House Speaker Daniel Perez says bills on artificial intelligence and eliminating vaccine mandates for students are dead in the House, putting a halt to the legislation. 

That defies the wishes of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who put pressure on the Legislature to pass his agenda items during a Special Session this week. But Perez said no bills have been filed by the House as the lower chamber quickly convened on the first day of the Special Session.

DeSantis immediately attacked the House on X.

“Voters elected Republicans to protect freedom against both the Big Tech cartel and the medical industrial complex. Yet, when given the chance to deliver for their constituents, not a single Republican House member could even be bothered to file a bill. Typical political shenanigans,” the Governor said.

As for the redistricting map DeSantis is seeking, the House will convene Wednesday morning to take up that issue on the House floor, which was the original focus of the Session.

“It is my expectation that once we have completed our vote, our work here will be finished, and all of you will be free to return home tomorrow afternoon,” Perez told lawmakers on the House floor.

Perez and House Republicans have clashed with DeSantis for months as the House has asserted itself to challenge the Governor and take a more independent role.

Obliging to DeSantis, Senators filed bills to create an AI bill of rights and to allow parents to opt out of vaccines for polio and other childhood diseases for the Special Session.

In explaining the House’s moves to reporters, Perez pointed out that both the AI bills and the vaccine mandate removal had previously failed during the Regular Session — both passed in the Senate before dying in the House.

“We were fairly clear on our position during Session and neither of these bills moved through the House and the Committee process,” Perez said Tuesday.

Florida has required public schoolchildren to get vaccinated for polio, chicken pox and other childhood diseases for decades, Perez said. 

On the bill to eliminate those vaccine requirements, “that was something that I was uncomfortable with,” Perez said.

The controversial DeSantis-appointed Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo had been pushing for Florida to become the first state in the country to end all vaccine requirements.

“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” said Ladapo about vaccine mandates at a press conference last year with DeSantis. “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body? I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift for God.”

The other bill DeSantis was pushing for was an AI bill of rights to protect consumers and children that would have beefed up parental controls, required AI platforms to regularly disclose that the technology is AI, and more.

“On the AI issue, I understand the Governor’s concern of wanting to protect children. We want to protect children too. He is not wrong for wanting that,” Perez told journalists Tuesday.

“But we have seen very clearly the President of the United States issued an executive order stating that the federal government should take handle of the AI policies of this country, that this is a national security concern, that this is bigger than just one state or one part of the country.”

House lawmakers previously praised Perez for helping the House regain its independence.

“The legacy of most presiding officers is roads or buildings being named after you, budget priorities or policy initiatives — none of that will be your legacy,” Rep. Lawrence McClure said to Perez during his goodbye during the Regular Session last month. “It will be instead that you just stared this whole place, this whole process in the eye and challenged it to be better every single day.”

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