Legislature 2020: Session begins Tuesday in Tallahassee. Here’s a look at the key issues.

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida lawmakers open their two-month legislative session Tuesday already eyeing the November election, with top Republicans pushing abortion and immigration restrictions that could play well with their voters and a teacher pay package designed to blunt attacks from Democrats.

But while election-year sessions often are crafted to tout party unity, Florida GOP leaders are already weathering turbulence as Gov. Ron DeSantis opens his second session as governor of a state seen as a must-win in November for his political mentor, President Donald Trump.

DeSantis is sparring with House Speaker Jose Oliva, R-Miami, over the future of the state's tourist-marketing arm, Visit Florida, and that pricey teacher pay plan. For his part, Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, has talked of redesigning the $900 million teacher pay and bonus plan that leads DeSantis's wish list.

"When you put it as a one-size-fits-all, then you can create some practical problems as well as some inequities," Galvano said of the governor's bid to bring minimum teacher salaries to $47,500 -- second highest in the nation.

The state's largest teachers union, the Florida Education Association, has organized a rally Monday at the state Capitol to call for a more sweeping pay package than DeSantis outlines.

Galvano also has separated himself from another DeSantis priority: Passage of legislation requiring all Florida businesses to take part in the federal E-Verify program aimed at keeping undocumented workers from getting jobs in the state.

The early scuffling contrasts with a year ago, when a newly sworn-in DeSantis found his path cleared by fellow Republican leaders in the Legislature.

Lawmakers embraced DeSantis proposals for a $2.5 billion, four-year plan to improve Florida's environment, lifting the state's ban on smoking medical marijuana, expanding private school vouchers, arming volunteer teachers as school guardians and imposing a sanctuary cities ban that inflamed immigrant rights groups.

But this year, ruling Republicans' most unified moment may come with one of the more controversial bills of the session.

The House is expected to approve in the session's opening weeks legislation requiring parental consent before a minor has an abortion. The Senate is likely to quickly follow suit and send to DeSantis a measure which opponents say not only hurts women but violates both state and federal constitutional guarantees to abortion.

Still, for many Republican voters, the restriction on girls under age 18 is generally accepted, polls show, and positions Florida with many states that have revisited abortion rights since Trump named two new justices and created a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court.

Similarly, DeSantis has been able to tilt the Florida Supreme Court to the right with his appointments following the retirements of the last three justices named by a Democratic governor.

For outnumbered Democrats in the Legislature, expected to almost unanimously oppose the abortion restriction on minors, that issue also is certain to become a rallying point for their voters heading toward November.

A more challenging, election-year step for Republicans may be meeting DeSantis's demand that the state require all businesses to use E-Verify, the federal database that can reveal whether new hires are legally eligible to work in the U.S.

"I believe -- and the vast majority of people in our state believe -- that businesses should be hiring Americans, should be hiring legal immigrants, but not hire illegally cheap, foreign labor," DeSantis said in announcing his proposal at a November appearance in The Villages, the Central Florida retirement community that is a favorite stop for Republican candidates and leaders.

DeSantis made the announcement the day before Trump held a campaign rally in Broward County.

E-Verify, though, is not an easy sell with Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature. DeSantis's predecessor, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, also came into office talking tough on immigration and pushed to use E-Verify.

But Scott was forced to scale back his demand and limit its use to state government agencies and contractors after drawing a firestorm of opposition from farming giants and the tourism industry, which relies on low-cost labor, some of it undocumented workers.

Twenty-four states, including Florida, currently require the use of E-Verify by government employers, but only eight states require it for all businesses. But most states with the broader standard are in the Southeast, which DeSantis said makes Florida an outlier.

Underscoring its potency for GOP voters, a co-sponsor of the bill is Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, who doubles as the Republican Party of Florida chair and was co-chair of Trump's 2016 campaign in Florida.

But Galvano is a potential hurdle -- siding with Florida business associations who are wary of DeSantis's approach.

"Let me put it this way," Galvano recently said. "I don't support having the requirement that everyone (use) E-Verify. It's putting an additional responsibility on non-government officials."

Just as he has spoken about modifying DeSantis's signature teacher pay plan to give school districts more authority over how salary increases are distributed, Galvano is poised to push for scaling-back the governor's outline for E-Verify.

In his second year as governor, DeSantis is back with spending proposals that call for another $625 million installment for Everglades restoration and a host of water projects, including efforts to ease algal blooms and red tides that have fouled both Atlantic and Gulf waters and beaches.

While the governor drew attention this year for appointing a chief science officer and a chief resilience officer devoted to fighting the impacts of climate change, he only is seeking a modest $6 million grant program for local governments battling sea level rise -- which Democrats fault as falling far short.

In what has become another unfilled annual ask by environmentalists, the $300 million they say should be spent on the state's Florida Forever land-buying program is limited to $100 million in DeSantis's budget -- and could prove even less if lawmakers stick to their recent history of short-funding the effort.

Another flashpoint among Republican leaders will be Visit Florida, which the governor wants financed by $50 million next year -- the same amount it currently draws.

For the second straight year, lawmakers set a deadline for eliminating the tourism agency, which in 2019 lost one-third of its 135 employees after its budget was cut from $76 million. Oliva, the House speaker, views tourism marketing as a waste of state money and the agency is set to disappear June 30.

The tourism industry is on edge and pushing hard to keep Visit Florida alive.

Volusia County would not have logged a record 10.2 million visitors in 2018 without the help of Visit Florida, said Bob Davis, president and CEO of the Lodging & Hospitality Association of Florida.

Davis also recalls how agency officials traveled to Daytona Beach to help open Biketoberfest in October 2016, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Matthew.

"They came with all their cameras and produced a film for TV all over the nation and internationally to let people know that not only was Daytona Beach open for business, but Florida was open for business. We don't have the funds to do a national campaign."

If Visit Florida is eliminated, other states such as California, Georgia and Texas will fill the marketing void to siphon away potential visitors, Davis said.

"If you don't advertise I don't care what your product is, it won't sell," Davis said.

Officials have an ally in DeSantis.

"I know that probably will be a source for some contention," DeSantis said of Visit Florida.

Then he added a view that likely holds true for a lot of issues heading into this election-year session.

"We'll see how it shakes out," the governor said.

News-Journal Reporter Jim Abbott contributed to this story.

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