Manatee County's Next Fight is in Tallahassee

In recent years, the relationship between Manatee County Commissioners and our delegation in the state legislature has been chummy, to say the least. That’s not surprising since both were dominated by developer puppets working in concert to pad the pocket of builders at the expense of the communities these “public servants” were supposed to represent.

With a new board in place, that relationship needs to shift toward one in which our county officials are willing to publicly call out our representatives in Tallahassee whenever they support developer-driven policies that reduce home rule and thwart protective measures that benefit local resources.

In recent years, Tallahassee has dramatically reduced our rights as citizens to affect our local governance via the elected bodies that are supposed to set local policy. This is not unique to Florida, as it has been a trend nationally, particularly in red states—ironic, given that the GOP has long billed itself as “the party of small government.”

That said, Florida has been among the most heavy-handed state governments when it comes to using preemptive measures to restrict local governments from enacting legislation that might run counter to the wishes of the party’s biggest donors.

Before a 1968 revision of the state constitution, local governments in Florida had only those powers expressly granted by law. In 1968, however, our constitution was amended to authorize local home rule powers for cities and charter counties. The first Florida Supreme Court case dealing with the amendment significantly narrowed its scope, placing a heavy burden on the local government.

Soon after, the legislature enacted the Municipal Home Rules Power Act, guaranteeing local governments the power to conduct municipal government, perform municipal functions, and render municipal services. This statute effectively reversed the presumption that local government action must be narrowly confined to only the immediate needs of its residents. It further prescribed that local governments should be allowed to act if not clearly directed otherwise by the state.

Over the ensuing decades, a litany of court cases wrestled with the line between what local governments were empowered to do and to what degree that could be impeded by preemptive legislation from Tallahassee. The litmus test was essentially boiled down to whether it is an expressed or implied preemption, with courts sometimes finding that a state statute/constitutional provision and a local ordinance can exist in seeming conflict when there is no explicit preemption from the former. As a result, the legislature has gotten better at broadly expressing intent.

For the most part, these matters dealt with a Republican state legislature attempting to preempt Democratic cities from enacting legislation that ran contrary to its ideology or the interest of its donor class. In 2011, Florida enacted an extreme preemption measure that severely restricted the ability of local governments to regulate firearms, even including language that personally penalized local legislators involved in such laws being passed or enforced.

Florida Statutes 790.33(1) declares that the state of Florida occupies “the whole field” of firearms regulation. The law subjects local legislators to personal liability and removal from office for their votes in that field. In 2019, a Florida court voided these penalty provisions after more than 30 cities and counties and more than 70 local officials filed a constitutional challenge. However, the state appealed portions of this ruling, and an appeals court reversed the decision, finding that the penalties were valid and enforceable. The provision for termination and removal from office remains in effect.

A decades-long battle over whether or not municipalities can set their own minimum wage was fought along similar lines, involving numerous lawsuits. In 2003, the legislature passed a statute prohibiting municipalities from enacting a local minimum wage that was higher than the federal minimum wage. The following year, voters passed a state ballot referendum that raised the minimum wage from the federal level and created a statewide minimum wage. This referendum also expressly noted that it did not preempt or limit the authority of any other public body to mandate a higher minimum wage.

With the statute and amendment in conflict, this triggered a number of court cases, including a high-profile effort by the City of Miami Beach to enact a higher minimum wage in 2018.  The Florida Supreme Court initially agreed to hear the case, but after the retirement of multiple justices, the court reversed course, allowing an appellate court’s decision invalidating Miami Beach’s local wage ordinance to stand. In 2020, Florida voters passed another amendment—with broad bipartisan vote support—to raise the state minimum wage to $15 by 2026. Senator Joe Gruters (R-Sarasota) attempted in 2022 to introduce legislation that would more expressly preempt the ability of cities and counties to set local minimum wages, but it died in committee.

More recently, Republicans in Tallahassee have been enacting legislation that further transcends ideological differences, pitting special interests against the broad, bi-partisan will of local voters. As we saw in Manatee County, a 2024 statute meant to have a chilling effect on challenging comprehensive land use plan changes by allowing governments and developers to seek court costs from citizens or advocacy groups who do not prevail led to a court finding that nearly saw TBT publisher and former Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees before a single deposition was taken or a hearing conducted. All this because McClash dared to challenge the legality of the county commission eviscerating our local wetland protection rules.

What’s more, a bill that died in that same legislative session would have rendered the events moot if passed, as it would have required that all cities and counties defer to the statewide minimums on wetland protections in what would have been the boldest use of state preemption to date. In the 2024 session, HB 433 did make it across the finish line, a dangerous piece of legislation that actually prevented cities and counties from enacting local heat protections for outdoor workers while also restricting them from setting minimum wages to be paid by local government contractors.

In the previous session, the legislature used preemption to prevent local governments from enacting ranked choice voting, a tool that has been effectively used elsewhere to mitigate the shackles of one-party rule, while strengthening the hand of third parties. Sarasota had already approved RCV, but the statute prevented its planned enactment. That same year, DeSantis signed HB 1417 into law, preempting local tenant protection ordinances, leading to 46 tenant protection ordinances being preempted.

In each one of these cases, each member of our local delegation—Sen. Jim Boyd, Rep. Will Robinson, and Rep. Tommy Gregory—supported the legislation. Moreover, these three “representatives” carried developers’ water on the insulting bill to “study” consolidating our three island cities, lest they not forget who really runs things.

This is why it is so critical for our local government to adopt a posture that is as confrontational as necessary, given the delegation’s subservience to developers and other deep-pocketed special interests who dominate the agenda of the RPOF. We may have taken control of the county commission by electing a paper-thin majority of non-developer puppets. Still, Robinson, Boyd, and Rep. Bill Conerly (who replaced Gregory and is even more of a developer stooge than his colleagues, if that’s possible) will surely continue to work toward limiting our ability to self-govern locally.

The delegation may have the power to influence through threats related to the state purse, but this commission has the watchful eye of a voting public that has shown a willingness to band together and throw out those who would work against the best interests of the community. Publicly calling on them to vote against such legislation, which is sure to rear its head again this session, will put the public on notice regarding who is working for them and who is not. If our representatives in Tallahassee are unwilling to accept the reality that the days of serving their paymasters at the expense of their constituents have ended, they may soon find themselves in the same boat as commissioners who failed to read the tea leaves last time around.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch is also the author of three novels, and a short story collection is available here.