>>This week on NewsNight, the Florida Supreme Court hears oral arguments over whether a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights should appear on the ballot in November.

Disney loses its First Amendment case against Governor DeSantis, and the Florida Senate takes up a bill that would ban minors from having social media accounts.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort, and welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect all of us.

First tonight, the Florida Supreme Court heard arguments this week on whether abortion access in the state should be put on the ballot in November.

The group Floridians Protecting Freedom says it's already gathered more than 900,000 signatures, enough to qualify the constitutional amendment to go before voters.

The DeSantis administration argues the wording barring the state from regulating abortion is too vague and would, in the words of Attorney General Ashley Moody, "Hoodwink Voters."

Justices heard arguments on Wednesday pushing back hard on the state's argument.

Here's a portion of the hearing.

>>The proposed amendment here should not be placed on the ballot because it is misleading in multiple respects.

The language of the amendment itself is of such elasticity that an enormously wide range of meanings will attach to it, and voters will not actually understand what they're are voting for.

>>The people of Florida aren't stupid.

I mean, they can figure this out.

It's pretty obvious that this is a, you know, a pretty aggressive, comprehensive approach to dealing with with this issue.

And if it were to, you know, the voters can kind of argue about whether, you know, they want something more nuanced than that.

I mean, it just doesn't seem like this is really trying to be deceptive.

I mean, as you as I've asked through my questions, I think there may be a problem with what it doesn't disclose.

But I mean, it's pretty self-evidently broad.

>>The people of Florida's right to amend their constitution is fundamental to our state's democracy.

Seeking to exercise that right, nearly a million Floridians and counting have made clear that they want to vote on the amendment before this court.

This amendment follows the directive given by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs that the people should decide how their state may govern abortion.

And in crafting the amendment title and summary, the sponsor followed the directives and guidance given by this court and the Constitution on the two issues before the court today.

>>Well, the court's docket also includes a challenge to Florida's 15 week abortion law.

I spoke this week with Chabeli Carrazana, reporter for The 19th News about how similar ballot initiatives have gone in other states.

>>There's a reason why these abortion advocates have tried to get this on the ballot in Florida.

And the reason for that is that in all of the other states where abortion has been on the ballot, it's been on the ballot in seven states so far.

Every single time voters have sided with continuing abortion access in their states or enshrining abortion access in their states.

Every time it's been a constitutional amendment, voters have sided with having abortion access.

And so we've seen this in red states.

We've seen this in blue states California, Michigan, Vermont, Kansas, Kentucky.

All of these voters in these states have protected abortion, have voted to protect abortion.

And that is why abortion advocates want to see Florida weigh in on this, because their hope, if the trend continues, is that abortion will be protected by voters in the state of Florida.

>>I wonder whether that surprises people that you talk to is that people, broadly speaking, in these other states, most recently Ohio, have come out at that way.

>>I think what we've seen across the country happen is that as these abortion bans have been put in place, people have really come up against the reality of what that means.

How restrictive is that, really?

And we've seen a lot of voters and we've seen voters across both parties say we want to see some kind of abortion access to some degree in our state, and we want to protect that in our state.

And so really, that's kind of what has played out is the reality of what an abortion ban means, has really hit home for a lot of people.

And they've seen, oh, maybe this is not something that I fully support in this way.

I want to have some autonomy to be able to choose.

I don't think abortion is as clean cut as some of the other issues that we've seen voters decide on or look at when when they're looking at their candidates.

It's it's a little bit of a separate issue.

And we've heard this from Republican voters who have said, I vote Republican, but abortion, I want to see it separate.

It's part of the reason they might support a constitutional amendment on the ballot, for example, on abortion, because it is a little bit of a separate issue.

So, no, I don't think it's as clean cut of a winning issue for the Republican or Democratic Party.

And I mean, I think you'll hear from a lot of Democrats that they have been disappointed to see the president not try to, you know, enshrine abortion rights in law and so on both sides.

The issue is complicated.

It's muddy and it's complex.

>>Chabeli Carrazana there from The 19th.

A reminder, we are recording the show on Thursday morning so things can change by air time.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, Christopher Heath, WFTV Channel 9.

Thanks for being here, Chris.

I appreciate it.

Talia Blake, 90.7 WMFE News.

Good to see you, Talia and Steven Lemongello from the Orlando Sentinel.

Thanks for coming in, Steve.

Appreciate your time today, guys.

Talia let me start with you on this one.

I mean, the court was at capacity.

Did we get a sense on Wednesday of which way the justices might be leaning on this?

I mean, did they seem skeptical of the state's argument?

>>Oh, yeah, they definitely seemed skeptical of the state's argument.

And I will say things got a little spicy in the Supreme Court hearing.

Yeah.

I mean, they openly disagreed with the state's argument that, you know, people won't understand this ballot initiative.

And I mean, one one justice even said Floridians aren't stupid.

They can read this, they can understand it.

And some justices even questioned, you know, how far can the court go when it comes to preventing ballot initiatives.

So they seemed to be leaning towards putting this putting this on the ballot.

>>I mean, it was interesting, Chris.

I mean, as we heard there from Chabeli I mean, voters in other states have been asked to weigh in on the abortion issue and do you agree with her that it's been a winning issue thus far for for advocates of greater abortion access?

>>And then that's when you've seen it in states like Kansas and Ohio and Kentucky?

Not exactly, you know, deep blue Democratic states.

These are Republican states for the most part.

And yet it's cutting kind of across that line of Democrats, Liberals tend to be very much in favor of abortion access.

But you do have a significant chunk of Republicans who are looking at this and saying, I don't like abortion, but I don't like the government making decisions.

I don't like the idea that, you know, abortion is wide open.

I think there should be restrictions, but there should also be options.

And that's where you starting to see kind of that sweet spot for that rump middle of America that is, I would say, you know, fundamentally against abortion, the idea, but at the same time, fundamentally against the government outlawing it completely taking the decision away from a doctor and a woman.

>>Steve Chris mentioned there Ohio.

In Ohio, they had a situation when they voted on abortion.

We may have here in that they had abortion and marijuana on the ballot.

Political analysts say that really kind of juiced turn out there in Ohio.

Could could that happen here?

>>Yeah, a huge turnout there in Ohio, Usually a very red state against and against.

It was Florida these days.

Yeah.

So yeah, especially and you we saw in the the special election for House District 35 in in January.

You know you know obviously a very small sample size but just huge numbers you know going for the Democrat from NPA and unaffiliated voters and abortion was like one of the two key issues the Democrats just pounded over and over again.

>>Yeah, I mean, I wonder, Talia, whether we can expect this theme to continue sort of at the state level throughout 2024.

I mean, what more can we expect?

>>Oh, yeah, definitely.

I mean, since Roe v Wade was even overturned, there's always been a push to get this back in front of voters.

And already here in Florida, as we see with the legal battle, they're trying to get it on the ballot.

There are other states that already have gotten it on the ballot in November, like Maryland.

And then there's states that are working on a deadline right now to get it in front of voters.

They're trying to get those signatures collected so that way voters can vote on it in the November election.

So states like Colorado, Missouri, So all that kind of signals that we're definitely going to see this be a trend as 2024 gets on.

>>I mean, at the same time, though, Chris, as we see abortion and marijuana, depending on the Supreme Court edging towards the ballots, there is an effort to make it harder, right, to change the Constitution that's going on in the legislature at the moment.

Remind us about that effort and what seeks to do.

>>Well, you got to remember the legislature originally it was 50% to amend the Constitution and then they put a possible amendment out there and voters approved it to raise it to 60%.

By the way, that passed with less than 60%.

So that's where we got to 60%.

Now they want to go to 66.67%.

Make it just a little bit harder for you to amend the Constitution.

And this all goes back to the legislature, does not like voters telling them what to do.

Pick the issue, whether we're talking lands, class sizes, medical marijuana, abortion, minimum wage, the list goes on and on and on.

Fair districts.

Voters have time and time again said, if you're not going to act in Tallahassee we'll act.

And lawmakers don't like being told what to do.

So they keep looking for ways to do this.

This is this is going to have to go before voters to approve, to go to 66.67.

And we'll see if voters want to take power away from themselves.

But at the same time, they've also gone and tried to undercut, you know, petition circulation, how you pay for that, how you pay for people to go do that, how the money works on that.

They've tried all sorts of ways to stop voters from having what is essentially direct democracy.

>>Well, Chris talks about ego there.

I wonder if there's also some politics in this as well.

I mean, given that we are looking at the possibility of abortion and marijuana being on the ballot, I mean, is there some connection between that and the latest effort to make it harder?

>>Oh yeah.

Like you said, they saw what happened in Ohio, they saw what happened are seeing now.

It's happening in 34 District 35 and Florida.

They know that this brings out more liberal Democratic voters to the polls.

It brings out NPAs who may, you know, ten, tend Democratic.

So as well as marijuana also, you know, brings out a huge number of you know, you know, libertarian, socially, socially moderate people to the to the polls.

So they probably they just don't want this, especially election year.

They want to keep their Republicans also want to keep their supermajority as well.

>>Well, it'll be interesting to watch and we'll certainly wait with bated breath to see what the Supreme Court does.

The Florida Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision by April 1st in that case, you can find a link to the full text, the proposed Florida constitutional amendment on abortion on our website to read for yourself.

You'll also find a link to the joint resolution increasing the threshold for voter approved amendments.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight.

Okay.

Next tonight, Disney's defeat in federal court in its First Amendment battle with Governor DeSantis.

The company had accused the state of punishing it for exercising its free speech rights in opposing the 2022 parental rights in education law dubbed "don't say gay" by opponents.

The legislature took action to replace the Reedy Creek Improvement District with a governor appointed board, of course, but the judge last week dismissed the lawsuit, and Disney quickly filed an appeal.

Here's First Amendment attorney, Larry Walters.

>>The court made a few observations, finally ending up dismissing the case.

First, it found that you cannot, as a court, look at the underlying motivations of the legislature in determining why they might have passed a certain law if the law itself is constitutional.

And here there was really no dispute that the state had the power to pass this law and eliminate the special taxing district that was within the realm of the state constitution and the federal constitution.

That type of law is generally allowed.

And so the court on its face looked at the law and said, no, this is not targeted at Disney.

Other landowners are affected.

So that claim fails as well.

And as a result, because the court cannot look at the motivations underlying a constitutional law and because the law was not targeted directly at Disney but affected other landowners, the court found that the retaliation claim must fail.

>>Attorney Larry Walters there.

Okay Chris, let me start with you on this one.

How big a deal is it for Disney and how is it responded?

>>I think Disney's got so many avenues still left ahead of it.

It's got its state case, which probably has a lot more teeth to it.

It also has some of the other things that they put into place before the old Reedy Creek board went away.

They can continue to push this forward.

Maybe just on the fundamental issue of, you know, it doesn't look good for the state to be punishing a company for its free speech, but Disney could cut its losses and just go the state route and achieve what it wants to, which is essentially that level of autonomy to control its own property.

Because when you talk about what we're looking at out there with the 40 square miles that make up what used to be Reedy Creek and they talk about, oh, the taxpayers and the landowners, the taxpayers, that's Disney, the landowners, that's also Disney.

So the ability to control your own land that falls well within Florida's Constitution.

So Disney probably has the better case in the state level.

Maybe they cut their losses and move on, but they appeal it just, you know, pro forma.

>>I mean, there are lawsuits flying over the last minute agreement between Disney and the outgoing Reedy Creek board.

I think the legislature nullified them.

Disney wants to reinstate and remind us about those agreements and why they're important.

>>This is the agreement to Disney.

Basically, the old board signed it at the 11th hour before the old board vanished.

And this is the one that ties them to the House of Windsor through three or four generations removed.

>>Yes.

Interesting wording there.

>>This is Disney basically left the new board with only the ability to kind of handle, you know, wastewater and roads and we'll take care of everything else.

And the new board doesn't like that.

And, you know, Disney is also fighting them on wanting some of the records from the new board, which they won't turn over, which is, of course, ironic, considering one of the big things we heard from the people that wanted to torpedo the old Disney board, you know, Spencer Roach.

And those was we need transparency.

Well, they're not providing a lot right now.

>>Well Disney is now, of course, suing to get those records.

And your colleague Skyler's Swisher, has has written about that.

Disney says that the new board is involved in obstructionist conduct.

What do we know about that suit?

>>Yes.

So that's that's making its way through.

They're saying that Disney is simply just not giving them that.

Disney is saying that the states just simply not giving the things that they're allowed to get under law.

Of course, this is nothing new for anyone dealing with the state.

Over the last few years, they've been cracking down and actually, you know, handling public records and giving things out the the sunshine of the sunshine laws is, you know, sort of been whittled away a little bit over the last few years, Though I do say, ironically, as part of this, Disney also says it wants to protect some of its secrets and trademarks.

>>That's right.

>>From the state.

So it's a little bit of going both ways.

>>It's certainly never a dull moment when it comes to Disney and its relationship with the governor these days.

In the meantime, you can join the conversation on social media.

We're at WUCFTV, on Facebook, X, and also on Instagram.

All right.

Finally staying with the First Amendment, the Florida Senate advanced a bill this week that would ban minors from the age of 16 and under from having social media accounts.

A similar bipartisan bill.

HB one recently passed the Florida House by a huge majority of 106 to 13.

Governor DeSantis has expressed skepticism that the measures would stick if the bill becomes law.

As legal battles play out over social media legislation in Ohio, Arkansas, Utah and California, House Speaker Paul Renner says lawmakers are working through the governor's concerns.

>>We're working very, very closely with the Senate, very closely with the governor's team to get to a bill that will be upheld by the courts and we're very mindful of all the legal challenges that will be raised and could be raised.

But we do believe from the input we've been getting, that we our bill is in a unique position that this is a better effort than previous state efforts.

And with that, we have some confidence that we will succeed once a challenge is brought.

The proposed legislation would prevent minors from opening social media accounts and terminate the accounts of those that already have one.

>>The platforms employee design features, including addictive algorithms and continuous scrolling that are intentionally designed and used by social media platforms to hook kids and keep them on these platforms for excessive amounts of time.

Excessive use of social media has been shown to have a detrimental impact on children's mental health and well-being, one that I would argue this state is in every state across the country is paying for.

With the increase in need of our social service programs.

The bill prohibits anyone under the age of 16 from accessing social media and requires social media platforms to employ age verification methods.

>>SB 1788 is a government censorship bill and it is aimed at stifling the freedom of expression online, banning young people under 16 from having social media accounts, even with the consent of their parents, shows that the claim of parents rights of the last two legislative sessions had nothing to do with parental rights and everything to do with government censorship of viewpoints and information.

The government doesn't like.

>>Net Choice, which represents social media companies, says it violates the Constitution, and that's privacy and security risks through its requirement that a third party conduct age verification.

>>You're always out on your own studies says that you make life worse for one in three teenage girls, you increase anxiety and depression.

>>Several social media CEOs were grilled by senators in Washington last week with calls for more to be done to protect children online.

>>Senator, I view my job and the job of our company is building the best tools that we can to keep our community safe.

>>Well, you're failing at that.

>>Well, Senator, we're doing an industry leading effort.

We built new tools-- >>Oh nonsense, your product is killing people.

Will you personally commit to compensating the victims?

You're a billionaire.

Will you commit to compensating the victims?

Will you set up a compensation fund with your money.

>>These are these are-- >>With your money?

>>Senator.

These are complicated-- >>Yes.

No, that's not a complicated question.

No, that's a yes or no.

Will you set up a victims compensation fund with your money, the money you made on these families sitting behind you?

Yes or no?

>>Senator I don't think that that's my job.

>>It sounds like a no.

>>At the same time the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this month in a case against a 2021 Florida law allowing political figures to sue social media companies if they're deplatformed.

A federal judge already ruled that law unconstitutional.

All right, an interesting one, this one in.

Chris, let me start with you.

I mean, this social media bill in Florida has bipartisan support, as we talked about, but it is controversial.

I mean, the leader of the Senate Democrats is not behind.

It doesn't seem to be any way Governor DeSantis is skeptical.

I wonder, might it still pass?

>>I think it will pass.

I mean, you don't put something as HB One.

And you know, it doesn't pass.

>>Good point.

>>That being said, it is wildly unconstitutional and don't just take my word for it.

Go read the staff analysis from the Senate and the House the last two or three pages of their analysis.

This is the people that the legislature pays to read bills for them and basically boil it down into kind of CliffsNotes.

And the last two pages is like, here's all the constitutional issues from free speech to contracts clause to whether or not Florida can regulate other states.

And it's got a host of issues.

If it passes, it doesn't necessarily mean that it goes into play.

And even then you can step back and say, okay, let's set aside the Constitution for half a second.

How are you going to do this?

This is the Internet.

It's not like walking into a liquor store.

We have to show an ID to buy a bottle.

>>Enforcement is tricky.

>>How are you enforcing this?

Is there an actual mechanism that exists?

It's got so many problems, but it has support because who doesn't want to protect children from online?

You know, threats?

Yeah, we all do.

But just because we all want to do something doesn't mean we can.

>>I mean, the governor has said he's concerned about this legislation.

So has Senator Marco Rubio.

He talked to your colleague Sharon Stone WMFE this week that he's got doubts.

What is his concern?

>>That basically social media is everywhere?

I mean, just because you banned it in Florida doesn't mean it's banned in Georgia or Texas.

Like this is a problem that crossing state lines.

And for him, his concern was that that can be really hard to regulate.

So, I mean, just because you ban it here, I mean, a kid could go to Georgia, connect to the Wi-Fi-- >>Or get a VPN.

>>Yes.

VPN or something and make a whole new account.

And he thinks because it's going to be hard to regulate, the courts can strike it down just because of that.

>>I mean, the Steve the lobbying group Net Choice, of course, is is fighting what it calls social media censorship laws around the country.

We heard the ACLU as well in those hearings.

A lot of talk about this being censorship.

Florida is one of those states that it's fighting and have many states taken up this issue of social media and in particular how it affects children.

That seems to be a trend.

>>Yeah, I think it's like 30 plus states that are doing this, including Florida plus Puerto Rico.

It's just it's part of the Republican states, you know, pushing forward the parental rights thing, the sort of like was sort of developed here in Florida as well, but also a lot of blue states.

California is like a bunch of these different variations of these laws also making its way through.

So it seems to be happening.

Like I said, this is a bipartisan bill here.

It seems to be like bipartisan throughout the country.

>>I mean, Chris mentioned the age verification thing, Talia, and that is one of the big concerns for Net Choice in the social media companies.

Why are they worried about age verification and how that works, the mechanism for it?

>>Yeah, they're worried about data privacy concerns when it comes to the age verification, because whether you're 16 or 60, you'd have to give some a third party, some type of information, driver's license information, some type of protected information online.

And they're kind of worried that that information could get out and that there are some serious data privacy concerns right there just with the age verification, because you have to do it for every single social media site, you signing on.

It's not like it's just a one time and then we go ahead.

It's like no signing into X/Twitter or signing into Facebook, Instagram every single time.

>>And it has to be a third party-- >>Has to be a third party.

>>That company housing that information.

I mean, Florida's already battling big tech, right?

I mean, this isn't a new thing.

I mean, the US Supreme Court, I believe, is going to give its opinion this year on laws in Texas and Florida that will restrict social media companies from curating their content.

I guess, Steve, just remind us about that law.

It's been in a year or so since we talked about that and what the Supreme Court is deciding in this case.

>>This is one of the many of these these type of things that DeSantis rolled out as he was preparing to run for president, essentially says if it prevents Facebook and other social media companies from like, you know, censoring, quote unquote, like political candidates, which which a lot of people argue, like anyone can just announce that they're running for for some position, Does that mean you can't block them from talking and that sort of thing?

So that's that's it's one of those many things that, like you said, it's been a while since we've heard of it.

Now it's coming up again.

>>It's coming back.

I mean, Chris, the lower courts have kind of been divided on this editorial independence, editorial control issue.

I guess.

I mean, conservatives kind of say that regulation is necessary to prevent the suppression of conservative thought online.

I mean, how do conservatives push back against big tech on that sort of First Amendment claim, which seems difficult to get over.

>>The question.

I think when you when you hear some of the stuff from the Federalist Society and even, you know, American Enterprise Institute has put out some different parts on this, is that very fundamental question of, okay, we want to have kind of neutral content.

We want you to be like the Postal Service.

The Postal service doesn't care what your letter says.

They're going to take it from point A to point B, They're not opening it, reading it and making sure it's okay.

They kind of want social media companies to be like that.

But at the same time, social media companies are hosting that.

So it's they're not just delivering the letter from me to you.

They're also posting it live for people to see.

And so at what point do you start to draw that line between, okay, we're you know, we're going to let you put any kind of political speech up there, but if it gets anti-Semitic or it gets racist or misogynistic, maybe we're going to take it down.

Who gets to make that judgment?

This is a very delicate issue, and it's hard to really navigate exactly where the First Amendment kind of ends.

Section 230 then jumps up with a communications decency act.

There's just so many different parts to it, and none of it's really easy.

And I think the problem is and the court brought this up the last term, the Supreme Court, and that is, you know, I think Justice Sonia Sotomayor said we're not the nine brightest people in the world when it comes to tech, basically saying we understand the law, we're not tech wizards up here.

And if they're not and neither is Congress, and I think that's kind of the fundamental problem.

>>Well, that brings me to the final question briefly, Steve.

I mean, why haven't we seen anything on the federal level in terms of legislation?

We see all these states doing this.

Where's the federal government?

>>That's the thing it's like you said, it's just very difficult, you know, very, very tricky.

A lot of Congress people who'll be writing these laws really don't know what's going on.

>>Are not tech wizards either.

>>Yeah.

Plus, you know, there's like FCC regulations, also all sorts of things like that.

And I think just a lot of people just don't want to touch it.

They just it's just there's other things they want to do.

Supposedly, I mean, not that they're doing much these days, but like it's just it's just very complicated and, you know, outside of like, you know, states, they really just don't want to see what happens first before they start doing stuff nationally.

>>Well, once again, we're on Supreme Court watch.

I think we're going to be saying that quite a lot in 2024.

You can find a link to the text of the bill, HB One on our website as well as Net Choice's written testimony opposing it.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight along the bottom of your screen.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Christopher Heath, Talia Blake and Steven Lemongello.

Thank you so much for coming in, guys.

Really appreciate your time today.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

From all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.