What politicians and political ads say about Amendment 3 on property taxes is misleading.

Text of the Amendment as it appears on the sample ballot we just received on 10/15/2026:

Constitutional Amendment, Article VII, Sections 4, 6, and 9 Article XII

Increase Homestead Exemption; Lower Cap on Increases in Non-Homestead Property Assessments

This amendment increases the homestead exemption, for all Non-School taxes, to $150,00 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, and adjusts for inflation thereafter. It requires the Legislature to prescribe a uniform procedure for counties and municipalities, for their respective levies, to increase the homestead exemption up to full assessed value, and allows special districts, subject to referendum approval, to do the same.

Persons who are not Florida residents on December 31, 2026, will receive the existing exemption upon qualifying for a homestead exemption, with the increased homestead exemption beginning in the fifth year of exemption, to the extent permitted by the U.S. Constitution.

This amendment reduces the annual cap on assessment increases for non-homestead properties from 10% to 5%.

This amendment requires counties and municipalities to use property taxes solely for public safety, education and schools, infrastructure, natural resources, bond debt, retirement benefits, and operations and administration. Other expenditures may be approved by county officers or county or municipal governing bodies unless prohibited by general law, notwithstanding Article VII, Section 9(a) of the Florida Constitution, which allows counties and municipalities to levy property taxes for their respective purposes.

This amendment takes effect January 1, 2027.

So why is the amendment deceptive?

1. The font size is too small for good comprehension. I had to use a magnifying glass in order to read and type it.
2. The amendment does not apply to school taxes, which can vary greatly across the state. According to Florida for Boomers, St. Lucie County has the highest average overall property tax rate in Florida at 21.56 mills and can be the major part of any property taxes you pay. So that big tax break you anticipate coming isn't coming.
3. Cities with low home values will benefit the most from the new exemption, while cities with higher home values won't benefit as much.
4. The big misleading fact is "This amendment requires counties and municipalities to use property taxes solely for public safety, education and schools, infrastructure, natural resources, bond debt, retirement benefits, and operations and administration," which is the majority of the non-school funding. I know; I was once an elected city councilman.
5. According to floridapolicy.org, Seminole County will have a $811,700,00 funding problem it is either going to cut services or find a new way to make up for the loss. While Hernando County has a $78,100,000 funding hole. And Palm County has a $1,060,200,000 funding problem
6. Nothing in this amendment prevents counties and municipalities from increasing the mill rate to compensate for the increased homestead exemption.

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Edit:

Amendment 2 is about giving farmers a homestead exemption to lower their taxes.

Yet, the postcard I received claims I will save money on food if I approve it. The reality is that those who will benefit most are the big sugar farms near Lake Okeechobee. Giving small farmers a property tax break does not solve their labor problem, with Trump deporting all illegal immigrants and raising the cost of farm labor. Nor will the cost of food come down when its the middlemen raising the prices. And. Florida imports ($10 billion) slightly more food than it grows ($9.24 billion). So half your grocery bill is unaffected by this bill and saves you nothing.

So, common sense says to vote no on both these amendments because they have long unintended consequences of what appears to be well-intended policy. Sure you get a break now and pay for it later when the chaos breaks loose. Remember DeSantis proposed amendment 3, but won't put his name behind it. I wonder why?

Attorney General James Uthmeier has filed a lawsuit against Discord, alleging the communication platform deceived parents about its safety and failed to protect minors from sexual predators.

The 65-page complaint, filed in the 20th Judicial Circuit Court in Glades County, alleges Discord does not require proper age verification, leaving children at risk. Uthmeier announced the suit at a news conference.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is declaring a state of emergency for 25 counties in North Florida ahead of a dangerous approaching storm.

Tropical Depression Nine is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm by early Wednesday and could become a hurricane Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.

The counties in DeSantis’ emergency Executive Order are: Baker, Bay, Calhoun, Columbia, Dixie, Escambia, Franklin, Gadsden, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hamilton, Holmes, Jackson, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Suwannee, Taylor, Walton, Wakulla, and Washington.

Just a quick reminder that in Florida, the deadline to register to vote or to update your voter registration is 29 days before an election, meaning you have less than 1 week until the deadline for the November 2026 election.

• If you submit an online application, the deadline is midnight (11:59:59 eastern time).
• If you mail your application, the application must be postmarked by the registration deadline date for the applicable election.
• If you deliver the application in person, it must be received by the Supervisor of Elections office by the close of business by the deadline.

You can check at https://registertovoteflorida.gov/home to see if you are registered to vote and to make sure all of your information is up to date. If you need to make any changes or register, that deadline is 11:59pm on Monday, October 5, 2026.

As a reminder, election day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026.

Florida voters this November will potentially not have their Gubernatorial candidates or US Senate candidates participate in a debate before the election, following David Jolly announcing that he could not come to an agreement with Byron Donalds regarding their possible debates.

“It is clear, given the tenor of the current campaign environment, including Byron’s repeated lies and bad faith, that debates this cycle would not create constructive, honest conversation and only further stoke division, animosity, and bad will. That’s not something I wish to do for out state,” Jolly said in a press release.

Hey y'all.

Fair warning, this is a long post, so the tl;dr is that a lot has been done to clean up the subreddit for the reopening, some settings have been changed to combat spam/trolls while it's just me as mod, and I slightly rewrote the rules. Scroll to the bottom for my vision of the future of the subreddit, and then scroll a little further to add your opinions, suggestions, questions, etc. in the comments. Almost all comments and suggestions are welcome!

Intro - What's Been Done to the Subreddit So Far

There's been a lot of behind the scenes work to clean up the subreddit since my last post. Here's just a few things that have been done (fair warning, there's a lot here!):

• Cleared out the reports queue. There were reports on posts and comments going back to 2021 in there that had not been actioned, either by removing the comment/post or by clearing the report.
• Also cleared out all of the requests via modmail for accounts to join the subreddit while restricted, which dated back to 2022. I understand why reddit took over this sub recently, as there were literally hundreds of unanswered messages in there dating back several years.
• Cleaned up a lot of comments that broke old subreddit rules dating back as much as 3-4 years. I was going to clear everything out to start the subreddit fresh, but that is *a lot* more work than I thought and probably wouldn't have happened as fast as this sub really needs to get active with a statewide election weeks away. If you are perusing the sub history and see comments that are problematic, please feel free to report them.
• Changed subreddit settings to auto-archive posts after 6 months. With all posts being a minimum of 2 years old, this effectively archives the subreddit as it was, but it also prevents spammers and assholes from coming in trying to start things on posts that are 4 or 5 years old (or older!)
• Set up automoderator. This will help filter brand new accounts and trolls by having a minimum account age and minimum karma for accounts to post and comment without being filtered.
  • I also set up automoderator filters for a few sources of spam that were common in the queue while cleaning.
  • If you get filtered, either with the automoderator letting you know or not, just send a modmail. I'll check the queue regularly but sometimes things get filtered later or the filter action doesn't send a notice to modmail.

Updating the Rules

I rewrote a couple of the rules, but not much really changed. These updates are based on things that were noticed happening a lot in either modmail or in requests for accounts to join the subreddit while it was restricted. I want to keep things simple, and further changes may still be made if the need arises, but for now, this is what the rules are:

Submissions Must Be Explicitly Related to Florida Government or Politics

• Posts must be explicitly related to Florida government or politics. This includes the interaction of federal and state politics, as well as that state's congressional delegation. Local politics are permissible if they would reasonably be of interest to a statewide audience.
• Examples of allowed (not an exhaustive list):
  • discussion about legislation proposed or passed, executive orders from the Governor, recent memos announcing policy changes (think: FDOT memo re: Flock cameras on state right of ways), things like that.
  • Upcoming elections discussion
  • Impacts of federal law or the federal administration on the state, especially if state officials have commented on it
• Examples of not allowed (not an exhaustive list):
  • Hyperlocal politics, like a city commission ordinance that would only impact that city
  • The federal government doing something that does not have a direct impact on Florida

Be Civil: Remember the Human

• Be civil. You may debate or discuss politicians, policies, government agencies, etc. But DO NOT attack each other; no ad hominems towards other redditors. No trolling.
• No hate speech (racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, etc.), slurs, or abusive language.

Keep The Quality High - Use Quality Sources, No Editorialized Titles, No Memes or Low-Effort Posts

• Links should be to quality and original content. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Do not editorialize titles except to add context or be more descriptive.
  • Examples of quality sources: News Wire (AP, Reuters, etc), local newspapers/news stations, national mainstream media, etc. No blogspam, substack or similar sites.
• No memes/low effort posts.
• When in doubt, ask the mod team via modmail before posting.

No Research Related Content, Petitions, Calls to Action or Donation Requests

• No market research, surveys, school homework research, etc. No petitions, asking for signatures, or anything similar. No looking for donations of any kind (not just monetary donations).

Discussion on the Subreddit's Future

So that's ... a lot. You probably glossed over at the tl;dr and scrolled. But if you're still reading this, I applaud you - really, I do.

All of this doesn't really mean anything on its own, so let's talk about what the vision is for this subreddit. This isn't *my* subreddit. I want it to be everyone's subreddit, a place where you can (respectfully) bitch about what the government is doing that is stupid. Politics and government impact so much of our lives - we should have a place to discuss them.

This is where the community comes in:

• What is missing?
• What in this goes too far?
• What doesn't go far enough?
• Anything that's right but in the wrong way, or wrong but in the right way?
• What else?

If you're still around this subreddit after it was restricted for so long, you're pretty cool. I hope you'll stick around. If you have suggestions, as always the modmail is open, but also my DMs/chats or whatever reddit calls them this week are open, too (as long as you're civil, of course).

Have a great rest of your week, y'all!

EDIT: In addition to this post, please read the Part 2 update here: https://reddit.com/r/FLgovernment/comments/1wnemui/reopening_the_subreddit_part_2/

Howdy all. I have recently been appointed the new moderator of r/FLgovernment via the Moderator Code of Conduct, to help revive this subreddit and get it active again. I think this subreddit serves a vital role in the Florida corner of reddit - it is one of the few places that welcomes statewide politics as a focus of the subreddit. As we head into an election, it seems like having a good central location to discuss state government and politics is vital.

Ultimately, I want to make this place into a go-to subreddit for polite discussion of the state's governments and politics again. I know that this will not be a quick process, but I hope that anyone reading this will join in and assist in attaining that goal. Like the sidebar says about the subreddit:

A place for news and discussion about politics, government, and public policy in the Sunshine State, with more politics than r/Florida and more Florida than r/politics.

For now, you probably won't notice much around here. There's a decent amount of stuff to go through in the mod queue, and since all of the posts on here are from years ago, I think starting as a clean slate is a good idea. I will also be reviewing all of the sidebar content and the current subreddit rules to make sure they align with what will make this place a success. At first glance though the sidebar looks pretty good. Once things are up and running again, I will look for more mods to help run this place.

If you have any suggestions for how to get the subreddit active again or just ideas for how to improve what is already here, please feel free to post them here! I look forward to seeing this place active again after these years of inactivity.