Two weeks ago, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez landed at the airport in Tallahassee and was greeted by a voicemail from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had called to let him know that he was planning to beckon lawmakers back to the Capitol to create new laws to help the Trump administration carry out a sweeping deportation program.

“I called him and he did not answer,” Perez told the Herald/Times. “And he did not call me back.”

Eight minutes later, the governor announced that he would call a special session for Jan. 27 — launching a nationally watched fight among Florida Republicans over immigration and how best to respond to President Donald Trump’s attempt to identify and deport immigrants who are in the country illegally.

The fight has exposed a huge rift between most state elected Republicans and the governor from their own party, and framed the first days of Perez’s young tenure as one of Florida’s most influential politicians. Since then, the Legislature — once a vehicle for DeSantis’ policy agenda — has rejected the governor’s proposals and moved to strip him of much of his immigration-enforcement powers by passing a bill that is likely to be vetoed.

Perez, a Kendall area resident who represents a western Miami-Dade district, says a little communication could have gone a long way to preventing the whole imbroglio.

“When I tell you that this could have been avoided if communication were an option, it’s not a fallacy. It’s reality,” the Miami Republican told the Herald/Times on Wednesday afternoon

It is against this backdrop that Perez — a 37-year-old attorney first elected to the House in 2017 — is starting his first of two years in power as the speaker of the Florida House. With a Republican supermajority that can pass legislation without concern for Democrats’ positions, he is pushing his chamber forward with a new chief critic, the governor, who up until this week faced little challenge from Republicans in the Legislature.

Perez is working in lockstep with Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, and says they drafted an immigration bill with “positive input” from the White House. The bill would increase penalties for undocumented immigrants who commit crimes and would make Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson — a statewide Republican elected official — the state’s chief immigration officer, empowering him to oversee the state’s immigration enforcement efforts under Trump.

The bill also includes more than $500 million to help local law enforcement officers get the training they need to help federal immigration agents and reimburse state and local law enforcement agencies for the cost of sharing detention beds with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

If the governor were to veto their bill, Perez did not rule out trying to override the governor’s veto.

“All options are on the table,” he said.

But he said the goal is for Republicans to be able to address the issue of immigration.

“I will tell you, I do believe that the governor wants to solve this crisis just as much as I do, just as much as President Albritton does,” Perez said. “At the end of the day, he is a co-equal branch of government. “

The question is how they will solve the issue, he said.

Facing off a well-known Republican governor

As Republican leaders wrangle with the governor over the immigration proposal, DeSantis has used his access to an influential conservative media ecosystem in an effort to sway the court of public opinion.

Leveraging a national profile, DeSantis has railed against the Legislature’s proposal on Fox News and conservative radio shows, and on social media has said the bill “fails to honor our promises to voters, fails to meet the moment, and would actually weaken state immigration enforcement” in Florida.

The bill — nicknamed the TRUMP Act — includes several changes to the state’s immigration enforcement laws, but the marquee proposal would transfer much of the governor’s immigration oversight authority. DeSantis, who has made a name for himself as an immigration hard-liner in Republican politics, has accused lawmakers of trying to weaken immigration enforcement in the state by removing those powers from him.

Perez maintained on Wednesday that the immigration bill the Legislature is pushing is stronger than the governor’s proposal, but recognized that he is going up against one of the most well-known Republicans in the country.

“We are doing what we believe is right, which is following President Trump and making sure that illegal immigration no longer is the greatest crisis in this country,” Perez said. “Although I can’t message it to the masses the way he can, I feel very comfortable with the position of the Legislature.”

The immigration bill was done in collaboration with the Trump administration, Perez said. He would not say who he personally spoke to in the administration, but said that the provision in the bill received “positive input” from the White House.

Asked if DeSantis vetoing the bill would mean he would be going against the White House recommendations, Perez said: “That’s for him to answer.”

Moving forward

In a speech to the Florida House on Wednesday night, Perez thanked state representatives for passing a bill that he called a “game changer” and for withstanding public scrutiny from “activists” and “a lot of paid bots on social media trying to gaslight you” — a veiled shot at the army of aggressive social-media users who flock to the governor’s side.

“Threatening others to get your way isn’t leadership, it’s immaturity. The people of our state deserve better,” Perez said in his final remarks on the House floor.

In the interview Wednesday, Perez said he wants to send a message to members that he does not plan to “lead with ego” as speaker of the House.

“I will never lead by my own self-interests or the eagerness for a headline,” he said. “If it is not in the best interest of Floridians, I won’t support it.”

Moving forward, he said his agenda will include addressing issues in Florida’s property insurance market, housing prices and education policies. While he did not have specifics to unveil as of Wednesday, he said that the state has not “reached our end point” on what can be done about the escalating cost of property insurance.

“It is still a huge issue,” he said. “But how we solve it is a question that we’re still answering collectively as a Legislature.”

Perez also said he will be interested in ensuring that taxpayer dollars are being used effectively in all aspects of state government, including the executive branch.

“There’s no one that is going to get a pass, from the Florida House at least, on whether or not they are spending taxpayer dollars efficiently,” Perez said. “That’s work that we have to get to.”

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