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

- [Narrator] Coming up next, Governor DeSantis wants a permanent ban on masks and vaccine mandates.

Florida's universities tally up the cost of their diversity efforts as the governor wants to clamp down on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Is Florida doing enough to protect its fragile environment?

And despite its growing political strength, and importance to the GOP, Florida will have no committee chairs in the new house in Washington DC.

These stories and more Coming up next on Florida this week.

(intense music) (intense music) Welcome back.

Joining us on our panel this week, Craig Pittman is an author and columnist for the Florida Phoenix.

Joe Brown is an independent journalist.

Nikki Fried is the former Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and a Democrat.

And state Senator Joe Gruters of Sarasota is also the chair of the Florida Republican Party.

And nice to have all of you here.

Great to see you.

Well, a federal judge ruled Friday in the case of elected Hillsborough State attorney Andrew Warren, who was removed from office last year by the governor for allegedly neglecting his official duties.

Warren had taken a stand against Florida's new abortion law, and a proposed law on transgender care.

The judge concluded that Governor DeSantis had violated the state of Florida Constitution, and the First Amendment when he suspended Warren last year.

But the judge ruled that under federal law, he did not have the power to reinstate Warren.

The judge did affirm that under Florida Law, Warren and any prosecutor has complete discretion in making the decision to charge and prosecute any given case.

Nikki, let's start with you.

What did you think about Warren's removal, and now it looks like Warren is lost at the federal level?

- I think that that Judge Hinkle did exactly what we all were saying.

We said from the get-go that this was unconstitutional, both from the Florida perspective, as well as First Amendment.

And what Judge Hinkle said was that is actually correct, but he does not have the power to remove.

So what is going on now is that you have the governor, who once again has been affirmed by the courts that he's violating state law, constitution, and federal laws.

And so I think that we as Americans, and we as Floridians have to take a step back and say, is this the direction that we want our elected officials to be taking, talking about the governor and the power of the executive branch, or do we continue to support the people who elected Andrew Warren here as our county state attorney, time and time again, and the will of the people has got to rule otherwise, what are we doing here as a democracy?

- Joe Gruters, I would normally ask you the same question, but if Warren decides to take this to the the Florida Senate and have a trial to try to get reinstated, you would be at that trial as a member of the Senate.

So you can't speak.

- That's correct.

I have a vote, so I have to pass on this one.

- Alright, Joe Brown, let me ask you, is this essentially a win for the governor?

- Yeah.

It's a Oh no - the governor?

- Yeah, for the governor.

- Well, I call it a tie right now (laughter) because I mean, I hate ties in any contest, but, you know, Warren was elected twice here in Hillsborough County, and it's not unusual for elected officials to force their opinion on what laws they don't like.

Like we're talking earlier in my home state of Illinois, sheriffs have said they're not going to enforce a ban on assault weapons.

You know, and the judge is deciding whether it's constitutional or not, but you know, this is just- and the judge says he can't give him his job back.

So that's why I say, yeah, DeSantis got what he wanted, and Warren got half of what he wanted.

- Okay.

Well, to be continued.

This week, governor Ron DeSantis said he wants Florida's Republican controlled legislature to make permanent many of his Covid pandemic era policies that have made him a star on the right, and a potential 2024 presidential candidate.

- [Narrator] DeSantis' proposals would make permanent a handful of temporary policies that were already in place, including banning mask mandates, banning Covid-19 vaccine mandates in schools, banning Covid-19 passports, and prohibiting employers from making hiring and firing decisions based on vaccine status.

- [Ron DeSantis] But I'll tell you, being the free state of Florida did not happen by accident, because it required us over these last few years to stand against major institutions in our society.

The bureaucracy, the medical establishment, legacy media, and even the President of the United States.

- Nikki, does it make sense to have vaccine mandates banned and mask mandates banned?

- Here is where I think that we need to be.

No one wants mandates, no one wants all out bans, you know, and I have consistently said at this point, the world knows, do they wanna wear a mask?

Do they not wanna wear a mask?

Do they wanna have a vaccine?

Do they not wanna have a vaccine?

There's so much information that's already been out there, everybody's already made their personal decisions.

My biggest problem with this proposal, as well as what was happening last couple years, is the enforcement of this on private companies.

This is America where we're supposed to have a free market.

If Starbucks wants to mandate that their consumers or their employees are mandating vaccine or mask, that's their business model.

And they'll know that they're not gonna get employees.

They may quit, they may not get consumers.

That should be their option as a business.

And what if you are a small business owner, and you have an underlining condition, and only have five employees, and are trying to protect yourself and the people inside of- you should have as a private business, the free market decision of whether or not to make these decisions.

This should not be a mandate and there should not be a ban.

- All right, Joe, what about that?

I mean, there should be some exceptions if a private business wants to enforce a vaccine or mask mandate.

- Well, I think Nikki makes some very valid points, but at the end of the day, I think it's individual freedom, personal freedom on your ability to live life without having any type of discrimination based on that vaccine status.

And where the governor's going with all this is.

this is only Covid related.

I filed a bill that will go even further.

My Senate Bill 222 will protect a discrimination based on all vaccine status.

But I think this is a great step forward.

I think the governor's making the right decision.

I think people, you know, we have a thousand people a day moving to Florida.

A lot of these guys are political refugees, education refugees, medical refugees, people who want to be able to live and function without being forced to take any type of a specific shot or having to wear those masks.

- Craig, what about that?

I mean, this does apply to Covid.

The senator would like something stronger.

What if a stronger disease comes along, something that we're not prepared for?

- Exactly.

And we can't predict the future.

I mean, five years ago, nobody could have predicted Covid, and nobody could have predicted that basically it would shut everything down, at least for two years.

So what happens when something worse comes along, something else comes out of a lab in Wuhan or wherever, and we've basically closed off an avenue of trying to combat that virus or whatever.

Does this seem like a smart thing to do, just to appease some anti-vax people?

I'm not comfortable with it.

- I think it's important to have personal freedom, medical freedom, but at the same time, we shouldn't be forcing anybody.

And that you're exactly right.

What happens in five years, that's why I think we need to go one step further and make sure we protect everybody from here on out.

Because the damages that were done across this country with masks, you saw the education results plummeting as a result of the education system and the mask and not being able to see teachers' faces or the students' faces.

And same with the jabs, all the things that have happened and all the potential outcomes of what's happened as a result of those jabs.

It's not fair to force a population to take these jabs without fully fully testing it through the market.

And I think we gotta protect everybody, not only now, but moving forward with any type of disaster that happens.

- But Joe, my biggest concern is how you opened up the answer the first time.

You said personal freedom.

Well, you can choose to not go to Starbucks.

You can choose to go to a different doctor.

You can choose to- how about the bars that don't allow you to walk in with flip flops?

Should we tell them they can't do that anymore?

That individual will choose to go to another bar.

If you don't like the policies of the restaurant or the corporation, then you quit and you go to another job.

That's called freedom.

But as a business owner, you should be allowed to do what is best interest for your customers and for your climate of your culture.

- So should you allow, if you're a christian baker, should be allowed to deny baking a cake to a gay couple that's coming in?

- Well now you're bringing up a whole issue that you guys took a very strong stance on.

(laughs) - Okay, Joe, is this a winning issue for the governor?

If he takes a strong stand and says, look, no more Covid masks, no more Covid vaccines.

Is that ultimately a winning issue for the governor?

- Yeah, it is.

Cause a lot of people don't want to wear a mask, and they consider it very inconvenient.

I think about one of my neighbors who rides his motorcycle like crazy, no helmet.

I mean just vroom vroom, but you know, he's free to get killed.

He wants to, and the people have always- seat belts same way.

- Okay.

Well, according to a new survey compiled that the request of the governor, Florida universities are spending a total of $34.5 million on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs this year.

- [Narrator] The survey was done by universities as the governor continues to battle with what he calls woke ideology.

This funding goes towards staff positions such as chief diversity officers on campuses, and faculty leading classes on subjects like nationality, race, and ethnicity in the US, and the anthropology of sport.

These programs are small.

They represent a tiny fraction, less than 1% of the entire state university system budget across 12 schools.

But it's likely Republican lawmakers will target diversity and inclusion programs on campuses during the upcoming legislative session.

- And Joe Brown, this is an all out attack on these kind of programs.

This week, Florida barred high school students from taking new advanced placement courses on African-American studies that were sponsored nationally by the college board.

So what do you think about this?

- I think it's ridiculous.

When did this become a problem?

I mean, it's been around for years.

I mean, is somebody being discriminated against because of these programs?

Okay, look into that.

Is it because of the costs?

Oh, this is too much money on this.

But this has always been a goal of most public universities, to have more diversity.

And as far as that thing you were talking about, the African American advanced placement thing.

I mean, it's funny, Lawton Chiles 29 years ago mandated that African American history be taught in all schools, signed a bill.

And now they're saying "No we can't do it, that's too woke."

And I wish when this is all over, somebody comes up with a definition of woke.

- Joe, let me ask you that question.

A lot of people want to know what the definition of woke is.

What does the governor mean when he says woke?

- I think that's out of touch with reality, outside of the mainstream.

I think what we're trying to do with the education system overall is trying to get people to focus on educating the children.

Right?

Let's not have indoctrination, let's go back to educating in the basic principles.

I think that a, it's the cost, b, it's what's the goal of the diversity program.

If you look at some of the calendars in the system, they exclude things like July 4th as a holiday.

The school system should be, of course we want a diverse background, we want diverse students.

But first and foremost, we should worry about the education, and the overall student population.

- Nikki, if I were to go to a judge and say, say my definition of woke is being out of touch with reality, what do you think the judge would say?

- I've been in front of judges trying to come up with sky is green, and obviously the sky is not green.

And when you're going in front of a judge and in front of any type of legal conversation, you have to have clear parameters of where you're going into.

You can't have it so broad that you can't apply the law.

And so when you just go to this general generic terminology, what does that even mean?

And I, when it comes to this higher ed, and the $34 million, this is because the economy and the business community across the country are wanting their employees to be more diverse, to deal with the clientele, to deal with the type of people that might be coming into their companies and into their corporations, how to deal with one another.

Our cultures are different, and to be able to understand one another, it's gonna make a better customer service representative to understand different dialogue.

I remember one of the most impactful classes that I took at the University of Florida was in my political science class, "Race and Race Relations".

That class probably won't be taught today, but it gave me such a unique perspective that it's made me a more well-rounded- it didn't indoctrinate me by any stretch of imagination, but it opened my eyes to other people's journeys in America.

And that is what we should be thriving here in our country to want to have diversity, to want people to understand each other.

And unfortunately that's going in the wrong direction.

You know who it's gonna hurt?

These students are gonna go to other states to go to colleges, gonna have other jobs, and we're not gonna bring educated kids back to our state.

And the corporations are not gonna come here.

They're gonna go to Atlanta, they're gonna go to other cities that are actually pushing for more diversity because there is a demand for the job market and for our economy to have more diversity.

- Craig, what would you say about it?

- It just completely ignores Florida's own history.

Florida was the worst state for lynching among all the states in the south.

We just had the 100th anniversary of the Rosewood massacre, which the governor said nothing about.

We had a whole string of similar incidents.

The most famous one was probably the Groveland case.

And you hear none of that from the governor - Harry T. Moore and his wife were blown up on New Years day in Orlando.

- Yes, they were first civil rights activist to be killed.

And it's wrong to ignore that history.

And to try and improve on our race relations in this state.

We have a much more diverse population in Florida than many other states.

And we seem to be ignoring that at every turn.

- Joe, What would you say back to what you just heard?

- Well, listen, diversity is, no question, important, but it's when you try to stereotype entire demographics or try to make a demographic feel bad as a result of something that's happened that they had nothing to do with.

History is good.

But again, if you're pushing a certain narrative in trying to, like I said- when I went to school, if you stereotyped an entire population, it was always, "No, you shouldn't do that.

You should judge every individual person on their own characteristics, on their own character."

Now it's in the reason why the test, when these tests get in some of these textbooks are being sent back.

These players have to deal with Florida.

We are too big of a market.

So what they're doing is they're taking some of this language out and they're putting it back.

So my guess is these AP tests will be right back without the offensive language in it.

- Joe, I took a lot of history courses, and I think a lot of ethnic groups would be disturbed by what their ancestors did.

Not just white ethnic groups, but other ethnic groups.

How do we draw the line?

How do we know that something is under this anti-woke law?

How do we know that we violated the law?

- Well- - I'm asking about Joe Brown.

- Sorry.

- Yeah, just Joe.

Okay, I've written many times about my late uncle, who served in World War II.

And I said that he fought in Europe against history's greatest racists in a Jim Crow army, which is what he did.

Okay, now is that woke?

Because the army was segregated at the time?

No, I think it's a tribute to him and all the other Black soldiers who served and overcame what they did.

So that's just an example of how- Now there's some crazy stuff on the left that's come out.

Like there's this one guy who says you're either a racist or you're an anti-racist, which is ridiculous, you know?

Cause there's a lot of Black people I don't like.

(laughter) But you tame it.

- Should African-American studies be banned from the AP courses here in the states?

Florida?

- No, of course not.

- Because we have an anti-woke philosophy in Florida.

Henry Lewis Gates, who has a show on this network was part of the forming the curriculum.

I mean, it's been tested.

I don't know what- - Nobody is saying ban certain subjects, ban entire- - They are banning the AP courses.

- They're banning certain subjects within those courses, making them rewrite 'em and they'll come back in, in a different format to where it's written correctly.

- Yeah, just on, there are, to your point on both extremes, there are woke-ism on both sides.

And I think to your definition of outside of the norm of reality, or whatever, is the 80% that's in the middle.

And that's the problem that I'm having, is that 80% in the middle are okay with all this stuff.

With teaching about history and slavery.

Should we expect Germany at some point to stop teaching about the Holocaust because they're embarrassed about what happened in their ancestors?

No, it's to learn to not repeat the problems.

And I don't think that anybody, I learned that class and I was in that class.

I never felt bad, and felt guilty because of my ancestors, this is history, this is what happened.

How do we make sure that we don't have redlining again?

How do we make sure that we are expanding voter rights access?

How do we make sure that we're learning about each other so that we can live in a civilized, civilized society and not what's happening right now?

- All right.

Well, a really important discussion.

We're gonna continue discussing this all year, I'm sure.

Well, earlier this month, governor DeSantis announced the proposal to spend $3.5 billion over the next four years for environmental protection.

The governor says this is the most spent in state history.

- [Narrator] Most of the money will go to Everglades restoration projects, improving water quality, and safeguarding Florida's water supplies.

The governor's announcement follows a study last year that found that the state of Florida ranked the worst in the nation for the most acres of lakes too polluted for swimming, or for maintaining healthy aquatic life.

All told more than 870,000 acres of Florida lakes are too impaired.

- Craig, how is the state doing when it comes to protecting the environment?

And will this $3.5 billion that the governor's announced do more to protect the environment?

- The governor reminds me of a divorced dad who treats the environment like his kid.

And he says, "Here, here, look at all the money I'm spending on you."

And then he ignores him.

We do a terrible job in protecting our environment, and spending all this money, which looks good on paper and looks good to the voters, is not necessarily the way to protect the environment.

It's great that we're buying property as part of the Florida Wildlife Corridor, the Florida Forever and so forth, but that's not the be all and end all of environmental protection.

My joke is, yeah, the governor's a great steward for the environment.

That's why we have such a stew in our waterways.

- If we have 800,000 acres of polluted lakes in the state, the number one worst record in the country, is the state taking steps to clean up that pollution?

- No, no.

The legislature, pardon me Joe, passed the Clean Waterways Act, which I call the Clean Getaway Act, where basically they said, here's a bunch of voluntary stuff, we hope you'll do, you polluters.

And of course, that's like telling the people on the highways, "Well, you can obey the speed limit or not.

It's up to you."

Nobody's gonna obey the speed limit in the same way people are gonna continue polluting our waterways.

And so that's what they're doing.

They're continuing to pollute, pollute, pollute, and the state's doing, doing nothing about it.

- Joe- - I will say- - 30 seconds.

Go ahead - I will say that we are doing a lot about it.

I actually passed a bill two years ago that doubled the fines on polluters.

But what the governor's doing here, the most money that's ever been spent in Florida's history, it's the Everglades, it's Indian River Lagoon, it's the springs.

It's trying to clean up septic tanks.

There's so much damage from the prior generations, which Republicans only took control of the last 20 years.

But I'm not blaming anybody, I'm just saying we need to clean it up.

And I'm glad we have somebody that's willing to admit that we do have an issue, that's willing to take the step forward to say "Yes, let's let's tackle this and put the money behind it."

- Okay, well, for most of the past years, Sarasota area Congressman Vern Buchanan has been campaigning to head the Powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

- [Narrator] Earlier this month, he lost to Missouri congressman Jason Smith, Florida has not had a committee chairman in five years in the house, despite being one of the largest and fastest growing states in the nation.

After losing the job, Buchanan reportedly cursed at house speaker Kevin McCarthy, blaming him for the loss.

According to the website "Puck", the interaction between Buchanan and McCarthy became so heated, security had to step in between the men.

Something McCarthy's office is denying.

Buchanan's spokesperson says words were exchanged.

But a political advisor says Buchanan simply expressed disappointment to Speaker McCarthy.

- Joe Gruters, you worked for Buchanan for 10 years.

Do you think that Buchanan is so turned off he's gonna quit Congress as some reports have it?

- I don't know if he'll quit, but I'm glad he had words with Speaker McCarthy.

It's not fair that Florida doesn't have a chairmanship.

Vern has chaired five of those six subcommittees on the Ways and Means committee.

He's a business guy, self-made, super successful.

He would've been great in that position because you're in charge of all tax policy across the country.

They basically screwed him out of the position.

It's incredibly unfortunate.

I think he is personally hurt and devastated.

But when I talk to him, he's more hurt for the state of Florida, because not having that chairmanship, it would've opened up tons of avenues, more for the environment, more for transportation.

It would open up a lot of different lanes.

And it's disappointing.

I hope the Congressman stays for another 10 years, but it's- only time will tell.

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

And Craig, let's start with you.

Your other big story of the week.

- Manatees, they are continuing to die.

The state's holding press conferences every week to update everybody 'cause they're once again providing supplemental food for these poor manatees that are out there starving.

They're- the good news is people are donating enough money to cover the cost of the lettuce that they're feeding them.

But the bad news is that they are still in dire straits.

And this imperiled species that's so iconic for Florida continues to be in danger of disappearing completely.

- Out, out of a population of 6,000 or 7,000, we've lost a thousand.

Is that right?

- We've lost more than that I think.

I think we've lost about 800 last year.

- All right, let's see who goes next.

Nikki, your other big story.

- Look, I have said consistently before I was even elected that the best way to make sure that we have a democracy is to have two strong parties.

And right now the Florida Democratic Party is not stepping up to the plate.

We saw that not just in in the 2022 election, but 2020, we can keep going back.

The last time that we had a Democratic governor was in 1994 where I wasn't even allowed to vote yet.

So right now, we need to be looking at what is the Democrats gonna be doing coming forward that we have lost a- resignation of Manny Diaz, who was our party chair for the last two years.

And so now there needs to be a real, truly soul searching activity that has to be happening with the Democratic Party right now.

Where are we?

Who are we and where do we go from here?

- Do you want to be the chair, the next chair of the Democratic Party?

- (laughs) No.

- (laughs) Okay.

Joe Gruters, your other big story.

- Well, I'll talk about party politics as well.

We have a big RNC election next week out in San Diego.

We had a vote of no confidence on Ronald McDaniel today in Sarasota.

I had the proud boys, Matt Gaetz, Anthony Sabatini, Madison Cawthorne, all protesting my meeting right in front of me, right outside our doors.

It was kind of interesting.

- So you're a fun I am.

- (coughs) Yeah.

It's a circus out there.

But you know what, I think these debates internally are healthy.

I think it brings out good ideas.

And I think we're gonna re-elect Ronna, and I'm running for treasurer for the National Party and so, it should be an exciting couple of days.

- All right.

Good luck on that.

Joe Brown.

Your other big story.

- Next month is Black History Month.

If it doesn't get canceled, (laughter) and it'd be interesting to see, what is taught, how people are talking, what books are being stocked in our our school libraries.

'Cause librarians are really scared right now.

And also quickly, if you can stay woke till 11:15 tonight on this channel, they're having a program on how Holocaust history is taught to German kids.

- All right.

Well, thank you all for a great show.

The show is never long enough.

It was a great panel.

Thank you for coming to us.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, thank you.

- And thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at ftw@wedu.org.

You can view this and past shows online at wedu.org or the PBS app.

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

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

(intense music) (intense music) (intense music) - [Narrator] Florida this week is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.