TALLAHASSEE—A month after Florida Democrat Sen. Darryl Rouson celebrated his 27th year of sobriety, the upper chamber tried to create a new substance abuse center at the University of South Florida named after him.
House Speaker Danny Perez says it’s emotional blackmail.
Perez responded to the sweeping outrage from Gov. Ron DeSantis and Senate leaders drawn after Democrat Rep. Christine Hunchofsky stripped the Darryl E. Rouson Center for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Research out of SB 1620, Rouson’s bill to strengthen the state’s Mental Health Act, with no debate on Tuesday.
“The Florida House of Pettiness in all its glory,” Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on social media, minutes after the Senate postponed the bill on Wednesday amid bipartisan anger.
It was only his latest attack lodged against the Republican-led Florida House, which has staged the first ever rebellion against the governor during his tenure—complete with veto overrides, an investigation into his wife's charity, and a stomping out of some of his priority bills.
12 Senators, eight Republicans and four Democrats, delivered emotional rebukes of the House for choosing to strike the center and Rouson’s name, stressing their support of the Tampa Senator and anger at the lower chamber.
“We’ll make it right—or else,” Budget Chair Ed Hooper, a Republican, threatened after noting the long-delayed budget negotiations between the two chambers.
The Senate’s blatant scolding of the House bill thrusts the behind-the-scenes dissent into the open, planting the upper chamber alongside DeSantis in his month-long warpath against House Speaker Danny Perez’s rebellious lower chamber. It also comes as the legislature suffers through one of its more tumultuous Sessions in years—one with no scheduled end date in sight.
And while Senate President Ben Albritton has publicly positioned the Senate as the measured in-between for DeSantis and Perez, the uproarious response from Senators marks a distinct shift in the Senate’s tone.
But Perez is standing his ground, claiming in a statement that the Senate is using a “backdoor appropriations project” to bully the House into doing their bidding. He referred to the center’s $5 million price tag in the Senate’s budget proposal.
“It’s unconscionable,” Perez said. “The comments of 'or else' were a threat to the Florida House and beneath the dignity of the Florida Senate.”
What Happened?
Hunchofsky and Rouson, who’s been open about his past struggles with drug addiction and homelessness, sponsored SB 1620 to foster more “human, respectful, and effective” interventions across the criminal justice and behavioral health systems.
Last week, Sen. Hooper amended the bill to create the Darryl E. Rouson Center for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Research within the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at USF.
But on the House Floor Tuesday, Hunchofsky took out Hooper’s amendment.
“This removes the center that was in the Senate bill but not in the House bill, and it was not one of the recommendations from the Commission on Mental Health,” Hunchofsky said Tuesday.
Though she didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Floridian, she offered a cryptic social media post minutes after Senators excoriated the lower chamber:
“Just because people say something passionately and loudly, doesn’t mean it is true,” Hunchofsky wrote.
