Florida
Florida Becomes Twenty-First State With Universal Licensure
Recently enacted legislation will allow licensed professionals who relocate to Florida to get to … [+]
During the nearly six years that Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) has been in office, Florida has moved from a battleground state to a solidly red state. Unlike counterparts such as Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds (R-Iowa) — who has had to overhaul an uncompetitive tax code and fight for a number of other reforms to make her state more economically competitive — Governor DeSantis had the fortune of taking the helm of a state that, thanks to efforts and achievements of predecessors like Jeb Bush, already had one of the nation’s most attractive tax and regulatory climates.
The legislative session that recently concluded in Tallahassee demonstrated once again that, despite assuming leadership in a state that already boasted many policy advantages, Governor DeSantis and state lawmakers have not let that be an excuse for complacency. In fact, since Governor DeSantis took office, every year he and state lawmakers have pursued reforms to provide more tax relief, further expand school choice in a state that has long been a leader in education choice, and enact regulatory reform that makes Florida a less costly place to do business. The 2024 session was no different.
In signing Senate Bill 1600 on June 28, for example, Governor DeSantis made Florida the latest state to reduce barriers to employment by recognizing occupational licenses from other states. Twenty states have already enacted similar legislation, commonly referred to as Universal License Recognition (ULR), but as the nation’s fastest growing state, Florida needed this reform more than any.
Arizona lawmakers enacted the nation’s first ULR bill in 2019 and the benefits are already evident. In the five years since then-Governor Doug Ducey (R) signed the first ULR bill into law, more than 10,000 licensed professionals across a host of industries and trades have begun working in Arizona thanks to this reform.
In an opinion piece published in the June 14 edition of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Skylar Zander of Americans for Prosperity noted how SB 1600 builds upon licensing reform enacted four years ago, when Governor DeSantis signed the “‘Occupational Freedom and Opportunity Act.” That reform, Zander explained, “removed barriers of entry to certain professions licensed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation,” adding that SB 1600 “will do even more to get people to work and reform our occupational licensing system, so we can continue to flourish here in the Sunshine State.”
This easing of regulatory barriers to employment in a way that will make it easier for new residents to get to work, note SB 1600 proponents, will benefit more than the doctors, nurses, physician assistants, dentists, dental hygienists, and other licensed professionals who will now be able to get to work in Florida more quickly. SB 1600 is also helpful to the millions of people who already live in Florida, both longtime residents and recent transplants, who will be benefit from an increased supply of health care providers.
SB 1600 will help rectify the shortage of care providers afflicting many parts of the state. More than 5.5 million Floridians, for example, currently live in places that have been designated as Dental Health Professional Shortage Areas by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Enactment of SB 1600 will help rectify shortages of such crucial care providers.
With this action in Florida, nearly half of the country now has a ULR law in place. And for dentists and dental assistants specifically, this expanded access rises even further thanks to legislative action in nine states to join the Dental and Dental Hygienists Licensure Compact, a national agreement that enables dental professionals to practice in other states participating in the Compact if they are already licensed in a signatory state. At the current pace, most of the country will have either ULR or the DDH Licensure Compact by the end of this decade.
In addition, enactment of SB 1600 in Florida further solidifies ULR — along with the expansion of school choice and movement to flat income tax rates — as one of the top state policy trends of the past decade.
It took five years to go from zero to more than 20 states with a universal licensure law. Expect this trend to continue and for lawmakers in Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and other states that have grown nearly as rapidly as Florida to be most inclined to consider this reform in 2025.
His goals include making Stuart’s economy one based on tourism.
MARTIN COUNTY — Sensing chaos in the city, former Stuart Mayor Merritt Matheson has filed to run again for a seat on the City Commission.
So far, he has one opponent: Johnny Cealmov.
Matheson served as mayor from December 2021 to August 2022, when former Mayor Christopher Collins defeated him by a slim margin of 95 votes or 2.6% in the election that year. He began his service as a city commissioner in 2018.
“I’m running to bring back integrity, respectful, responsible leadership and stability to the city of Stuart,” Matheson said. “I’d like to stop the chaos that we’ve seen in the city.”
Collins, in his first term on the commission, quit as mayor April 30 to run for Martin County Commission. Stuart Vice Mayor Sean Reed automatically becomes mayor.
The chaos includes going through four city managers in six months and departures of high-level staff, such as the finance director, as well as other finance department staff, Matheson said.
The chaos also includes, he said, the unnecessary lawsuits the city has faced and others it lost, such as one with Polk Street Hotels. It includes, too, the severance paid to former City Manager Michael Mortell, who was fired without cause.
The city remains out of compliance with Senate Bill 180, a state law prohibiting changes to land development regulations between August 1, 2024, and October 1, 2027, because it’s still implementing the changes it made after August 1, 2024.
The state, Matheson said, has reacted to the chaos by taking away Stuart’s ability to govern itself — by enacting laws like SB 180 — which made changes to Stuart’s land development regulations null and void.
What prompted Matheson to run?
Nothing in particular prompted him to run for City Commission this time, he said. The chaos certainly played a part.
Collins’ push to use Martin County Forever funds to buy a historic school building was another reason, Matheson said. Martin County Forever funds are meant for improvements to water quality and to conserve environmentally sensitive land.
Stuart is getting about $2 million a year for 10 years from the Martin County Forever initiative that voters passed in 2024.
“The best way to manage growth in Martin County is grow our conservation land,” Matheson said. He helped lead the work to get the Martin County Forever initiative passed and he sits on the Martin County Environmental Lands Oversight Committee, which helps direct the use of those funds.
What he would like to accomplish
Calling himself a “slow-growth proponent,” Matheson said he follows the law and understands property rights, too, he said.
“The job of a commissioner, more often than not, is choosing the best of two bad outcomes,” Matheson said.
He would like to improve the city’s infrastructure, such as sidewalks, bike lanes and landscaping. And he wants to find solutions to ease traffic. He’s a proponent of other ways of getting around, which might include a water taxi, for example.
And he would like Stuart to become a tourism-based economy, rather than a growth-based economy, he said.
Keith Burbank is a watchdog reporter for TCPalm, usually covering Martin County. He can be reached at keith.burbank@tcpalm.com.
If housing costs went down as development increased, that would already be happening. But it didn’t happen that way in California, and it’s not going to happen in Florida, either.
Can anything fix the US housing crisis?
Will 2026 bring an affordable housing fix, or are high prices the new normal for buyers and renters?
“It’s the economy, stupid,” Bill Clinton famously proclaimed on his way to winning the presidency in 1992. As we approach midterm elections more than 30 years later, a similar catchphrase could be: “It’s affordability, stupid.”
Many Americans consider the cost of living the top issue that needs to be addressed in November elections. While food, gas and health care costs are a big part of this equation, the biggest expense many families have to reckon with every month is their mortgage or rent payments.
With that in mind, it’s instructive to look at what has happened – and is happening – in Florida and California, two large, heavily populated states on opposite sides of our country.
By one metric, these states appear to be headed in different directions. However, they have more in common than their political leaders might imagine.
A tale of two states, more alike than they may realize
In 2025, California experienced a net loss of 150,000 people, according to one estimate. Other estimates indicate slow growth over the past three years, although the state’s population is about where it was in 2019, before significant population losses during the COVID-19 years.
By contrast, my home state of Florida has been growing like a flower in springtime. Florida added almost 200,000 residents from 2024 to 2025, capping a decade with an overall population growth of 16.5%.
If you’re planning a car trip to Disney World or other Orlando area attractions this summer, these growth statistics will become more than an abstraction.
As you’re driving south on Interstate 75 near the Florida Turnpike junction, about an hour north of your destination, there’s an excellent chance you’ll get mired in bumper-to-bumper traffic in what seems like the middle of nowhere.
You’ll actually be passing through two of the nation’s fastest-growing metro areas, Ocala and The Villages, which may be totally unfamiliar unless you’re a horse breeder or you’ve heard tales about senior citizens spending their retirement years engaged in bawdy activities.
What political narratives miss on affordability
In the hyperpartisan shorthand of our times, a simple narrative has emerged: People are fleeing the liberal, tax-and-spend policies of California, a blue state, while they’re flocking to the red state paradise Gov. Ron DeSantis dubbed “the Free State of Florida.”
That surely makes a good applause line at conservative political events, but the reality is much more practical. According to research by the Public Policy Institute of California, high housing costs are most often cited as the reason why people have chosen to leave the Golden State.
According to the institute, about 900,000 people left California from 2015 to 2025 over housing costs. More than 1 in 3 Californians have at least considered leaving the state for that reason.
That should be setting off alarm bells in Florida and other places where fast population growth is seen as a sign of prosperity.
Even with the recent downturn, California’s population has grown from almost 33.9 million in 2000 to 39.3 million, according to U.S. Census data. During many of those years, California was outpacing the national growth rate.
During that time, the median home price nearly quadrupled, from $226,870 in January 2000 to $889,190 this March.
Florida’s housing prices have been rising with its population, too. Median home prices in the Sunshine State are about $420,000 now, up from about $105,500 in 2000.
Some Florida lawmakers apparently think they can grow their way out of a housing affordability crisis. The state legislature has approved a bill that places new limits on local governments’ efforts to control growth and development within their jurisdictions.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Borrero, a Republican from the Miami suburb of Hialeah, suggested the legislation would drive home costs down by increasing the stock of housing available in the state.
That would be true only if all housing units looked the same, but they don’t. Modern developers aren’t building quaint bungalows for working-class folks anymore. They’re building mega mansions and high-rise oceanfront condominiums, because – as the old saying goes – that’s where the money is.
If housing costs went down as development increased, that would already be happening. But it didn’t happen that way in California, and it’s not going to happen in Florida, either.
‘Build, baby, build’ isn’t an affordable housing strategy
Developers always seem to think the solution is to build more houses – and let the market take care of itself. However, market corrections may take years to take shape, while most regular folks are battling with their household expense budgets on a month-to-month basis.
There are certainly ways to encourage more specific types of affordable housing. For example, by offering tax breaks or other incentives for more “live-work” spaces, where apartments or condos are located above businesses, or so-called “mother-in-law” units, where small guest houses are permitted on lots with larger primary homes.
Small-lot houses, apartments or condominiums clustered around commercial areas can create walkable neighborhoods, where more people can walk to work or shopping rather than commuting long distances between urban centers and the suburbs.
But if developers just get a free hand to do whatever they want, wherever they want, they’re going to keep building more expensive homes on large land tracts until the real estate bubble bursts.
At that point, people are going to start voting with their moving vans, leaving Florida, much like they did in California.
These two large states, ranked first and third in population, should serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of the country. Trying to grow your way out of a housing affordability problem just won’t work.
Blake Fontenay is USA TODAY’s commentary editor.
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) — A Florida gunman allegedly hunted down a family on the road, firing into their SUV with a child inside in a miles-long road rage fueled pursuit.
Deputies with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office say they responded to a 911 call at 3:14 p.m. Wednesday near Highway 92 and Wiggins Road, where a man, later identified as 33-year-old Nicolas Totherow, was reportedly following a family in an SUV and firing at them.
According to an HCSO news release, the caller told dispatch that one of the four people in the vehicle was a child and stayed on the line as the situation unfolded. Investigators say Totherow continued following the family northbound on Park Road before both vehicles entered Interstate 4. He allegedly kept firing as the pursuit moved eastbound on I-4, ending when the victims exited at County Line Road.
See also: Wasserman Schultz says she’ll run again despite tough districts created by Republican map
The victims were located shortly after and confirmed that their vehicle had been struck multiple times by gunfire, shattering the windshield, rear window, and even reporting that one bullet had gone through the seat where they child was located.
At 6 p.m., deputies say they located Totherow through investigative efforts, recovered his firearm, and took him in custody. During an interview, he allegedly admitted to firing multiple rounds at the victims’ vehicle and stated he intended to kill the driver.
Totherow was subsequently booked into Hillsborough County Jail for counts of:
- Attempted Murder in the First Degree Premeditated Firearm – Discharge
- Aggravated Battery Great Bodily Harm Firearm – Discharge (x4)
- Discharge Firearm from a Vehicle
- Shooting at Within or Into a Vehicle
- Armed Possession of Controlled Substance
- Driving While License Canceled, Suspended, or Revoked
“This reckless and violent behavior put multiple innocent lives at risk on our roadways,” said Sheriff Chad Chronister. “Thanks to the quick actions of our Communications Center and the coordinated response of our deputies and detectives, this suspect was taken into custody before anyone was killed. We will not tolerate violence in our community.”
JOIN THE CONVERSATION (1)
The investigation is ongoing, anyone with information is urged to contact HCSO at 813-247-8200.
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