Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced he will not campaign to pass an amendment ending property taxes in the state because the measure approved by the legislature is not the amendment he proposed.
The Miami Herald reports DeSantis told a press conference that he will vote for the measure but will not spend any time in his remaining months as governor encouraging others to follow his lead.
“What the legislature did wasn’t my proposal,” he said. “We had a proposal, and I felt an obligation if that were on the ballot, to have to lead the effort.”
“If someone asked me to do something, I’m not saying I wouldn’t,” he added. “But in terms of leading the effort, in terms of me saying, ‘Here we go, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do all that,’ you know, I’m not going to do it.”
The plan backed by DeSantis’ would have raised the homestead exemption to $250,000 from the current $50,000 cap. The amendment approved by legislators in a special session called by DeSantis will achieve that goal, except it doesn’t apply to property taxes that go to schools.
At least 60% of voters will need to approve the measure for it to become law. DeSantis said he had no idea if it will pass.
“I think most people are going to be supportive of it, but I don’t know that,” he stated. “I know ours would have passed because we did a lot of research on exactly how to structure it and how to do that … Ours was part of a larger vision, and I think it would have really been something that would have been historic. This could lead to that, but you’re going to have to do other things in the future, and I kind of felt like this was the one shot we had to really put us on this pathway.”
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