The showdown over the budget impasse in the Florida Legislature may be heading to the courts.
Just one day after the Florida House of Representatives called it quits for the session over the budget impasse with the Florida Senate, the Senate says they're considering legal action their colleagues across the rotunda.
The House adjourned as retaliation by the chamber's Republican leaders over the refusal of Senate Republicans to back off their demand to expand Medicaid.
A clause tucked inside the state Constitution says that both the House and Senate have to adjourn their annual lawmaking sessions within 72 hours of one another.
The House adjourned for the session just after lunch on Tuesday, but the Senate doesn't plan to leave until midnight on Friday.
The Senate continued with its business on Wednesday, passing bills to clean up the state's water supply, helping kids with special needs and reforming the troubled prison system. But because the House has gone home, those bills will end up dying.
As a result, Senate President Andy Gardiner is accusing the House of violating Florida law, even threatening to take the House to court if it doesn't reconvene.
Within minutes of Gardiner's announcement, House Speaker Steve Crisafulli fired back with a letter.
"At the end of the day, if the two sides don't agree, bills die," he wrote. "That's how the process works."
Now it might take the Florida Supreme Court to settle a feud between two chambers that affects millions of Floridians.
With the House still refusing to come back to Tallahassee, that lawsuit looks all the more likely. If that happens, it would escalate a Republican civil war, the likes of which Florida has never seen before.
The Senate did pass one major bill that has also been approved by the House. The bill would allow Floridians to register to vote online, and is now on its way to Gov. Rick Scott.