FL Gov Ron DeSantis delivers State of the State address

Tallahassee FL — On Tuesday, the 2021 legislative session opened in Tallahassee and it started with Governor Ron DeSantis’ State of the State address. The pandemic was the focus of some of the speech and how the state has responded.

“While so many other states kept locking people down over these many months, Florida lifted people up.” DeSantis says.

During the address, he recapped how the state responded to the pandemic which included prioritizing seniors during the initial start of the vaccine rollout and reopening schools and businesses.

He says since January 30th around the time that we started to see the potential impacts from a vaccine, hospitalizations for seniors declined by 80% and cases among seniors dropped by 71%.

“Florida was right to prioritize the elderly. Seniors first works.” DeSantis says.

He says the current economic outlook is much better today than the forecast was last spring when the pandemic hit. He credits that in part to reopening the state’s economy sooner than other states. He says the state has lower unemployment numbers compared to other peer states like Texas, New York, and California and the state is below the national average in unemployment.

The governor also laid out what he wants to be prioritized during the legislative session which includes giving the green light to a proposed anti-rioting bill, supporting protections from big tech companies, and cracking down on influence in the state from China. But as the new legislative session gets started, state Democrats are not on board with some of the priorities the governor wants. During the Democratic response House Minority Leader Bobby DuBose laid out some of the priorities they want to get done. These include expanding Medicade in the state to help provide more people with healthcare during the pandemic and fixing the unemployment system to help people struggling financially during the pandemic.

The legislative session runs through April 30th.

You can watch both the State of the State address and the Democratic response below.

Cox Media Group