- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

(bright music) - [Narrator] Coming up next, the Florida Supreme Court comes out with two major decisions on abortion, recreational marijuana will be on the Florida ballot this fall, and there may be some hope in the state's homeowners insurance crisis.

All this and more, next on "Florida This Week."

(bright adventurous music) - Welcome back, joining us on the panel this week, Tara Newsom is an attorney and professor at St. Petersburg College.

Mafe Rajul is a former judge, a mediator, and an independent, state Senator Darryl Rouson represents District 16 in Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties, and is a Democrat, and Steve Bousquet is the opinion editor for the "South Florida Sun Sentinel."

So nice to have all of you here.

Great to see you, and thanks for coming by.

- Thank you.

- Well, several important rulings from the Florida Supreme Court this week.

Let's start with abortion.

(screen whooshing) - There were two decisions on abortion Monday.

First, the high court cleared the way for the state to ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

That's before many women know they are pregnant.

There are some exceptions for cases involving rape, incest, and fetal abnormalities, as well as to save a mother's life.

Under the law passed by the legislature and approved by the court, the six-week ban on abortions is scheduled to take place beginning early next month.

- This will be the largest public health crisis that will be created after the overture of Roe v. Wade.

We are the third most populous state in the nation, and we are surrounded almost entirely by water.

Where we aren't surrounded by water, we're surrounded by bans, or states that already have abortion bans in effect.

- [Narrator] In the other decision on abortion, the court voted four to three to allow a proposed constitutional amendment to be on the ballot this November to protect access to abortion up to fetal viability, which occurs after 23 weeks.

The amendment would need the support of 60% of voters to pass.

Florida's Republican House speaker opposes the measure.

- It is extreme in its focus.

It would be one of the most extreme laws in the country, as well as around the world should it pass.

- So, Tara, let's start with the first decision about abortion.

In just a few weeks, the six-week ban on abortion goes into effect here in Florida.

How's that gonna affect women here in the state of Florida?

- Anytime you affect women's access to healthcare or dignity, you're gonna affect women.

And so, this is gonna cause a chilling effect for women to access healthcare, reproductive rights, and actually make us a very unfavorable state in terms of women's rights overall, and this is very surprising to us, since we see that the polling numbers are showing that most Floridians are in support of access to reproductive rights.

It's also interesting because there's clear voter enthusiasm for access.

We saw that, you know, the requirement for the petition was only 800,000.

We had way more than that, and 35% of that was independents and Republicans, and so, this is not just a women's issue, this is a human rights issue to some, and I think that we need to be watching, but that's not the only thing that we need to be watching for it, because women are also gonna be coming out to vote for the rest of the ballot, and there's one person we haven't really been talking about that much with this, is that abortion is gonna drive a lot of people to come out and vote about Rick Scott.

You know, he came on record that he does not support anything more than six-week access to reproductive freedom.

He's mixing that conversation with his take on social security reform, and I think a lot of voters are gonna be looking at that, and remembering about his Medicare defraud charges, and he might be in a real sticky situation.

He's always had a close election, so, I think abortion is, of course, important, but it's also gonna drive the other issues on the ballot.

- Yeah, I want to get deep into the politics in just a little bit, but Steve, let me ask you this.

84,000 women had abortions here in Florida last year.

A good number of them, about 9,300, I believe, came from out of state.

If we essentially almost nearly shut down access to abortion in Florida, beginning in the first part of May, where do those women go?

- Well, if they can afford it, they're gonna go to places like Massachusetts, they're gonna go to Illinois, a long way from here.

And many of these women are, you know, have financial pressures in addition to the pressures of an unplanned pregnancy.

I think that by the time people go to vote in November on Amendment Four, this state will have had to live for six or seven months with this ex... Paul Renner thinks the ballot initiative is extreme, the six-week ban is even more extreme.

It's one of the most restrictive in the country, and so, against that backdrop, I think that the six-week ban itself is gonna be an effective effort to mobilize public support for it.

I'm a little more skeptical than Tara is about the ability of this issue to drive other vote choices on the ballot.

Florida voters, historically, I'm sad to say, I love the state, but they're not very good at connecting the dots sometimes.

People will- - Have faith, have faith, have faith.

- People will, oh yeah, I'll try to, but people will vote for the ballot initiative, and they'll also vote for Trump or Rick Scott.

I'm not saying everybody, but I'm thinking it's still a major effort, but I'm seeing tremendous amount of enthusiasm right off the bat from Democrats, and this is gonna be an effective way for democratic candidates to raise money, this issue.

- Mafe, let me ask you a legal question.

That is that the judges who are on the Florida Supreme Court, most of them, five of them were appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis, a Conservative.

Some people are angry, right?

A lot of people are angry, because they see this measure that's gonna be on the ballot in November, and they say some of, or all of DeSantis' appointees approve the measure, but the other concern that people have is that they say, if you go back 30 years and look at precedent, we have in our state constitution, a privacy clause, and the court has always upheld that, and said, "That does apply to abortion."

In this case, this court overturned the precedent, and said, "It doesn't apply to abortion."

When a court overturns precedent, how do you view that?

You're a former judge, how do you view that?

- Well, I will answer that in two parts.

First, with respect to your question about people being upset at the judges, judges have to make hard decisions, and judges should not be making decisions based on political ideology.

Judges should be making decisions based on what the law is, and not what they believe in, and that's one of the hardest things about being a judge.

A lot of people think that the tough job of a judge is making the hard decision as far as whether they're gonna send somebody to prison for a long time, but no, the hard decisions really have to do when you're going against what you believe in, and what the public is expecting you to do, and you have to go otherwise because of what the law says.

So, that's what I will say to those voters.

With respect to the precedent, you know, when I was reading the decision, it actually took me back to my undergrad years, when I was studying philosophy of law at the University of Washington and Seattle, one of the most liberal universities in the country, and we were dealing with Roe v. Wade.

And I remember studying that, and thinking, "Well, of course it's the right to privacy," And I remember our professor talking about, and this is when I learned that judges, a lot of times, already know what decision they want, and they will interpret the law and the constitution whichever way they want in order to get that result, and when you really start to look at it, it has nothing to do with privacy.

And as I was reading the decision from the Supreme Court on the issue of the injunction, it was the exact same rationale.

There is really nothing about privacy related to abortion.

And when people were upset about Roe v. Wade being overturned, I thought that it was the right decision, because it put the decision back on the states, the power on the states, and the elected officials of the people, so.

- Okay, so, Darryl, pro-choice groups gathered between May of last year and January of this year, 1.45 million signatures on this ballot issue to get it on the ballot and protect abortion rights, if Florida voters pass it by 60%.

What does it say to gather that many signatures in that amount of time?

- It says that people are engaged.

They've heard what the Supreme Court said, they've seen what the legislature has passed, and the good news is that they're gonna be living under this six-week ban for six or seven months before they go to the polls, and they'll see the effect, the draconian effect of that six-week ban, but it has energized women all across this state, and in every other state that was a reliably red state when this was on the ballot, they voted to give a woman choice, control over her own body, and I think that they'll show up at the polls in mass.

- Okay, let's keep that thought, 'cause I wanna continue this discussion, but let me introduce the other decision by the Florida Supreme Court.

In the other major decision, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Monday that an initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana can appear on the state's ballot this November.

(screen whooshing) - The proposed amendment would allow people 21 years or older to possess up to three ounces of cannabis.

The ganja could be sold through marijuana dispensaries without the need for a medical marijuana card.

- All right, so, Darryl, the governor's calling both the marijuana amendment and the abortion amendment extreme and radical.

What do you make of the decision by the court to allow this to be voted on by the Florida voters?

- Well, I'm not there with legalization of recreational marijuana.

- [Rob] Why not?

- Because I am, first of all, I'm a person in long-term recovery, and I've seen the effects of a marijuana addiction on families, neighborhoods, and individuals, having been in drug treatment facilities across this country.

I'm also worried about the fact that 21 is not going to be the cutoff, It's not gonna be the determining age, that there'll be 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds who will be suffering from psychoses when they start smoking marijuana.

I think that if we're going to legalize it, and the train may have left the station in this state, then we need to do about, we need to spend money on prevention, education, and treatment.

- And could the legislature, through taxing marijuana sales, make that happen?

- Well, I hope so.

You know, I tried to get a 25% sales tax on crack pipes some years ago, and that failed.

- [Rob] Ah.

- And the idea was to take the revenue, and spend it on treatment, education, and prevention.

So, we've come full circle, - Tara- - And I'm gonna push hard in the legislature to do that.

- Tara, the governor says that these measures are radical and extreme.

He says, for instance, in the case of abortion, we're gonna have the same kind of laws that California has, and he says, "That's a bad thing."

- Well, first off, let's let the voters of Florida decide what's a good thing and what's a bad thing, but if you wanna come to St. Pete, I'm pretty sure you're gonna find that marijuana, is already very much used, and is a non-partisan issue.

We have Republicans and Democrats who are celebrating this on the ballot, but the one thing that I think that we do need to think about is that by decriminalizing recreational use, we're actually interrupting the pipeline to prison for a lot of individuals.

I teach at St. Pete College, we have a lot of students that end up derailing their lives with convictions, and they have difficulty accessing the economy, accessing housing, and accessing the right to vote, and so, although I absolutely understand Senator Rouson's concerns, I also think that there is another piece to this.

And if I can keep more, you know, more of my students engaged in society, and getting a good job, and getting a good place to live by not being convicted of a marijuana conviction, I think that's where I wanna be.

- Mafe, what's your take on that?

- Well, my take is closer to the senator, because I actually lived through that in Seattle.

See, Washington was the very first state that legalized marijuana in 2012, and at the time, I was a prosecutor, and we saw, I mean, if Florida residents or Floridians want to approve this, that they better be ready to have more DUIs, they better be ready to have more traffic fatalities, and they also need to give up the idea of having a clean and peaceful life outside, because one of the things that I notice in this initiative, contrary to even California and Washington, is that it doesn't have any restriction for use outside, in public.

At least in Washington, not that it happens, 'cause people still smoke weed in the street, but here, you don't even have that restriction, so, get used to having the smell of marijuana everywhere, get used to the idea that you can go to the beach, and it's gonna be smelling like marijuana when you're out in a nice restaurant outside, and it's also gonna bring a lot of other crimes.

And the other thing that I will add, from my own experience, having lived in Seattle, after the legalization of marijuana, it just became the step up for decriminalizing the rest of the drugs.

And I agree, we need to have more prevention, and we need to have education, we need to have treatment, but I just didn't see that happening.

- Steve, I want to get to the politics in a second, but just to Mafe's point, the legislature will implement this law, so, it can tell people where and how these things will occur if they pass, right?

- They can, and that's dangerous, as we saw with Amendment Four, the amendment that the restored voting rights to felons.

- Yes.

- The legislature, you get 100 people in a room reinterpreting and redefining what the voters intended.

What I wanted to say about this is I agree with the comments by the panel, that I do think the recreational marijuana amendment is a tougher sell with voters than abortion.

I think it is, I think it's (clicks tongue) for some of the arguments that have been made here, and it's an important and closely watched, will be a closely watched test of if Ron DeSantis thinks this is such a terrible idea, is he willing to go town to town, county by county, and tell voters, "Hey," you know, Ron DeSantis, like him or not, is far and away the best known politician in this state, and people will listen to DeSantis on an issue like this, I think.

- Oh, I'm sorry.

I disagree, Steve.

- Okay.

- Because the greatest portion of our electorate that is growing is the no party affiliate, the independents.

- I wish they voted.

- Well, you know what?

I think this is gonna be a litmus test on their ability to get out the vote, and also, on where they are in fundamental freedoms, and accessing the economy, and these kind of criminalization or decriminalization, and I think you're gonna find in November that this is gonna be a totally different kind of voter that comes out.

- Very, very quickly, even...

I respect what you're saying.

Even without these two issues on the ballot, in a presidential year like this, you're gonna get a 75 to 80% turnout.

So, the media and others have to sort of identify who are the voters who would otherwise sit this election out, but who are gonna vote now that abortion and marijuana are on the ballot?

I'm yet to be convinced that that's a huge universe of voters.

- So, we must say, today, voters be engaged.

(Ron chuckling) - Absolutely.

- Steve, Democrat- - And actually, one thing that I wanted, if you don't mind, - Yeah.

- One thing that I would like to follow up on what you were talking about with the interpretation and the voters is that this is also a problem with the amendment to the abortion, because it's so broad.

Right now, the way that it's written, is that to protect the patient's health, and where is that, where does that stop?

And I think that voters that think that this is just gonna legalize abortion need to under, I'm sorry, yeah, legalize abortion need to understand, that this pretty much opens it up for any kind of abortion post, you know, like, late abortion, and more importantly, - That's not precedent in other states, though, - And one more thing.

- And that's misleading the public.

- And one more thing is that this is gonna open a lot of litigation for interpreting what is the patient's health, and it's just gonna be ongoing litigation.

- As a lawyer to a lawyer, there's case law on that, and there's precedent on viability at 24 weeks, and I think that Steve, though, is the most correct about going back, and what we really need to be watching is not that it's not gonna pass.

I think both of these are gonna pass.

It's what does the legislature do in the next session?

How do they define viability?

How do they define healthcare provider?

How do they change the criminalization of the decriminalization?

That's what they did with the felon disenfranchisement, but it's not appropriate to tell the public that access to healthcare should be interfered with because it's too vague.

- Steve, I want to ask you about turnout.

Will this draw, will these two issues draw more young people out to vote?

Will it make Joe Biden competitive in the state of Florida?

And will it turn around Florida's reputation as being a solid red state?

- I think that potential is there.

I don't see this as a surefire thing, to change the state overnight from a red state to a purple state.

You know, that would be a good thing, in my opinion, for the future of the state, but it's yet to be proven.

I thought, a lot of us thought, in 2018, the Amendment Four, the other Amendment Four to restore voting rights to felons was gonna be a turnout driver.

That's the year that Rick Scott knocked Bill Nelson out of the United States Senate.

In 2020, we had a minimum wage initiative on the ballot.

I thought that that might really be a driver to bring marginalized voters to the polls, young people, people working minimum wage jobs.

It doesn't work in practice.

I don't think it works as effectively as we we'd wish it would, and in 2020, Donald Trump won the state over Joe Biden by a few percentage points.

- But we must keep hope alive.

- Sure.

- And we must tell people the importance of voting, and encourage them to come out and do just that.

- If I can make one more quick point, and that is this, we haven't touched on it.

This shows the absolute importance that Florida has the citizens' initiative, that there's the opportunity for interest groups and citizens to sign those 1.4 million petitions to get this on the ballot.

The legislature wouldn't have put these issues (pen thumping) on the ballot in 100 years, okay?

So, the only path left, what is known as direct democracy is here, and they had so many obstacles in their path, and they still got it on the ballot.

- Okay, well, Florida homeowners are paying nearly five times more for insurance than the national average, according to new study from Insurify.

(screen whooshing) - Florida homeowners are expected to pay an average of nearly $12,000 for home insurance in 2024, according to the report.

That's 7% more than in 2023.

The study found that of the 10 most expensive insurance markets in the country, six of them were here in Florida, all along the Atlantic Coast.

Rates here on the Gulf Coast are lower.

Meantime, some possible good news, eight new insurance companies will now be entering the state and writing homeowners insurance policies.

We put the list on the screen.

As you can see, there are not any easily recognized household names on that list.

In addition to these companies, six more new insurers were given the go ahead by state regulators in January.

- So, Steve, does it help that these eight new companies are coming into the state market?

And with the National Hurricane Forecast coming out this week saying five major hurricanes, 23 named storms this year, we're gonna have a much more active storm season than usual.

- Right, I think it could help.

It's a bit surprising, but like you said, how well capitalized are these companies?

I don't know.

You mean, you never heard of the Manatee Insurance Exchange, you know, before?

(Rob chuckling) This continues to be a story in every part of this state, and I wanted to tell you the story about, I was recently in Palm Beach County, working on stories for the "Sun Sentinel," and on Channel 5 in West Palm Beach, was the story of Debbie Winters, who lives in a nicely manicured home, middle class, a home in Loxahatchee, which is a long way from the Atlantic Ocean, and her insurance premium just tripled.

This is the number one pocketbook issue in this state, and it's not going away.

- Darryl, with the interests of these five, or these eight new insurance companies, does that help?

- You mean you never heard of Tailbow Insurance Company?

(Rob chuckling) My gosh, Steve, where have you been?

I think it will take time for us to figure out whether or not it truly works.

- So, Tara, I think if the insurance industry, both the reinsurance and the regular insurance companies look at the forecast for hurricanes, they might be tempted to raise rates right now before hurricane season starts.

- It's very possible, and we're not necessarily getting to the nut of why this is so bad.

You know, in 2000, the average income was around $30,000.

24 years later, it's only 39,000.

In 2000, the average home was about 164,000.

Today, it's about 450,000, and so, that disparity, and add onto it, the fact that you're spending about $1,000 dollars a month for home insurance makes the ability to buy homes so much more difficult.

Why is this important?

Because homebuying creates economic stability, creates wealth, and generational wealth, and that creates a better and healthier society.

So, we're not getting to the nut of it, which is this is really interfering with individuals' ability to buy a home, and have security in that way.

- So, I wonder, are insurance companies charging a fair price?

That's really the question, because we do see an increase in storms.

We've got global warming heading our way, so, maybe the insurance companies are doing the right thing to protect their company?

- You know, that's why we need to lean on legislators like Senator Rouson to dig up, you know, what is the real deal here?

How do they really solve this problem?

We thought that when Ron DeSantis was done running his presidential campaign, he'd come back to Florida and do the hard work of solving that problem.

And so, hopefully, you know, now with these growing costs, it's gonna really put a pinch on the legislature to actually be innovative, and actually try to find a solution.

- Darryl, has the legislature- - And we accept that.

- Has the legislature done a thorough study to see whether or not the high cost of insurance are justified?

- Every year, we ask for that, and every year, they tell us it's not necessary, or they give us some mamsy-pamsy figure of what they think is happening out in the market, but we'll continue to push.

There are those of us, and there are people on both sides of the aisle that are concerned about property insurance and the raising of these rates.

I think an insurance company just the other day got permission to raise rates double digits, and we'll see what happens.

- Okay, well, before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

And Tara, let's start with you.

The other big story of the week?

- We talked about at least two of the constitutional amendments, but we didn't talk about the first one, which is creating partisan races for school boards, and that is a whole line of movement that I think is trying to push Floridians into the party line that's being mirrored down in Sarasota with Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where we now see four openings, three of which are candidates are running on the health freedom, anti-vaccination.

So, we're now making partisan positions on our hospitals, and I think that we really need to be careful of what that's gonna look like, and watch how that's gonna affect the policies and procedures that most of us that interact with local government really can live with.

- Okay, Mafe, your other big story of the week?

- For me, it's more international, which has to do with Colombia.

I'm from Colombia, and the new Argentinian president, Javier Milei made some comment about some of the consequences of having the kind of presidents like Colombia has right now, and made some reference that just look at Venezuela, look at Cuba, and what can you expect from somebody who was a guerilla member, and who was a murderer, because he was, and so, the Colombian president decided to expel the diplomats, the Argentinian diplomats from Colombia, and I don't know what that's gonna do.

- Are you hopeful for Colombia's future under this president?

- Not with this president.

- All right, Darryl, (Mafe chuckling) your other big story?

- My other big story is gun violence continues in Tampa Bay, and last year, the governor vetoed a bill that I had that would've created a $5 million fund to help community organizations who are successful in stopping gun violence, to expand what they're doing.

We have the same language back in front of him this week, this year, and I'm hopeful that he'll sign it.

- All right, so, it's on his desk?

- Yes.

- Steve, your other big story?

- Yeah, it's this, the tension between Donald Trump and Governor Ron DeSantis is gonna be a recurring story this election season.

These two guys don't like each other very much, public appearances to the contrary.

Donald Trump proved it recently by putting a big target on the back of Laurel Lee, republican congresswoman from Hillsborough County, and said, basically, "I'm looking to recruit an opponent for Laurel Lee in the primary."

The next turn of the screw is when DeSantis gets the budget, and decides what projects to veto.

This budget is laden with all sorts of projects, by the way, for a lot of really good productive things, like dementia care, and reentry programs for ex-offenders, things like that, but if DeSantis goes out of his way to punish Donald Trump's supporters in these vetoes, it's gonna be immediately obvious to everybody.

- And members of the far right are looking at that Laurel Lee race, and thinking they may jump in.

- They are, once again, Hillsborough is gonna be ground zero for a lot of interesting stuff here.

- All right, thank you all for a great panel.

Thanks to Tara Newsom, Mafe Rajul, Senator Darryl Rouson, and Steve Bousquet.

Nice to see you all here.

- Thanks for having us.

- And if you have comments about this program, please send them to ftw@wedu.org.

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(bright adventurous music)