Don Gaetz

This bill makes it a state crime to illegally enter or re-enter the state. It imposes a mandatory minimum prison sentence for repeat offenses. Now that illegal entry into Florida is a state crime as well as a Federal one, Florida law enforcement officials will have much greater ability to protect Florida from the illegal immigration invasion. CPAC supported this bill. The bill passed the Senate on February 14th by a vote of 25-11 and the bill was signed into law.

This bill establishes the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, composed of the Governor and Cabinet, within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The bill also allocates more than $250 million of funding to state law enforcement agencies to assist with immigration enforcement. Additionally the bill makes illegal immigrants ineligible for in-state tuition at Florida Universities and enhances criminal penalties for violent illegal immigrant criminals. CPAC supports efforts to prevent illegal immigration and supported this bill.

This bill established an Election Law Center at Florida State University, one of Florida’s two largest public universities. The Election Law Center will conduct research on how to strengthen election integrity. S892 explicitly authorizes the center to advise the legislature on election law matters. CPAC supports this innovative plan to promote election integrity and supported this bill. The bill passed the Senate on April 24th , 2025 by a vote of 37-0 and the bill was signed into law.

This bill allows charter schools in Florida to adopt their own codes of student conduct which must be approved by parents. It also raises the cap on charter enrollment and gives charter schools access to Florida Department of Education data systems. CPAC supports charter schools and other forms of alternative education that can help students escape the indoctrination and behavioral problems that plague government schools. CPAC supported this bill. The Senate passed the bill on April 30th by a vote of 30 to 7 and the bill was signed into law.

This bill bans cell phones in grades K-8 and commissions a pilot study to consider whether cell phones should also be banned in high school. CPAC supports measures to protect children from internet addiction and supported this bill. The bill passed the Senate on May 2nd 2025 by a vote of 26-5 and the bill later became law.

The Workforce Development Capitalization Incentive Grant Program provides funding to school districts and colleges to fund career and technical education. Previously only government schools had been able to get these grants. HB 1145 makes charter schools eligible for these grants as well. CPAC supports charter schools and all other alternatives forms of education which can help students escape failing government schools. CPAC supported this bill. The Senate passed the bill on April 29, 2025 by a vote of 37-0 and the bill was signed into law.

This bill reforms Florida’s citizen-initiative process in order to prevent abuse by out-of-state actors. It includes several provisions including a residency requirement for people who gather signatures for Constitutional amendments, as well as enhanced verification of signatures. CPAC supports election integrity and supported this bill. The bill passed theSenate on May 2nd 2025 by a vote of 28-9 and the bill was signed into law.

This bill repealed a provision of state law that had automatically imposed restrictions on gun sales and open carrying during local states of emergency. CPAC believes that local officials should not be able to declare emergencies as a pretext for violating Second Amendment rights and supported this bill. The Senate passed the bill on April 23 2025 by a vote of 32-5 and the bill was signed into law.

This bill makes it illegal to release chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the purpose of modifying temperature, precipitation, weather, climate, or sunlight intensity. This includes a ban on the practice of cloud seeding in which airplanes release silver iodide into clouds to trigger them to rain. This may allow farmers who hire cloud seeders to steal rain from their neighbors. Augustus Doricko, a cloud seeding tycoon, flew to the Florida legislature to oppose the bill. CPAC believes that you do not have a natural right to modify your neighbor’s weather and supported this ban on cloud seeding and other forms of weather modification. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 28-9 on April 3, 2025 and the bill was signed into law.

This bill allows homeschooled students to play on public school sports teams in their district. Private school students may join a public school team if their private school does not offer the sport which they want to play. Similar bills have sometimes been called “Tim Tebow Acts”, in reference to football player Tim Tebow who was homeschooled and played on a public school high school football team. CPAC supports measures to help make homeschooling and private schooling viable for as many families as possible and supported this bill. The Senate passed the bill on April 30 2025 by a vote of 36-1 and the bill was signed into law.

This bill rolls back the ability of local governments to impose unnecessary and burdensome roadblocks to land development. It limits the ability of local governments to impose fees and permit conditions. CPAC supports private property rights, opposes bureaucracy, and supported this bill. The Senate passed the bill on May 1, 2025, by a vote of 29-8 and the bill was signed into law.

This bill requires social media platforms to provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption at the request of law enforcement. The law would apply the term “social media platform” to include secure messaging apps such as Signal, which is a vital tool for political dissidents across the world. CPAC opposes government efforts to create a surveillance state and opposed this bill. The bill was presented as a way to protect children from interacting with nefarious individuals on social media. While CPAC recognizes this as a noble goal, it believes that if a social media tool is so dangerous to children, then the solution is to prohibit children from using it, not to destroy the tool so that no one can use it. CPAC believes that parents are the first line of defense for protecting children, and the government should help parents by passing laws to prevent children from accessing pornography. Laws which place age limits on pornography might also need to be applied to some social media apps which by their nature facilitate interaction between children and adults. The Senate passed the bill on April 24, 2025 by a vote of 34 - 3 but the bill did not come up for a vote in the House.

This bill mandates that all trustees of public universities in Florida must be residents of Florida. The bill is an attempt to remove conservative education reformer Chris Rufo from his position as a trustee of the New College of Florida. CPAC strongly supports efforts to remove woke indoctrination from universities and believes that Chris Rufo should be allowed to continue his important work at the New College of Florida. CPAC opposed this bill. The Senate passed the bill on May 1st 2025 by a vote of 37-0 but the bill was vetoed by Governor DeSantis.