May 14, 2025 • 25 mins
Sal Nuzzo, Consumers Defense, tries to explain what has gone wrong and what needs to happen next.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
And here we go. It's the third hour already of
the Morning show with Preston Scott Monday. It's gonna get better, folks.
A lot of rain and we're gonna keep getting a
little bit of rain. But they're playing golf as of now,
allegedly out at Seminal Legacies. So the NCAA Tallahassee Regional
four Men's Golf is underway. But here in Studio one
(00:24):
B I am joined for the first time since taking
the vows. Taking the vows, Sal Nuso Consumer's Defense, congratulations.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Thank you so much. I am a happily married man
for going on twenty three days.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, they said it wouldn't last. They said it wuld last.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The locks have not been changed, although ten of those
were a honeymoon, so you.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Know it's Sal was kind enough to invite me to
the ceremony. I attended. It was it was beautiful, and
I commented on many aspects of it, and very happy
for you.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I appreciate it. I definitely married up and am thrilled.
Got now two wonderful step kids in addition to my
two daughters, and they all, as you saw, all get
along really well. They have a lot of fun together
and so it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Nice, thank you now that we've got that out of here.
I said before the half hour. I have been merciless
on this legislative session, and I think I'm fair when
I say this has been a disaster. And it has
been a disaster strictly because through the lens of a
super Republican majority and perhaps the single most conservative governor
(01:38):
this state has ever had, who is delivered on one
after another after another conservative legislative accomplishment. How did we
get where we are right now, where it's so dysfunctional.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
It really is a good question, and I think it's
kind of part of the dialogue on trying to figure
out how to move forward because at its core, politics
and policy are ultimately relational in relationship minded engagements, You've
got to have trust between parties, regardless if you're talking
about Republicans or Republicans, or Republicans and Democrats. And in Florida,
(02:17):
we really don't have an opposition party. I mean, as
Jason Pizzo said as he was exiting stage left, he said,
or stage right, actually he said, the Democrat Party in
Florida is dead. So I think it may be helpful
to kind of unpack how we got from where we
are to here, because I think it may help us
understand how we might get out. But level setting one
(02:42):
constitutional requirement pass the balance budget.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
There is no budget.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
We are now about a month or and a half
away from the fiscal year ending, and the legislature siginneed
died at the end of it's sixty day term on
May whatever it was, without a budget, and so they
were going to extend. They had an agreement in principle
(03:07):
to come back in a couple of weeks and pass
the budget, and I believe it was on Friday, late
Thursday Friday. The entire situation blew up, and I mean
by three four days ago, and so we've got a
lot of egg on our face collectively. I think it
is a byproduct of things that have been going on
(03:27):
for a couple of years now, and happy to kind
of dive in and unpack and talk about kind of
the sequencing of that and maybe see where it takes us.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well. I was going to say, when you say we,
are you really referring today, because I feel as though
that the lawmakers are broken up into a few levels here.
We've got the governor, we've got the legislature, and then
we've got the leaders of the legislature.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah. And when I say we, I mean the collective
universal We I mean we as a state, but really
we as a party in a governing supermajority. And so
let's take us back to twenty twenty two. So the
governor won his re election in twenty twenty two, and
he went from the twenty eighteen race of thirty four
thousand vote victory to a one point five million votes
(04:21):
huge in a victory, and that put in place a
massive mandate to govern as a strict conservative, and that
is what he did. So you saw the twenty twenty
three and twenty twenty four legislative sessions, which were presided
over by two very constitutionally conservative leaders. You had the governor,
(04:43):
but then you had Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President
Kathleen Pasadomo. And the governor wanted it to become the
single most conservative term of legislative action that maybe even
Florida's history he had seen. And that's pretty much what
he got. I was going to say, that's what was delivered,
(05:04):
all right, that's where we are. We got we got
lots of time, and this, to me is vitally important
for all of you to understand how we ended up
where we are right now. All right, we're back with
Salnuzzo of Consumer's Defense, and we're going through because honestly,
all of the other legislative things that did and did
(05:24):
not get done take a backseat to the only thing
that is constitutionally mandated. The boys and girls have to
get in the sandbox and they have to play nicely
and get a budget done, and they didn't do that. Yep,
you are correct, and so here we are. So let's
kind of continue to cast back and walk us walk
ourselves up to the present day. So, back in twenty
(05:45):
twenty three and twenty four, you had Speaker Paul Renner
his and Senate Presiding Pasadomo's principles and policy goals aligned
with the governor almost if not one hundred percent, and
Speaker Renner really wanted his legacy as well to be
one where conservative policy, both economic and social, was the
(06:08):
hallmark of those two years that he was a presiding officer.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, it's interesting because your colleague, doctor Bob McClure famously
says good policy is good politics.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Exactly, and so you delivered on that or they delivered
on that policy agenda for two years. And at JMI,
we published an article calling twenty twenty three the most
accomplished legislative session of any state in the last one
hundred years, and we rattled off all of the policy wins.
(06:42):
And what happened as a result of that, twenty twenty
four happens and they in the election cycle, the Republicans
increased their super majority. So but now a couple of
those were a couple of legislators flip parties, but they
maintained an advance as on the conservative agenda. They maintained
and advanced in their political successes.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And this is on the wave of Dessanus upping his
win margin by more than one million votes yep, which
is staggering in Florida politics.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's unbelievable because when I was a JMI, we used
to do these analyzes of you know, as we had
such massive in migration from the Midwestern states and New
England states of kind of political refugees what we called them.
The big fear was would those individuals come down and
then vote the way they voted to turn their own states?
(07:35):
You know, in terrible directions, and they didn't. They came down,
they recognized what they were are refugees exactly, and so
they they voted for more Republicans. Now, you know, did
the governor pull some you know kind of factions of
the legislature along in specific votes? Did some of the
(07:57):
more moderate Republicans from maybe some of those swing districts
have to be you know, persuaded in certain ways to
vote certain ways?
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Sure, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And what I have you know heard over time and
have come to know the governor a little bit, is
you know, is he the most touchy feely relationship minded
governor politician out there? No, that's his strength is in policy. Yes,
details his he's a wonk.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
He is a wonk.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Now as a fellow nerd and wonk, I love this
and I would rather have that. But you have a
dynamic between the legislature and the governor where relationships do matter,
and so relationship building is something that you know, the
many would argue in the House that did not occur
over the term.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
There's always going to be a need for a relationship
between the executive branch, whether it's federal or whether it's
state and the legislative branch. And there's no doubt that
Governor DeSantis's biggest shortcoming is that that's not his skill set,
is those relational types of parallels.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yep. Absolutely, And yet and yet I still come back
to he pulled them along on policy, He got the
agenda that everybody was just kind of in awe of,
and then went out and the legislature increased their margin.
And so you have that, and with that, Speaker Renner
(09:31):
and Senate President Pasadomo kind of turnout of their time. However,
I think it may be helpful as we come back
on to talk about the way that Florida designates their
presiding officers, because it's very, very unique.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Back with sal Nouso of Consumer's Defense, He's been a
student and I would argue, even a teacher in and
around legislative things in the state Florida for a very
long time. So explain to listeners that may not understand
how the process works in the House and the Senate
and the Republican Party and how they choose their leadership.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, this is a very important thing to dissect because
Florida does it in a way that I've been to
almost every state in the country and talk with political
leaders and advocates. Florida designates their leaders in a way
unlike any other state. Now, part of this is a
byproduct of term limits, because you only get eight years
(10:31):
in the House and eight years in the Senate.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Juxtapose that, what do most states do well? Some states
who do not have term limits, they will have a
speaker until that speaker is voted out by his colleagues
or whatnot. Other states with term limits will designate a
speaker for a period of four years in some cases,
(10:52):
or a House or a Senate president. Others will elect
a speaker at the last moment of an individual's term.
So the way that Florida does this is when the
freshman class is a senior class, they have the ability
to designate as the class who they want the speaker
(11:16):
to be. Now that sounds in theory reasonable. One of
the challenges is when they do this. They do this
when that freshman class are freshmen, so before they even
really know each other precisely.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And so we now know the lineup of speakers for
the next eight years. So after Danny Perez, it is
going to be Sam Garrison. After Sam Garrison, it will
be Jennifer Kennedy, and after Jennifer Kennedy, we just learned
last week looks like Mike Rodondo will be the speaker. Designant, designant, designant,
(11:52):
And so, as you can imagine, this presents a series
of potential problems that have borne out over the twenty
some years that Republicans have been in charge. Ray Sansum,
prior to becoming speaker, was indicted and had to leave
the legislature. Although important to note the charges were dropped,
but they had to designate somebody else. A number of
(12:15):
years back, Chris Doorworth lost his election right before becoming speaker,
and so they had to designate somebody else. I believe
it was Steve Christal Folly. So Danny Perez was designated
the speaker. He actually was what they call a red
shirt freshman, which means he had one year of additional
service on the front end because it may have been
(12:37):
a special election or an open seat or something along
those lines. So he had one additional year.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
He filled out a term somehow.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yes, and because of that and then generating goodwill in
whatever the process is for cultivating your classmates, was designated
speaker long before he became speaker. Does the Senate do
it the same way largely? Yeah, it's a little less
formal in terms of I don't know that they have
(13:06):
actual pledge cards in the way that the House does it.
But there have been some back and forth battles, the
most notable one being Jack latt Vala and the guy
that ended up becoming Senate President that I cannot even remember.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
That is how how my brain wasn't. John Thrasher was no.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
No, John Thrasher was the House Speaker back in the
early two thousands or late nineteen nineties. I cannot remember
the man's name who was a Senate president back then,
but his leadership priority was the reservoir for the Lake Okuchobee.
And so Danny Perez has been in line to be
speaker for a number of years, and over that time
(13:54):
you begin to learn the protocols and processes, You become
part of the leadership track, You begin to take over
specific committee chairs and learn how the process kind of
works itself out enough prior to becoming your designated speaker term.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Of two years, we may not have time to peel
this apple completely, but the House Speaker, Danny Perez rolled
out a videotape where he highlighted previous speakers, but he
left the speaker out. What was that about it?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
This was a pretty bold snub in my opinion. So
we have had Republican Speakers of the House for twenty
five years, and so in kind of celebrating that, the
Speaker had the House Communications Office prepared as really really
wonderful video celebrating twenty five years of House leadership, and
(14:48):
he had segments for each speaker over that time, and
it featured them in the video, their name, the years
they served, really really touching. Interestingly enough, he went from
Richard Corkoran to Chris Sprows and left out the two
year term of Speaker Josea Leva, And there was no
(15:12):
way that that was not deliberate. There was some contentiousness
between the two. Speaker Aliva had been vocal in his
concerns about whether or not Speaker Perez was actually conservative,
and in a reply actually on x SO It's Public
(15:32):
actually called him a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Back with Salnuzo consumer's defense. And we're kind of talking
through how we are where we are, and we now
come to I mean, quite frankly, I have pointed out that,
you know, the indicator is that the House Speaker with
the tax proposal really scuttled everything in the budget process. Yeah,
(16:00):
and that's a good Well, I'm sorry. And you pointed
out that there seemingly was an axe to grind in
that little video that they rolled out that didn't include
if one speaker one. Yeah, and so, but that's not
all that's happening. No, And I think it's important to
point out. So Speaker Perez comes in and he really
(16:21):
wants to, in his mind, re establish the legislature's identity
is a coequal branch of government. And there may have
been some in the caucus that felt like the governor
just rolled over them, and that may be a point
of contention in there may or may not be truth
to that. However, he comes in and he's younger, he's
(16:43):
from Miami, he's Cuban, a little bit more aggressive than
prior speakers might have been, comes out guns blazing. Immediately.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
The governor called this for the special session to deal
with immigration policy, the Condo safety issue, ballot initiatives. The
Speaker and the Senate President immediately said, no, we do
not need this special session. We can tackle these issues
in regular session.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
But it's not as if the governor blindsided them. He
met with them privately before this was ever even an
issue publicly.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
That is correct, and so but then it's telling what
they did do. So they're required to come in because
the governor did call the special session, so they gabble in,
immediately gabble out, and then they gabbled back in their
own special session, which to me indicates as an observer
(17:37):
to this, it's all theater. It's all theatrics designed to
set a tone, and that tone took us all the
way through the remainder of the session.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And that's the way a policy guy like yourself would
look at it. I more of a people or lay
person view of this, looked at it and said, this
is childish. You say theatric. I called it childish, and
I maintained that it's childish, and it was indicative of
where they were coming from. You know, it's telling to me,
(18:08):
sal that for the first time. I mean, is there
a more conservative person on radio in Florida than me?
I don't know of one. Maybe there is, but the
fact of the matter is I'm in Florida State Capitol
and this is the first time I can remember where
I didn't have one single lawmaker agree to come on
this program.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
That to me is is shocking. I will say, because
I've been with you for many years. You have always
had members who have come on and talked through their bills,
their committee chairmanships, the speakers and so forth. So yeah,
it's a let me tell.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Me, let me let me run this observation by you
and get your position, your thought on this. If I'm
just someone advising the House and the Senate, I would
remind them ever so gently, or maybe not so much.
Each of you were elected by a very sliver of
this state, and the governor was elected by the entire
(19:05):
state and represents the will of the people of this
state far more than an individual lawmaker. Yep.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
And you would not be the first to make that claim,
and I don't discount it at all.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I would say.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That there is an assessment by many in the legislative
chamber that they have not been viewed as a coequal
branch as they are designed to be, and therefore this
is all a part of their strategy to become one.
(19:41):
I disagree with it, and I think from a policy side,
we have suffered because of yes.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So yeah, And that's the bottom line. It doesn't matter
whether you like the person or don't like the person.
Is the idea good and is it in keeping with
conservative i e. Republic Can Party ideals? You got it.
That's all that should matter. Yep.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Not who the inventor of it is. You are, in
my opinion, one hundred percent correct.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Someone once said great things can happen if no one
cares who gets the credit. Maybe that's something some lawmakers
need to think about. Forty minutes past the hour, more
to come. So we're at a budget stalemate between the
House and the Senate. Yes, and then we've got the
governor sitting out there where We're not sure where they are,
but as of right now, the Senate is closer, it
would seem to the governor. Well.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
At one point, about a week or two ago, we
had an agreement in principle between the House and the
Senate to finalize a compromise budget that would cut the
sales tax rate that would include some things from the Senate.
It wasn't as robust as this as the House had
initially proposed, and they would appoint a special task force
(20:52):
to study property tax relief for twenty twenty six. The
Governor began holding some round table I believe, last week,
and in his very first one, he said that he
considered the sales tax cut Florida last policy, and any
Florida last policy would be da upon arrival, which means
(21:16):
he would veto the budget when it got to him.
And that now I'm going to speculate at this point,
because I don't know. My thought is is that the
House probably had enough votes to override that I don't
know that the Senate did, and it could very well
be the case that the Senate president pulled his members,
discovered that they did not have the votes to override
(21:38):
the veto, and therefore realized, all right, well we've got
to do something different. And so now it looks like
the Governor and the Senate are at least temporarily aligned
against and I say against, but against the House on
the specifics of the tax part of budget.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
What kind of time frame that we're looking at before
they sit down and actually figure it out.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And this is very important because the fiscal year ends
June thirty, the new fiscal year begins July one, they
have to have a budget set and approved and signed
and enacted by then, or we have a Florida version
of a government shutdown, and I that would be so
embarrassing and I don't know how that would even look,
(22:27):
but I have no doubt there will be a number
of articles coming out in the next week or two
talking about what to expect should this happen, because they
have they're going to vote on an extension of the
session to June thirty just to be able to come
back whenever they need to. And then what they're going
to do is somehow negotiate something that will end up
(22:52):
being what they land on.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I did read somewhere or hear that the Republican Party
of Florida in the chair Heavan Power are kind of
inviting all of the leadership in the Governor's office to
come together for a kind of negotiation strategy session to
figure out the exit ramp for this. We're definitely in
our uncharted territory. I mean, we've had delays on the budget,
(23:17):
they'd have to come back a week later or something
like that. We have not had something like this in
my time in Florida policy, which is coming up on
thirty years and quite possibly in modern history.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
If you were to make an educated guess on where
you think this lands. Where does it land?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
My guess is that they will arrive at a budget
that is closer to where the governor wants it to be.
If there is a sales tax cut, I do not
see it being anything that the House Speaker would be
able to claim success on my government.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Sales tax cut is not smart.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I don't believe it to be the smartest use of
a tax cut, given Florida's specifics, the fact that we
are a heavy tourism state, that we are a state
that I believe it somewhere between twenty five and thirty
percent of the sales tax revenues are paid for by
people who are not residents, and we don't have a
(24:21):
personal income tax, and we buy stuff yep, and we
don't have a personal income tax. So my guess is
is that we do not get anything in this budget
that is going to be a monumental or transformational shift. Ye,
but that it may tee up something very big for
twenty twenty six, which I've been arguing for a while.
(24:44):
If you're going to do a big tax cut, you
might want to consider doing it in an election year
cycle anyway. And so that would be my educated guess.
But as I have come to find out this year,
educated guesses are heavy on the guests.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
And light on the educated. Thanks for the time, always
a pleasure, my friend sal news Oh with Consumers Defense
my guest on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. I'm
gonna take the lead here. You're putting it off, so
someone's got to nudge you just a little bit, and
by golly, I'll be the
And here we go. It's the third hour already of
the Morning show with Preston Scott Monday. It's gonna get better, folks.
A lot of rain and we're gonna keep getting a
little bit of rain. But they're playing golf as of now,
allegedly out at Seminal Legacies. So the NCAA Tallahassee Regional
four Men's Golf is underway. But here in Studio one
(00:24):
B I am joined for the first time since taking
the vows. Taking the vows, Sal Nuso Consumer's Defense, congratulations.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Thank you so much. I am a happily married man
for going on twenty three days.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, they said it wouldn't last. They said it wuld last.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The locks have not been changed, although ten of those
were a honeymoon, so you.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Know it's Sal was kind enough to invite me to
the ceremony. I attended. It was it was beautiful, and
I commented on many aspects of it, and very happy
for you.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I appreciate it. I definitely married up and am thrilled.
Got now two wonderful step kids in addition to my
two daughters, and they all, as you saw, all get
along really well. They have a lot of fun together
and so it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Nice, thank you now that we've got that out of here.
I said before the half hour. I have been merciless
on this legislative session, and I think I'm fair when
I say this has been a disaster. And it has
been a disaster strictly because through the lens of a
super Republican majority and perhaps the single most conservative governor
(01:38):
this state has ever had, who is delivered on one
after another after another conservative legislative accomplishment. How did we
get where we are right now, where it's so dysfunctional.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
It really is a good question, and I think it's
kind of part of the dialogue on trying to figure
out how to move forward because at its core, politics
and policy are ultimately relational in relationship minded engagements, You've
got to have trust between parties, regardless if you're talking
about Republicans or Republicans, or Republicans and Democrats. And in Florida,
(02:17):
we really don't have an opposition party. I mean, as
Jason Pizzo said as he was exiting stage left, he said,
or stage right, actually he said, the Democrat Party in
Florida is dead. So I think it may be helpful
to kind of unpack how we got from where we
are to here, because I think it may help us
understand how we might get out. But level setting one
(02:42):
constitutional requirement pass the balance budget.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
There is no budget.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
We are now about a month or and a half
away from the fiscal year ending, and the legislature siginneed
died at the end of it's sixty day term on
May whatever it was, without a budget, and so they
were going to extend. They had an agreement in principle
(03:07):
to come back in a couple of weeks and pass
the budget, and I believe it was on Friday, late
Thursday Friday. The entire situation blew up, and I mean
by three four days ago, and so we've got a
lot of egg on our face collectively. I think it
is a byproduct of things that have been going on
(03:27):
for a couple of years now, and happy to kind
of dive in and unpack and talk about kind of
the sequencing of that and maybe see where it takes us.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well. I was going to say, when you say we,
are you really referring today, because I feel as though
that the lawmakers are broken up into a few levels here.
We've got the governor, we've got the legislature, and then
we've got the leaders of the legislature.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah. And when I say we, I mean the collective
universal We I mean we as a state, but really
we as a party in a governing supermajority. And so
let's take us back to twenty twenty two. So the
governor won his re election in twenty twenty two, and
he went from the twenty eighteen race of thirty four
thousand vote victory to a one point five million votes
(04:21):
huge in a victory, and that put in place a
massive mandate to govern as a strict conservative, and that
is what he did. So you saw the twenty twenty
three and twenty twenty four legislative sessions, which were presided
over by two very constitutionally conservative leaders. You had the governor,
(04:43):
but then you had Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President
Kathleen Pasadomo. And the governor wanted it to become the
single most conservative term of legislative action that maybe even
Florida's history he had seen. And that's pretty much what
he got. I was going to say, that's what was delivered,
(05:04):
all right, that's where we are. We got we got
lots of time, and this, to me is vitally important
for all of you to understand how we ended up
where we are right now. All right, we're back with
Salnuzzo of Consumer's Defense, and we're going through because honestly,
all of the other legislative things that did and did
(05:24):
not get done take a backseat to the only thing
that is constitutionally mandated. The boys and girls have to
get in the sandbox and they have to play nicely
and get a budget done, and they didn't do that. Yep,
you are correct, and so here we are. So let's
kind of continue to cast back and walk us walk
ourselves up to the present day. So, back in twenty
(05:45):
twenty three and twenty four, you had Speaker Paul Renner
his and Senate Presiding Pasadomo's principles and policy goals aligned
with the governor almost if not one hundred percent, and
Speaker Renner really wanted his legacy as well to be
one where conservative policy, both economic and social, was the
(06:08):
hallmark of those two years that he was a presiding officer.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, it's interesting because your colleague, doctor Bob McClure famously
says good policy is good politics.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Exactly, and so you delivered on that or they delivered
on that policy agenda for two years. And at JMI,
we published an article calling twenty twenty three the most
accomplished legislative session of any state in the last one
hundred years, and we rattled off all of the policy wins.
(06:42):
And what happened as a result of that, twenty twenty
four happens and they in the election cycle, the Republicans
increased their super majority. So but now a couple of
those were a couple of legislators flip parties, but they
maintained an advance as on the conservative agenda. They maintained
and advanced in their political successes.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And this is on the wave of Dessanus upping his
win margin by more than one million votes yep, which
is staggering in Florida politics.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's unbelievable because when I was a JMI, we used
to do these analyzes of you know, as we had
such massive in migration from the Midwestern states and New
England states of kind of political refugees what we called them.
The big fear was would those individuals come down and
then vote the way they voted to turn their own states?
(07:35):
You know, in terrible directions, and they didn't. They came down,
they recognized what they were are refugees exactly, and so
they they voted for more Republicans. Now, you know, did
the governor pull some you know kind of factions of
the legislature along in specific votes? Did some of the
(07:57):
more moderate Republicans from maybe some of those swing districts
have to be you know, persuaded in certain ways to
vote certain ways?
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Sure, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And what I have you know heard over time and
have come to know the governor a little bit, is
you know, is he the most touchy feely relationship minded
governor politician out there? No, that's his strength is in policy. Yes,
details his he's a wonk.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
He is a wonk.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Now as a fellow nerd and wonk, I love this
and I would rather have that. But you have a
dynamic between the legislature and the governor where relationships do matter,
and so relationship building is something that you know, the
many would argue in the House that did not occur
over the term.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
There's always going to be a need for a relationship
between the executive branch, whether it's federal or whether it's
state and the legislative branch. And there's no doubt that
Governor DeSantis's biggest shortcoming is that that's not his skill set,
is those relational types of parallels.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yep. Absolutely, And yet and yet I still come back
to he pulled them along on policy, He got the
agenda that everybody was just kind of in awe of,
and then went out and the legislature increased their margin.
And so you have that, and with that, Speaker Renner
(09:31):
and Senate President Pasadomo kind of turnout of their time. However,
I think it may be helpful as we come back
on to talk about the way that Florida designates their
presiding officers, because it's very, very unique.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Back with sal Nouso of Consumer's Defense, He's been a
student and I would argue, even a teacher in and
around legislative things in the state Florida for a very
long time. So explain to listeners that may not understand
how the process works in the House and the Senate
and the Republican Party and how they choose their leadership.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, this is a very important thing to dissect because
Florida does it in a way that I've been to
almost every state in the country and talk with political
leaders and advocates. Florida designates their leaders in a way
unlike any other state. Now, part of this is a
byproduct of term limits, because you only get eight years
(10:31):
in the House and eight years in the Senate.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Juxtapose that, what do most states do well? Some states
who do not have term limits, they will have a
speaker until that speaker is voted out by his colleagues
or whatnot. Other states with term limits will designate a
speaker for a period of four years in some cases,
(10:52):
or a House or a Senate president. Others will elect
a speaker at the last moment of an individual's term.
So the way that Florida does this is when the
freshman class is a senior class, they have the ability
to designate as the class who they want the speaker
(11:16):
to be. Now that sounds in theory reasonable. One of
the challenges is when they do this. They do this
when that freshman class are freshmen, so before they even
really know each other precisely.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And so we now know the lineup of speakers for
the next eight years. So after Danny Perez, it is
going to be Sam Garrison. After Sam Garrison, it will
be Jennifer Kennedy, and after Jennifer Kennedy, we just learned
last week looks like Mike Rodondo will be the speaker. Designant, designant, designant,
(11:52):
And so, as you can imagine, this presents a series
of potential problems that have borne out over the twenty
some years that Republicans have been in charge. Ray Sansum,
prior to becoming speaker, was indicted and had to leave
the legislature. Although important to note the charges were dropped,
but they had to designate somebody else. A number of
(12:15):
years back, Chris Doorworth lost his election right before becoming speaker,
and so they had to designate somebody else. I believe
it was Steve Christal Folly. So Danny Perez was designated
the speaker. He actually was what they call a red
shirt freshman, which means he had one year of additional
service on the front end because it may have been
(12:37):
a special election or an open seat or something along
those lines. So he had one additional year.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
He filled out a term somehow.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yes, and because of that and then generating goodwill in
whatever the process is for cultivating your classmates, was designated
speaker long before he became speaker. Does the Senate do
it the same way largely? Yeah, it's a little less
formal in terms of I don't know that they have
(13:06):
actual pledge cards in the way that the House does it.
But there have been some back and forth battles, the
most notable one being Jack latt Vala and the guy
that ended up becoming Senate President that I cannot even remember.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
That is how how my brain wasn't. John Thrasher was no.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
No, John Thrasher was the House Speaker back in the
early two thousands or late nineteen nineties. I cannot remember
the man's name who was a Senate president back then,
but his leadership priority was the reservoir for the Lake Okuchobee.
And so Danny Perez has been in line to be
speaker for a number of years, and over that time
(13:54):
you begin to learn the protocols and processes, You become
part of the leadership track, You begin to take over
specific committee chairs and learn how the process kind of
works itself out enough prior to becoming your designated speaker term.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Of two years, we may not have time to peel
this apple completely, but the House Speaker, Danny Perez rolled
out a videotape where he highlighted previous speakers, but he
left the speaker out. What was that about it?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
This was a pretty bold snub in my opinion. So
we have had Republican Speakers of the House for twenty
five years, and so in kind of celebrating that, the
Speaker had the House Communications Office prepared as really really
wonderful video celebrating twenty five years of House leadership, and
(14:48):
he had segments for each speaker over that time, and
it featured them in the video, their name, the years
they served, really really touching. Interestingly enough, he went from
Richard Corkoran to Chris Sprows and left out the two
year term of Speaker Josea Leva, And there was no
(15:12):
way that that was not deliberate. There was some contentiousness
between the two. Speaker Aliva had been vocal in his
concerns about whether or not Speaker Perez was actually conservative,
and in a reply actually on x SO It's Public
(15:32):
actually called him a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Back with Salnuzo consumer's defense. And we're kind of talking
through how we are where we are, and we now
come to I mean, quite frankly, I have pointed out that,
you know, the indicator is that the House Speaker with
the tax proposal really scuttled everything in the budget process. Yeah,
(16:00):
and that's a good Well, I'm sorry. And you pointed
out that there seemingly was an axe to grind in
that little video that they rolled out that didn't include
if one speaker one. Yeah, and so, but that's not
all that's happening. No, And I think it's important to
point out. So Speaker Perez comes in and he really
(16:21):
wants to, in his mind, re establish the legislature's identity
is a coequal branch of government. And there may have
been some in the caucus that felt like the governor
just rolled over them, and that may be a point
of contention in there may or may not be truth
to that. However, he comes in and he's younger, he's
(16:43):
from Miami, he's Cuban, a little bit more aggressive than
prior speakers might have been, comes out guns blazing. Immediately.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
The governor called this for the special session to deal
with immigration policy, the Condo safety issue, ballot initiatives. The
Speaker and the Senate President immediately said, no, we do
not need this special session. We can tackle these issues
in regular session.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
But it's not as if the governor blindsided them. He
met with them privately before this was ever even an
issue publicly.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
That is correct, and so but then it's telling what
they did do. So they're required to come in because
the governor did call the special session, so they gabble in,
immediately gabble out, and then they gabbled back in their
own special session, which to me indicates as an observer
(17:37):
to this, it's all theater. It's all theatrics designed to
set a tone, and that tone took us all the
way through the remainder of the session.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And that's the way a policy guy like yourself would
look at it. I more of a people or lay
person view of this, looked at it and said, this
is childish. You say theatric. I called it childish, and
I maintained that it's childish, and it was indicative of
where they were coming from. You know, it's telling to me,
(18:08):
sal that for the first time. I mean, is there
a more conservative person on radio in Florida than me?
I don't know of one. Maybe there is, but the
fact of the matter is I'm in Florida State Capitol
and this is the first time I can remember where
I didn't have one single lawmaker agree to come on
this program.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
That to me is is shocking. I will say, because
I've been with you for many years. You have always
had members who have come on and talked through their bills,
their committee chairmanships, the speakers and so forth. So yeah,
it's a let me tell.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Me, let me let me run this observation by you
and get your position, your thought on this. If I'm
just someone advising the House and the Senate, I would
remind them ever so gently, or maybe not so much.
Each of you were elected by a very sliver of
this state, and the governor was elected by the entire
(19:05):
state and represents the will of the people of this
state far more than an individual lawmaker. Yep.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
And you would not be the first to make that claim,
and I don't discount it at all.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I would say.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That there is an assessment by many in the legislative
chamber that they have not been viewed as a coequal
branch as they are designed to be, and therefore this
is all a part of their strategy to become one.
(19:41):
I disagree with it, and I think from a policy side,
we have suffered because of yes.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So yeah, And that's the bottom line. It doesn't matter
whether you like the person or don't like the person.
Is the idea good and is it in keeping with
conservative i e. Republic Can Party ideals? You got it.
That's all that should matter. Yep.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Not who the inventor of it is. You are, in
my opinion, one hundred percent correct.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Someone once said great things can happen if no one
cares who gets the credit. Maybe that's something some lawmakers
need to think about. Forty minutes past the hour, more
to come. So we're at a budget stalemate between the
House and the Senate. Yes, and then we've got the
governor sitting out there where We're not sure where they are,
but as of right now, the Senate is closer, it
would seem to the governor. Well.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
At one point, about a week or two ago, we
had an agreement in principle between the House and the
Senate to finalize a compromise budget that would cut the
sales tax rate that would include some things from the Senate.
It wasn't as robust as this as the House had
initially proposed, and they would appoint a special task force
(20:52):
to study property tax relief for twenty twenty six. The
Governor began holding some round table I believe, last week,
and in his very first one, he said that he
considered the sales tax cut Florida last policy, and any
Florida last policy would be da upon arrival, which means
(21:16):
he would veto the budget when it got to him.
And that now I'm going to speculate at this point,
because I don't know. My thought is is that the
House probably had enough votes to override that I don't
know that the Senate did, and it could very well
be the case that the Senate president pulled his members,
discovered that they did not have the votes to override
(21:38):
the veto, and therefore realized, all right, well we've got
to do something different. And so now it looks like
the Governor and the Senate are at least temporarily aligned
against and I say against, but against the House on
the specifics of the tax part of budget.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
What kind of time frame that we're looking at before
they sit down and actually figure it out.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And this is very important because the fiscal year ends
June thirty, the new fiscal year begins July one, they
have to have a budget set and approved and signed
and enacted by then, or we have a Florida version
of a government shutdown, and I that would be so
embarrassing and I don't know how that would even look,
(22:27):
but I have no doubt there will be a number
of articles coming out in the next week or two
talking about what to expect should this happen, because they
have they're going to vote on an extension of the
session to June thirty just to be able to come
back whenever they need to. And then what they're going
to do is somehow negotiate something that will end up
(22:52):
being what they land on.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I did read somewhere or hear that the Republican Party
of Florida in the chair Heavan Power are kind of
inviting all of the leadership in the Governor's office to
come together for a kind of negotiation strategy session to
figure out the exit ramp for this. We're definitely in
our uncharted territory. I mean, we've had delays on the budget,
(23:17):
they'd have to come back a week later or something
like that. We have not had something like this in
my time in Florida policy, which is coming up on
thirty years and quite possibly in modern history.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
If you were to make an educated guess on where
you think this lands. Where does it land?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
My guess is that they will arrive at a budget
that is closer to where the governor wants it to be.
If there is a sales tax cut, I do not
see it being anything that the House Speaker would be
able to claim success on my government.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Sales tax cut is not smart.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I don't believe it to be the smartest use of
a tax cut, given Florida's specifics, the fact that we
are a heavy tourism state, that we are a state
that I believe it somewhere between twenty five and thirty
percent of the sales tax revenues are paid for by
people who are not residents, and we don't have a
(24:21):
personal income tax, and we buy stuff yep, and we
don't have a personal income tax. So my guess is
is that we do not get anything in this budget
that is going to be a monumental or transformational shift. Ye,
but that it may tee up something very big for
twenty twenty six, which I've been arguing for a while.
(24:44):
If you're going to do a big tax cut, you
might want to consider doing it in an election year
cycle anyway. And so that would be my educated guess.
But as I have come to find out this year,
educated guesses are heavy on the guests.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
And light on the educated. Thanks for the time, always
a pleasure, my friend sal news Oh with Consumers Defense
my guest on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. I'm
gonna take the lead here. You're putting it off, so
someone's got to nudge you just a little bit, and
by golly, I'll be the
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