December 10, 2025 • 12 mins
Former Florida House Speaker and current GOP candidate for Florida Governor Paul Renner checks in to call for a special session of the state Legislature to deal with property tax relief. He wants lawmakers to roll back ad valorem taxes to 2024 levels.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, good morning, Joel Malklin and holding down the
fort while Brian's enjoying some time off. You'll hear him
pop up over the holidays on some of the national shows,
Clay and Buck and Mark Levin. But in the meantime,
I'm here. We do have Brian's stories throughout to keep
me updated on the news of the day. And right now,
former Florida House Speaker current Republican candidate for governor Paul Renner,
(00:23):
he's urging the legislature to immediately call a special session
to bring property tax relief to Floridians. It's something that's
expected to be taken up during the regular session that
begins in mid January. He wants it done before that,
making this announcement on X this week.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's time for less talk and more results. We can
roll taxes back to twenty twenty four levels. I want
to know how much you'll say, just pull out your
twenty twenty four tax bill.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And Paul Renner is joining us now. First of all,
thank you for joining us. Paul. Why do you feel
the need to have this issue taken up right now?
When I mean, I guess we're just over a month
away from the twenty twenty six session in January thirteenth,
I believe it begins.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Well, the governor's been talking about it for about nine
months now, I think since the early part of the year,
and in the meantime, all of our taxes have gone
up in twenty twenty five, and that's about to happen
again in January, and that's why we need to go
ahead and go into special session make this legislative rollback.
It's the only way to stop everyone listening from getting
a tax increase in January on their property tax build
(01:25):
because those rates will be going up, and everything that's
being proposed in legislature has to go on the ballot
in November and I go into the constitution. The one
exception to that is this legislative option, which allows for
us to roll back county millage rates. And in this case,
I'm calling for a rollback to at least twenty twenty four,
(01:46):
so that everybody will have a tax break and importantly
no one will have a tax increase.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So if a special session is held and this is tackled,
would that mean that it would be done through next
next year and nothing would have to be done in
the legislature during the regular session.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
No, this is not an either or, it's both and
and so this is the think of it as the
foundation of the House. We guarantee that there's no more pressure,
no more pain, and another increase in property taxes, which
is certain if we don't do this what I'm calling
the ren or roll back, and then after that continue
to work through the legislature to try to get something
on the ballot next year that is a more broad
(02:28):
based Boulder proposal, and I've called in my Florida First
Account Affordability Plan to do just that and put something
on the ballot that whether that's elimination of homestead property
taxes or something to short of that, to make sure
we give even broader relief to Floridians.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So this is an kind of an emergency fix. We
could look at it as of right now, so that
you know the twenty twenty five numbers just don't how
high are those numbers looking to climb if nothing's done.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Well, it's gone up, you know, the last several years,
and this is the problem. It's gone up over fifty
percent in just the last five years, and twice as
fast as people's incomes that's why this has become such
a pressing issue, and so generally speaking, it's gone up
over ten percent a year, and so we're talking about
rolling that back. You know, I can't predict in every
single county what that's going to be, but you can
(03:18):
look at your twenty twenty four tax bill and very
simply see what you would be paying as opposed to
what you are paying in this bill. We just paid November,
which is the twenty twenty five rates, but those went
up from twenty twenty four across the state. They're going
to go up again in twenty twenty six, and so
my rollback would basically void out all of that, put
us back at twenty twenty four. So everybody's got a
(03:39):
little bit of relief and no more pain while we
work on the broader proposals.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Now are you getting now? You just called for the
special session earlier this week? I believe it was. Are
you hearing anything from the governor because it would be
up to him, right, he would have to be the
one to call it.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Well, the governor can call on, the legislature can call one,
and so I would encourage them to do so. I
think of this as kind of the foundation of the
House of property tax reform. It needs to happen because again,
anything that they're proposing, whether it's eliminating homestead property taxes altogether,
which the Governor's discussed, raising exemptions, things of that nature,
(04:19):
all of those under our constitution have to be on
the ballot. And there has to be a new constitutional amendment, which,
of course is November of twenty twenty six, So we're
all going to wait another year. We're all going to
pay even more in taxes next November, and then it
has to get to sixty percent. So what happens if
the legislature doesn't get it together, they don't have that
single plan that I agree with the governor needs to
(04:39):
be on the ballot, then we're out of lock. We're
just going to see another tax increase. Or they do
get it together and they put it on the ballot,
we don't get to sixty percent because historically the Democrats
have come out against it, the League of Cities come
out against it, and unless you're going to go out
and campaign and raise money to do it, it's going
to be tough to get to sixty percent. I will
certainly support the effort, but just in case it doesn't happen,
(05:01):
I've pledged as governor, you know, it would be twenty
twenty seven before the next governor takes office. I will
put a plan on the ballot as well in twenty
twenty eight. I hope we get it done in twenty six,
but if not, that's why this rollback is so critically important,
because it holds people in place, and that savings builds
each and every year as we hold at the twenty
twenty four levels.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, twenty twenty eight is a long time to wait
for property tax really, you know, this is such a
great state. We can do it right now, such a
great state to live in. You know, people continue to
flow in from other parts of the higher tax states
overall and political reasons that people Obviously, weather has always
been also a reason that folks come here. But that's
(05:43):
one thing that you know, many complain about, is you know,
the property affordability with regard to the taxes and the insurance.
Of course, you know, we've seen insurance start to come
down a little bit with some of the laws that
have been put into place over the last few years. So, yeah,
(06:05):
you mentioned Governor de Santis. You know, the House proposed
eight plans to lower property taxes, but the governor is
not happy because not one of them calls for what
he wants, which is the abolishment of property taxes on
all homeowners with homestead exemptions. So if you own a
home and you live in it majority of the year,
no property taxes, that's what he wants, But that's not
(06:26):
on any of these eight. Do you feel that's even
possible without raising sales taxes, because that's a thing that
some folks that don't want to see that happen and
talk about. They say, you know, we've got a pretty
decent sales tax here in Florida, although in some places
it's higher than others. But nonetheless, is it possible you.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Think, Well, let me you mentioned insurance, and when I
was Speaker of the House, I'm not now, but when
I was speaker, this is an issue that we tackled.
And we see automobile rates going down, they're not going
down anywhere in the country, and we see homeowners starting
to level out, and I'm hopeful that we're going to
cease some significant decreases in the coming year. That was
on my watch, and again, we need less talk and
(07:05):
more action on this issue. On the issue of property taxes.
If you go and eliminate all homestead property taxes, you
have to be able to pay for law enforcement, first responders,
our schools, course infrastructure. These are all things that are
paid for that pay for are paid through property taxes
rather and so I think we haven't gotten a proposal
(07:27):
from the governor, but I expect that you would have
some replacement taxes unfortunately, that would replace those homestead I
don't think you'd have to replace all of it, but
you have to replace enough to guarantee and I want
to make sure under my plan, I want the counties
to first certify that they've taken care of law enforcement
first responders. I think that is decore function of government,
(07:47):
and it's important that we are not defunding the police
because a lot of counties have fifty six two percent
of their property taxes go into paying for law enforcement,
and so that's a very very important source of revenue
for them. If we're going to replace all of it,
there likely would have to be whether it's sales tax
or some tax. I'd prefer those taxes to be on tourists,
but there will have to be some kind of replacement.
(08:09):
I believe otherwise you would just shift it over to
renters and small businesses. And if that's the plan, I
don't think you're going to get sixty percent support next November.
So I'm all for the plan, but we've got to
have a plan that works for everybody.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, the governor is now suggesting redistributing state dollars to
help poor counties make up for lost tax revenues. I
don't know if you heard about this Blazing Golia or
state CFO and fire marshal. Everybody forgets the fire martial parts.
I like to throw that in there, but you know, well,
I'm sure he doesn't forget it because it's part of
his job. But State CFO in Golia recently announced the
(08:48):
FAFFO audit results for Palm Beach County, saying that of
the eleven different counties and or cities that he's looked at,
Palm Beach County leads the way in what he calls
wasteful excessive spending three hundred and forty four million dollars.
And I guess you know I talked to him about
you mentioned law enforcement fire first response items. He was
(09:13):
saying that actually he looked at it and pop. Each
county would not have to cut that if they just
you know, did the right things. So and I'm sure
that's also other parts of the state having the same situation.
So I don't know how that plays into the property
tax relief issue or not.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Well, every county is different, and I think it's correct
to say that there's some counties where you could get
rid of homestead, you know, like City of Miami is
like eight percent of homes homestead. I mean, you could
easily get rid of that with no replacement whatsoever. But
there you mentioned the poorer counties, the fiscally constrained counties.
They don't have any money to begin with, so you
remove them. They may have, you know, eight deputies, they're
(09:53):
not going to be able to continue paying those deputies,
and that's where the state would have to come in
and backfail that. So every is different. The simplicity of
the rollback plan that I'm proposing is it prevents everyone
from getting a tax increase, which is a certainty next year,
and it also gives everyone a tax break everyone, not
just homestead and small business renters, everybody. While we look
(10:15):
at these broader plans, but it's got to go in
the ballot next November, and then even if we everything
works out great and we pass it by sixty percent,
we won't feel until the November twenty twenty seven tax bill.
That's two years from now, and so I want less talk,
more action. I want to see something done right now
that will give people immediate relief while we have that
larger conversation about are we going to eliminate all homestead
(10:36):
property taxes? If sohow and if not, what more can
we do to relieve the burden, because it's a real
burden on people who are paying twice as much as
their incomes have grown over the last five years.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I'm going to ask you this is final question, because
it was something that I thought of when I saw
your video on eggs. You know, we're calling for a
special session within the next two weeks, and I'm looking
at the calendar and it's almost Christmas. A u Stir's
in the state legislature. How likely is it that you know,
you think that these folks are going to say, yeah,
over the holidays, let's go back to work in Tallahassee.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Well, I called for this rollback a month ago in
my Florida First Affordability plan, which is on vote renter
dot com. You can go look at it. But it's
easy to do. This is not a one big, beautiful
bill that's thousands of pages. It's a couple pages. I've
been there, I was the Speaker of the House. This
can be done in a couple of days, through a
couple of committees, and sent to the governor and signed
before the end of the year. And if they can't
(11:31):
get it done before the end of the year, they
ought to do it in the very first days of
the session in January. But my reason for the special
is I'd like to see if we can't get this
in people's escro statements, so their monthly payments are going
down in January. But the longer we talked and the
less we act, the more taxes are going up. And
that's just a fact that's happened in twenty twenty five.
All we've been talking about it, It's going to happen
(11:51):
again in twenty twenty six. Everyone's tax bills are going
up unless this rollback happens. And so I would encourage
people to call their legislators and encourage them to do this.
This is kind of the foundation of the property tax
Reform House. It's got to be done to stave off
a new tax increase and give everybody some relief while
we figure out what we're going to do more long term.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
All right, Well, again, I appreciate you joining us here,
Former House Speaker Paul Renner and GOP candidates for governor
here on the Brian Mud Show. Thanks again, Paul, Thank you,
All right, good morning, Joel Malklin and holding down the
fort while Brian's enjoying some time off. You'll hear him
pop up over the holidays on some of the national shows,
Clay and Buck and Mark Levin. But in the meantime,
I'm here. We do have Brian's stories throughout to keep
me updated on the news of the day. And right now,
former Florida House Speaker current Republican candidate for governor Paul Renner,
(00:23):
he's urging the legislature to immediately call a special session
to bring property tax relief to Floridians. It's something that's
expected to be taken up during the regular session that
begins in mid January. He wants it done before that,
making this announcement on X this week.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's time for less talk and more results. We can
roll taxes back to twenty twenty four levels. I want
to know how much you'll say, just pull out your
twenty twenty four tax bill.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And Paul Renner is joining us now. First of all,
thank you for joining us. Paul. Why do you feel
the need to have this issue taken up right now?
When I mean, I guess we're just over a month
away from the twenty twenty six session in January thirteenth,
I believe it begins.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Well, the governor's been talking about it for about nine
months now, I think since the early part of the year,
and in the meantime, all of our taxes have gone
up in twenty twenty five, and that's about to happen
again in January, and that's why we need to go
ahead and go into special session make this legislative rollback.
It's the only way to stop everyone listening from getting
a tax increase in January on their property tax build
(01:25):
because those rates will be going up, and everything that's
being proposed in legislature has to go on the ballot
in November and I go into the constitution. The one
exception to that is this legislative option, which allows for
us to roll back county millage rates. And in this case,
I'm calling for a rollback to at least twenty twenty four,
(01:46):
so that everybody will have a tax break and importantly
no one will have a tax increase.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So if a special session is held and this is tackled,
would that mean that it would be done through next
next year and nothing would have to be done in
the legislature during the regular session.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
No, this is not an either or, it's both and
and so this is the think of it as the
foundation of the House. We guarantee that there's no more pressure,
no more pain, and another increase in property taxes, which
is certain if we don't do this what I'm calling
the ren or roll back, and then after that continue
to work through the legislature to try to get something
on the ballot next year that is a more broad
(02:28):
based Boulder proposal, and I've called in my Florida First
Account Affordability Plan to do just that and put something
on the ballot that whether that's elimination of homestead property
taxes or something to short of that, to make sure
we give even broader relief to Floridians.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So this is an kind of an emergency fix. We
could look at it as of right now, so that
you know the twenty twenty five numbers just don't how
high are those numbers looking to climb if nothing's done.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Well, it's gone up, you know, the last several years,
and this is the problem. It's gone up over fifty
percent in just the last five years, and twice as
fast as people's incomes that's why this has become such
a pressing issue, and so generally speaking, it's gone up
over ten percent a year, and so we're talking about
rolling that back. You know, I can't predict in every
single county what that's going to be, but you can
(03:18):
look at your twenty twenty four tax bill and very
simply see what you would be paying as opposed to
what you are paying in this bill. We just paid November,
which is the twenty twenty five rates, but those went
up from twenty twenty four across the state. They're going
to go up again in twenty twenty six, and so
my rollback would basically void out all of that, put
us back at twenty twenty four. So everybody's got a
(03:39):
little bit of relief and no more pain while we
work on the broader proposals.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Now are you getting now? You just called for the
special session earlier this week? I believe it was. Are
you hearing anything from the governor because it would be
up to him, right, he would have to be the
one to call it.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Well, the governor can call on, the legislature can call one,
and so I would encourage them to do so. I
think of this as kind of the foundation of the
House of property tax reform. It needs to happen because again,
anything that they're proposing, whether it's eliminating homestead property taxes altogether,
which the Governor's discussed, raising exemptions, things of that nature,
(04:19):
all of those under our constitution have to be on
the ballot. And there has to be a new constitutional amendment, which,
of course is November of twenty twenty six, So we're
all going to wait another year. We're all going to
pay even more in taxes next November, and then it
has to get to sixty percent. So what happens if
the legislature doesn't get it together, they don't have that
single plan that I agree with the governor needs to
(04:39):
be on the ballot, then we're out of lock. We're
just going to see another tax increase. Or they do
get it together and they put it on the ballot,
we don't get to sixty percent because historically the Democrats
have come out against it, the League of Cities come
out against it, and unless you're going to go out
and campaign and raise money to do it, it's going
to be tough to get to sixty percent. I will
certainly support the effort, but just in case it doesn't happen,
(05:01):
I've pledged as governor, you know, it would be twenty
twenty seven before the next governor takes office. I will
put a plan on the ballot as well in twenty
twenty eight. I hope we get it done in twenty six,
but if not, that's why this rollback is so critically important,
because it holds people in place, and that savings builds
each and every year as we hold at the twenty
twenty four levels.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, twenty twenty eight is a long time to wait
for property tax really, you know, this is such a
great state. We can do it right now, such a
great state to live in. You know, people continue to
flow in from other parts of the higher tax states
overall and political reasons that people Obviously, weather has always
been also a reason that folks come here. But that's
(05:43):
one thing that you know, many complain about, is you know,
the property affordability with regard to the taxes and the insurance.
Of course, you know, we've seen insurance start to come
down a little bit with some of the laws that
have been put into place over the last few years. So, yeah,
(06:05):
you mentioned Governor de Santis. You know, the House proposed
eight plans to lower property taxes, but the governor is
not happy because not one of them calls for what
he wants, which is the abolishment of property taxes on
all homeowners with homestead exemptions. So if you own a
home and you live in it majority of the year,
no property taxes, that's what he wants, But that's not
(06:26):
on any of these eight. Do you feel that's even
possible without raising sales taxes, because that's a thing that
some folks that don't want to see that happen and
talk about. They say, you know, we've got a pretty
decent sales tax here in Florida, although in some places
it's higher than others. But nonetheless, is it possible you.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Think, Well, let me you mentioned insurance, and when I
was Speaker of the House, I'm not now, but when
I was speaker, this is an issue that we tackled.
And we see automobile rates going down, they're not going
down anywhere in the country, and we see homeowners starting
to level out, and I'm hopeful that we're going to
cease some significant decreases in the coming year. That was
on my watch, and again, we need less talk and
(07:05):
more action on this issue. On the issue of property taxes.
If you go and eliminate all homestead property taxes, you
have to be able to pay for law enforcement, first responders,
our schools, course infrastructure. These are all things that are
paid for that pay for are paid through property taxes
rather and so I think we haven't gotten a proposal
(07:27):
from the governor, but I expect that you would have
some replacement taxes unfortunately, that would replace those homestead I
don't think you'd have to replace all of it, but
you have to replace enough to guarantee and I want
to make sure under my plan, I want the counties
to first certify that they've taken care of law enforcement
first responders. I think that is decore function of government,
(07:47):
and it's important that we are not defunding the police
because a lot of counties have fifty six two percent
of their property taxes go into paying for law enforcement,
and so that's a very very important source of revenue
for them. If we're going to replace all of it,
there likely would have to be whether it's sales tax
or some tax. I'd prefer those taxes to be on tourists,
but there will have to be some kind of replacement.
(08:09):
I believe otherwise you would just shift it over to
renters and small businesses. And if that's the plan, I
don't think you're going to get sixty percent support next November.
So I'm all for the plan, but we've got to
have a plan that works for everybody.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, the governor is now suggesting redistributing state dollars to
help poor counties make up for lost tax revenues. I
don't know if you heard about this Blazing Golia or
state CFO and fire marshal. Everybody forgets the fire martial parts.
I like to throw that in there, but you know, well,
I'm sure he doesn't forget it because it's part of
his job. But State CFO in Golia recently announced the
(08:48):
FAFFO audit results for Palm Beach County, saying that of
the eleven different counties and or cities that he's looked at,
Palm Beach County leads the way in what he calls
wasteful excessive spending three hundred and forty four million dollars.
And I guess you know I talked to him about
you mentioned law enforcement fire first response items. He was
(09:13):
saying that actually he looked at it and pop. Each
county would not have to cut that if they just
you know, did the right things. So and I'm sure
that's also other parts of the state having the same situation.
So I don't know how that plays into the property
tax relief issue or not.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Well, every county is different, and I think it's correct
to say that there's some counties where you could get
rid of homestead, you know, like City of Miami is
like eight percent of homes homestead. I mean, you could
easily get rid of that with no replacement whatsoever. But
there you mentioned the poorer counties, the fiscally constrained counties.
They don't have any money to begin with, so you
remove them. They may have, you know, eight deputies, they're
(09:53):
not going to be able to continue paying those deputies,
and that's where the state would have to come in
and backfail that. So every is different. The simplicity of
the rollback plan that I'm proposing is it prevents everyone
from getting a tax increase, which is a certainty next year,
and it also gives everyone a tax break everyone, not
just homestead and small business renters, everybody. While we look
(10:15):
at these broader plans, but it's got to go in
the ballot next November, and then even if we everything
works out great and we pass it by sixty percent,
we won't feel until the November twenty twenty seven tax bill.
That's two years from now, and so I want less talk,
more action. I want to see something done right now
that will give people immediate relief while we have that
larger conversation about are we going to eliminate all homestead
(10:36):
property taxes? If sohow and if not, what more can
we do to relieve the burden, because it's a real
burden on people who are paying twice as much as
their incomes have grown over the last five years.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I'm going to ask you this is final question, because
it was something that I thought of when I saw
your video on eggs. You know, we're calling for a
special session within the next two weeks, and I'm looking
at the calendar and it's almost Christmas. A u Stir's
in the state legislature. How likely is it that you know,
you think that these folks are going to say, yeah,
over the holidays, let's go back to work in Tallahassee.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Well, I called for this rollback a month ago in
my Florida First Affordability plan, which is on vote renter
dot com. You can go look at it. But it's
easy to do. This is not a one big, beautiful
bill that's thousands of pages. It's a couple pages. I've
been there, I was the Speaker of the House. This
can be done in a couple of days, through a
couple of committees, and sent to the governor and signed
before the end of the year. And if they can't
(11:31):
get it done before the end of the year, they
ought to do it in the very first days of
the session in January. But my reason for the special
is I'd like to see if we can't get this
in people's escro statements, so their monthly payments are going
down in January. But the longer we talked and the
less we act, the more taxes are going up. And
that's just a fact that's happened in twenty twenty five.
All we've been talking about it, It's going to happen
(11:51):
again in twenty twenty six. Everyone's tax bills are going
up unless this rollback happens. And so I would encourage
people to call their legislators and encourage them to do this.
This is kind of the foundation of the property tax
Reform House. It's got to be done to stave off
a new tax increase and give everybody some relief while
we figure out what we're going to do more long term.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
All right, Well, again, I appreciate you joining us here,
Former House Speaker Paul Renner and GOP candidates for governor
here on the Brian Mud Show. Thanks again, Paul, Thank you,
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The Brothers Ortiz
The Brothers Ortiz is the story of two brothers–both successful, but in very different ways. Gabe Ortiz becomes a third-highest ranking officer in all of Texas while his younger brother Larry climbs the ranks in Puro Tango Blast, a notorious Texas Prison gang. Gabe doesn’t know all the details of his brother’s nefarious dealings, and he’s made a point not to ask, to protect their relationship. But when Larry is murdered during a home invasion in a rented beach house, Gabe has no choice but to look into what happened that night. To solve Larry’s murder, Gabe, and the whole Ortiz family, must ask each other tough questions.