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- Coming up next, the governor now wants changes in the parental rights, or don't say gay law.

The state legislature is moving closer to making laws protecting fetuses at any stage of development.

There's more pressure on a controversial member of the Sarasota School Board to resign, and there's a move in Tallahassee to ban offshore wind turbines.

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

(exciting music) Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Mike Fasano is the Pasco County Tax Collector, a former state representative and a former senator and a Republican.

Janelle Irwin Taylor is a Journalist and the Publisher of the Online Journal, "Southeast Politics."

Alan Cohn is a former journalist, a former candidate for the US House of Representatives, and a Democrat.

And Gene Siudut is the Assistant Editor and Columnist for "La Gaceta" newspaper.

Nice to see you all.

Thank you for doing the program today.

- Thanks for having us.

- Well, during a news conference in Orlando last week, Governor Ron DeSantis took aim at the many news reports saying that Florida has opened the door to book banning in schools.

The governor said Florida doesn't ban books, but has allowed parents and others to object to certain material.

DeSantis said some people have abused the process to score cheap political points.

He called claims that Florida bans books a false narrative.

Despite backing the bill originally, he now wants the legislature to change the language in the parental rights and education bill to limit how books can be challenged.

Under the bill, which critics have dubbed the don't say gay bill, anyone, even if they had no kids in school, could challenge any book in any school library for almost any reason.

- We have to empower parents at the same time to just have random people come in who don't even have kids in the school system and just start objecting to things just to try to gum up the works.

That is not something that we should be incentivizing in this state.

- When a book is challenged, that book has to be pulled from the shelves, evaluated by the school district, and then will either be returned to the library or removed permanently, a costly and time-consuming process.

The Republican controlled legislature's own staff found that there were 1,218 book objections during the last fiscal year, resulting in the removal of 386 books.

Under the law, picture books depicting penguins and bunnies have been removed, so have many classics of literature.

Many teachers and school districts meanwhile have argued that the state laws are poorly defined, leading to confusion and fear about what is allowed in schools and what is not.

Mike, this was one of the governor's top priorities a few years ago.

Now he's conceding that the law is vague.

It needs to be rewritten.

What do you make of that?

- I agree with the governor.

I think that it went a little too far in regards to the books.

We have people that are coming to school, board members demanding this or that book be removed.

They aren't a parent.

They may not even be living in the county that they're objecting the book to in regards to that.

We have school board members.

They're elected.

If a parent has a problem with a book in the school, go to that school board member.

If you're unhappy with the school board member, then you vote 'em out to the next election.

But the legislature sometimes goes a little too far, this time they probably did, and I'm happy to see the governor needs to, wants to see some amendment to it.

- So Janelle, the governor is essentially saying that some people are doing this for nefarious reasons.

Is there much evidence that people are trying to cause trouble?

Or is it more likely that it's conservatives that don't like book content who are challenging the books?

- Well, I think that depends on who you ask, but I will say that the fact that the vast majority of these books that are being challenged are being challenged by just a handful of people.

These are not like moms and dads who saw a book at their kids' library and have concerns about it.

These are people that have an agenda.

So whether or not you believe that that's a conservative agenda, well that's up to the individual person to decide.

But there certainly is evidence to suggest that this is a concerted effort because it's only coming from a handful of people.

- So Alan, the governor seems to want to have it both ways though.

I mean, he's admitting that there are problems with the original law.

He wants to roll it back, but at the same time, he's saying that there are no book bans going on.

It's parents that are starting the process of the book ban.

- Well, that's a little disingenuous on his part because he signed the law in the first place.

And what we've seen over the last couple years are books about Anne Frank and Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks being banned, and there are people, as you mentioned, from other parts of the state who felt empowered to go object to some of these books.

And school boards have been concerned about getting sued and getting into trouble.

So, I mean, you know, Mike is right.

If you have a problem with a book, go to your school board, but it obviously this needs to be corrected.

- So Gene, is there a chance it'll be corrected during this session?

Do you think that the legislature will deal with it this session?

- I think they'll touch it because the governor wants them to, and I think that anything they can do to not deal with the insurance crisis in Florida is gonna be something where they can get the headlines and it's just to be a big distraction.

You know, the governor's right, he's not banning anything, but he's creating the environment for it.

He's saying, you shouldn't have these things and it's up to you to decide you don't want it or not.

- If teachers and school principals, and even school boards are saying this law is vague, should the law be retracted entirely?

Should it be rescinded?

- I think so, but I also think that a lot of times when we pass laws in this state, it's shoot first, ask questions later, so we just throw it on the books and see how it works, and let the consequences happen later.

- Mike, do you think it should be rescinded entirely or modified?

- No, I don't.

I think it needs to be modified.

We've made, I was a legislator for 19 years.

I probably, I did, I voted for things that we realized it was needed to be amended maybe a year or two later, this has to happen.

I agree with the governor, and again, allow the parents to go see that elected school board member if they have an issue and let that school board member and the board itself make that decision without having to be fearful of being sued or something else.

- And that's always been the case even before this law was enacted, you could always go to your school board and complain, or your school librarian and complain.

- That is correct.

- Alright.

Well, the Florida legislature is considering bills that would permit lawsuits to recover damages for the wrongful death of fetuses at any stage of development in the womb, even if the fetus wouldn't have been able to survive outside the womb.

So far the bills have mostly been approved on party lines and committee hearings.

This week, all seven democrats in the House Judiciary Committee voted against the proposal, citing concerns about how it would establish personhood at the moment of conception and potentially harm in-vitro fertilization, healthcare workers, and women seeking abortions.

The proposals define an unborn child as a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development who is carried in the womb.

The requirement for the fetus to be carried in the womb leaves in-vitro fertilization out of the scope of the bill.

Yet the bill doesn't go far enough for some in the anti-abortion movement.

The group Florida Voice For the Unborn says there are hundreds of thousands of unborn children that are frozen as human embryos in this country, including tens of thousands here in Florida.

"We need to expand the definition," the group says, they say, "This definition in the amendment is too narrow."

So Janelle, the sponsor of the bill, says she's gonna go to the legislature on Monday, make some changes in the bill, present 'em on Monday, and she wants to indicate that this is only about wrongful death cases, it's not expanding the definition of life to the moment of conception in all cases.

Yet the opponents say, "Look, this opens the door to a whole flood of possibilities, a Pandora's box of unexpected things."

- Yes.

And saying that something is so does not make it so necessarily, right?

So the concern is there's too many concerns to even count at this point.

I mean, there are implications to abortion, there are implications to people who are seeking in-vitro fertilization, look no further than Alabama and what we have going on there.

Anybody who's on social media has no doubt seen any number of memes, of pictures, of egg cartons in grocery stores saying, "Oh look, an orphanage."

This has a lot of ripple effects that could potentially happen.

And I think if this passes, what you're going to see is something like what we just discussed with the book banning, where the legislature later on has to come back and say, "Whoa, we were a little bit vague here.

We've gotta we've gotta roll it back a little bit."

But given the legislature's track record, I think this is very intentional and they can say that those unintended consequences are in fact unintended, but the evidence suggests that they're not unintended.

- Alan, do you think this is intentional on the part of the legislature to open the door to recognize that life begins right at the moment of conception?

- It is intentional, but they would be best advised to see what's going on in Alabama as Janelle pointed out because there are Republican families who want children, there are Democratic families who want children.

And if this leads to a possibility that in-vitro fertilization is something that healthcare providers will not do, this will backfire on them.

- And look, if they need something else to go on other than what families may or may not want to do in terms of family planning, look at it from a political perspective.

It has been proven in poll, after poll, after poll that the vast majority of Americans and Floridians are in favor of some level of abortion access with restrictions.

And this is parallel to that.

So this is not something that in an election year is probably in the GOP's favor to pursue because it is going to be slapped on television ads, mailers, you name it, to try to win votes from people against Republicans.

- Mike, the sponsor though, does say she's gonna go back to the legislature on Monday and make sure that this law only applies to wrongful death lawsuits.

- Correct.

- [Rob] And not expand the definition of when life begins.

What's your take on that?

- Well, it also also affects those where it's in the womb, not outside the womb.

And I think we need to realize that, make it certain that people understand that.

With that said, I disagree with what the Alabama Supreme Court did.

I think it takes away the ability for parents, couples who wanna have a child have that ability to have that child.

I mean, I agree with Mike Pence is what he said yesterday, the same thing.

And pretty much many, many Republicans throughout this country are saying the same thing that the Alabama Supreme Court, what they did was wrong.

- And Mike, I should say that you're on the right to life side of the issue.

- I'm a right to life.

Absolutely, I believe in life at conception.

And so, but I also believe that parents should have that ability who are able to have a child have that fertilization option.

- I'm guessing Mike also agrees that women who have a miscarriage should not be criminalized for having a miscarriage.

- Absolutely, that I totally agree.

But also if you look at the bill, the bill clearly says that the woman would never be charged or cannot be sued.

- Gene, do you think the legislature's opening the door to something wider or is it just gonna apply to wrongful death lawsuits?

- I think you're setting the path for it, definitely.

I think that the anti-abortion movement has been very, very good at what they do, been able to get Supreme Court justices in, and it's actually honest this time around what they're doing about it.

You know, it used to be they'd ask for the world hoping to get a little bit.

Now you can pretty much get whatever you want.

So I think the whole goal is get life determined as a conception and go from there.

So I think that it's intentional.

I think they're going to, I think they're going to work on getting it, but I think being election year, I think you might have a point where it might get tabled to another year, something more defined.

- Okay, well, pressure continues on Sarasota School Board member Bridget Ziegler to resign.

Ziegler is involved in a very public scandal involving allegations of three-way sex between her, her husband, who is the former chair of the State Republican party and a still unidentified woman.

Mrs. Ziegler has been a proponent of so-called family values in public, her opponents call her a hypocrite, and they've been showing up for months now at school board meetings, calling on her to resign.

This week, the newly formed School Sanity Project sent a mobile truck with Mrs. Ziegler's image on the side to the Sarasota County School Board meeting.

- There is a storm coming to Sarasota against Bridget Ziegler.

There are so many people who clearly see the harms that she's doing.

And there are so many people on the Republican side of the issue and on the Democrat side of the issue who want her gone.

And so the motivation is there, the widespread desire for Bridget Ziegler to be gone is there, and now there's the support.

- [Rob] While most of the public comment at the school board in the past several months has been calling on Ziegler to step down, she does have some supporters who say she's being unfairly pressured.

- It then dawned on me that the majority audience is actually bullying you.

The truth is you have conservative views.

Could that be the real issue here?

I believe so.

- So Gene, Mrs. Ziegler said earlier this month at the school board meeting, she said, "Much of the conversation that's come up at the public comment section I will never address in these chambers."

She said, "Because it has nothing to do with my role as a board member."

So does her, what she's done in private, allegedly, does it affect her role as a school board member?

- No.

No.

I think that as that elected person, I don't think it changes anything, but I do think she should resign.

I think she should resign because not for being a hypocrite, because we wouldn't have any politicians left if people resigned for being hypocrites, but for being so disingenuous to the base who voted for her.

The gentleman said that they're going after her because she's conservative, but marketing that brand of being a conservative and pious, and living that other life, she's not being honest with the people who voted for her.

And I think that she owes them better than that.

- Alan, the pressure continues.

Every time there's a school board meeting, a lot of people come out calling her to resign.

She does have some supporters, but the opponents vastly outnumber her supporters.

- Well, you know, I don't take any joy in this because Bridget and Christian were frequent guests on my show on ABC7 in Sarasota, so I know both of them well.

But they created this brand as social issue warriors.

And in the process they destroyed a lot of lives of young people at their most vulnerable moments while they themselves were being hypocrites.

And so I know the Trump playbook is, you don't apologize, you don't back down.

And I know that they don't really care that all those people who are attending those meetings do believe that they are hypocrites.

Having said that, she should resign.

- Okay, Janelle, what do you think of this?

- You know, I think that the hypocrisy side of this is really the crux of the entire argument.

I agree with Gene, but I also think, as Alan said, there are so many young children who have questions about their sexuality or their gender identity and things like looking for books that are about penguins or a shadow, these are things that help those children navigate those questions that psychologists will tell you are very real questions that actually happen.

So the fact that they have scaled that back and removed access to those sorts of things for those children who are facing these really difficult life questions and then at the same time their private life reflects the things that they're standing against, you can't maintain your position after that, in my opinion.

- Mike, she was a founder of Moms for Liberty.

The governor has backed the group statewide.

A lot of people from Moms for Liberty are running for school boards this year.

How do you think it affects the credibility of Moms for Liberty in the school board races that are coming up?

- Oh, it definitely affects it.

And of course it can be used by that person's opponent definitely, probably very well.

Bottom line, it's hypocrisy.

I will tell you, though, that the Republican party took action almost immediately by removing Christian as chairman of the party.

So I think that was a great start.

Again, it's up to her to resign, but if she doesn't, hopefully the people will voice their opinion at the polls when she comes up for reelection.

- Okay.

Well, Republicans in the state legislature are moving to eliminate parts of state law calling for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Members of the House and Senate are rewriting the state's energy laws and they want to eliminate references to lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

And they want to impose a ban on offshore wind turbines.

In the Senate, the effort is being led by Republican Senator Jay Collins of Tampa, who says he wants to ensure the stability of the electric grid and protect wildlife and ecosystems.

The rewrite would also make it easier to build some natural gas pipelines.

So Alan, is this a step forward or a step backward, do you believe when Senator Collins says he's doing this because he's a concerned environmentalist, essentially, do you believe that that's the reason he's taking these steps?

- So let's get this straight.

Instead of working on lowering property insurance rates, which are killing a lot of Florida families right now, Jay Collins is tilting at windmills and saying that the problem will be solved if we just don't use the language of greenhouse gases in state laws.

I think Senator Collins is playing his voters who are dealing with these insurance premiums right now.

And no, I don't think he's an environmentalist.

I think that it's really kind of obvious right now that whoever side he is on it is not on, he's not on the side of his own constituents.

- Should Florida have a policy about greenhouse gases or is that beyond what Florida should have?

- I think you have to realize what are the top industries in Florida.

It is tourism and agriculture, both of which are in jeopardy because of what we're dealing with in terms of climate change.

So it is in the state's best interest, not just because it is the right thing to do, because it's in our economic interest to do something about it.

- Gene, what do you think of this?

Do you think that when Senator Collins says, "Look, I'm trying to protect the birds and I'm concerned about what the wind turbines might do offshore" and he says "We ought to make it easier for natural gas pipelines to be built," what do you make of that?

- Well, I think he's probably closer to Don Quixote fighting windmills than someone who's actually against it.

I think, you know, if he's looking for a level playing field for electric companies, I mean, this is something you would see on the Simpsons with Mr. Burns trying to figure out what's the most evil thing I can do.

So yeah, I don't think he's being genuine in it and there's no science backing that whales are being killed or really environmental damage other than birds hitting 'em, which planes do the same thing with birds.

So I don't see any honesty in the statements.

- Mike, you were up there in Tallahassee for all those years.

How powerful- (Mike speaks indistinctly) How powerful are the energy companies when it comes to influencing how the legislature votes?

- Well, they are extremely powerful.

Again, money talks and just follow the dollar as we always say.

And you'll see the amount of money that's contributed by the energy companies to the Republicans, Democrats, candidates, their packs, pretty much whatever they need they get in Tallahassee.

You saw in the past they've tried to stop good amendments to the constitution or pass bad amendments to the state constitution.

Thankfully they weren't successful, but they pretty much get what they want in Tallahassee.

- Okay.

Well, before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to, and Mike, let's go back to you.

You've got something that you, I think has been uncovered by the media, the media hasn't really done a good job of explaining the story.

- Well, there's so many issues in Tallahassee.

This is understandable, it concerns me greatly.

It's not bad enough that the insurance industry raises your premiums on your home and your auto insurance every year.

Now they wanna get into your pocketbook of renewing your auto registration and doing Florida automobile title work as well.

You can come to a tax collector office and get it for just a few dollars.

They're gonna charge people 30, 40, 50, who knows what, every time when their automobile registration comes up for renewal.

I would ask anyone who has contact with the legislator, let them know we don't want the insurance industry getting into their pockets by doing this type of work.

Leave it to the tax collector's office and to the state that deals with motor vehicle services because problems will arise and so will the cost of renewing auto registration every year.

- And is there a demand for this?

Do people want their insurance provider to issue their auto license, and who's behind the legislation?

- It's certainly behind the big insurance industry.

They wanna see if they can make a few more dollars off the homeowner, off that rate payer.

And it's kind of sad in a way, because again, they increase those premiums every year on those homeowners.

They increase those premiums on every auto owner in the state and now they wanna also make money off of something else that you have to do every year.

And I would hope that the legislature and the governor, if it gets to the governor that he'll veto this bad bill.

- Okay, Janelle, you're on the big story of the week.

- Well, first of all, high five.

Thank you.

So this defamation bill in the legislature.

So basically we're trying to make it easier to sue somebody for saying bad things about you.

- [Rob] So people in radio, TV, newspapers.

- Exactly.

- As somebody who works in the news business who has personally faced a lawsuit, I am annoyed that we have a defense of this bill that, well, that's what we have slap suit laws for that will protect against it.

I can tell you from firsthand experience that the slap suit laws do not protect anybody.

And yes, these lawsuits go away if they're frivolous, but not before you have to spend a bunch of money on a lawyer to make it go away.

- It's interesting that conservative radio commentators have come out here in Florida against this defamation bill, making it easier to bring defamation lawsuits.

- Because you can say anything and it can be factual all day long, but anybody in the state of Florida can file a lawsuit for any reason already even without this bill.

This bill just makes it even easier and it's already too easy.

I mean, I have seen some doozies.

(laughs) - Alan, your other big story.

- Another headline this week, the state legislature controlled by Republicans are looking to cut taxes on corporations and utilities that are already making record profits, not hardworking men and women who are trying to just get by.

So if you are a Republican voter, I would say it's time to rethink who you're voting for because it's obviously not the Republican legislature that has your back.

- The governor answered that this week by saying he wants to reduce the taxes on homeowner's insurance as a way to slightly reduce the cost of insurance for property owners.

- Well, they have not done that yet.

- Yeah, okay.

And Gene, your other big story.

- So while they're crying for the insurance companies 'cause they're hurting so bad in Florida, Swiss Re as reported by CNBC in 2022, made a $472 million profit.

Not bad.

Last year they made 3.2 billion in profit, and Florida's a very desirable market.

They are not hurting.

And the fact that we're not doing anything in the legislature to affect the actual price of the insurance, not the tax that's on top of it is ridiculous.

And it's at our doorstep and it's just gonna keep going up and up, and up.

- How does this company intersect Florida?

- They are one of the largest insurers in the world and reinsurers and without Hurricane Ian or anything like that last year, it's just really, really good days.

So they're a major part of the Florida industry.

- And Mike, why do you think we're still seeing auto insurance rise dramatically and homeowner's insurance rise dramatically.

And the legislature has done some things, but the things that they've done so far haven't really reduced the price of homeowner's insurance.

- The things that they've done pretty much haven't done anything.

Has anyone at this table seen their auto or homeowner's insurance being reduced?

Absolutely not.

They continue to go up and the legislature continues to pass legislation that only protects the insurance industry, not to the consumer.

The bottom line is that and rates are gonna continue to go up.

I will tell you though, one of the reasons why we see automobile insurance rates go up along with greedy insurance companies is because there are many, many uninsured motorists still in the states.

- And that's a problem we gotta fix too.

- Huge problem.

- Alright, thank you all for a great show.

Thanks to Mike Fasano, Janelle, Irwin Taylor, Alan Cohn, and Gene Sidiut for being, Gene Siudut rather, for being on our panel.

Sorry Gene, and thank you for watching.

Send us your comments at ftwwedu.org and like us on Facebook, you can view this and past shows online at wedu.org or on the PBS app.

"Florida This Week" is now available as a podcast.

And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

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