TAMPA, Fla. — The legislative session in Florida starts Jan. 13.
Tampa Bay 28 anchor Lauren St. Germain spoke with our political analyst, Dr. Susan MacManus, about some of the issues lawmakers will be discussing this year, one of them being property taxes.
WATCH: State lawmakers prep for legislative session, set to discuss property taxes, AI
We’ve been covering the property tax discussion since last year, and now there are multiple proposals ranging from getting rid of the tax to reducing rates to changing exemptions. This could be on the ballot in 2026.
Another big issue is artificial intelligence.
“How is it regulated? People are worried about what it’s doing to children, but it also has a very big edge environmentally and of concern to local governments as well, and that is these big data centers that it will take to sustain the development of AI on a large scale. The worry there is it will first of all really massively increase people’s electric bills, but secondly, and this is always of concern in Florida, is that it may cause water shortages,” said Dr. Susan MacManus, Tampa Bay 28 Political Analyst.
Dr. MacManus also said historically, in an election year, you often see parties vote along party lines more than usual because they want to come up with a good message, they can take on a campaign trail.
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