Rep. David Smith

A legal aid society, and two iconic affinity bar associations stand to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars as House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Miami attorney, weighs whether to restore funding that Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed from the current $116.5 billion budget.

Sponsors of projects benefitting Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida, the Virgil Hawkins Chapter of the National Bar Association, and the Cuban American Bar Association, pushed them to the top of a list of 51 justice-related spending projects that last year landed on the governor’s veto list — and that the “House Combined Workgroup on Vetoed Justice Services Budget Issues” reviewed this week for a potential override.