Push for USF addiction center creates a war of words between Florida House and Senate

Romy Ellenbogen, Miami Herald on Apr 30, 2025

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A tribute from Florida‘s senators made in honor of longtime Tampa Bay politician Sen. Darryl Rouson has morphed into a fight with the Florida House — one that could affect this year’s Florida‘s budget.

“We will make it right,” said Sen. Ed Hooper, the Senate’s appropriations chairperson. “Or else.”

Rouson, the Democratic lawmaker who must leave office due to term limits in 2026, has been open about his struggle with substance use disorder and his many years in recovery.

This year, Rouson filed a bill to implement several proposals from the Florida Commission on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder, on which he serves.

His bill also proposed creating a center at the University of South Florida to study the links between substance use disorder and mental health issues. The Senate proposed allocating $5 million for the center’s work, and state senators honored Rouson with a proposal to name the center after him.

All of them cosponsored the amendment to name the center after Rouson, and many gave speeches applauding Rouson for his advocacy and long career in the Legislature.

But the House stripped the Darryl E. Rouson Center out of the bill when the Senate sent its language over.

The language creating the center wasn’t in the House legislation, and Rep. Christine Hunschofsky , D-Parkland, told lawmakers that it was “not one of the recommendations” from the commission. Hunschofsky is also on the commission with Rouson.

The House’s decision caused an unusual, impassioned display from lawmakers of both parties on the Senate floor. Some senators appeared to be crying.

“It’s not right, it’s not fair, it’s not appropriate and it really isn’t acceptable,” said Sen. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, of the House’s proposal.

Hunschofsky did not immediately responded to a request for comment, but posted on social media saying that “just because people say something passionately and loudly, doesn’t mean it is true.”

Rouson said while he was touched by Senators’ gesture, and while he thought creating the center was important, he said it was “more important that the work continue.” He moved to accept the House’s proposal.

But Senators delayed taking a vote after after multiple lawmakers suggested that they didn’t think the House language was acceptable, leaving the issue hanging with just two days left in the session.

Senators’ frustration with the House proposal seemed to spill beyond Rouson’s specific bill. Hooper brought up the ongoing negotiations between the House and Senate over a budget, which will not be completed in time.

“This is what we deal with,” Hooper said.

Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, also said she was “really glad that in a year and a half we’re gonna have another speaker who will hopefully support the naming of the program after you.”

House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, fired back at the Senate, saying in a statement that while he would be happy to work with the senators to honor Rouson, their idea “created a backdoor appropriations project,” despite the House’s wishes.

“But the action of the Senate today to name a center after Sen. Rouson as a means of emotionally blackmailing the House into doing what they want is unconscionable,” Perez said. “The comments of ‘or else’ were a threat to the Florida House and beneath the dignity of the Florida Senate.”

Perez said Senators should direct their rightful outrage to their own chamber, who created the “backdoor” project and “used the good Senator’s legacy to do so.”

Senate President Ben Albritton has been diplomatic about the Senate’s relationship with the House and his relationship with Perez, even as Perez has more vocally denounced the Senate’s spending plan.

Albritton has also largely avoided commenting on the House’s actions this year under Perez. House members have criticized the Gov. Ron DeSantis administration’s spending, grilled executive agency heads and investigated one of his wife’s key initiatives, Hope Florida.

But the uproar over the Rouson Center shows that the Senate and House relationship may be on more unsteady ground than leaders have let on.

DeSantis, who has for weeks denounced the House, took to social media to weigh in on the chamber’s fight over the Rouson center, saying it was “the Florida House of Pettiness in all its glory.”

First lady Casey DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier, a close ally of DeSantis who has also been targeted by a House member over his role in the Hope Florida Foundation, also commented, commending Rouson.

It’s unclear what will happen with the bill moving forward. If the House and Senate refuse to agree on language around the center, the bill’s other proposals would also be dead for the year.

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