2026 LEGISLATIVE SESSION –

A TOTAL DISASTER

An Opinion By Jan Bergemann

Published March 17, 2026

(Disclaimer: Please apologize some of my language, but this session really made me angry -- and I learned this language after coming to the USA! Sorry!)

The 2026 Legislative session ended in a total disaster, House and Senate already closing shop early Friday afternoon, without even trying to cut some final deals on bills that might have helped Florida’s citizens.

Clearly at fault: The Florida Senate under the so-called “leadership” of Senator Ben Albritton. Sometimes I think that certain Senators figure that their “shit doesn’t stink”, especially if they are not up for re-election due to term-limits.

Don’t forget: Republicans have a super-majority in House and Senate, meaning that they should more or less pull on the same string. Nothing could be further from the truth during this session. They couldn’t even agree on the minimum required by law: A BUDGET!

More than 50% of Floridians live in some sort of community association, but the Senate killed all owner-friendly community association bills pushed by the House. The only exception: Community Development District Bill SB 1180 (FS 190), a bill that has mostly local impact. Not even "My Safe Florida Condominium Pilot Program" (SB 1706) made it to the finish line.

That’s especially remarkable considering that Senator Jennifer Bradley year for year pushed so-called Condo Safety Bills, causing many families to lose their homes due to the financial strains. Senator Bradley  always claimed that community association reforms are desperately needed.

This year she was obviously against any owner-friendly reforms, because she caused the big HOA Reform Bill (HB 657) to die. She may be up for election this November, but she runs unopposed in a district that doesn’t have many voters living in community associations. And Senate President Ben Albritton is out by term-limits, so he couldn’t care less about voters being mad at him.

And we all know that HB 657, filed by Representative JC Porras, was very owner-friendly and would have taken care of minimum three serious problems protecting homeowners. Latest after we saw an op-ed in the Miami Herald written by Donna Berger, an attorney of the Becker Law Firm (Becker & Poliakoff), we knew that this bill would have helped owners living in community associations. Since many years Donna Berger has been a strong opponent of any bill that could have been considered “friendly” to owners. Mostly she is opposing bills that would help associations and owners to save on legal bills, claiming that her ideas are good for associations.

If you want to punish legislators in the November elections, please don’t go after the House Representatives. They really tried hard to get things done this year. Go after some of the Senators, whose arrogant behavior caused many good bills to fail. They just wasted our taxpayers’ money with twiddling their thumbs for eight weeks!