• The first name of Wakulla’s Teacher of the Year was wrong in the front page headline and photo cutline. She is Makenna Maldonado.
  We regret the error.

New officers and board members for the Wakulla Chamber of Commerce were sworn-in on Tuesday, Jan. 13, by Wakulla County Judge Brian Miller. The meeting was held at Wakulla High School’s new vocational wing where culinary arts students served breakfast. The new officers, seated, are Tonya James, Katie Taff, Niraj Patel, Megan Smith, Frank Messersmith and Jessica Revell. (Photo by Heather Bryan of the Chamber)

By JIM SAUNDERS
News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE — A chill outside the Capitol didn’t improve the at-times frosty relationships between the state’s three top Republican politicos in the kickoff to the 2026 legislative session.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, however, received a warm response from conservatives in the legal community as he cemented his imprint on the Florida Supreme Court with the appointment of Justice Adam Tanenbaum.
The governor also notched a win from the state court this week in a decision that scrapped the American Bar Association as the sole accreditor for Florida law schools.

CHILLING OUT

House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, told reporters everything isn’t hunky-dory with Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, as the 60-day regular session opened on Tuesday.
Asked by reporters about his relationship with his Senate counterpart, Perez referred to a 2025 state budget and tax-cut package agreed to by the two legislative leaders. Perez said Albritton reneged on the deal after DeSantis said it was “DOA.”
The Legislature needs to be “the independent branch of government,” Perez said Tuesday.
“And if he (Albritton) were to agree with me on that, we will be able to talk,” he added.
Albritton demurred when asked about Perez, saying he won’t bad mouth his colleague.
“Not in a million years. I’m not going to do it,” Albritton said.
In separate addresses to their chambers Tuesday, the pair pointed to the need for lawmakers to make life more affordable for Floridians. The House and Senate began passing bills later in the week.
The Senate on Wednesday backed a $150 million “rural renaissance” plan (SB 250), a priority of Albritton’s which is aimed at boosting such things as education, transportation and economic development in rural areas. A similar effort last year with more health-care provisions failed to gain traction in the House.
Among bills advanced Thursday in the House were proposals to lower the minimum age to purchase rifles and other long guns from 21 to 18 (HB 133) and to require all private employers to use the federal E-Verify system to check the immigration status of new workers (HB 197). Similar proposals flailed in the Senate in 2025.
The House also approved an effort (HB 6003) that would repeal a 1990 law that prevents people ages 25 and older from seeking what are known as “non-economic” damages in medical-malpractice cases involving deaths of their parents. DeSantis vetoed a similar effort last year.
Meanwhile, DeSantis used his final State of the State address to tout accomplishments over the past seven years in areas such as cutting taxes, expanding school choice, increasing teacher pay, remaking the higher-education system and pouring money into Everglades restoration.
“We lead with clarity, conviction and courage,” DeSantis told lawmakers who filled the House chamber. He also touched on his priorities for the session, though he went into little detail and did not announce major new initiatives.
Senate Minority Leader Lori Berman, D-Boca Raton, described DeSantis’ address as a “campaign stump speech” and said he didn’t address “the true issues that affect Floridians about affordability.”

HEADING HOME

DeSantis on Wednesday promoted Adam Tanenbaum from a judge at the Tallahassee-based 1st District Court of Appeal to a justice on the Florida Supreme Court.
Tanenbaum has the “courage” and “warrior spirit” to make tough decisions “regardless of the blowback,” the governor said during an announcement at Seminole High School, where Tanenbaum graduated at the top of his class in 1989.
During his two terms as governor, DeSantis has chosen six of the seven current justices — and two other justices who were later tapped by President Donald Trump to serve on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Tanenbaum’s appointment cements DeSantis’ legacy of reshaping the court with conservative justices who have reversed years of precedent established by more left-leaning justices on issues such as the death penalty and abortion rights.
Laying out his textualist judicial philosophy on Wednesday, Tanenbaum said he subscribes to “the fixation thesis and the constraint principle.” Tanenbaum also defended the court’s duty to revisit earlier decisions.
“Our goal as judges is always to find the correct original meaning of the law. To instead follow and replicate erroneous interpretations of the past is essentially to make the law, usurping in the process the Legislature’s and the people’s authority. If we as judges profess to apply the law and not make it, then the imperative at all times is to recognize what the law is,” Tanenbaum said.
Tanenbaum replaces former Justice Charles Canady, an appointee of former Gov. Charlie Crist who left to direct the University of Florida’s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education.

NEW GATEKEEPERS

Amid mounting pressure from conservatives on the national lawyer group, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the state should “end its reliance on the American Bar Association” as the sole accreditor of law schools.
The court “is persuaded that it is not in Floridians’ best interest for the ABA to be the sole gatekeeper deciding which law schools’ graduates are eligible to sit for the state’s General Bar Examination and become licensed attorneys in Florida,” Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz and Justices John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Renee Francis, and Meredith Sasso said in Thursday’s ruling. Justice Jorge Labarga issued a dissenting opinion.
The decision follows a report issued in October by a workgroup appointed by Muñiz.
In most cases, Florida requires people to graduate from accredited law schools to be eligible to take the bar exam to practice law. The American Bar Association has served as the state’s lone accreditor for more than three decades.
The ABA’s accreditation process has come under fire from conservative officials including DeSantis, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who accuse the organization of trying to require diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at law schools — a political hot-button issue.
“The (highly partisan) ABA should not be a gatekeeper for legal education or the legal profession,” DeSantis said in a post on the social-media platform X after Thursday’s ruling.
Jenn Rosato Perea, managing director of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, said in an email the court’s order “reinforces the authority that it has always had” over licensure of law-school graduates and the law schools it recognizes as accredited.

STORY OF THE WEEK: Florida lawmakers kicked off the 60-day 2026 legislative session on Tuesday, with House and Senate leaders making affordability a top priority.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Whether the governor wants to be petulant and not shake the hand of a partner, that’s on him. It’s not going to change our direction.” — House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, on not receiving a handshake from Gov. Ron DeSantis on the House rostrum before the State of the State address.