Editor's note: This article is a part of Power Play, a series of special reports examining the push to reduce or eliminate property taxes in Florida.
The Florida Legislature, with a long history of shifting authority away from local governments to itself, is now considering what some local officials consider the most significant such move of all – abolishing one of the main sources of revenue of local governments.
For more than two decades, the Legislature has passed laws forbidding cities and counties from enacting local ordinances on dozens of subjects as varied as firearm regulations, Styrofoam containers, companies boycotting Israel, tree preservation and the most crucial area so far, land use.
Now Gov. Ron DeSantis and legislators are on the verge of what some consider the most serious undercutting of local authority ever, a proposal to abolish or sharply limit property taxes on homesteads.
“What they’ve done so far is double-A ball,” said Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who is running for the Florida House. “This is the major leagues, the World Series.”
The Florida Association of Counties has compiled a list of 136 laws passed by the Legislature since 2013 that limited the powers of local government in myriad areas and made the Legislature itself the sole authority in those areas. While that list begins in 2013, the Legislature has been passing preemption laws for decades. (A link to the association’s compilation — a Preemption Tracker — can be found below.)
To local officials, these so-called “preemption” bills undercut the idea that government is best when it’s closest to the people.
City Hall “is where people come — they come into our offices, ask about traffic, ask about the homeless,” said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, a Democrat who’s running for governor.
“When Tallahassee preempts us, it diminishes the ability of people at the local level to elect people who are closest to the problems they see every day.”
But legislators, and even some local officials, say the Legislature is entirely within its purview to control the actions of local governments.
Under the Florida Constitution, supporters of legislative preemption note, municipalities are creations of the Legislature. The Legislature can create municipalities and can abolish them. Counties, however, are subject to, and protected by, the Florida Constitution.
Intensely local issues
State Rep. Mike Owen, R-Apollo Beach, who’s also a former Hillsborough County commissioner, said he favors the Legislature’s ability to preempt local government powers, although with some exceptions.
The exceptions, he said, are intensely local issues, such as coastal communities that want to ban sales of certain kinds of sunscreen known to harm coral reefs.
“The state government has to work within bounds set by the federal government, which is supreme to us, and we’re supreme to the local governments,” said Owen, a member of the House State Affairs Committee that hears preemption bills.
“Usually when we’re preempting, it’s local rules that violate property rights or just general justice,” Owen said.
“I understand the frustration, but we’ve been given these powers under the constitution.”
The frustration, some local government officials say, is that preemption leaves them unable to respond to the concerns of their constituents.
“Units of government that are closest to the people that elect them ought to be responsible to the voters,” said Dan Gelber, former mayor of Miami Beach and also a former legislator. “That’s why you have units of government with different functions and missions.”
But the Legislature, he said, has “an irresistible impulse to meddle in local affairs,” which is “contrary to the notion of local government itself.”
Housing, heat and more
The subjects of preemption bills over the past two decades range from major, wide-ranging restrictions on local government land use regulations to such minutiae as synthetic turf.
Among them:
Live Local Act — The 2023 bill sought to spur more affordable housing for workers in urban areas, stating local government zoning rules couldn’t prohibit certain kinds of mixed-use developments that included affordable housing. But local officials, and some legislators, say the Live Local Act gives developers free rein for large developments in places where those developments don’t fit.
Gelber said it would allow high-rises in Miami Beach, an island with no room to expand its street networks to accommodate increased traffic; Hillsborough County Commissioner Josh Wostal said the county has faced proposals for large residential developments in rural areas with inadequate roads and no transit or other needed services. Hillsborough plans to sue to overturn it.
Senate Bill 180 — One of a raft of land-use preemptions passed by the Legislature in 2025, SB 180 prohitibts ocal governments from adopting any new, “more burdensome or restrictive” land use regulations within a year after a declared hurricane and within 100 miles of its path. But one of its effects was to invalidate growth management plans counties had been working on, in some cases, for years, including Orange County’s Vision 2050 plan. The county will be forced to “yield to developers on vast developments,” said Demings. Orange and other local governments are suing to overturn it.
Cruise ships in Key West — In 2020, voters in Key West approved ballot measures by more than 60 percent limiting both the size of cruise ships allowed to dock there and the numbers of disembarking passengers, and giving preference to ships with the best environmental records. Their goal was to improve water quality, fishing and diving and limit the numbers of tourists overrunning the small town. But the following spring, the Legislature outlawed referendums limiting port traffic.
Tree preservation — Then-Tampa City Council member Harry Cohen led a two-year effort culminating in 2019 to negotiate a new city ordinance on tree preservation, a compromise between neighborhood groups who wanted to preserve the city’s vaunted tree cover and developers who wanted to be able to remove trees on construction sites. “We ended up with a product that everybody could live with,” and developers didn’t oppose the final product, ending years of clashes, said Cohen, now a Hillsborough County commissioner. “There was such a feeling of triumph of having gotten it done.” A week after the ordinance was approved, the Legislature passed a bill later signed by DeSantis preempting local tree ordinances.
Apprenticeship — Some cities, seeking to enhance job opportunities for young or disadvantaged workers, have passed ordinances to require city contractors on large projects hire certain numbers of such workers. The Association of Builders and Contractors successfully sued the city of St. Petersburg over one such ordinance in 2019; in Tampa, Councilman Viera negotiated with builders for months to produce a less onerous ordinance. “I made it more moderate in response to their wishes,” he said. “They still opposed it,” but agreed not to sue. Two years later the Legislature banned such ordinances.
Guns — For 14 years, local governments have lacked the ability to regulate guns or the sale, use, possession or storage of guns under a 2011 law.
Workers heat protection — With summers getting hotter and outdoor workers suffering – sometimes dying – from the heat, Miami considered passing an ordinance requiring employers to provide heat relief for outdoor workers. The Legislature banned it. The state had previously banned municipalities from requiring employers to pay minimum wages or provide other benefits not included in state law.
Homeless — In 2024, legislators passed a bill forbidding local governments from allowing or failing to prevent homeless camping on public property. It allowed municipalities to set up camps for the homeless and set requirements for security, sanitation and services in the camps – but didn’t provide any money to pay the costs.
Synthetic turf — Some municipalities have sought to limit use of synthetic turf in housing construction because it can increase drainage, runoff and heat issues. In 2025, the Legislature banned such ordinances. “We spent months developing an artificial turf ordinance,” adopted in 2023, city development services Director Chad Minor told the Anna Maria Island Sun. The ordinance is now “essentially negated,” he said.
Styrofoam — In 2016 the Legislature prohibited local governments from banning or regulating use or sale of products made of polystyrene, commonly known as Styrofoam, by food stores or restaurants.
Agritourism — In the past some local governments have prohibited agritourism on properties that receive “green belt” tax exemptions, or applied assessments to those properties for fire protection. Since 2016, that’s no longer allowed.
People want property tax relief
Demings said he perceives the homestead tax abolition move as yet another form or preemption.
“It undercuts the authority of local government to be nimble, to respond to real-life challenges people have,” and “further undercuts our authority,” Demings said.
Wostal, the Hillsborough commissioner, doesn’t buy the argument. “The Legislature controls funding and revenue sources, and I’m a fan of consumption taxes,” he said, because individuals have more discretion to avoid taxation by limiting purchases.
He said he’s calculated that an additional 3.17-cent property tax in Hillsborough could replace homestead taxes.
Owen, the Hillsborough commissioner, accepted the preemption charge, but said, “It’s one of those things where we’ve heard our constituents clearly – people in my district want property tax relief.”
Gelber also calls the tax proposal another form of preemption.
“It defeats the purpose of local government,” he said. “When somebody in Tallahassee, as far away from me as you can get, makes a decision, it eliminates that link. “As far from Tally as possible,” it totally frustrates the desires of your constituents to move in the direction they want to go.”
When Gelber was mayor, the profile image on his Facebook page was a cartoon of a sunny beach with lifeguard stands, and a plane towing a banner overhead: “Miami Beach – As far from Tallahassee as possible.”
About the author: William March has written about politics in the Tampa Bay area for the past 40 years. He has worked for newspapers in his native North Carolina and for the Tampa Tribune, the Tampa Bay Times and the Associated Press in Florida. The Florida Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a non-profit organization that facilitates local investigative reporting across the state.
