It's The Final Week Of A Fascinating Florida Legislative Session

As always, Sal Nuzz with the James Madison Institute offered us a Cliff Notes version of what has and will happen.

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
May First. It's May First shownumber forty nine nineteen of the Morning Show
with Preston Scott. It's Monday.Good to be with you, Day thirty
one of America Old Hostage. That'sGrant Allen. I'm Preston and with us
of course as always, Salnuzo.It is the legislative session as we now
are in the final week of thesession. How are you. I'm doing

(00:29):
good. I'm ready for it tobe Friday. I bet you all you
want to see that handkerchief fall sobadly right on time. Please do not
go over the weekend. Let meget your thoughts on what I mentioned in
the last half hour, and it'sone of the big stories in the press
box. The legislature offered to resignto run option here by modifying it,

(00:53):
and you inform me of something kindof interesting. Florida was outside the norm
nationally speaking on this subject. Soyeah, yeah, Most states do not
have a resigned to run rule fora president and vice president of the United
States, so their governors their senatorsare able to do kind of the campaign

(01:14):
as well as serve as governor whilethey're running. And so Florida's resigned to
run rule as we've talked in priorshows, is a bit opaque. It
do we know where it came fromand why it ended up the way it
did. Something had to bring itabout. Well, it's changed over the
years a couple of times, andit changed around the time of Charlie christ

(01:34):
in one way or another. AndI had it in my head last night
to try and figure out the directionof the change. But it's not a
super new law. So it's onewhere the question of when qualifying actually happens
as a bit in the gray zone. Yeah, it was very ambiguous.
Yeah, and we've talked about that. And so what they did in this

(01:57):
state, in this amendment to aelection bill was to state that if you're
running for president or vice president ofthe United States, you're set aside from
anything here. The rest of theoffices had generally viewed kind of when you
file as the date, but thisbeing a bit of a kind of a

(02:19):
different scenario, assuming the governor announcedas in some point in the next couple
of weeks. They just wanted tomake sure that litigation was you know,
kind of forestalled. The Senate Presidentwas very clear about that. She said
it should be the legislature's decision,not the courts. What are some of
the just briefly, the other thingsin this law. It's not just about

(02:40):
the resign to run and amendments andchange is made there. There's broader election
stuff inside, absolutely, and sothis is the third year at a row
for some pretty broad kind of reformsto our election system. As we've been
involved in it at JMI over theyears, we've discovered that election in Agridy
is something that's going to be dynamic. You're going to have to continue to

(03:02):
adapt your rules for technology, fordifferent methods and different things that happen,
different strategies from the left to tryand gum it up. And so this
change involves some things about like makingit illegal for someone convicted of a crime
or a non citizen of a felonyor a non citizen to handle completed voter

(03:25):
registration forms. They have to beturned in within a certain amount of time
now, so you can't kind oflike collect them all and then tamper with
them and then try to turn themin. A few things making it more
consistent at the county level with supervisorsof election on how to maintain the list
and consistency there, so a numberof broad things. But then kind of

(03:47):
in the tail end of this,they amended the law or the bill with
the resign to run piece. Stayingwith a governor for just another minute.
If I were to say to you, the best best way Governor de Santis
can run, Yes, he's goingto have to travel the country if he
decides to do that. It's tojust continue to effectively govern Florida. Oh

(04:09):
absolutely, And I don't think withtechnology the way that it is now.
I mean, we talk about thefact that you know, most presidents are
out and about around the country,around the world, they are able to
govern. The same holds true fora governor. And so to the point
about could he effectively governed while beingon the campaign, I think so.

(04:30):
I mean, it'll remain to beseen how much of it is impacted.
But yeah, the idea of thePriori this sixty day session then leading into
his budget line item vetos, whichwill come and then you know, kind
of enacting the laws that have beenpassed. That's going to be the kind

(04:53):
of the benchmark of success that I'mimagining he's going to use as a catapult
for the campaign. It's Weston Showwith morning, Scott, what eleven minutes
after the hour sound news it withus talking about the legislative session, the

(05:15):
governor on the road, making sometrips and in one special bill, there
was kind of a meeting in Israel. Yeah, so he's on the trade
mission to South Korea, Japan,Israel. He finished it out in London.
So the legislature had passed House Billtwo sixty nine, which is an
anti anti Semitism bill. It hadpassed the day before. Basically, it

(05:36):
creates some fines and penalties for intimidatingpeople or dumping flyers based on religious beliefs
on their property or in public places. Randy Fine, who had passed the
bill along with Mike Caruso, theco sponsor, flew to Israel to meet
the governor for him to sign itin Jerusalem, and they got a great
photo op. It was just aunique thing. I've never heard of this

(05:59):
happening before, and it just itwas kind of a special kind of a
deal there. And it covers anyreligious anti Semitism. Yeah, it's not
just anti Semitism, but anything thatdenigrates or harasses someone based on a political
belief. Got it all right,Disney, What's up with that. Now,
yeah, this is getting dicey becausewhat you're seeing is not only the

(06:21):
left, but now some folks onthe conservative side are saying this could be
a bit of a challenge to acandidacy given what's transpired. So Disney is
deciding to now push back. Theyfiled suit in federal claiming the policies that
have been passed against them amount toa discriminatory retaliation against their First Amendment rights.

(06:46):
Now, what is intriguing to meon this is that they're using many
of the remarks that have been madeby lawmakers during the debate from the special
session. So, pardon the pun, it's going to be a wild ride
as this transpires because lawmakers, aswere coming to find out in the debates,

(07:08):
they were making some claims that Disneyis going to use in an attempt
to kind of make it bite backon their claim of it being a retaliatory
claim. Is Disney, though entitledto the special considerations it was receiving,
and that's what the Governor's office andothers and I would contend are like me,

(07:33):
they are not. It is aspecial taxing district. And so the
governor's legal team and the new TourismBoard will make the claim that they had
no right to the special carve outto begin with, which makes the triggering
of the legislation moot potentially. Imean, if you're either entitled to it

(07:54):
or not, and the reasons whysomebody decides to take action become irrelevant.
If the special considerations are not legalto begin with, they will well,
they were legal because they were instatute. But what the legislature giveth,
the legislature can take it the wayexactly, and so that's what they're going
to claim. Now, I've saidthis many many times on your show.

(08:15):
I'm not a constitutional attorney so oran attorney at all. So this is
going to likely take years to windits way through the courts unless they come
to some kind of a detant anddecide to figure it out over a beer
or something. A minute left inthis segment. What do we have in
terms of what passed through the legislaturelast week? Well, the big one

(08:37):
is Senate Bill fourteen fifty five pastthe House, it's now on to the
governor. It is a massive reformof public sector unions in the state.
This has been a policy priority ofours at JMI for the last five six
years. The major thrust of thebill does three things, and this is
important because we have a lot ofpublic sector employees and we have a lot

(08:58):
of unions information that's been paid exactly. So it eliminates dues collections by the
public sector agency, so the unionswill develop a plan for them to collect
their own dues from members. They'lldo a credit card swipe or online form.
It ups the threshold for recertification fromfifty percent to sixty percent, so
if a bargaining unit doesn't have sixtypercent of the potential members paying, they

(09:20):
got a stand for reelection. Nowthey can still get reelected with a simple
majority, but that's one of thecases there. It also requires each local
union to get a certified financial auditannually, which was surprising to me because
I didn't realize it wasn't already arequirement. So all common sense stuff.

(09:41):
Unions are not going away. Theywill adapt, but they will have to
do a lot of their own businesson their own and be a lot more
transparent. WFLA on your phone withthe iHeart radio app and on hundreds of
devices like Alexa, Google Home,Xbox and Sonos, Yes and I Heearts
Radio Station VP of Policy with JamesMadison Institute, Salnuzo with US Morning Show

(10:05):
twenty twenty three Legislative Review and lookAhead. It's so week eight. We're
there, right, we're here.You'd mentioned that the union reform is perhaps
the biggest in the country. Yes. Absolutely, It is the most transformational
reform to public sector unions in theUnited States that we've been looking at over

(10:28):
the last ten years, without question. What does that say that simply requiring
the unions to be somewhere north offifty percent and collecting their own dues is
a massive reform. Yeah? Yeah, And that just strikes me as funny.
And the Dems tried to make itout like it was the legitimately in

(10:52):
committee and on the floor tried tomake it out like it was the second
assassination of MLK. They referenced thatin objection to a common sense. Yes,
public sector reformed. So all right, some other big news. Sure,
on the economic development front, itlooks like after a number of years
of trying about the House Enterprise,Florida is going away. Is this a
good or a bad thing? Both? Yeah, a little bit of both.

(11:16):
They only had a twelve million dollarsappropriation, but and they were a
public private partnership. But the Househas been saying they just do not provide
enough ROI and the Department of EconomicOpportunity could kind of absorb a lot of
what they were doing. So thecompromise on this one is the group is

(11:37):
going to fold some of their operationsinto d EO and then close up shop
entirely fair. Is it a fairargument that it was deplicative in some areas?
Absolutely? Absolutely, Yeah, therewere arguments to be made that they
raised a lot of money from theprivate sector to do a lot of the
things that they were doing to supplementthat twelve million, but still it was
a twelve million dollars appropriation. Sohowever, on the flip side of that,

(12:01):
the debate on Visit Florida looks likeit might have been a compromise.
Visit Florida is going to continue toreceive state funding at the eighty million dollar
level, so I think they wereat seventy five this year, so they're
bumping up a little bit. Thegovernor wanted one hundred million, but they
only came in at eighty. Therewas an attempt to make the local tourism
boards pay the freight on visit Florida, but that's not going to happen.

(12:24):
I like visit Florida for a wholelot of reasons. I think it's I
think it's good for the state ofFlorida, absolutely, as do I and
I think it only works. Themodel only works in two states, Florida
and Hawaii. And that's just wherestatewide marketing of tourism. It's one of
our big three. It should.You could argue that it is perhaps the
driver, along with maybe tax policy, of the migration to the state.

(12:50):
Oh. Absolutely, And it plannedseeds. Yeah, it planned seeds.
It gets people here, it providesa it's also the impetus for why we
don't have a statewide income to becauseso much of the tax revenue is coming
in for people who don't live here. And so when you're talking one hundred
and twenty five hundred and fifty millionpeople a year visiting, I get why
we need it. So all right, give us kind of a lightning round

(13:11):
check of the other bills that havepassed for short preemption of local ordinances on
landlords. So you had some citiesand counties enacting local tenants Bills of Rights
both chambers voted to preempt those.It's onto the governor. This is one
I'm watching to see how he moveson it. He has vetoed some laws

(13:33):
and prior sessions that in his mindwent against local control, So I'm paying
attention to that one. Social Mediaeducation a great bill from Senator Danny Burgess
and Representative Yeager requiring school districts tooffer either a short course or a seminar
that outlines the benefits and risks ofsocial media for kids. New tests for

(13:54):
colleges and Bright futures. It lookslike they're approving a modification to the college
entrance applications by allowing the use ofwhat's called the Classical Learning Test in lieu
of the SAT, as well asallowing it for Bright Futures. CLT is
based on the Classical Education model,which is a kind of Socratic method and
the like great idea there we've talkedabout. The bill banning any form of

(14:20):
gender affirming care and interesting development transpiredlast week. Both the American Academy of
Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.They actually endorse the procedures involved in this
care, which grow kids, mutilatingkids as well as like putting these chess
things on them and all of that. The House Speaker authorized the Health Committee

(14:43):
Chair Randy Fine to commence an investigationof their policies. Last week they issued
subpoenas to both of those organizations tofind out the underlying reasons why they're endorsing
those things. So I am sorryto continuous exactly HGR eleven fift seven.
It will be on the ballot fornext year. It enshrines the right to

(15:03):
hunt and fish in the Florida Constitution. Something will get to vote on SB
seven seventy four, increasing financial disclosurerequirements for the local officials, which brings
them in line with state officeholders.And then a big state employee change five
percent raise and boost to the pensionbenefits that reverse some rollbacks from about a

(15:26):
dozen years ago right now retirement attwenty five years down from thirty years,
and an age drop from sixty tofifty five. It also expands the window
for the drop program to eight yearsfrom five, with a boost in the
growth rate to four percent from onepoint four. So some good stuff for
state employees who I mean arguably havegotten the short end of it over that

(15:50):
dozen years back at it Morning showat Preston Scott sal News O JMI with
us talking about the legislative session.All right, the budget, the budget,
It is the only constitutional requirement.We say that, but for the
sake of the hundreds of thousands ofnew people in the Sunshine State. Yeah,

(16:12):
you have moved to a state thatrequires a balanced budget, and g
look what happens. Yep. Wepass a balanced budget every year and we
have surpluses. Yes, we havesurpluses. We have reserves, we have
growing tax revenues despite not having astate income tax, and amazing how that
works. Conservative policy does in factwork. So as we look at the

(16:34):
budget and what you're hearing right nowand conferencing, how are we it's coming
along. They had said that theythought they would finish up by Saturday,
but they didn't. But they haveuntil Tuesday in order to get it to
the chambers, to get it tosiny die on Friday. What do you
make of the set aside of threehundred and fifty million for school districts that

(16:56):
I mean, I look at schoolchoice and I say, well, if
they're leaving the public school system,there's a good reason. So what's the
three fifty four. Well, thisis it's a couple of things. One
I think is there's a policy argumentfor it, and then there's a political
argument for it. On the policyside, you are going to, in
fact, have a large number ofparents now choosing to do something different with

(17:21):
their child than the traditional public schoolthat, given the way that we fund
education in Florida, will have animpact on school district budgets. So they
set aside three hundred and fifty millionto kind of help in the initial phases
of this. It's not recurring dollars. They don't get it every year.
It's something that you know, if, as we see it, it will

(17:42):
help glide path and allow for publicschools not to just kind of fall off
the reservation, so to speak,or fall off the cliff in terms of
funding. By my math, that'san allocation of what about five million of
school districts. Well, yeah,but it's going to it's not going to

(18:03):
be dispersed that way, I understand. But but just from a rough perspective,
so how far does that really go, Well, it's going to depend
on how many how many students withineach district are shifting and the procedures that
d OE comes in for how toaccess that money. So a lot to
be said for where that goes.Is it easy to misread bills that are

(18:27):
remaining to say that, well,these must just be really contentious bills or
overly complicated. In some cases theyare, and in some cases it represents
a difference of opinions between the chambersthat they just haven't worked out yet.
And in some cases it's just atiming issue. They got filed, they
were going through committees later in thecycle, and so they were put in

(18:49):
kind of the choreography for how allof these go. At the tail end,
what are the bills left to bedone? Sure, we've got Senate
Bill seventeen eighteen, which is theimmigration bill from Senator Angolia. It's been
voted on by the full Senate,it's through all the House committees. But
the House version does not have aprovision in it making it a felony to
knowingly transport an illegal immigrants. Sothere's a bit of a difference there.

(19:14):
Yeah, that's a pretty big difference. YEP. So twelve fifty nine more
money for charter schools made it throughthe House full chamber, and all of
its Senate committee meetings were waiting tosee on that one. I think that
one's just a timing issue. Itkind of came a little bit later.
How is that separated from money forthe school district because charter schools underneath the
school district, it is, butthey got a lower portion of the pot

(19:37):
in the FEFP. So this kindof brings that, which is why a
lot of those charter schools only payeighty percent of what a teacher makes elsewhere.
Correct. Okay, does that rightthat wrong? Or does it help?
It helps it a lot, notnecessarily one hundred percent yet all right.
Trying to be responsive to listeners heresal question why police and fire unions

(20:00):
were exempted from the union issue.It's a very good question. So police
and fire are what they call specialrisk categories there, legislation impacting them is
almost always done in a very separatebill that has to get reference to specific
committees. And so for those reasons, as well as the way in which

(20:22):
those collective bargaining agents bargain with theirmanagement, it's just a different animal.
And so you could see a billspecific to them, it just wasn't one
that they took up at this point. Send a bill fifteen fifty fifteen fifty
the big PBM reform bill, meaningpharmacy benefit managers pass the Senate unanimously.

(20:45):
It is a priority of the governor. I believe the House is going to
take it up and send it tohim. Did have to go through committees
yet, Nope, they've passed allof its committees. It's just going to
go. I think this one wasa timing issue. Eight ninety two living
wage preemption, living wage whatever,unanimous through the Senate as well. Houses

(21:06):
looking to take it up. Itwould preempt any local governments from establishing living
wage ordinances, which means if youwant to do business with our county,
you have to pay your employees twentyfive thirty fifty dollars an hour. Things
like that. Whatever. We werestupid enough to vote the fifteen INDs,
So whatever we were. Senate Billtwo fifty two ban on gender affirming care.

(21:26):
Now each chamber has passed a version. The Senate President does not like
the portion of the bill that bansprivate insurance companies from covering the care.
In her mind, that's a bitof a potentially a litigation point maybe where
it could be viewed as a kindof a government imposing an undue restriction on
a private contract. So the governor, so an insurance company could say,

(21:49):
yeah, we'll pay for it,but you wouldn't be able to do it
in Florida. Correct, Correct?Okay. Nine thirty one the Higher Ed
Diversity Bill. It would be aban on any employee or speaker, requiring
the university from making an employee orspeaker sign onto a political loyalty statement,
something along those lines. I thinkthis one's a timing one has generally been

(22:14):
a party line, of course,but didn't see any any kind of hurdles
to this one. The one thatI'm paying a lot of attention to now
is two fifty two the ban ongender affirming care. Oh no, we
talked about that one. I'm sorry. Twenty one the bathroom bill. That's
the one where it's gone back andforth. I don't know that the Senate

(22:34):
is really comfortable taking this one upwhy? And I don't know the Senate
President has said she's not fully onboard with it. I don't know what
her misgivings are. Yeah, soI'm paying attention to. Is this something
where we sometimes use the term onechamber rolling the other where they might attach

(22:56):
it to something else and force themto take it or they view something there.
But I'm paying a lot of attentionto see where this lands. I
was going to ask, do yousee the legislature having to take this issue
up and expand it the general issuelike Kansas is done and settling the whole
thing, which I was listening toyour segments articulating what Kansas did. And

(23:18):
if this bill dies, I couldabsolutely see one or several lawmakers wanting to
take a look at the Kansas modellegislation and see how they can comport it
for Florida. What's a coin tossout there? Yeah, some stuff in
limbo. There's a bill related tocredit card swipe fees. Now it's very
wonky and in the weeds, andif you're not paying a whole lot of

(23:41):
attention, you won't understand it.But it's been bouncing back and forth,
and big retailers love it, thebanks and credit card companies and a lot
of small businesses don't. We've takena position against the bill, so I'm
intrigued to see how it goes inthe last week and then does the legislature
finally get data privacy across the finishline? Senate bill was amended heavily last

(24:04):
week to address a lot of theconcerns from the small business community. It's
on the calendar, but it couldbe amended further, and if it bounces
back and forth, it could diebecause of the timing. And then the
last one that we're paying attention tois the big higher ed package nine nine
from the Border Regents. It wouldit's kind of the anti d EI legislation.

(24:26):
It's been softened a bit, andso I think it's going to make
it through, but still kind ofa tolling cost coin toss because it's late
in the game. You it happensif you turn that bill nine upside down
though. Yeah, there was aHouse Bill six sixty six, and I
said, if I ever were tobe elected, which will never happen,

(24:48):
I would automatically refuse to sponsor orvote for any House bill or send it
Bill six six six. Thank youamen? Shape that amen? All right?
Maybe next week it might be theweek after. We're gonna recap this
whole thing. Absolutely looking forward toit. Thank you. Always a pleasure.
Sald News with the James Madison Institute. He's vice president of Policy.
Learn more about them online. JamesMadison is it's James Madison dot org.

(25:14):
Right, you got it. Yeah, we'll have Salon next week or so
back and we'll put a nice bowon this whole thing and have some longer
discussions about all these issues.