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- Next on WEDU, a Sarasota teen is among the people challenging the Don't Say Gay Parental Rights bill in court.

The governor signs a controversial nursing home bill that critics say will reduce care.

Friends of the Everglades and other environmental groups are warning about a bill passed by the legislature that could harm South Florida's environment.

And one of Tallahassee's longest serving journalists is retiring as the number of reporters in the state capital continues to shrink.

All coming up right now on Florida This Week.

(bright upbeat music) Welcome back.

Several LGBTQ rights groups in Florida along with parents, students, and teachers have filed a lawsuit against Florida House Bill 1557.

That's the Parental Rights also known as the Don't Say Gay bill.

The bill was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis last week and it's set to go into effect on July 1st.

The controversial legislation prohibits school districts from encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age appropriate.

It also allows parents to sue a school district for violations.

In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs say they have already suffered concrete harms as a result of the new law.

Zander Moricz is a high school senior and class president at Pine View School in Osprey.

He's the plaintiff in the lawsuit and led a class walkout at his school over the bill.

Also joining us is Roberta Kaplan, an attorney with Kaplan Hecker and Fink, representing Zander and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

She successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme court in United States versus Windsor, a decision that led nationwide to marriage equality.

And thank you both for joining us, great to have you here.

- Thank you for having us.

- Pleasure to be here, thank you.

- Zander, I wanna ask you why you're part of this lawsuit.

- So I'm a part of the lawsuit because the education system is the only space that all children are guaranteed that they're gonna go through.

And so the first person I ever came out to was a teacher, because when you identify that you are a member of the LGBTQ community, it can be scary.

You are discovering an entirely new part about yourself and that can be isolating.

And so having a space to share that and talk about that and feel grounded and normal is an essential part of that process for everybody who does come out.

And so for me, that place was school.

And so for so many of my peers, that place is school because it's very stressful to come out to family.

And a lot of times it can be unsafe to come out to family.

And so what our legislation is doing is taking this space that so many kids rely on and they're suffocating it.

- You say that schools will no longer be safe for LGBTQ kids.

You say my school has been a safe environment where I've been able to express my identity, my teachers are already told me that they will no longer be able to have some of the classroom discussions that help me feel accepted in school, tell us more about that.

You've heard from teachers already who feel that they're being muzzled?

- Absolutely, so what you have are so many teachers who incorporate ideas of LGBTQ history and LGBTQ politics into what they teach.

And even sometimes in science, the idea of gender and sexuality comes up.

And so you have on that level and the actual curriculum so many teachers who feel like they're not gonna have the ability to effectively cover their curriculum and effectively engage students in their curriculum.

Because effective learning is when children feel reflected in what they're learning.

And what you're going to be doing is in eliminating an entire sector of that.

And a second part of that is that school serves as a safe space.

And there are so many safe space zones within schools.

And a lot of teachers like to indicate those by having LGBTQ insignia or saying, "This is a place where all are accepted."

And those things are gonna have to go away, which is going to create a really isolating and scary environment for students and an environment where teachers don't feel supported to have effective conversations or be an effective support system for students.

- Roberta, let me read from the bill, HB 1557.

It says it will prohibit classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels or in a specified manner, is the language clear in the bill?

In another part of the bill, it says classroom instruction.

And in the first part of the bill, it says classroom discussion.

Is it clear what this law will prohibit?

- Well, you pointed out exactly a huge problem with this law, which is, and this is intentional.

The legislature and the governor did not define key terms in this statute, including discussion, including instruction, including what's appropriate and what's not appropriate.

If this were a bill that just prohibited sexualized content in classrooms for kids K through three, we wouldn't be here today.

No one would have an issue with that.

There shouldn't be sexualized content in school for kids K through three.

And of course it should be appropriate for their age level.

But that's not what this bill does.

It uses very broad language, very broad terms that are undefined, intentionally so.

And then it allows parents, literally any parent to sue the school board if they believe something was said in a classroom that violates the statute.

That's not the way this country works, that's a Renegade censorship mechanism.

There are bills like that in Hungary, in Russia, but we don't have bills like that in the United States of America.

And this bill will not last in the state of Florida.

- I wanna play something that happened earlier this week when a Fox news reporter asked the White House spokesperson about why the Biden administration opposes this Don't Say Gay bill.

- So if you guys oppose this law that bans classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in K through three, does White House support that kind of classroom instruction before kindergarten?

- Do you have examples of schools in Florida that are teaching kindergartners about sex education?

- I'm just asking for the presidents opinion about this law.

- I think that's irrelevant question because I think this is a politically charged harsh law that is putting parents and LGBTQ plus kids in a very difficult, heartbreaking circumstance.

And so I actually think that's a pretty irrelevant question.

- Zander, did you go through Florida public schools?

Did you start in Florida public schools and was there much discussion about gender identity in the K through three grades?

- I cannot recollect a single time in K through three where I ever discussed gender identity in public, I deposed those kind of public schools my whole life.

Those conversations aren't happening at the elementary level.

It's already not allowed for that to happen.

And so the idea that that's what this bill is actually about, is hilarious.

- And Roberta, that seems to be the issue.

I think that the governor is touting, is that this is protecting students in K through three from discussions about gender or sexual identity.

In 30 seconds, tell us what you think about that.

- That's not what the bill does, it's not what the bill says.

As Zander said, that's already prohibited by another Florida law.

The law goes past K through three, it goes the way up through high school.

And it's really using, trying to score political points on the backs of the most vulnerable people in our society, the most vulnerable kids in our society.

And that's just a horrible thing to do.

It's not only horrible, it's unconstitutional as we will show.

- Well, Robert and Zander, thanks a lot for being on Florida This Week.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - This week, Governor DeSantis signed a measure that will change staffing requirements in nursing homes.

The nursing home industry lobbied for the measure is a way to reduce chronic staff shortages.

However, the bill drew opposition from the AARP of Florida and other critics who contend it will reduce care for nursing home residents.

The most controversial part of the bill involves certified nursing assistants who provide much of the daily hands on care in nursing homes.

Current law requires that certified nursing assistants provide a minimum of two and a half hours of direct care per day, per resident.

The bill would reduce that to two hours.

Jeff Johnson is the Florida State Director of the AARP and Jeff, thanks for joining us.

Good to see you.

- Good to see you, thanks so much for the opportunity, Rob.

- So the Governor signed this measure, in your opinion, the AARP's opinion, will this hurt care at nursing homes?

- Yeah, we're gravely concerned that it will.

I mean, if you're cutting the level of care by nursing assistants in nursing homes by 20%,, we have deep concern that it's going to lead to substandard care.

And what certified nursing assistants provide is the sort of day to day activities of daily living like taking people to the bathroom, changing clothes, getting people out of bed.

And having less time for that or having people who are not trained to do that kind of work do that kind of work, can lead to a lot of other issues that become really grave health concerns for those in facilities.

- So there is, as I understand it, a chronic shortage of staff at nursing homes.

Will this hurt or will this improve the staff situation at nursing homes?

- Good question and we've worked with the industry and every other player over the years to try to figure out what can we do to make work in nursing homes one that people want to do more.

I think that changing the standards of how many people you need to do the job and just saying, well, we're gonna get by with fewer and be okay with that, is gonna make the job that much harder.

What we've heard from the folks who are currently working in facilities is that they're going to be more overloaded than they already were in this environment.

And that's gonna make them less likely to wanna stick around.

So while I think this move is being done with the premise that we're a addressing a staffing shortage, I think what we're actually doing is exacerbating it.

- I've read interviews with you in which you say that already 40% of Florida's nursing homes are on a watch list.

What does it mean when they're on the watch list and how does that tie into the bill that was just signed?

- Well, the Agency for Healthcare Administration and part of the state of Florida that regulates nursing homes keeps track and does inspections of nursing homes and looks for those that have patterns of bad behavior concerning problems in their operations.

Or are going through financial difficulties, bankruptcies, sales, as ones that need to be watched or monitored to make sure that there's not harm being done to residents.

Again, when 40% of the facilities are already on that watch list, that's a concern.

We don't really know quite candidly what's going to happen with lower staffing standards.

If it is the case that some of the folks on this watch list are only there because they're not meeting the current minimum of staffing standards, which I don't think is the case.

Then what could happen is some of them will fall off, we'll have to watch and see.

I think this is an opportunity.

I will say Rob, for that agency to really step up and provide really transparent regulation of these facilities because we should all be a little more cautious and concerned about what's going on inside them.

- So a few years ago as I understand it, you're gonna have to correct me, but the nursing homes were given some protection from lawsuits in exchange for expanding the amount of staff they have.

Has the nursing home industry followed through?

- There's, so yes, 21 years ago, 2001, the Florida Legislature put together a really grand bargain that traded off some liability protections for nursing homes in exchange for higher staffing standards.

And that was done because prior to that and prior to the implementation of that law, what we found in media, what we found in real life was that we had nursing home residents who were dying of neglect, dying of ant bites, dying of bed sores, of malnutrition.

And those staffing standards that were implemented over time, made a difference.

They reduced the number of incidents in which we saw that type of abuse and neglect.

So what's happened in this session and to some degree has had happened in previous sessions, but much more significantly now is that we're seeing that standard that was agreed to rolled back.

And there's not really been as significant change in terms of litigation reform.

Though I think the trial lawyers will say that there were some changes that they believe are really important.

From AARP's perspective, we're not the trial bar.

Our focus is on keeping the residents from harm, not focusing on how we remedy harm after the fact.

I mean, we would rather there be no lawsuits because there's no harm and we're moving away from an environment where that's a likely outcome.

- And Jeff, we only have 30 seconds left, but were there some positive things that came out of this session?

- Yeah, we do think that there was another bill that passed that the governor signed around nursing home transparency and the financial transparency behind facilities.

We think that's really important because those who are, we're talking about the staffing issue will point out that the staff don't get paid really that much.

And it, we wanna make sure that the money that's going to the facilities to provide quality care, is actually getting to the folks who are providing that care.

- Jeff Johnson of the AARP, thank you very much for coming on Florida This Week.

- Thank you, Rob, really appreciate it.

(upbeat music) - Four Florida environmental groups are urging the governor to veto the Lake Okeechobee water supply bill.

Lake Okeechobee is the giant polluted lake in the south central part of the state.

When water levels are high there, some water has to be released for safety reasons and nutrient rich water flows out to the east and west coast.

The polluted waters cause major environmental damage.

The conservation groups are concerned that Senate bill 2508 will allow Big Sugar to continue taking lake waters they have for decades, siphoning off massive amounts to grow its thirsty crops.

And they say it poses a hazard to fragile wetlands throughout the state.

Eve Samples is the executive director of Friends of the Everglade.

She spent two decades as a journalist at the USA Today Network, Florida TCPalm and Treasure Coast newspapers, and the Palm Beach Post.

Eve Samples, welcome to Florida This Week.

- Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.

- So explain to us a little bit more about why you're opposed to this bill.

- Sure, so Senate bill 2508 first was offensive because of the manner by which it was filed.

It was filed on a Friday afternoon in Tallahassee, and it was filed as a budget conforming bill, meaning it was attached to the whole entire state budget.

And that's typically reserved for items that aren't deep policy measures.

And of course this bill includes some really substantial water policy, environmental policy measures that stand to impact the future of Florida and only one public hearing was reserved to discuss it.

So, our main problems with the bill are that it protects current water management rules that treat Lake Okeechobee as a reservoir for the half million acres of sugar cane south of the lake.

These are outdated rules that need to be updated and this bill explicitly protects them.

The second reason we're opposed to it is that it lets public utilities in the state such as Florida Power and Light pay to expedite wetland permit reviews.

These are known as 404 Dredge and Fill Wetland permits.

So utilities such as FPL would become paying customers of the state department of environmental protection, which we see as a real conflict of interest.

And the third reason we're opposed to this bill substantially is that it will give the state's next agriculture commissioner about $300 million to purchase ag land through what's known as the Rural Family Lands Program.

And this could directly compete with the state's very successful Florida Forever Land Conservation Program.

And it just so happens the next ag commissioner, one of the candidates is the current Senate president, Senator Wilton Simpson, who is running for ag commissioner.

So a number of reasons we're opposed to this bill and that's why we're asking Governor DeSantis to veto it.

- Would it be fair to say that you think that Big Sugar is one of the big beneficiaries of this bill?

- Absolutely, the sugar cane industry in Florida would benefit from the passage of this bill, the signing of this bill.

Lake Okeechobee has been managed for decades as a reservoir for this industry.

There's what's known as a hold and dump strategy if you will.

So the lake is held too high in the dry season, depriving the Southern Everglades of needed flows during the dry season.

And then if that water isn't all used by the half million acres of sugar cane south of the lake, then it's dumped east and west to the St. Lucia and Caloosahatchee estuaries where it can trigger the toxic algae blooms, cyanobacteria, blue-green algae blooms that we saw in 2018, 2016 and years before.

So this hold and dump strategy is entirely detrimental to Florida's environment.

It benefits the sugar cane industry south of the lake.

We're past due time for a new lake plan with more flexible measures.

And we were headed in that direction until this bill was filed to hamstring some of that flexibility.

- When the bill was first announced, the governor indicated that he was opposed to it.

Is that still what the governor is saying about the bill?

- Right, so this sneak attack legislation and I think it's safe to call it that did prompt a very strong reaction from Governor DeSantis back in February.

He issued a statement which was somewhat unusual when we're talking about a statement opposing key legislation filed by the Senate president or backed by the Senate president and DeSantis' statement at the time said the bill was being rammed through the budget process.

That's a direct quote from his statement.

It was short circuiting public engagement and leaving affected agencies in the dark.

So that was February.

After that, the bill, the hard edges were sanded down a bit from the bill.

Some of the worst provisions were stripped from it.

However as I said before, several very concerning measures still remain.

The governor has been mum on his current position on the bill.

We have not received a response to our veto request.

And now he has until June 30th to either sign the legislation, veto the legislation or let it pass without his signature.

We certainly hope that he vetos it.

- And Eve we just have 20 seconds, but I think people are worried about the summer rains and another possible dump of this nutrient rich affluent from Lake Okeechobee, is that possible this summer?

- Yes, the lake is higher than we would like it to be.

We may have a very painful reminder of why we need to update our water management rules in Florida.

And we certainly hope the governor will veto this bill.

For those who wanna support that call, they can go to everglades.org and join us in calling on him to veto it.

- Eve, thanks for being on the program.

- Thank you so much.

(upbeat music) - Well, for almost 50 years, our next guest has been reporting from Tallahassee about the inner workings of state government.

Florida is a huge state.

It stretches 831 miles from Key West to Pensacola.

The state capital is in a small town near the Georgia border, far from the major population centers of Tampa Bay, Sarasota, Orlando and Broward, Dade and Palm Beach counties.

In the last few decades, Tallahassee has become a power center, taking more and more control away from local governments, and passing legislation that is often mimicked by other states.

That's why, what goes on in the state capital is so important.

And now we are losing another veteran reporter from Tallahassee.

If there was a breaking political story in Tallahassee in the last 50 years, journalist Mike Vasilinda was probably there.

He started his career covering Florida politics as a student at FSU.

And in 1974, he founded Florida Public Radios Capital Report.

He went on to create the Capital News Service for television stations.

And Mike, welcome to Florida This Week.

- Thank you so much for having me, Rob.

- So Mike, why are you stepping down?

- Well, it's been a long time, things have changed.

The market for television has changed.

And frankly, my wife and I wanna spend some time together, traveling around the state, getting to know it better.

And I wanna say I don't think that we're going away either of us.

I think what we're going to do is get away from having a daily deadline after nearly 50 years of trying to get television on the year every weekday and sometimes during the weekend, I think it's just time to relax a little bit.

- Mike, I wonder who's minding the store.

Could you compare reporting today in 2022 to what you came upon 49 years ago when you started or during the days of Lawton Chiles and Jeb Bush, what's the capital reporting crew like now compared to what it was back then?

- Well, I would tell you it's probably less than half the number of people with eyeballs on our states politicians that are enacting laws for us and doing things to us.

So yeah, it's tremendously, the number of people in the press Corps has been cut dramatically.

- And for us down here in Tampa or Orlando or Miami, Tallahassee is so far away.

And yet Tallahassee is I think become, as I said in the intro a much more power center, they've taken much more control over our lives than local government has.

- Well state government, a lot of people are only interested in who's running for president and they don't bother voting during the midterms.

And that's a real deficit for the public good because I believe that people need to be interested in who's representing them in the state capital because really the state has much more power over your life than the federal government on almost any given day.

- So where should people go to get quality information about what's going on in Tallahassee with the shrinking press Corps up there, who do we trust?

- Well, I think you just have to trust a lot of different sources, listen to public radio, listen to your local news, compare what's being said on these different outlets and make up your mind where to go.

I think that there, the void that is gonna be left with the stations that I've worked for all these years will be filled.

And I think there's still an interest in covering Tallahassee.

And I think you're gonna see other people and some entrepreneurs even step in and try and fill the void that's gonna be there when I'm gone as I am now.

- So Mike, you've been there for 49 years, is there a story that you're most proud of breaking, something that you discovered and reported first?

- There, every story is important on the day that we're producing it and sending it out to the viewers in the state.

There are just too many to come by that, to say that I broke this story, I broke that story.

I used to have a news director, Dan Bradley at WFLA there in Tampa, who said I was three days ahead of the newspaper just about every day during the week.

So that's a lot of stories, I estimate probably 10,000 that I've produced.

And it's just that, so any one of them probably was, as I say, was important to me on the day we did it.

- And Mike, are you 100% certain you're not gonna be back next year for the session?

- No.

(both laughs) No, I just don't want those daily deadlines if I can help it.

But no, covering my 50th session has some allure.

I don't know how that would work mechanically, but Michelle and I, my wife Michelle and I have some plans to continue to do some things around the state on a regular basis.

So we're just, we're not fading away and going away, we are just stepping away from that daily deadline right now.

- Well Mike, congratulations on a great career and safe travels.

- Hey, thank you so much, Rob and we hope you enjoy the rest of your career.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) Thanks for joining us, send us your comments at ftw@wedu.org.

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

And Florida This Week is now available as a podcast.

You can find it on our website or wherever you download your podcast.

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

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