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

- [Rob] Coming up next, the governor vetos newly drawn congressional district maps and calls for a special session of the legislature to come up with different maps.

Lots of intrigue in Tampa city government.

The "don't say gay" bill is signed at the law and Florida sues the federal government over some mask mandates.

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

(upbeat music) - Welcome back.

This week, governor Ron DeSantis vetoed the state's newly drawing congressional maps and ordered lawmakers to hold a special session later this month to redraw the district.

The maps were supported by most Republicans in the legislature during the session.

Under Florida's constitution, political maps have to be drawn in a way that does not favor or hurt a candidate or party, that districts should be compact and that the ability of minorities to elect members to Congress should not be diminished.

Ellen Freidin is the CEO of Fair Districts.

Right now, she led the successful drive to amend the Florida Constitution to curtail gerrymandering in 2010.

And Ellen, thanks for joining us.

- Rob, thank you for paying attention on your show to such an important issue.

- So with this special session, do you think that it is the governor's intent to go after the Fair District amendment?

- Well, I think that that anybody who is in the Republican party wants to go after the Fair District's amendments, because the amendments were intended to stop Tallahassee politicians from rigging districts to favor their party and favor their own candidacies.

So the answer to that is I really don't know what's in his mind, but I do know that the Fair District's amendments aren't popular with those who are in power, with those who hold the map- drawing pen.

- Were you happy with the maps that came out of the legislature, the maps for Congress that came out of the legislature?

Did you think that they abided by the Fair District amendments?

- Well, you know, the Senate just as the governor was getting involved, the Senate passed a map, a congressional map that was very close to the map that had been court approved in 2015 or 2016, and that has been used in Florida for the last three election cycles.

Then the governor got involved and when the governor got involved, everything changed.

The house stopped its redistricting process altogether, as far as congressional was concerned.

And when they came back into session, all of a sudden their maps became much more Republican and also much less adherent to the requirement that districts protect minority voting power.

- You know, it's interesting that you say that you think Republicans are against Fair Districts because Florida's split in terms of party registration, about a third Democrat, a third Republican, a third independent, yet the congressional delegation, for instance, right now under Fair Districts skews heavily towards the Republicans.

Republicans have won this even under Fair Districts.

- They have, but remember that they won, they got to, you know, the numbers that they have now that you just quoted in a election year that went 3% or more to Donald Trump.

The cycle before the numbers had been 13, 14 on the congressional delegation.

And that's what Fair Districts is about.

Fair Districts is to establish the opportunities for different parties to win different seats at different times, depending on the political mood of the state at that particular moment.

- I've read all sorts of analyses about what the governor's doing and the analyses that jump out, say that the governor thinks, that he has a US Supreme Court that will back him up if he ends up doing away with two of the minority districts here in Florida, that happened that they are African American districts, congressional districts, the governor, I think, wants to do away with those.

And he thinks at least according to the analyses I've read, he thinks he's got a US Supreme court that will eventually back him up.

- I haven't read any analysis of what the governor is saying that includes a discussion of how he gets around the fact that Florida's constitution requires that minority voters have an equal opportunity to participate fully in the political process and elect representatives of their choice.

His, the cases that he relies on really aren't applicable in our situation.

- So will it stop at the Florida Supreme Court and the governors appointed three members to the Florida Supreme court.

I mean, will it stop at the Florida Supreme court?

Was the governor likely to take it all the way to the federal courts?

- I have no idea at this point.

It's hard to say because obviously there we have, first of all, we don't even know what, whether the legislature is going to pass a map that the governor's willing to sign, then we don't know what that map's gonna look like, whether it should be challenged or not.

It's impossible to know right now where this is headed.

I think the governor would like to have it go to the United States Supreme court, cause he wants to establish some law.

He wants to do everything in his power to eliminate protections for particularly black voting districts because black voting districts generally are made up of voters, who are going to vote, not for the governor's party.

- Well, Ellen Freidin, thanks a lot for coming on "Florida this Week."

It's great to have you here.

Is there anything else that you want to tell us about this whole controversy about this special session?

- Well, I think that it's really important to watch and for all of your watchers and listeners to pay close attention to what's going on in the session because we wanna be sure that the legislature doesn't just fold to the bullying that's been coming at them from Ron DeSantis.

We wanna make sure that legislators stand up and say, we are going to continue to follow the Fair District's amendments and we're not gonna be pushed around by the political bosses.

- Ellen Freidin, thanks a lot.

(elevator music) Tampa City Council is in the middle of turmoil with one member resigning and another being asked to step down.

This week, an independent investigation ordered by the city found 18 allegations of sexual harassment against council member Orlando Gudes were likely to have occurred, such as making sexual gestures and derogatory comments about women, including Mayor Jane Castor.

Gudes issued a statement calling many of the accusations false.

There have been calls for Gudes to resign from city council.

He refused, but he did give up his position as city council chair.

Just a few days before, Tampa City Council member, John Dingfelder resigned his seat to settle a lawsuit with a real estate development consultant over possible violations of the public records act.

The developer's consultant had sued DIngfelder saying the council member had conducted public business using his wife's personal email.

DIngfelder also apologized for confronting the developer consultant outside council chambers last year.

And now there's a report that Tampa city attorney used her personal cell phone to communicate with the attorney who filed the lawsuit against Deanfelder.

And the question is being raised, did she violate the spirit of the public records law?

Justin Garcia is an investigative journalist and writer for "Creative Loafing" in Tampa Bay.

He's also written for "USA Today Network" and a number of regional and national magazines.

And he's been covering the problems in Tampa City Government, and Justin, welcome to "Florida this Week."

- Thank you for having me Rob, happy to be here.

- So you broke the story about this city attorney using her personal cell phone.

Tell us a little bit more about what you reported.

- So essentially what I found when I wrote this story is I made a public records request for all of the communications with the city attorney and Michelini who's involved in Dingfelder's lawsuit and the firm who represents Michelini and after getting that public records request back after about a couple of weeks, I found that in those communications that were transcribed from Grimes' personal cell phone, he texted with Michelini and as well as held several hours of phone calls with John, Ethan Loeb, I should say, who is suing Dingfelder.

- And this attorney Grimes, the, one of the things that comes up in your story is that she used her personal cell phone for city business.

Is that comparable to what former Tampa City Council member, John Dingfelder did and had to resign for?

- Yeah, so attorneys have told me on background that it is, and the reason it is it is not just because of the personal cell phone use.

Dingfelder also used as personal email to host communications about city business, but also the deeper problem there is that because she used her personal cell phone, some records are missing from her communications, including images and a PDF file that she talked to Michelini about and actually, in the story, I included that I had to get that file from Michelini.

It was nowhere in the city's public records and chapter 119 of the city's public records law says that those records have to be maintained, but they are missing from the city's files.

- I just wanna read a statement from Andrea Zelman, who's the deputy city attorney.

This is what she said in response.

And you carried this in your story.

She said the, the city attorney "Ms. Grimes, promptly provided public records from both her city of Tampa and personal cell phones.

Further, Ms. Grimes did not conduct any city business on personal email accounts."

And you just said that you haven't been able to recover all the files that you were seeking.

- Yeah, so I made a follow up request for the two months before the request that I initially made, which went back to August of last year.

So I went back and included June and July of last year to see what other communications Grimes may have had with Michelini and his team.

But I haven't received a response to that yet.

That request is only about a week old, so that's expected in public records requests, but I'm gonna be following up on that for sure to see what else happened with personal communications, with Grimes and the development team who sued Dingfelder.

- So in the background of all this are developers that have had contact with the city attorney and developers consultant who filed a lawsuit against John Dingfelder, the former Tampa City Council member, and essentially forced him to resign.

And the question arises how much power, I mean, in your reporting, how much power are you finding that developers have at the Tampa city government level?

- Yeah, so a couple weeks ago, when Mayor Jane Castor came out and said that rent control or rent stabilization would kill development, I wrote a story where I went back through her Tampa strong pack and found that over half of her support for the pack came from entities tied to development locally.

So the mayor is over half funded by developers.

And on top of that, when you look at the Dingfelder situation, he was known for kind of budding heads with developers on certain types of development and wanted to fight for fair development and teamed up with community groups and stuff like that, which was part of the lawsuit and all that in his case.

So I can't really define exactly right now how much power developers have, but it is substantial.

And you know, I'm looking at the new applicants for city council recently that just came in and a good number of them are real estate and development firms.

So I think the developers want more power in the city.

- Well, Justin, thanks for coming on "Florida This Week," we look forward to your next reports about the whole situation at the Tampa City Council.

You've been covering it really well.

Thanks for doing it.

- Thank you, yeah, there'll be more to come.

(elevator music) - Joining us now on our panel this week, Stanley Gray is a businessman who is active with the Tampa Hillsborough county branch of the Urban League.

He's currently not affiliated with a political party.

Peter Schorsch is the publisher of Floridapolitics.com.

He's been reporting on this year's legislative session and the laws that have come out of it, and Peter and Stanley, so great to have you here.

Thank you for coming.

- Thank you.

- Well, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the controversial parental rights or don't say gay bill this week, while one of the state's largest private employers, Disney said it will work to get the law repealed.

- [Announcer] While Disney sat on the sidelines as the bill was debated during the legislative session, it did issue a statement this week saying the law should never have been passed, which brought this reaction from the governor.

- For Disney to come out and put a statement and say that the bill should have never passed and that they are going to actively work to repeal it.

I one was fundamentally dishonest, but two, I think that crossed the line.

This state is governed by the interest of the people of the state of Florida.

It is not based on the demands of California corporate executives.

- [Announcer] The legislation bans classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.

Critics say the legislation will marginalize LGBTQ children and that the language used in the bill such as age appropriate is too broad and vague and does not just apply to K through third grade.

- So, Peter, let me start with you, is Disney, do you think Disney is really gonna challenge the don't say gay bill, or is, are they doing this for show?

- No, they're not going to challenge it.

There's really not even a mechanism to challenge it.

They don't have the votes.

They don't wanna get into a year long fight.

This is to pacify the California branch of the Disney Corporation.

There's really two branches in the United States.

There's the liberal California branch and then there's the moderate Republican branch here.

And they're facing now an existential crisis because the governor's not stopping just at this bill.

He's saying today that it's worth examining the Reeny Creek setup that Disney has, that allows them to self-govern.

And so right now Disney's more worried about protecting what it has now, including a large carve out to last year's tech bill, rather than trying to go after something that is an impossibility at this point.

- I found it interesting Stanley that the governor said that he didn't want the California corporate executives to issue demands about what goes on here in Florida.

I've been up in Tallahassee.

Peter's been, spent a lot long time there.

I suspect you have too.

There's a lot of corporations that have a lot of pull in Tallahassee.

- My question or response would be when don't corporations, when are they not a part of this?

And I think they are.

The only thing is I look on Monday morning, is that why they didn't say something, you know, prior to the bill actually, you know, being signed?

- [Rob] Yeah, why do you think Disney was quiet during the session?

- You know, I really don't know.

I can only speculate and I know that they weren't because whether we wanna believe it or not, this is a red state.

So it was pretty much predetermined what was gonna happen.

I don't know why they would be so hesitant.

And the reason why I say that is, is that they make a lot of money on the gay population in Orlando.

And you know, if they were really serious, you know, they would maybe threaten to leave, which they won't, but if they did, it would have a serious economic impact on the state.

- The governor's in favor of the parental rights bill, the don't say gay bill.

And he says, who wants kids K through three, K through third grade to hear about gender identity or anything.

But the bill isn't just simply about K through three, it also says age appropriate.

And it also talks about classroom discussion in another part of the bill.

So the critics say, look, this bill is vague, and you know, if you really look at, it's hard to interpret exactly what the bill says.

You guys think the bill is vague, or do you think the governor's right?

I mean, you know, is it pretty clear what this bill is aimed to do?

- I think that there's a lot of subjectivity into it.

And I think that that was done for a reason, for a purpose.

In my opinion, the governor has higher political aspirations and I think he's playing to his potential base, pure, plain, simple.

When you look at that least what I've read, it's very subjective.

I mean, it's almost like talking about, well, how is somebody going to interpret something based upon their maturity level?

I just think that it's just fraught just with.

- If it wasn't about gay and trans, if it wasn't about those two issues, then why didn't Republicans go along with Republican State Senator Jeff Brandes's attempt to introduce an amendment that just said, let's not talk about any sexual education.

He tried to make sure that there was clarity.

You don't like subjective laws.

Let's make sure there's some clarity about what's going on here.

That was shot down.

It is definitely about gay.

What it really is is Republicans worst fear.

It's about their child losing to a transathlete out on a scholarship.

And so some of these trans athletes are really at the center of this culture war that is scaring, suburban Republican voters.

Ron DeSandis knows that and he's exploiting it.

- So the bill's been challenged by equal rights groups, Equality Florida, and other groups.

Do you think that the there's a chance that Equality Florida is successful in saying, look, the bill is vague and therefore unconstitutional, Peter?

- The governor doesn't have a good track record at the, in the court system.

In fact, we've seen this week, several pieces of his legislation shot down.

Other pieces of legislation have been shot down.

A lot of this is just performative legislation.

I would expect this will be shot down.

I don't even know if this ever actually goes into effect.

I would imagine a stay gets implemented, maybe the governor challenges, but maybe in about a year, I don't even know we'll be talking about this bill because I don't know that it will, I don't know if DeSantis will want to continue advancing a legal challenge as he's in Iowa and New Hampshire running for president.

- All right, let's go to a few more topics.

This week, Florida's attorney general Ashley Moody joined with 20 other states and sued the federal government over requirements that people should wear masks in airports and on planes, trains and buses.

- [Announcer] Among other things, the lawsuit contends that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has overstepped its legal authority in requiring masks for travelers in order to prevent the spread of COVID 19.

Moody said the mask mandate on airplanes has caused confusion, chaos, and put pressure on airline employees.

Well, let's use Peter's word Stanley.

Do you think that masks are performative, that is, do masks serve any real purpose if you're wearing one on an airplane?

- I do.

I really do believe it.

And you know, one of the things is it's kind of hard to compare things.

Like if you look at what's going on in China right now, what are they doing?

Because they have a history based upon results of being able to stymie, you know, diseases with the use of masks.

I think what's happening is we're just playing to the base and we're trying to be the anti.

And I hate to say it, cause it sounds very childish, but that's exactly what's going.

I'm almost insulted by this suit because everyone knows that, you know, they've changed the filtration system in airplanes.

That's helped, but you know, the bottom line is that the government is responsible for health and welfare.

And this is an an act, but because you don't like it, you know, we're not doing it.

And I'll tell you something that's really pretty sad.

I was in the airport last Wednesday night.

No one's enforcing it.

- Okay, well on another topic.

On Thursday, a federal judge struck down key provisions of last year's election law championed by Governor DeSantis had ruled the state must get court approval for the next 10 years before it enacts further changes in state election laws, very big victory for those opposed to the recent changes in Florida's election law, but the governor and the legislature, no doubt about it, Peter, they're gonna appeal.

So this is a federal judge in Tallahassee, a pretty strong opinion, 288 pages.

But the question is will the appellate court, federal appellate court in Atlanta and will the Supreme Court go along because it's sure, I'm sure the governor's gonna challenge this.

- No, they won't go along.

This is a dead on arrival ruling.

I think that, I think Mark Walker knew that - [Rob] Federal judge he was a Federal judge.

I think he put his back into it, into this ruling.

There's a lot of colorful language about the Confederacy and all sorts of different components.

I did read a lot of it before I went to sleep three hours later.

It's gonna get shot down, but will it be stayed long enough so that it doesn't have an impact or so that the vote, the original law doesn't have an impact on 2022 elections.

That's an interesting question right now.

- So the Florida law, Stanley had a lot to do with dropboxes and the way you sign up, register people to vote.

The judge, Judge Walker said in his 288 page decision that Florida's repeatedly sought to make voting tougher for black voters and that Florida has a horrendous history of racial discrimination in voting.

So he took a pretty strong stand I think, you know, in attacking this law that was passed last year by the legislature.

- Well, I'll take it a step further.

I think if you really looked at it in a holistic manner, you'll find that it really is disparative to lower socioeconomics.

It's just not the African American community, but people who are not making very much money, people who are relying on public transportation, people who have to work during their set hours, because they don't get time off, that's who this is really hurting.

And I think it's very, I think it's a very sad thing when people don't realize that you are really taken away the vote of the people.

So in other words, when you take, you know, the lowest socioeconomic, their vote away, what you're doing is you're putting more credence in everyone who's not in that category.

And it just goes against one person, one vote.

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

And Peter, let's start with you.

The other big story of the week.

What would you point out?

- I've got a bombshell for you, Rob, that I've been saving here.

Rhea Law was just formally approved as the new president of the University of South Florida.

According to conversations I had with three different board of trustee members at the University of South Florida, there was intense pressure both directly and indirectly to consider Chris Sprowls, the current house speaker as the next president, as USF.

You saw a very accelerated search process.

And that's impacted by the new law that's going to shield that, but there was intense concern by all involved that the nine figures worth of appropriations that was going to USF was being held in the balance on whether or not Sprowls would be considered.

Sprowls never directly reached out to the university about being considered, but people close to him were said to be in consider or conversation with several members of the board of trustees.

- And did the pressure, where did the pressure come from?

- That's still, I'm hoping somebody's gonna watch this tonight and a better reporter is gonna get to the bottom of that.

And so I'll leave that out there and maybe the "Tampa Bay Times" higher education reporter will start making some calls over the weekend.

- All right, Stanley, your other big story of the week.

- You know, one of the problems I think that we have as a nation is a lack of accountability.

And I think what it's causing is a lot of apathy.

And specifically, I want to know why Supreme Court Justice Thomas has not said anything about the accusations related to his wife.

They're not accusations, they're truisms, okay.

I think that's a very sad testimony on the Supreme Court.

I think it's very sad.

I think it's also very alarming and it shows that accountability doesn't matter.

- Do you think he should recuse himself from anything having to do with a January 6th court case?

- Well you know, eventually, initially I said he should recuse himself, but the fact that he had hasn't said anything, to me I think there is further action.

And I think that the Supreme Court as a body should look at that, what does this look like?

What does this smell like?

How is this going to be interpreted?

- Well, thank you both for a great show.

Peter, Stanley, thank you.

And thank you for watching.

Please send us your comments at ftwedu.org.

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

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Florida This Week" is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.