ORLANDO, Fla. — More than two dozen Florida cities, towns and counties sued state leaders Monday over a new law that is widely viewed by local governments as an overreach.
The law, Senate Bill 180, was passed in the spring and widely advertised as an effort to help hurricane-weary homeowners rebuild without additional red tape, such as development moratoriums.
However, the text of the law changed on the final day to impose a two-year moratorium over every single Florida city and county. The law was also retroactively applied to August 2024, before Florida was hit by Hurricane Milton.
Local governments suddenly found themselves stopping work on new laws like tree ordinances, and in Orange County’s case, sued by developers who had seen their projects shot down, as elected representatives decried the law as a giveaway to special interests.
“Local governments have been very unhappy with preemptions… firearms and plastic bags and all the different preemptions over the years, but this one just went so far,” attorney Jamie Cole said. “This is the largest intrusion into home rule authority in the history of Florida.”
Cole spent weeks recruiting the governments to the fight even as state lawmakers who claimed they weren’t aware of the change promised to fix the law in the 2026 session.
Some governments didn’t require much prodding, while others held narrow votes.
“We are working on the problem. We do not need to sue the state and our governor to fix the problem,” Deltona Commissioner Emma Santiago said before she lost a 4-3 vote.
Cole said he could seek an injunction to block the law until a fix is made – or a judge rules in his favor.
“It’s something that just goes to the core of Home Rule authority and really needs to be remedied,” he said.
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