Rick Scott

In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the United States government $631 million, plus interest, and $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims. In all, civil lawsuits cost HCA more than $2 billion to settle; at the time, this was the largest fraud settlement in U.S. history.

Crist hoped to draw strong support from Florida's more than 1.6 million registered black voters, an effort that was challenging given his previous political career as a Republican. A September 2014 Quinnipiac University poll revealed his support among black voters was 72%, well below the 90% analysts believed he needed to defeat Scott.

Scott and Crist met in an October 15 debate held by the Florida Press Association at Broward College. Scott refused to take the stage for seven minutes because Crist had a small electric fan under his lectern. The incident was dubbed "fangate" by media sources such as Politico. On November 4, 2014, Scott and Carlos Lopez-Cantera won the general election against Crist and Annette Taddeo-Goldstein by 64,000 votes. The Libertarian candidates, Adrian Wyllie and Greg Roe, received 223,356 votes.

In February 2025, Scott said that the suspected murderer of Brian Thompson should be sentenced to death if convicted, but also opened the possibility for a "legitimate" conversation about healthcare reform.

In the 2016 Republican primaries, Scott endorsed Trump after Trump won the Florida primary. Scott chaired a pro-Trump super PAC in the 2016 election. Unlike many other establishment Republicans, Scott praised Trump as tough on terrorism and as an outsider during the 2016 Republican convention.

When Trump "sparred with the Muslim father of a slain U.S. soldier", Scott said "I'm never going to agree with every candidate on what they're going to say". When the Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape was publicized, in which Trump spoke of grabbing women "by the pussy", Scott rebuked Trump, saying, "I'm not following politics closely right now, but this is terrible. I don't agree with anyone talking like this about anyone, ever."

In June 2011, Scott signed a bill requiring those seeking welfare under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to submit to drug screenings. Applicants who fail a drug test may name another person to receive benefits for their children.

In an interview with CNN host Don Lemon, Scott said, "Studies show that people that are on welfare are higher users of drugs than people not on welfare" and "the bottom line is, if they're not using drugs, it's not an issue". PolitiFact said this comment was "half true". Government researchers in 1999–2000 reported "that 9.6 percent of people in families receiving some type of government assistance reported recent drug use, compared to 6.8 percent among people in families receiving no government assistance at all."

Preliminary figures from Florida's program showed that 2.5% of applicants tested positive for drugs, with 2% declining to take the test, while the Justice Department estimated that around 6% of Americans use drugs overall. The law was declared unconstitutional, with the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upholding that ruling in December 2014. The Scott administration declined to appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court.

In Scott's 2010 gubernatorial campaign, he promised to "run the state like you run a business". In his gubernatorial platform, he pledged to create 700,000 jobs in the state; PolitiFact ruled in 2018 that Scott's job creation pledge was a "Promise Kept".

Under Scott, Florida's job creation far outpaced the rest of the nation, while wages were below-average and poverty rates were above-average. During his tenure as governor, Florida employers created nearly 1.5 million jobs, and the state's employment grew 20.3%, compared to 12.5% growth for the U.S. as a whole. Florida's household income is lower than the national average, with a widening gap. At 15.8%, the state's poverty rate is slightly above the national rate of 14.7%.

In his 2010 gubernatorial campaign, Scott vowed to expand school choice. PolitiFact rated this a "Promise Kept" due to Scott's push to expand school choice as governor. School choice legislation signed by Scott includes the creation of the Hope Scholarship Program, which subsidizes the cost of private school or allows a transfer to another public school for students who were bullied.

In December 2012, Scott announced a plan to encourage students to pursue majors in engineering and science by reducing tuition for some majors.

In 2016, Scott signed a bill allowing parents to pick any public school in the state for their children, regardless of traditional attendance lines or county boundaries.

In 2017, Scott signed a $419 million public school bill that included charter school expansion. The bill was supported by House Republicans, school choice proponents, and conservative political groups and it was opposed by superintendents, school boards, parent groups, and teachers unions.

During the summer of 2017, Scott signed a bill (HB 989 and SB 1210) that would allow any Florida resident to "challenge the use or adoption of instructional materials" in public schools. Proponents of the bill argued that it would allow parents to be more proactive in their child's education. Opponents of the bill argued that it would allow more censorship, especially for scientific topics like global warming and evolution.

Scott rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, saying "I'm not a scientist". The quote or paraphrases thereof became talking points for some Republican political candidates in the 2014 election campaigns.

When questioned by the press on March 9, 2015, in Hialeah, Florida, Scott did not say whether he believes global warming is a problem or whether Florida's Department of Environmental Protection has made or is making preparations for its potential consequences.

In March 2015, accusations were made that Scott's administration had instructed Department of Environmental Protection officials to avoid the terms "climate change" or "global warming" in official communications. Scott denied that his administration had banned the terms.

Scott cut $700 million from Florida's water management districts over his tenure as governor. The cuts stirred controversy in 2018 when Florida faced a water contamination crisis.

In 2017, Donald Hinkle, a Democratic activist and lawyer, filed a lawsuit claiming that Scott had not disclosed sufficient information about his wealth and holdings and may have underestimated his net worth. Scott appealed to a three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court granted a writ of prohibition barring the circuit judge from taking any further action in the case. The five-page ruling agreed with Scott that only the Commission on Ethics "has constitutional authority to investigate Mr. Hinkle's complaint."

As of February 2018, Scott had an A+ rating from the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF), indicating a record of supporting gun rights. The NRA-PVF endorsed Scott in 2010 and 2014, stating in 2014 that he had "signed more pro-gun bills into law–in one term–than any other governor in Florida history".

In 2011, Scott signed the Firearm Owners' Privacy Act (informally called "Docs vs. Glocks"), which made it illegal for doctors and mental health professionals to ask patients about their gun ownership unless they believed "that this information is relevant to the patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of others." Provisions of the law, including the part forbidding doctors from asking about a patient's gun ownership, were struck down as unconstitutional in 2017 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

On June 9, 2017, Scott signed an expanded version of Florida's stand-your-ground law into law.

In February 2018, after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, Scott stated his support for raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21; at the time of the shooting, 21 was the minimum age to buy a handgun, but rifles could be purchased at age 18. He also announced his support of a ban on bump stocks. Scott said, "I want to make it virtually impossible for anyone who has mental issues to use a gun", requesting $500 million in funds for mental health and school safety programs. In March 2018, the Florida Legislature passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which incorporated many of the measures Scott supported. It raised the minimum age for buying firearms to 21, established waiting periods and background checks, provided a program for the arming of some teachers and the hiring of school police, banned bump stocks, and barred potentially violent or mentally unhealthy people arrested under certain laws from possessing guns. In all, it allocated around $400 million. Scott signed the bill into law on March 9. That same day, the National Rifle Association filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the law's provision banning gun sales to people under 21. NRA spokesperson Marion Hammer said, "We filed a lawsuit against the state for violating the constitutional rights of 18- to 21-year-olds."

In 2022, Scott voted against the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a gun reform bill introduced following a deadly school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The bill enhanced background checks for firearm purchasers under the age of 21, provided funding for school-based mental health services, and partially closed the gun show loophole and boyfriend loophole.

Scott has been a harsh critic of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), but in his 2018 Senate campaign stopped harshly criticizing the bill. In 2017, he said that people with preexisting conditions should be protected. In June 2018, when the Trump administration sought to remove provisions of Obamacare protecting people with preexisting conditions, Scott declined to criticize the administration, saying he did not know enough about it to comment.

Scott has taken a number of positions on Medicaid expansion. For much of his first term as governor, he opposed Medicaid expansion in Florida, saying it was too costly. In 2013, he came out in support of Medicaid expansion, and reiterated his support in 2014 when he was up for reelection. After being reelected, Scott reversed his position and adamantly fought against efforts by the Florida Senate to pass Medicaid expansion in 2015. Scott rejected the Medicaid expansion because of his renewed fiscal concerns, saying it is "hard to understand how the state could take on even more federal programs." Scott voted against the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which allows Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.

Scott has been accused of having fueled an HIV epidemic while governor, by ensuring that Florida returned $54 million in unspent federal HIV-prevention grants and blocking $16 million in CDC grants to Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The effect of this rejection of federal funds combined with Scott's stance on Medicaid expansion has been described as "helping explain why the state's HIV epidemic became almost peerlessly severe during Scott's time in office", with the state accounting for 13% of the country's HIV diagnoses in 2017. Scott has opposed most federal grants due to his fiscal conservatism.

Scott's handling of Hurricane Irma boosted his profile in advance of his U.S. Senate campaign, with The Hill writing that his "aggressive approach to Irma, which saw him order an extensive evacuation ahead of the storm and coordinate disaster relief efforts as the storm came ashore, has sent his political stock even higher".

An investigation by WFOR-TV found that after Hurricane Irma, Scott ignored existing debris removal contracts and instead issued emergency contracts for hurricane clean-up efforts. Florida state officials sent an email to several companies on September 11 inviting them to hand in bids for debris clean-up by the next day. State officials believed new contracts were needed to speed up the removal process given the severity of Hurricane Irma. On September 13, state officials decided to use the services of MCM and Community Asphalt, firms owned by contributors to the Republican Party and Scott's campaigns. According to the television station, the emergency contracts cost $28 to $30 million more than the existing contracts.

In 2010, Scott ran for governor as an immigration hard-liner. At the time, he favored similar laws as Arizona's controversial Arizona SB 1070 which targeted illegal immigrants, and criticized Florida lawmakers for not being tougher on illegal immigrants. Scott called for police to check individuals' immigration status. By 2014, PolitiFact wrote that Scott had "abandoned promises to get tough on illegal immigration." Over time, he moderated his views on immigration.

In 2011, Scott opposed giving in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, but reversed course in 2014 and signed a bill giving DREAMers in-state tuition in an effort to place limits on how much state institutions can raise tuition each year. In 2013, Scott vetoed legislation that would have given DACA-eligible immigrants the ability to obtain temporary driving licenses. By 2018, he spoke in favor of giving DREAMers a path to citizenship.

In June 2018, Scott opposed the Trump administration family separation policy, which involved separating children from their parents, relatives, or other adults who accompanied them in crossing the border, sending the parents to federal jails and placing children and infants under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In a letter to United States secretary of health and human services Alex Azar, Scott wrote: "I have been very clear that I absolutely do not agree with the practice of separating children from their families. This practice needs to stop now."

Scott's administration awarded Comprehensive Health Services, Inc. (CHSi) a tax incentive package of $600,000 to expand in Cape Canaveral, Florida. CHSi runs the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children which detains minor migrants, including those separated from families at the border.

In 2022, Scott voted against the Respect for Marriage Act.

After voters approved a constitutional amendment to legalize medical marijuana, Scott signed a bill passed by the legislature which allowed the use of medical marijuana but not smokeable medical marijuana. A judge ruled the ban on smokeable medical marijuana unconstitutional. Scott appealed the decision.

On September 3, 2020, the Tampa Bay Times released an investigative report into Scott-appointed Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco's "predictive policing" program, which relies on unproven algorithms. The program is designed to use counter-terrorism and other military "intelligence" tactics to prevent property damage. Nocco was a Republican insider with limited law enforcement experience at the time he was appointed by Scott, in 2011.

In the 2010 elections, Florida voters passed constitutional amendments banning gerrymandering of congressional and legislative districts. In February 2011, Scott withdrew a request to the United States Department of Justice to approve these amendments, which, according to The Miami Herald, might delay the implementation of the redistricting plan because the Voting Rights Act requires preclearance of state laws likely to affect minority representation. Scott said he wanted to make sure the redistricting was carried out properly.

Several advocacy groups sued Scott in federal court to compel him to resubmit the acts to the Justice Department.

On February 16, 2011, Scott rejected $2.3 billion in federal funding to develop high-speed rail between Tampa and Orlando. He cited California's experience with high-speed rail, namely much lower than expected ridership and cost overruns that doubled the final price. In response, a veto-proof majority in the Florida Senate approved a letter rebuking Scott and asking the Department of Transportation to continue funding. On March 1, 2011, two Florida state senators filed a petition with the Florida Supreme Court to compel Scott to accept the rail funds on the grounds that he lacked constitutional authority to reject funds that had been approved by a prior legislature. On March 4, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Scott's rejection of the rail funds did not violate the Constitution of Florida.

In March 2011, Scott moved to have the Florida Department of Transportation amend its work plan to include $77 million for dredging PortMiami to a depth of 50 feet. Once the port is dredged, Panamax-sized vessels coming through the expanded Panama Canal could load and unload cargo there.

In 2018, Scott reversed course and supported a high-speed rail project between Tampa and Orlando when the company All Aboard Florida sought to get taxpayer-backed funding from state and federal governments. He argued that new budget surpluses following the recession could help fund the project. Scott and his wife had invested at least $3 million in the parent company of All Aboard Florida, which had made donations to Scott's political campaigns.

Scott frequently sought to implement voter IDs as governor, with numerous courts ruling against him in voting rights cases. He signed into law bills that created barriers to registering new voters, limited early voting, ended early voting on the Sunday before Election Day (known as "souls to the polls" in African-American churches), and restricted the ability of ex-felons to restore their voting rights. In 2012, Scott attempted to purge non-citizens from voter rolls just before the election; a court stopped him from doing so, and it was revealed that legitimate voters were on the voter rolls. The Tampa Bay Times noted that under Scott's tenure, Florida had the longest voting lines of any state in the 2012 election. After harsh criticism, he expanded early voting hours, and allowed early voting on the Sunday before Election Day. Florida's then Secretary of State Ken Detzner later remarked the voter roll purge "should" and "could" have been better.

In 2016, Scott refused to extend registration deadlines after ordering evacuations due to Hurricane Matthew; courts ultimately extended the deadline. He signed legislation into law that rejected mail ballots where signatures on the ballot envelope did not match signatures in files; in 2016 a court struck down the law. In 2014, Scott blocked a request by the city of Gainesville to use a facility at the University of Florida as a site for early voting. In July 2018, a judge ruled against Scott's prohibition of early voting on campus, saying the ban showed a "stark pattern of discrimination." In 2013, Scott ordered Pinellas County to close down sites where voters could submit mail ballots. In 2012, a court ruled that Scott could not place heavy fines on groups that registered voters but failed to submit the registrations within 48 hours.

Scott rolled back automatic restoration of rights for nonviolent crimes, giving former felons a five- to six-year waiting period before they can apply for a restoration of voting rights. Of the approximately 30,000 applications from former felons to have their voting rights restored during his tenure, Scott approved approximately 3,000. A 2018 investigation by the Palm Beach Post found that during his governorship, Scott restored the voting rights of three times as many white men as black men, and that blacks accounted only for 27% of those granted voting rights despite blacks being 43% of those released from state prisons in the past 20 years. The percentage of blacks among those whose voting rights were restored was the lowest in more than 50 years, and Scott restored a higher share of Republican voting rights than Democratic voting rights than in almost 50 years. A clemency board set up by Scott held hearings on applications, but there were no standards on how to judge the worthiness of individual applications. In March 2017, seven former felons filed a class action lawsuit arguing that the clemency board's decisions were inconsistent, vague and political.

In February 2018, a U.S. District Court described Scott's process as arbitrary and unconstitutional, and ruled that he had to create a new process to restore felons' voting rights. The ruling said that Scott and his clemency board had "unfettered discretion" to deny voting rights "for any reason," and that "to vote again, disenfranchised citizens must kowtow before a panel of high-level government officials over which Florida's governor has absolute veto authority. No standards guide the panel. Its members alone must be satisfied that these citizens deserve restoration." The Brennan Center for Justice described the clemency rules issued by Scott in 2011 as among the most restrictive in the country.

In March 2021, Scott voted against the American Rescue Plan Act; after it passed, he called upon Florida and other states to reject federal assistance from the package.

In May 2021, Scott voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

On March 10, 2022, Scott was one of 31 Republicans to vote against a $1.5 trillion spending bill that included $13.6 billion in military assistance for Ukraine's defense, arguing that it was filled with lawmakers' "pet" projects. On March 17, he was one of more than two dozen Senate Republicans who demanded that President Biden send Ukraine more support.

Scott supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, saying that Roe v. Wade was "flawed legal reasoning" and that the Supreme Court had defended "human dignity" and federalism.

In August 2022, Scott published an open letter encouraging job seekers not to apply for newly funded positions at the IRS, vowing that Republicans, if they took control of Congress in January 2023, would quickly "defund" those jobs. The letter to job seekers included the statement, "The IRS is making it very clear that you not only need to be ready to audit and investigate your fellow hardworking Americans, your neighbors and friends, you need to be ready and, to use the IRS's words, willing, to kill them."

In August 2022, Business Insider found that Scott had violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012, a federal transparency and conflict-of-interest law that requires members of Congress to report certain types of financial transactions within 45 days, after Scott and his wife sold stock in Emida Corporation worth up to $450,000 in September 2021 and Scott did not report it until August 2022.

On November 14, 2022, Scott announced he would attempt to challenge incumbent Mitch McConnell for the position of Senate Minority Leader in the 118th United States Congress, the first challenge McConnell had faced for the position since winning it in 2006. Scott said, "the status quo is broken and big change is needed" and that Senate Republican leadership needed "to listen to [Republican voters'] calls for action and start governing in Washington like we campaign back at home", in the wake of the party's failure to gain Senate seats in that year's elections. Scott received 10 votes to McConnell's 37, with one senator voting "present". The vote was held by secret ballot; senators who publicly confirmed voting for Scott included Mike Braun, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, and Lindsey Graham.

In March 2023, Scott voted against repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) in Iraq.

Scott was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

Notable Senate bills that Scott has sponsored or co-sponsored include the Sunshine Protection Act, which makes daylight saving time in the United States permanent; the PROTECT Kids Act, which cuts federal funding to schools that allow students to change their preferred pronouns and keep their sexual orientation from their parents; the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022; and the END FENTANYL Act. Scott also expressed support for "automatic" capital punishment of school shooters in the wake of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville.

In January 2024, Scott voted against a resolution proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders that would have applied the human rights provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act to U.S. military aid to Israel. The proposal was defeated, 72 to 11.

On February 22, 2022, Scott released his controversial 11-Point Plan to Rescue America in response to Democratic criticism that Republicans were unwilling to provide any kind of agenda should they win the House and/or Senate that year. Particularly singled out were a proposal that would force all Americans to pay at least some income tax "to have skin in the game" and one that would make all federal legislation sunset within five years. While the latter proposal did not mention any specific legislation, Social Security and Medicare were singled out elsewhere as programs that could be affected. Other proposals in the plan included closing the United States Department of Education, punishing universities that practice affirmative action, stripping all funding from sanctuary cities, completing the Mexico–United States border wall, reducing the size of the federal government and its workforce, mandatory voter ID, increasing police funding and law and order policies, mandating the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, allowing legal action against social media platforms for deplatforming, banning transgender women from participating in women's sports, banning the supposed teaching of critical race theory, expanding religious freedom, and various attacks on "wokeness" and diversity training.

Democrats, including President Biden, strongly attacked the plan. The Republican response was mixed. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized the provisions on income tax and sunsetting federal legislation, and Senator John Cornyn said the plan "is not an approach embraced by the entire Republican conference" and not something that should be focused on until after the election. Senator Ron Johnson said he supported Scott for releasing his platform and agreed with most of it. Senators Mike Braun and Tommy Tuberville also praised the platform.

On June 8, 2022, Scott released a revision of the plan that replaced the income tax proposal with a proposal not to provide government assistance to "able-bodied Americans under 60 [without] young children or incapacitated dependents" who are not working. He also added a 12th point containing various tax proposals and clarifying that the plan "cuts taxes", in response to Biden's criticisms of his income tax proposal.

After the November 2024 U.S. elections, in which Republicans carried the Senate, Scott was one of three announced candidates to be the next Senate Majority Leader in a race to replace the retiring Mitch McConnell. The others were John Thune and John Cornyn. Senator Mike Lee hosted a candidate forum on November 12. The election was held on November 13 by secret ballot. Scott was eliminated on the first ballot with 13 votes, and Thune won on the second with 29.