Nathan A. "Nate" Adams IV, Lawrence N. "Larry" Curtin, D. Bruce May Jr., Lawrence E. Sellers and Karen D. Walker are Partners in our Tallahassee office. Kimberly A. Case and Beth A. Vecchioli are Sr. Policy Advisors and Frederick R. "Fred" Dudley is Senior Counsel in our Tallahassee office. Roger W. Sims is a Partner and Clay Henderson is Senior Counsel in our Orlando office. Bob Martinez is a Sr. Policy Advisor in our Tampa office.
Prior to the start of the 2013 Florida legislative session, President Gaetz and Speaker Weatherford outlined a joint agenda that included tackling ethics, elections, campaign finance, state pensions and higher education. The Florida House and Senate worked together to pass legislation that made significant reforms to these policy areas, often with strong bi-partisan support.
Due to an improving economy, the state budget had a surplus. This enabled the Legislature to restore funding to numerous programs that had received significant cuts in recent years, provide pay raises to teachers and state workers, increase funding by $1.2 billion for K-12 education programs, and put aside $2.8 billion in reserves for the State of Florida.
One policy issue that created strong disagreement in the House and Senate was whether Florida should accept or reject $51 billion in federal funds to provide health insurance to more than one million uninsured Floridians, as part of the federal Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (PPACA). The Senate proposal accepted the federal funds to provide health insurance coverage. The House proposal used state funding only to subsidize coverage for low-income families. Ultimately, the chambers were unable to come to a resolution during the 2013 legislative session.
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