>>This week on NewsNight, as the 2023 legislative session comes to an end, lots of big wins for the Republican controlled Senate.

DeSantis signed the six-week abortion ban into law and House Bill 899 will now allow parents to surrender their newborn infants from 7 to 30 days.

Is the state expecting to see more surrenders now that the strict abortion ban is set to take effect?

Also, growing restrictions on education involving LGBTQ people with the expansion of the so-called Don't Say Gay bill and banning post-secondary majors about women and gender studies and permitless carry will become legal on July 1st.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Thank you for joining us.

I'm Brendan Byrne, filling in for Steve Mort.

Welcome to NewsNight, where we take a look at national and local issues and explain how they can affect you.

As the Florida legislative session comes to a close, we'll spend this entire episode looking at the issues our legislators addressed over the course of the last two months from gun rights to education to abortion.

There's a lot to unpack.

We'll start off with last Tuesday when Republican State Senator Travis Hutson filed an amendment that could clear a path for Governor DeSantis to run for president in 2024 without yielding the governor's seat.

Right now, Florida law states that a public official may not run for another office without resigning his or her current position.

UCF political science professor Aubrey Jewett and political analyst Susan McManus explained that this session showed the wide reaching influence Governor DeSantis has with a majority of the Florida legislators.

>>Well, Republicans are dominating this session, as they have really the last 20 years.

And in fact, they're more dominant in this session than they have been.

They have supermajorities in both the House and Senate, and both the House and Senate Republicans really seem to want Ron DeSantis to get virtually everything he wants so that he can sort of have a springboard to run for the Republican nomination for president.

>>For a lot of Republicans that strongly supported the governor, gave him a 19% margin of victory, it was a very good session for many of them because he was tackling a lot of the things that he had campaigned on doing in his second term.

>>Well, let's bring in our panelists who have a lot of heavy lifting to do for us today.

Joining us in the studio this week, Steve Lemongello from the Orlando Sentinel.

Steve, you've got plenty to write about these days, don't you?

We've got Curtis McCloud from Spectrum News 13.

Curtis, great to see you.

And Nick Papantonis from WFTV, thanks so much for coming in, Nick.

Steve, let's start with you.

Senate Bill 7050 refers to changing the election landscape so that the governor can keep his job while running for office.

I think I know the answer to this, but what was the motivation behind this?

>>Yes, well, they will say that this was just to clarify certain things.

You know, theoretically, technically, maybe he could still have, you know, announced for president without resigning when they just want to clarify that that's the case.

But, of course, the Trump campaign has been just on top of this for the last few months.

Even their PAC filing a complaint about it, saying that, you know, he's breaking Florida law and Florida ethics by essentially campaigning on his book tour without actually, you know, submitted his resignation.

And this paves the way now for him to just, you know, keep his job.

He wouldn't have had to resign until January 20th, ‘25 anyway.

But, you know, I'm sure this is just as clear as all obstacles basically.

>>And that complaint didn't go anywhere, did it?

>>No it did not.

>>And when can we expect an announcement, you know, from.

>>Well, the law the law takes effect on July 1st.

So I wouldn't be surprised to see something right after that.

>>Something close to that.

So, Nick, there were several bills this legislative session that were fast tracked.

What were they and what was the rush?

>>You know, I think the governor's priorities, as Professor Jewett said right there were the overall factor in which bills got to fast track, which bills to take it on, process, anything that the governor wanted in this case, the governor was going to get, because a lot of Florida Republicans are hoping that we have a Florida person in the White House in just a couple of years from now.

So his priorities that will give him that platform to run on that national conservative level.

Those are the ones that they wanted to make sure were passed quickly and passed efficiently so that he could be able to use that when he does make his announcement.

>>And this was a very conservative legislative agenda, was it not?

>>This was everything that the Democrats did not want to have happen minus a couple of their priorities, like the Tyree Sampson bill.

But everything that Republicans kind of pie in that sky wish list that the courts will decide many of these things now.

But those are the things that that sound really, really good when you're making a presidential speech.

>>Curtis, we're going to discuss some of these legislative topics here.

But what impact did the Republican supermajority have on this legislative session?

>>Ill talk about it.

You can call that the golden ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, specifically having that supermajority and gave credence to everything that the governor wanted made his agenda come to life.

I mean, you talk about permitless carry, you talk about expanding parental rights in education.

Those were some of those big things.

And even when you talk about education as well, those educational laws we saw that were passed as well.

It made it very easy to to walk - me and my my metaphors here - to walk along the yellow brick road to Oz for the for the legislature.

>>Wonka and Oz, yeah, it was it was a good session for Republicans.

While Democrats are pushing for stricter gun laws, Republicans had the opposite in mind.

One of the most controversial laws passing this session is taking effect in July.

Florida's new permitless carry law.

The new law doesn't overturn current Florida statute, stating that it's against the law to carry a concealed firearm into public schools, courthouses, police stations, amongst others.

Private companies could adopt their own policies, too, according to UCF political science professor Aubrey Jewett.

This new permitless carry law could have unintended consequences.

>>But this session, Republicans pushed through permitless carry, which means now that as long as you legally can own a weapon in Florida, then now you can carry it concealed without getting a permit.

So you don't have to have that additional background check.

You don't have to pay a fee, you don't have to have any training whatsoever.

If you can legally can get the weapon in Florida, then you legally can carry a concealed.

Critics have argued that this is going to make us less safe.

They point out that there's some research that shows in states that have made this change, you actually see more gun deaths and more gun violence in the aftermath.

And so interestingly I will add that on the conservative side, there was actually some very, very pro-gun rights people who don't think this goes far enough.

They actually were complaining and saying, oh, Governor DeSantis is betraying us.

He's not going far enough because they wanted completely open carry.

They didn't they didn't.

They wanted you to not need a permit, not only for concealed, but they said, no, we ought to just be able to carry it on our hip open like the Wild West.

But the Republican legislature didn't want to go that far, primarily because a lot of businesses, particularly the tourism industry, are really scared.

They have fought that for decades now because they said, look, people from coming from overseas and from other states, we don't want to intimidate them.

Right.

That when they're coming to Disney World or Universal or SeaWorld or the beaches, they don't want to see somebody just with carrying a gun on their hip.

So it is ironic that this became sort of the middle ground position in the legislature among Republicans anyway.

>>Well, Nick, let's start with you on this topic.

Through your reporting.

What are you hearing from law enforcement about what may happen when this law goes into effect?

>>I've talked to a number of law enforcement sources, and by and large, they do not support, per-- permitless carry.

And that's because these officers and deputies deal with everyday people all the time and they see what everyday people are capable of.

And some of us, all of us on this panel, including many of the people listening today, are very capable and responsible individuals.

But we also see a number that aren't.

And one person tell me, you know, we see these people driving.

We don't want them driving to begin with.

And now they might have a gun with them.

And these officers are going to show up in scenes not knowing who's with them and who's not.

And they know now that there's not a safeguard in place with the training requirements and the other aspects that are usually involved in order to be able to carry a weapon.

Those safeguards are not there now, and they're potentially putting themselves in a situation that they don't want to be in either.

They're going to have to use their own weapon or they going have one used on them.

>>It's a pretty drastic move from what I'm thinking of legislation that came after the Parkland, mass shooting to now.

Steve, what are experts saying about the the ability or inability of the permitless carry law to reduce crime as it's been argued that it might?

>>Well, that's the thing, Jewett mentioned the the Wild West.

I mean the Wild West actually had gun laws.

The marshal would take your gun at the you know, the town limits.

You know, the okay Corral shooting was because, you know, the guys didn't give their guns.

So it's just sort of odd.

And like you said, just a lot of people are just very concerned about what's going to happen when more people are walking around with guns.

And we saw like the headlines of the last few weeks of people shooting at people, you know, ringing doorbells, pulling into driveways, things like that.

People seem to be on hair triggers around the country these days.

And, you know, more people are just going to be armed now.

>>Mm hmm.

Curtis, that that's a that's a really good point, that there have been quite a few news stories about, you know, things gun violence like that in Florida has the Stand Your Ground law, as we're we're very well aware as reporters covering this stuff, what's the possible impact of both of these kind of careening towards one another?

>>Exactly.

I mean, you have kind of potentially a recipe for disaster here when you look at it, because when things could have normally been rationalized or resolved, you know, through conversations.

But when you have stand your ground and now you have permitless carry you have people that may say, okay, well, you know, you're infringing on my territory.

They can take things into their own hands and resolve them legally within the bounds of the law because they can now and it makes it even quicker because they may have those those weapons with them and can do so.

>>Mm hmm.

And what was the justification for for pushing this through?

Do we know.

>>It was just basically this is what, you know the conservatives want it and like, you know, like Jewett mentioned as well.

There are some like Anthony Sabatini who have been calling DeSantis and all of them a bunch of RINOs because they're not going with like open carry, you know.

So this this is essentially, like you said, like somehow, you know, concealed permitless carry is somehow the middle ground here of people just walking around with like, you know, you know, no holsters, basically.

>>Mm hmm.

Well you can find links to this bill and more on our website, wucf.org/newsnight.

Next tonight, we continue talking about new laws that will be taking effect here in Florida.

HB 999 will change how state universities teach students and higher employees.

The bill prohibits courses with curriculum involving unproven, theoretical or exploratory content.

This law will have significant impact on programs such as gender studies, courses that cover critical race theory and intersectionality.

As political analyst Susan McManus explains.

Legislators supporting this law believe it brings balance to free speech at public state universities.

>>Having taught at multiple universities over the years and different kinds of places of public institutions.

Some of it right now is the feeling among some Republicans that when you say freedom of speech on campuses, it hasn't really meant that.

And they will point to things like all of the, you know, polls showing a huge proportion of professors are Democrats and give to Democratic campaigns or they'll point to, for example, you know, taxpayer backed dollars being spent to bring speakers to campus.

And they're all one ideology.

So I think that is where a lot of this is coming from is the idea that freedom hasn't necessarily played out in the same way, freedom of speech for conservatives on campuses as it has for more liberal leaning campuses.

Activists >>Governor DeSantis has set out to change how state universities run.

Nick, remind us of what happened at New College and refresh our memories and then also explain why a lot of universities are keeping a keen eye on what's going on there.

>>So Governor DeSantis had essentially had a takeover of New College with his appointees.

It was known as a very, very liberal progressive school here in Florida.

And what he did is he replaced a lot of those board members to now having a majority of them with conservative ideologies and ones that want to push a very conservative agenda.

And I think you're seeing this play out across the country for a couple of reasons.

Number one, as was hinted over there, conservatives don't feel like they have equal treatment at universities right now, not just on the professors side, but on the student side.

When student conservative groups are bring in speakers, they're often subjected to very loud protests by the majority liberal campus.

You're also seeing a generational problem that Republicans have right now.

Conservatives had where the majority of Gen Z and millennials, vast majorities voting for Democrats at the moment.

And that's ringing alarm bells right now in Republican circles on a number of levels.

And they're understanding that they have to find a way to get a foothold in with younger generations or they're going to start losing elections heavily.

>>Mm hmm.

Steve, this bill also shakes up professors, jobs board of trustees of the power to hire faculty members, review tenured professors at any time with cause or deny tenure, which recently happened at New College.

Why were they denied?

And why is this so concerning to people in the academic world?

>>Yeah, well, the reasons given for us all, we just need more time.

Things like that.

It's.

It's pretty obvious, though, what's going on.

Board member Chris Rufo has been very vocal about wanting, you know, a conservative take over.

He's he's, you know, looked at Viktor Orban of Hungary's, essentially took over the universities there as an example.

And a lot people are concerned about this because, you know, when you get tenure is when you're allowed to like, you know, essentially talk about freedom of speech, of things, to be able to talk about things, you know, without being worried about you lose your job or pressure from above and things like that.

If you stop giving people tenure, then they're just you know, they can be fired at any time.

And they probably keep their mouth shut.

>>Mm-hmm.

Curtis, could this be a First Amendment violation?

I mean, we saw last year federal judge truck provisions of the Stop Woke Act at public colleges.

Will this be fought in court?

>>You know, I. I don't see how it wouldn't be.

I mean, I think this is kind of all set and the groundwork for that to happen.

And especially when you talk about the things that we've seen happen on college campuses and especially with with Stop Woke and as well as you know, and Nick brought up a point, too, you've seen on college campuses, you know, a lot of the conservative professors, a lot of the students having those issues with having their voices heard.

I mean, this is just going to be something where you're going to see both sides have issues with a lot of all of this as it all kind of moves throughout.

Now, I'll be interested.

It'll be interesting to see some of the the the legal I should say legal cases that will eventually come up because of all of this.

>>Lots, lots to keep an eye on.

>>Oh, absolutely.

Definitely so.

Yeah.

>>Yeah.

Well, as we've just been talking about in this session, the state legislature has involved itself deeply in the curriculum of higher education institutes regarding gender and racial studies.

At the same time, the Florida State Education Board voted to ban teaching students about sexual orientation and gender identity through high school.

Expanding, Don't Say Gay law.

In addition, this legislative session addressed issues like gender affirming treatments and children at drag shows.

UCF political science professor Aubrey Jewett explains.

These laws are wins for the Republican Party, especially Governor DeSantis.

>>The governor has made it clear and the legislatures made it clear that they're going to go after transgender people, and they're doing it in a way where they don't even actually specifically mention transgender people.

But the way they're enforcing it makes it clear that that's what they're doing.

So we've had, for instance, several venues have been attacked by the state.

And basically the state has said, you know, we're going to yank your license to serve liquor because you held a drag show and you allowed minors to come in even when the agent from the state said nothing untoward happened, that nothing, you know, nothing broke state law.

But then the state still going after them.

So now they're passing a law that has a lot of vague and nebulous terms that will leave it sort of up to the state to interpret.

And so we've already seen, for instance, when one municipality has canceled a gay pride parade because they were worried that might maybe something in the parade or take a particular float, or maybe somebody would say something or do something that would violate the law.

And so, yeah, it's this is what's happened.

It's the state the Republicans primarily have decided to go after the LGBT community and particularly the transgender community.

And this this law is one way to do it.

>>Steve, the House has passed quite a few anti LGBTQ pieces of legislation this session.

What's been the response from the LGBTQ community?

>>Well, there's just a sense that this is an all out assault on the on the community.

You see the bills like the bathroom bill, the drag show bans, you know, things like that going up to age 12.

We can't talk about, you know, you know, sexuality and things, which is, you know, at a point where some of the students are adults at this point.

So they're just there's just a sense that, you know, the Florida Republicans want from them that they think that fellow Republicans don't want them in the LGBTQ people in the public sphere.

They don't want transgender people here, and they want, you know, LGBTQ people to be essentially underground and like, you know, not seen and not heard.

And that's the sort of sense that they're getting from all the bills that a flood of bills have been coming through.

>>Mm hmm.

Curtis, after an anti drag show law passed a Port St Lucie Gay Pride Parade was canceled.

Could this be the end of Florida Pride parades?

I mean, especially here in central Florida, we have quite a large one.

>>We do.

We do.

I think that I don't I wouldn't go so far as to say it would be the end of the Pride parades.

I would say that they're going to be a lot of people taking a little bit more precautions to say, okay, what steps are we taking to ensure that we're constructing everything or doing what we can to operate within the parameters of the law to ensure that there aren't anything that may be obscene or may have something that children may not be appropriate for children?

We've seen here recently one of my colleagues report on several of the drag shows seeing a decline in attendance and them having to kind of like cancel a few shows because people are just not going at all because they don't want to be associated with or the potential of anything that could possibly happen.

I think what will what we will see happen, though, is that people will, like I said, be more mindful about what they're doing when it comes to making sure that everything the content of these shows have something that are within the parameters of the law and doesn't violate or doesn't have anything that could be obscene or something out of line for minors.

>>Mm hmm.

And Nick, what have you been hearing about the potential for Florida going a step further and banning the recognition of same sex marriage?

There was a bill introduced this year.

I mean, is this that that assault that that Steve talked about?

>>I personally haven't heard anything about that prospect here in Florida.

Keep in mind, we still have United States Supreme Court precedent that same sex marriage is legal and we have seen Republicans in some other states, at least openly express that they hope that is overturned one way or the other.

I haven't seen a push to have that happen here in Florida, but if my fellow panelists have heard otherwise, then by all means.

>>Well, DeSantis was asked about that yesterday and he just dodged the question and talked about the other bills.

So he would not give a yes or yes or no in terms of, you know, do you agree with gay marriage rights?

>>Mm hmm.

So a lot to keep our eye on in that community as well.

We'll be sure to join the conversation on social media.

We're at WUCFTV on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Finally tonight, the six week abortion ban law was signed by the governor.

This legislative session, but will only take effect if the state's current 15 week ban is upheld before the Supreme Court.

As the abortion ban becomes more strict, House Bill 899 set standards for voluntary baby boxes at fire departments and hospitals.

It also now allows parents to anonymously surrender newborns from seven days old to one month after birth.

Florida Representative Anna Eskamani says it was no coincidence the bill's advancement came the same day the state proposed stricter abortion laws and create an increase of forced pregnancies carry to term.

>>These are situations of low income.

These are situations where families are struggling to make ends meet.

So I assume the extension is designed to try to allow families more time to figure that out.

But again, it's really frustrating for me because these are these are you're creating more problems by banning abortion that now need these type of approaches to address.

I mean, again, it would just be much better if we respected parents and respected women to make personal decisions and not allow for there to be political interference where forcing someone to decide, should I choose this option or not.

When it comes to a box for their child.

So it's it's definitely frustrating to find ourselves in this situation in the first place.

>>On the other hand, state Representative Randy Fine says this is just an expansion of the safe haven law and will reduce the amount of parents harming their unwanted newborns.

>>I don't know.

I mean, I don't think the two are related.

You know, we may have more.

More adoption.

I mean, I think that there are lots of people who would love to have babies who can't.

And I think you might see more adoption as a result.

But but when you look at challenges in the adoption system, it's typically not with newborns.

It is with, you know, older children.

And I hope they all find forever homes.

But but, you know, for whatever reason, oftentimes people looking to adopt, they want a baby.

Well, you know, there may be more babies available for people to adopt as a result of that Bill.

>>Well, Curtis, Florida was one of the first states to allow parents to surrender their babies.

Back in 2000, how many newborns were were legally surrendered and do experts believe that the state needs this new bill?

>>So looking at the numbers, I mean, it was roughly about 400 or a little over 370 babies that were surrendered that at that point in time.

And then as time has progressed, looking even deeper, hasnt been a lot since, and I think that one of the things when you talk to some of the experts and you hear what they're saying, this largely, yes.

If if there's a situation where someone feels compelled that this is a choice that they need to make to do.

But then there's another monetary thing that comes along with it.

When you come to looking at the municipalities and the money that would be given to some of these fire houses and police departments to house these boxes, there is a there's a price tag that comes with that.

So there are a number of factors that have to be considered when you look into this, the money factor, the you know, looking at the statistics, it seems that it wasn't very popular in the past.

>>Mm hmm.

Do we know what is happening in the Supreme Court with the six week abortion ban and how this might affect this legislation that's coming out?

What are the next steps?

>>It's it's unclear what's going to happen with that.

I mean, it seems as if, you know, the you know, the the appellate courts and the Supreme Court are much more favorable now to, you know, allowing these these types of laws.

Now, you know, post Dobbs, so it's quite it's quite possible and quite likely.

People say that, you know, this the 15 week, 15 week bill will be allowed and then automatically the six week bill will then be allowed.

>>Mm hmm.

And Steve, this is this is a very strict abortion ban.

What are we hearing about how this might affect Governor DeSantis in his presidential aspirations for pushing for a ban that is that is quite rigid, isn't it?

>>Well, I talked with a professor of political science professor at the University of Michigan last year, and she or she said one of the things is just like a six week ban would just simply just not play.

You know, in Michigan, in the Midwest in general, we saw that in 2022.

A lot of, you know, Democrat Republicans lost and Democrats won based on seems to be like the blowback of the of the Roe decision.

You know, last year especially was like Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, places like that.

It's just it's quite possible that a six week ban, which for for all intents and purposes might as well be a ban on abortion in general, is simply just not going to play well politically in those in those Midwestern states, which are key states for any Republican to win the presidency.

>>That was going to be my - go ahead Curtis >>No, I was just going to say, following up to that, I think that it'll be interesting to see as we get closer to DeSantis which we know will ultimately happen, making an announcement or a run for president and see how the country as a whole plays to some of these.

The Florida blueprint and some of these legislations that have passed here and see how they play on a larger scale.

>>And finally, Nick, I've got to ask about the Disney DeSantis dispute.

I love an alliteration there.

But what's what's going on with that?

>>So we've seen now two lawsuits filed, right, one by Disney in federal court, one by the Reedy Creek District or Central Florida Tourism Oversight District in state court.

We might see an additional lawsuit now that this monorail bill has been passed.

If that doesn't already if that hasn't already been covered by Disney's federal suit, and this is where we're going to stand for a while now, we've got two sides both saying what the other side did was illegitimate in some way.

And at this point in time, we're going to have to see the process play out.

We know that the state legislature is working or has already passed their bill to nullify the deal.

Again, that's just going to be wrapped up in the court case.

Disney is hoping that their argument, this is all government retribution trumps everything else that's happened.

They want to reset back to 2021 and legal analysts so far say they're most likely going to get it.

>>And quickly, before we close out, Steve, I think I also know the answer to this.

Was this a wise move for DeSantis to go up against the mouse?

>>There's been a lot of criticism even from Republicans about like, why is he doing this?

Is this the fight you want to have right now when you're about to possibly annouce for the presidency?

>>Mm hmm.

Well, we will be keeping an eye on that story and monitoring what the Supreme Court does when it comes to abortion.

And we will keep you updated.

Well, that's all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to our panelists, Steven Lemongello, Curtis McCloud and Nick Papantonis.

Make sure to join us next Friday night at 8:30 right here on WUCF.

Have a great weekend.