Nocatee, Florida — Governor Ron DeSantis has vetoed nine bills that reached his desk from the 2026 legislative session, releasing written explanations for each rejection. The vetoes come alongside the more than 200 new laws he approved this year, most of which took effect at the start of July.
The most widely discussed veto concerned electric bicycles. Senate Bill 382 would have barred e-bike riders from exceeding 10 miles per hour within 50 feet of a pedestrian and would have treated violators as committing a nonmoving traffic offense subject to fines above $100. DeSantis wrote that the standard would be hard for a rider to gauge while operating safely, and argued the measure could prompt local governments to deploy speed-detection and surveillance devices. The bill also would have created a Micromobility Device Safety Task Force with no expiration date.
Another veto targeted House Bill 5403-E, which linked pay increases for correctional officers to the construction of a new prison hospital financed with borrowed money. The governor said he would not hold officer pay hostage to new borrowing, noting that Florida has reduced its outstanding debt from roughly $17.5 billion to $8.7 billion since 2018. He said his budget recommendations had already proposed nearly $374 million in correctional-officer raises without the debt provision.
House Bill 325, on inmate development, would have required state correctional facilities to train prisoners for Class A and Class B commercial driver's licenses and would have allowed incarcerated people to operate state vehicles outside prison fences under officer supervision. DeSantis called the program an unnecessary burden on Department of Corrections staff and a public-safety risk. He also rejected House Bill 145, which would have raised the damage caps in lawsuits against local governments; House Bill 461, on high school poll volunteers; and Senate Bill 688, which would have licensed naturopathic medicine in the state.
