Our Platform
James Fishback’s platform represents a bold conservative agenda to preserve Governor DeSantis’ wins and to protect Florida for the next generation.
You didn’t vote for data centers, but they are being built in every corner of our state, turning Florida farmland into a dystopian wasteland. Data centers raise electric bills, jeopardize our water supply, and crater property values in surrounding communities. They consume enormous amounts of land, water, and power, and Floridians get nothing in return.
As Governor, James Fishback will not reform data centers. He will not regulate them. He will ban them in all 67 counties by preventing county commissions from approving them in the first place. It is called statewide preemption, and Fishback will get it done to protect Florida’s land, water, and electric bills from an industry that takes everything and gives nothing back.
Home Ownership
In America, you deserve to own your home free and clear without paying rent to the government forever. That’s why as Governor, Fishback will build on Governor DeSantis’s efforts and eliminate property taxes once and for all.
To be clear: he won’t eliminate them for Airbnb owners, snowbirds, or the $100 million Palm Beach estates of Mark Zuckerberg and George Soros. He’s eliminating property taxes for Florida residents on their homesteaded properties only, and he’ll do it without compromising funding for essential services like police, fire, and our public schools.
Here’s the math.
Local governments statewide are collecting 76% more in property taxes today than just five years ago. What do they have to show for it? Are your roads 76% better? Are your schools 76% better? Are your teachers, cops, and firefighters being paid 76% more?
Of course not.
Local governments statewide are collecting $20 billion more in property taxes than they were just five years ago. Fishback will work with local governments to get their spending back to 2021 levels, freeing up that $20 billion. Eliminating property taxes for Florida residents on homesteaded properties costs $18 billion in lost revenue, which is more than covered by the $20 billion in savings.
As a businessman, Fishback knows how to walk and chew gum at the same time: cut your taxes and fully fund our police, fire, and schools.
Homes are for people, not corporations. It is just wrong that private equity firms can buy up homes all over Florida and rent them back to Floridians at an inflated price.
Is it a coincidence that it’s nearly impossible for young couples to buy a home while private equity firms are purchasing thousands of homes in Florida every month?
Private equity firms now own over 117,000 homes in our state. That’s 117,000 homes that could go to you, your kids, or your grandkids, but instead they’re sitting on the balance sheet of Blackstone and BlackRock. These homes will never be for sale again. Private equity has decided to rent them back to us at inflated prices, denying Floridians the chance to own a home and do all the things that come with it: getting married, having kids, and living out the American dream.
As Governor, James Fishback will ban private equity firms from buying and hoarding Florida homes. And for the 117,000 homes they already own, he will mandate divestment over a five-year period.
Florida homes are for Floridians, not Wall Street.
Insurance in Florida is expensive for four reasons: hurricane and flooding risk, rampant fraud, lack of competition, and corporate insurance company abuse. Governor Fishback has a plan to tackle all four.
Flooding. Fishback can’t stop hurricanes, but he can reduce the damage they cause. He will invest $1 billion in drainage infrastructure across all 67 counties. Better storm drainage means less flooding, less flooding means fewer claims, and fewer claims means lower premiums for you.
Fraud. Florida is the insurance fraud capital of the country. Predatory contractors and assignment-of-benefits abuse cost the industry billions, and insurance companies pass every dollar of those losses on to you. Governor Fishback will appoint a statewide insurance fraud task force to prosecute bad actors. You should not be paying higher premiums because someone else committed fraud. That ends under Governor Fishback.
Competition. Largely because of hurricanes and fraud, insurance companies have been leaving Florida for years. Fewer competitors means the ones that remain can charge whatever they want. Governor Fishback will meet with the CEOs of the largest insurance companies in America in his first week in office to communicate the reforms he is making and invite them back to compete for your business. More competition means lower premiums.
Greed. Insurance premiums should reflect supply and demand. Instead, insurance companies often charge above-market rates knowing you have no choice but to pay. Then, after years of collecting your premiums, they deny your claim without cause when a hurricane hits. Governor Fishback will establish a no-cost legal advisory service for Floridians to fight back against wrongful claim denials and hold insurance companies accountable.
Homeowners and condo owners should not have to pay exorbitant monthly fees with no transparency or accountability. Across Florida, HOA and condo association boards are operating like little fiefdoms, raising fees without explanation, hiring vendors without competitive bids, and stonewalling residents who ask basic questions about where their money is going.
Floridians are paying hundreds (sometimes thousands of dollars) a month to these associations with no idea what they’re getting for it. As Governor, James Fishback will bring full transparency and accountability to HOA and condo associations by requiring them to publish itemized budgets, open their books to residents on demand, and face criminal consequences for self-dealing and financial mismanagement. If you’re paying the bill, you deserve to see exactly where every dollar goes.
Young couples are at risk of missing out on the chance to buy a home, start a family, and have kids. As Governor, James Fishback will extend a one-time, zero-interest $10,000 loan to young married couples who meet the following criteria: at least one spouse graduated from a Florida high school, at least one spouse is working full-time, and neither has relied on government welfare in the past year.
For qualified couples, this loan could be the difference between owning a home and never getting the chance, between starting a family and putting it off indefinitely.
Florida should be a place where a young couple who works hard, plays by the rules, and puts down roots can actually afford to buy a home, raise children, and live the American Dream. Governor Fishback will fight to make sure they can.
Law & Order
Law enforcement officers risk it all to arrest the bad guys and keep us safe, and corrections officers do the same. They deserve a Governor who will always have their back. As Governor, Fishback will fight to raise their pay, protect their benefits, and defend them against the activists who baselessly undermine and attack their sacrifices.
That starts with fixing their retirement. FRS pensions currently have no cost-of-living adjustment, which means an officer retiring today will be collecting the exact same check twenty years from now while the cost of everything keeps climbing. Governor Fishback will restore a COLA to FRS pensions for law enforcement and correctional officers so their retirement actually keeps pace with their life.
He will also lower the retirement eligibility threshold from 25 years to 20. These are physically and mentally demanding careers that take a real toll. Twenty years of protecting and serving Florida is more than enough to earn a full retirement.
In his first year, Governor Fishback will visit every correctional institution in the state and meet with officers in all 67 counties to thank them personally and see firsthand what they face every day. Florida’s law enforcement and correctional officers are the thin line between order and chaos. Like under Governor DeSantis, law enforcement will always have an ally in Governor Fishback.
28,000 Floridians will sleep on the street tonight. Each has a name, a story, a past, and a future worth fighting for. But real compassion is not free needles, encampments under highways, or looking the other way while people in desperate need of psychiatric care are left to deteriorate in public parks. That is not compassion. That is neglect with a bumper sticker on it.
No one should live on our streets, for their sake or ours. A disabled veteran should not be sleeping in his own filth under an overpass. Your kids should not have to walk past a man with a knife to get to school. Our parks and sidewalks belong to everyone, and every Floridian deserves to use them without fear.
As Governor, James Fishback will surge state resources to get Florida’s homeless population off the streets and into the structure, care, and treatment they actually need. We owe them real help, not a campsite.
Mobs of teenagers storming malls, streets, and public spaces, attacking bystanders and destroying property, is not a youthful rite of passage. It is a crime, and it will be treated like one.
As Governor, James Fishback will end teen takeovers with three clear consequences:
– Any participant will be charged with felony rioting.
– Minors will be charged as adults.
– Parents will be held financially accountable, with a $5,000 fine for their child’s conduct.
If local law enforcement needs backup, Governor Fishback will activate the Florida National Guard to restore order and keep Floridians safe.
The era of consequences-free mob behavior ends on day one.
Prosecutors have one job: charge the bad guys so they go to prison and we are safe. Soros-backed prosecutors have a different agenda. They prioritize the feelings of the criminal over justice for the victim, offering sweetheart plea deals and dropping charges entirely in the name of equity and compassion. There is nothing compassionate about letting sexual predators walk free or giving cop killers a get-out-of-jail card.
As Governor, James Fishback will use his constitutional authority under Article IV, Section 7 of the Florida Constitution to remove any prosecutor who refuses to follow the law and put criminals away. Floridians deserve prosecutors who work for them, not for George Soros.
More than 1,900 companies in Florida are using H-1B visas to fire qualified American workers and replace them with cheaper foreign workers. They do it because foreign workers cost less and come with lower tax burdens. It is widespread, it is wrong, and it will end under Governor Fishback.
Recent Florida college graduates studied hard, took on debt, earned a valuable degree, and entered the job market only to find that the position they applied for was never open to American citizens in the first place. That is a betrayal of every young Floridian who did everything right.
As Governor, James Fishback will end the H-1B scam by imposing a dynamic, annually recurring fine on any company that displaces a qualified Florida worker through the H-1B program. The fine will be structured to completely eliminate any cost savings a company gains from choosing a foreign worker over a Floridian, making H-1B abuse economically pointless. Jobs in Florida should go to Floridians first, and under Governor Fishback, they will.
James Fishback recognizes what too few establishment Republicans are willing to say: life begins at conception and abortion is murder. As Governor, he will build on Governor DeSantis’s work and go further.
Fishback will shut down the 53 abortion clinics that remain in Florida and replace every single one with a crisis pregnancy center. These centers will offer ultrasounds, baby food, diapers, counseling, and prenatal and postpartum care. Abortion is never the answer. Every expecting mom in Florida deserves compassionate care and loving support.
For working moms, Fishback will fight to establish paid maternity leave so that no woman ever has to choose between her newborn and her paycheck. Welcoming a child into the world is one of the most important things a family can do. Florida should make it possible, not punishing.
Small businesses are the backbone of Florida’s economy and the fulfillment of the American Dream. Governor Fishback will be their biggest champion in Tallahassee.
Small Business Commissioner. Fishback will appoint a dedicated Small Business Commissioner whose sole job is to advocate for Florida’s small business owners inside state government, cut through bureaucratic red tape on their behalf, and ensure that every new regulation is reviewed for its impact on small businesses before it takes effect.
Eliminate Startup Fees and Pointless Regulation. Starting a business in Florida should not require a law degree and a filing fee for every form. Fishback will conduct a top-to-bottom review of every fee, license requirement, and regulation that small business owners face at startup and eliminate every one that does not serve a clear and legitimate public purpose. If a regulation exists to protect a large incumbent from competition rather than to protect the public, it goes.
Small Business Incubators at High Schools and Public Colleges. The next generation of Florida entrepreneurs should not have to wait until after graduation to start building. Fishback will establish small business incubator programs at Florida high schools and public colleges, giving young Floridians access to mentorship, seed resources, and real-world business experience before they ever enter the workforce. The goal is simple: keep Florida’s best and brightest in Florida, building businesses, creating jobs, and investing in their communities.
K-12 Education
Florida ranks dead last in teacher pay among all 50 states. That has to change.
As Governor, James Fishback will fight to raise teacher pay by 25%. Raising teacher pay is good for teachers, but it is also good for students: a top driver of student success is teacher quality, and the best way to recruit and retain great teachers is to pay them what they are worth.
In exchange for the raise, Fishback will ask teachers to attend monthly paid seminars led by top experts in their fields, covering new teaching methods and better ways to engage students. And he has one non-negotiable rule: leave the one-sided politics at home. Students are best served by teachers who present all perspectives, foster open debate, and make truth the focus of the classroom.
School choice means that if a public school is not the right fit for a child, parents can move them to a charter school, private school, or homeschool, and take their education dollars with them. Governor DeSantis fought to make Florida the school choice capital of America. As Governor, Fishback will preserve and expand that legacy.
He will do that by continuing and strengthening the Step Up program, increasing funding over time until it matches dollar-for-dollar what a student would have received in the public school system. He will also improve the homeschool marketplace and streamline the approval process for homeschool purchases, so families who choose to educate their children at home can do so without bureaucratic delay.
Every child deserves a great education. Parents, not bureaucrats, should decide where that happens.
Homeschool families are doing something remarkable, and they deserve a Governor who treats them like the pioneers they are rather than an afterthought in the education system.
As Governor, Fishback will appoint the first Homeschool Commissioner in the country within the Florida Department of Education. This commissioner will serve as a dedicated advocate and resource hub for homeschool families statewide, connecting them with free materials, expert training, and a network of fellow homeschool parents to share wisdom and support.
Fishback will also eliminate the bureaucratic red tape that currently prevents homeschool students from participating in clubs and sports at their local public high school. A child should not be locked out of the tennis team or the debate club simply because their classroom is at the kitchen table. Homeschool families pay taxes too, and their kids deserve access to same opportunities as any student in Florida.
James Fishback is a business owner and a fiscal conservative. He knows that if you are going to invest in hurricane preparedness, fund pro-life pregnancy centers, fill potholes, make public schools world class, and pay cops, firefighters, and teachers more, you have to secure the funding. Here is how Fishback does it:
Statewide Tourism Fund. Florida welcomes 140 million tourists a year. A modest $50 surcharge collected across hotel stays, car rentals, theme park tickets, airports, and cruise ports generates approximately $7 billion in new annual revenue. Not a single dollar comes from Florida residents. This fund will pay for hurricane preparedness and infrastructure, essential worker pay increases, and pro-life pregnancy centers across the state.
DOGE Florida. Fishback will conduct a full audit of local and state government spending to eliminate waste, redundancy, and bloat. He will uncover billions being wasted, cut it, and redirect the savings to more productive use.
The Mamdani Tax. A $50,000 property transaction tax on out-of-state buyers purchasing vacation homes in Florida. Floridians should not be competing with wealthy out-of-staters driving up home prices in their own backyard. Revenue from this tax is dedicated exclusively to funding firefighters, paramedics, and nurses.
The Zuckerbucks Tax. This year, Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire CEO of Facebook, bought a $170 million waterfront megamansion in Miami. A 5% tax on any residential property sale above $100 million means Zuckerberg’s purchase alone would have generated $8.5 million for Florida police officers. Billionaires parking their wealth in Palm Beach and Miami mega-estates can contribute something back to the brave law enforcement officers that protect them. Revenue from this tax is dedicated exclusively to police officer pay.
Defend the Constitution
Florida must be the freest state in America for speech, debate, and the open exchange of ideas. That means protecting students who are punished for their views on campus, cracking down on government officials that collude with tech companies to suppress lawful speech, and ensuring that no Floridian loses their job or their license for protected constitutional speech.
In recent years, there has been a push to even punish speech critical of foreign governments.
Our First Amendment rights are non-negotiable. Governor Fishback will defend them without apology.
The Second Amendment is not a suggestion or a recommendation. It is a God-given right that the government cannot infringe upon.
As Governor, Fishback would eliminate unconstitutional Red Flag Laws, end the war on suppressors, bump stocks, and FRTs, and repeal the 2018 gun control bill that made it illegal for 18, 19, and 20-year-olds to purchase a firearm.
Fishback will unapologetically defend our Second Amendment rights.
Across Florida, local governments are quietly building surveillance infrastructure that would have been unimaginable a generation ago. Flock Safety cameras are tracking the movements of law-abiding citizens on public roads. Palantir software is aggregating data on Floridians without their knowledge or consent.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches. A government that tracks where you drive, where you worship, and who you associate with is not keeping you safe. It is building a file on you. Governor Fishback will pull the plug on Flock cameras in Florida and stop all local and state contracts with Palantir.
The federal government has spent decades accumulating power that was never meant to be theirs. The Tenth Amendment is clear: powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states and to the people. As Governor, Fishback will push back against federal overreach at every turn, refuse unconstitutional mandates, and fight to return power to Floridians where it belongs.
