model where the government supports but does not administer healthcare.
Both lawmakers expressed concerns regarding mental health, with Renner specifically referring to the impact of social media on minors, likening its addictive nature to hard drugs.
“It, to me, is at a level where we’re looking at the addiction like cocaine,” Renner stated. “We’re going to take a big swing at that. I think it’s pretty compelling. It’s global.”
On energy policy, Renner pointed to the legislature’s role in major decisions, focusing on the need for reliable, low-cost, domestically sourced energy. In doing so, he criticized “political activism” in the energy sector, warning of potential risks to grid reliability.
“Our competitiveness as a state and your business depend on low-cost, reliable, domestically sourced energy,” Renner said. “I believe we have political activists interfering in the energy markets. They’re demanding everybody drive an EV, which puts an astronomically exponential demand on the grid. They’re asking us to weaken the grid by saying you can’t use coal. You can’t use natural gas, which yesterday was clean energy.”
Environmental conservation emerged as another area of focus, with Passidomo proposing to dedicate revenue from the state’s gaming compact with the Seminole Tribe to conservation efforts.
“You can’t just buy land, you have to maintain it,” she remarked.