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

- [Rob Lorei] Coming up next, Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for Governor in 2018 is indicted on federal wire fraud charges.

Governor DeSantis endorses school board races across the state.

Nikki Fried says Florida is not doing enough to protect children from COVID-19 and the U.S. Supreme Court issues its opinion on abortion, all this and more right now on Florida this Week.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Joining us on our panel, Jessica Vaughn is a member of the Hillsborough County School Board from District three and a Democrat.

Darryl Paulson is the emeritus Professor of Government and Politics at USF, St. Petersburg.

Stanley Gray is the President and CEO of the Hillsborough County Urban League and is not currently affiliated with a political party.

And Danny Kushmer is a real estate agent and a Republican.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority ended the constitutional protection for abortion rights that have been in place for nearly 50 years.

The decision turns the question of the right to abortion back to the individual states.

U.S. Supreme Court decision is expected to lead to bans on abortions in roughly half the states.

Next week, a new Florida law will go into effect here, banning abortions after 15 weeks with no exceptions for rape, incest, or sex trafficking.

Friday's opinion puts the high court at odds with the majority of Americans who favor preserving Roe, according to the polls.

And Jessica, let me start with you.

What do you think of the decision?

- Well, let's be honest, banning abortion isn't gonna stop abortions.

All it's gonna do is make them less safe and criminalize people who are seeking abortions.

If the people who are looking to ban abortion really want to support babies and the mothers, they would work together and focus on solutions to deal with unwanted pregnancies, like expanding healthcare, comprehensive sex education, access to birth control, and policies that really support families and offer them childcare instead of waging war and dividing the country by waging war on women and our reproduction rights.

Danny, what would you say to what Jessica just told us?

- Well, Jessica and folks, for as long as I can remember, I've said to everybody that there's not two sides to the abortion debate.

Remember one side's dead and that's the baby.

So, now, imagine being angry.

That there will be life, that babies will live.

I'm an adopted individual.

I'm thankful for my birth mother for choosing life, the way she did.

And, I'm grateful for my birth par- for my biological, my parents for bringing me up the way they did.

So, you know, I keep these little hands on my lapel.

Those are hands of a 10 week baby, 10 week old baby in the womb, fully formed.

I think that says a lot.

- Jessica made the point though, that we don't do enough for instance, maternal care, childcare and that, you know, the right to life people are saying that they're gonna create this new culture of life.

When does that begin?

When does that culture of life, where you give all around care to people, begin.

- You know, in my life and what I believe, life begins at conception.

And, I do agree with Jessica that we do need to do better in our healthcare system.

I totally agree with that.

We need to do better with our adoption laws.

We need to make it easier to adopt in our state, in our country.

And I have, I've worked with children.

I have been on boards in the past to help, you know, runaway children, foster children, as well.

And, I know there's a need, but there is no unwanted baby.

- Jessica, let me go back to you.

What would you say to Danny about this issue that, you know, he's wearing a lapel pin that shows the size of a baby or a size of baby's feet at 10 weeks.

What would you say back to him?

- I would say that no woman or person wants an unwanted pregnancy.

It's not something that people choose to go out and have happen.

So again, if we stop talking about abortion and dividing ourselves and start focusing on the solutions to unwanted pregnancies, the issues that I've mentioned, making sure students understand or young people understand how unwanted pregnancies happen, making sure contraceptives are accessible and that you can afford.

You don't have to be rich or wealthy or have healthcare to afford them.

Making sure families that find themselves in those situations can have children, because they're gonna have livable wages or they're gonna have healthcare or they're gonna have childcare to support these families.

If we stop talking on this last stage and focus on what we all agree is unwanted pregnancies and how to combat that.

Instead of waging war on women, abortion is a human right.

Reproductive rights are human rights.

And if we focused and worked together on unwanted pregnancies, we would have a lot more progress and we would be helping people instead of dividing our country, arguing about when a baby's life is viable.

- Darryl, let me bring you into this.

I want to ask you about Florida's constitutional amendment, on privacy, which says, "Every natural person has the right "to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion "into the person's private life "except as otherwise provided herein."

Does the Florida constitution support the right to abortion, do you think?

And do you think the courts, the Supreme Court in Tallahassee will uphold that privacy right?

- Well, the Florida constitution does uphold the right to an abortion, but the issue is here.

You now have the United States Supreme Court handing down their decision, which is their interpretation of the constitution and the constitution of the United States preempts the constitution of the state of Florida.

So, that's where the big debate in argument's gonna be, I mean, the Florida courts may uphold it, but then, it's gonna be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which is unlikely to uphold what the Florida courts do.

I noticed that John Roberts made an interesting point to me in his brief.

He said that this decision could be handed down that the Mississippi case could have been upheld.

And in Mississippi, the issue was they banned abortions after 15 weeks.

In most cases, he said that could have been upheld without overturning Roe versus Wade.

And so, he was disappointed that the court did not exhibit judicial restraints in this particular case.

But, you know, there are a lot of interesting things to look at in terms of the impact of this decision, not just in terms of the abortion issue itself, but how it is going to branch out into other areas.

The implication here is that the state should have more responsibilities in some of these public policy issues.

So, if it has more responsibility in the area of abortion, then, you're likely to see they're gonna take on some of these other issues like contraception and same sex marriage and give more responsibility to the state once again.

I mean, Clarence Thomas has already pointed that out.

Let's go on to the next thing.

- Well, Stanley, let me ask you about that.

Justice Thomas did say that this may open the door to re-looking at contraception and looking at same sex marriage and same sex relationships.

What do you make of that?

- I think that that pronouncement is actually gonna happen.

I will also tell you that I disagree with what you're talking about, unwanted people.

And for full disclosure, I was born a bastard and the first six years of my life, I live from family to friends.

I think it's criminal for our government and for policies to come out that don't cover both ends of this.

At the same time, while we're restricting a woman's right to basically have the ultimate decisions on our body, for the people who need social programs, we're eliminating and decreasing those funds.

If you're gonna do one thing, you have to increase the other.

And we're not.

I think that this is very, not only inhumane, I don't care about the legality of it, I think it speaks very poorly of the conscious of America for us to be where we are today.

- And we're gonna have much more of this tonight, at 11:00 p.m. here on WEDU.

Washington week will devote a half hour to the important Supreme Court decision overturning Roe versus Wade.

While Andrew Gillum, the 2018 Democratic Party nominee for Florida Governor, was indicted this week on 21 federal charges, including conspiracy and wire fraud.

Gillum is accused of funneling political donations back to himself for personal use.

The one time mayor of Tallahassee is also charged with making false statements to the FBI for claiming he did not receive or ask for anything from two undercover agents who were posing as developers.

The undercover agents allegedly offered gifts and money in exchange for support for city projects.

Among the alleged gifts, paying for his stay at a hotel, food, drinks, a boat ride, and tickets to the musical, "Hamilton", during a trip to New York City.

In his statement, Gillum said, "Make no mistake that this case is not legal, "it is political.

"Throughout my career, "I have always stood up for the people of Florida "and have spoken truth to power."

He goes on to say, "There's been a target on my back "ever since I was the mayor of Tallahassee.

"They found nothing then, "and I have full confidence that my legal team "will prove my innocence now."

Gillum lost a close race for Governor against Republican, Ron DeSantis, in 2018.

Darryl, in 2018, it was known this investigation was known, but we didn't know what the outcome was gonna be.

But, do you think that that Gillum was thoroughly vetted enough?

He won the Democratic Primary.

What do you make of these new allegations or now, the charges against Gill?

- Yes.

Well, everyone knew that these things were being explored and since, it wasn't finalized at that point in time, there wasn't a great deal they could do.

I mean, it was a real risk having Gillum as a candidate, at that point in time.

He did become the rising star in the Florida Democratic Party.

He did beat the favored candidate in the Democratic Party when Graham, Mrs. Graham, sorry.

Can't- - [Rob Lorei] Gwen Graham.

Yeah.

- Thank you.

Yeah, that's a tongue twister.

She was favored to win and Gillum beat her by three percentage points.

He, then, went on to face Ron DeSantis, who was not the favor in the Republican Primary, Adam Putnam was, but Donald Trump endorsed DeSantis.

And, DeSantis won the Republican Primary.

Gillum was a clear favorite in the general election, but Gillum lost by four tenths of one per percent or about 36,000 votes in the state of Florida.

He says, "Believe me, this is a political indictment."

Well, it's not.

I mean, the implication there is the state of Florida has always been after him.

The implication here is, you know, that it's a partisan witch hunt, but that's just not true.

This is the federal indictment, not the state of Florida after him.

And secondly, the person who made this indictment against him was John Coody, who is the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, who was appointed by President Biden to that position.

So it's, you know, a Democrat who's going after Graham, so to speak.

- Right.

- [Darryl] So, the rising fall, rising star of the Democratic Party has fallen into great lengths.

- Stanley, a lot of politicians, steer money to their personal use, but it's unusual to get this kind of indictment.

What do you make of the charges against Gillum?

- I guess, the thing that I'm gonna say is that the wheels of justice move very, very slowly.

That's all I'll say on that, but I think that this is another example of a loud call for campaign finance reform.

And the other part about this is that, is that the way that things are set up right now, it's not one person, one vote.

If you actually look and see what the dollars buy, the dollars by influence, look who the dollars come from, and you'll see who is not represented, this is a problem.

This is a problem.

Now, whether he feels that a target's on his back, I'm really big into personal accountability.

I think you have to answer some questions for yourself, but my big takeaway is two things.

One is justice moves very slow, and two is that we need to have campaign finance reform.

We need to take the dollars out of it and get rid of the industry.

- Okay.

So just this, you were gonna say Darryl?

- Disagree on that point, because I don't see that as the problem at all.

I think what you need is people of integrity in politics.

I mean, there were numerous cases, at least a half a dozen cases, when he was the mayor of Tallahassee, where there were ethics allegations.

In several of those cases, he had to pay fines to the Florida Ethics Commissions or other groups that were investigating him.

So, it was one thing after another, that sort of accumulated, and he, apparently, thought he could get away with it.

Well, he could, and it's gonna catch up with you in the end.

So, I don't know that Florida Campaign Finance or anything else would've prevented somebody, like Gillum, from, you know, having the problems that he eventually had.

He created his own mess and now was getting the consequences of that mess.

- All right, well, this week Democratic candidate for Governor, Nikki Fried, criticized the DeSantis administration for failing to place orders for COVID-19 vaccine for children.

Florida is the only state in the nation not to secure an early supply of the vaccine, which is designed for kids older than six months.

The state government's decision means parents will not be able to get the vaccines at local health departments.

Federal regulators have just approved the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for children ages six months to five years old.

State Agriculture Commissioner and Head of Consumer Affairs, Nikki Fried, slammed the decision as political and said, "The governor is putting the health "of young people at risk."

- I had parents contacting and reaching out to me all of last week saying, "Am I gonna have to go to Georgia?"

That is the type of confusion that he created last week.

As we have seen, that the governor's intentionally creating this chaos.

- The governor defended his decision not to order the vaccines.

And once again, raised skepticism about vaccine safety.

- We're following the data.

You look at these European countries, they are, a lot of 'em, don't even allow Moderna for under age 30 or they recommend against it.

These regulatory agencies in the federal government have, basically, become subsidiaries of the pharmaceutical companies.

They are not independent regulators.

They, basically, are there to rubber stamp of what Pfizer wants to do.

- So, Stanley, who's right?

Is Florida by failing to order the vaccines in time hurting kids' health or?

- I believe that we're wrong for not, the governor was wrong for not pre-ordering the vaccines.

The job of the governor is to take care of the health and welfare of the population.

I understand where the governor stands on this issue and that's fine, but what about those who don't stand with them?

Are there desires and anticipation for having adequate healthcare?

Are they to be erased and eradicated?

I don't think so.

I think that this is a political issue, and I think that the loser are the, that the citizens of this state who actually wanted to have the drugs as soon as they could.

- Jessica, let me ask you about this.

The governor's shown, the governor at one point this week said, it's old people that are, at most, at risk for COVID-19 and young kids don't really suffer the deadly ramifications of COVID 19, as much as, as senior citizens do.

And, that was one of his reasons.

- Well, I hesitate to take medical advice from our governor.

However, the problem with this is it completely contradicts his stance on parental rights.

You know, regardless of what his personal beliefs are, he has made it a pinnacle of his beliefs to stand behind each individual family and parents being able to make the best decision for their children, especially, when it comes to medical decisions.

And for him, to block those vaccines coming to our state, is just so counterintuitive to everything he says he stands for when it comes to parental rights.

The hypocrisy is just so, you know, just so thick in this, not to mention, I have friends and colleagues who do support this, who want a life saving vaccine from a pandemic that has killed over a million people in this country and to offer a layer of protection.

And they are desperate to find these, signing up from CVS, waiting in long lines.

He has created this desperation for families who feel like, this is their right and their choice with his own personal decisions.

And again, that's completely contradictive to everything that he says about parental rights.

- And Danny, what would you say about the vaccines?

- Well, you know, in Florida, the data shows that 804, 804,000 children under the age of 16 have contracted COVID, 42 have died.

That's a figure of one in five, one hundredths of a 1,042 out of 804,000.

And then, I would also add, Nikki Fried, in latest, real clear politics.

She's- Charlie, Chris has a 17% lead over her, so she's not gonna be governor.

So whatever she says, I'm not really too keen on.

- All right, well, in an unusual move, Governor DeSantis is getting more involved in local races across the state, by endorsing candidates.

He's endorsed 10 candidates for school boards and several candidates for state Senate.

DeSantis released a survey of school board candidates asking their positions on hot button issues, such as, face masks, charter schools, gender identity, critical race theory, and more.

The survey is, essentially, a litmus test for any school board candidate who is seeking the governor's endorsement.

Locally, Governor DeSantis has endorsed two Sarasota school board candidates as part of an overall effort to steer Florida's education system in a more conservative direction.

The governor has also endorsed several candidates for state Senate causing some Republicans to drop out of their primary races.

Those endorsements may be a way to increase his power over the state Senate, which has put up some resistance to his agenda.

So, Danny, is this a natural flow of politics, that is, that school board races are becoming more political and it's just natural that the governor would endorse.

And these former, formerly nonpartisan races.

- You know, I think it is.

And, and just look at Virginia, look what the parents did in Virginia and effectively changed a blue state to a red state, for the most part, and elected Glenn Youngkin.

And, it was about parental rights.

I think our governor is doing the same thing, and I don't believe it's any different, but I also don't think it's anything new.

For years, Lieutenant Governor has always been the one out there, endorsing school board candidates, kind of taking the heat away from a governor.

But, if the Lieutenant Governor's endorsing them , you know, the governor's behind them as well.

- Jessica, what do you think of this?

Is this a tread?

And is it a good trend?

- You know, I'm sure it's a trend.

It's not surprising to me that the governor's waiting into local politics.

But what is surprising is that, the issues he's using as a benchmark aren't policies aimed at supporting or strengthening education, you know, these policies that he's using as a benchmark and pushing forward with the candidates he supports are, again, aimed at dividing us, they're aimed at inflaming parents into believing they don't have rights and things are being taught in our schools that aren't, you know, and they are a distraction from the chaos of education policies that have come out of Tallahassee that have no rhyme or reason, and are really aimed at privatizing education, which has been a longstanding priority with the Republican party for decades.

So, that's really the surprising piece.

- All right, Darryl, what do you think about the governor endorsing in school board races and really convincing some people to get out of the Republican primaries for state Senate?

- Yeah, I mean, the Republican party had spent tens of thousands of dollars endorsing their candidate for the state Senate.

And now, along, comes the governor and endorses somebody else.

That's a huge waste of party funds in that particular case.

But he, you also had the, the case of healthcare that we just talked about, DeSantis to a great extent.

Wasn't giving parents the, the right to, to voice their opinions in that particular case, but here in education, he wants parental involvement.

So, if you're gonna have it apply in one case, it should apply in all cases.

And I just don't see this happening.

It looks very political to me overall.

- Jessica, I gotta ask you about parental involvement.

There were two cases in Hillsborough county where you work at schools having a chance to change their mascots.

So, their American Indian mascots at Chamberlain and East Bay High School, Chamberlain decided to change the mascot, East Bay decided against changing their mascot.

American Indians say, it's disrespectful to have Indian mascots.

The parents, especially Chamberlain said, "Hey, this is a sixth generation tradition.

"Why change it?"

What did you think about the controversies?

- I was surprised by the level of hostility and anger that I saw coming from some of the alumni.

But in general, we really leaned in and allowed the students at these schools to make this decision.

They did a very lengthy process where they met with the Native American groups, the alumni, they did student surveys, they did a capstone project.

They also surveyed the staff who work at these schools.

And from the moment I found out that was the direction the district was taking, I was, I absolutely was gonna support the students.

They deserve a right to pick a mascot.

If they choose this, doesn't represent them that empowers them and connects them to their schools.

East Bay chose not to, Chamberlain chose to change it.

And I stand behind the students on both sides of the coin.

- Danny, I'm gonna give you the last word you, you graduated from East Bay and their mascot is Indian.

Indigenous people say that's disrespectful.

What do you think about it?

- Well, I like what Jessica said, and she stands by both decisions and Jessica, I admire you for that.

'Cause that that's exactly the way it should be.

The students spoke.

We let the opportunity for the students to reach out.

East Bay reached out and they also spoken.

And, I accept that.

And as a proud graduate of East Bay High School, where a tremendous amount of leadership in our Hillsborough county school board has come from over the years, Earl Leonard for one, you know, many folks that have come out of East Bay.

So, you know, I stand by that decision as well.

And I'm proud of East Bay that we kept our Indian heritage.

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

And Jessica, let's start with you.

What, what's the other big story of the week?

- Well, you know, I'm heavily involved in the world of education.

So I don't know if it's just this week, but I'm have my eye heavily on, you know, the millage that we're, as the school board, we're coming forward.

And because, we're being underfunded by Tallahassee and education's being starved out, you know, we're hoping that the voters locally will prioritize education.

So, I've got my eye in August to see what's coming up with the millage, we're asking from our voters.

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

- Well, I think that everything is up for redefinement these days.

And one of the concerns that I have right now, it's not so specifically in our state or our county, but is the hearings that are going on.

We're hearing one side, but the other side is totally quiet.

That's very concerning to me.

- Talking about January six hearings?

- Yes, sir.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Danny, let's go with you.

You have the big story.

- Well, you know, look, South Hillsborough county, I'm a resident, fifth generation of South Hillsborough county.

The roads down there are failing.

They fail every single day.

The intersection of big bend and US-41 is dangerous.

I wonder.

And I ask the county, is there a delay?

There's sometimes, there's been two weeks that's gone by, not one work has been done on that intersection.

Why are we waiting?

What are we waiting for?

Are we making pain?

So, we will pass a sales tax to increase transportation funding.

Are we making a pain on our folks down there?

Or are we actually gonna get out there and do the work?

- Do you think Hillsborough county has the money in its budget to fix it?

- Why would you start?

If you didn't have the money?

They literally has been two weeks where there's not been one activity on that intersection and it's dangerous.

- The sales tax is gonna come up again, this- - Yes, it is.

- They're gonna try to put it on the ballot again.

- Yeah.

- What do you think?

- I am opposed to it.

I believe between impact fees, between our current tax structure we already have for our property taxes the county's got the money, tremendous amount of influx.

Yes, I know infrastructure's important.

They've started all these projects.

They're not even finishing them.

- All right, Darryl, you have the big story of the week.

- Well, I'd like to tweak Publix.

Publix is the largest employer in the state of Florida and the largest supplier of vaccines in the state of Florida.

Publix played a major role, of course, during the early stages of COVID in the state of Florida and was the major supplier vaccines to adults and children over the age of five.

But suddenly, they announced they were not gonna supply drugs for children five and under, they did not explain their rationale, did not issue a statement as to why they did this.

And quite honestly, I think it's a shameful of them to do this without at least offering an explanation to the constituency that they serve.

And, I know many parents had made appointments already and suddenly, found out that those appointments no longer existed.

And they oftentimes had to travel great distances across the bay even, in order to find shots for their younger children.

- All right.

Well, Darryl, thanks a lot.

Danny, thank you.

Stanley, thank you.

Jessica, thank you.

- Thank you.

- And, thank you for watching.

Remember, tonight at 11 here on WEDU, Washington week will have a special on the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe versus Wade.

Thanks for joining us.

You can view this and past shows online at wedu.org or on the PBS app and Florida this Week is now available as a podcast.

From all of us here at WEDU have a great weekend.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Florida this Week is a production of W-E-D-U, who is solely responsible for its content.