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- [Narrator] Next on WEDU, the House in Washington approves an Anti-Domestic Terrorism bill a few days after the mass shooting in Buffalo.

Florida's congressional delegation, is split on the issue.

The governor appoints a new Secretary of State who will oversee the upcoming elections.

Democrats lose two candidates for a Bay Area congressional seat and the Biden administration eases pressure on Cuba, all coming up right now on "Florida This Week."

(bright upbeat music) - Welcome back.

Joining us on our panel this week, Peter Schorsch is the publisher of numerous media outlets, including "Florida Politics in Sunburn."

Sean Shaw is an attorney, a former candidate for Florida attorney general and a Democrat.

Yvonne Fry is a businesswoman, consultant and a Republican and Patrick Mantega is the editor and publisher of "La Gaceta" newspaper and a Democrat.

So great to have all of you here, nice to see you.

- Thank you.

- Well, this week in Washington, just days after the gun massacres at a Buffalo grocery store, in a California church, the House passed legislation that would bolster federal resources to prevent domestic terrorism.

- The 222 to 203 nearly party line vote was in answer to the growing pressure that Congress faces to address gun violence and white supremacist attacks.

Representative, Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois was the lone Republican to vote in favor of the measure.

Senate Democrats are pledging to bring up the bill for a vote next week.

The bill would strengthen law enforcement's ability to monitor domestic and neo-Nazi hate groups.

Most Republicans oppose the bill saying it doesn't place enough emphasis on terrorism committed by far left groups.

In the Bay Area, only three members of Congress voted for the bill to combat domestic terrorism.

Democrats, Kathy Castor of Tampa, Charlie Crist of St. Petersburg and Darren Soto of Kissimmee.

Every Florida Republican voted against it, including Gus Bilirakis of Palm Harbor, Vern Buchanan of Longboat Key, Daniel Webster of Claremont, Scott Franklin of Lakeland and Greg Steube of Lakewood Ranch.

- So, Yvonne, let me start with you.

Are we doing enough to combat domestic terrorism and did the Democrats vote right?

Or were the Republicans right that this bill goes too far and doesn't do enough to look at other kinds of terrorism that's domestic?

- I think the first part of your question is accurate.

Did we do enough?

But it's about mental health.

There is nothing sane about happened.

There's no way to justify this.

There's no political rhetoric that in any way can make that okay and the mental health situation in our country right now is what needs a lot of attention, a lot of resources.

And that to me is the number one thing in this situation that we've gotta deal with.

Violence of any kind, there's no way to justify that, politically or otherwise.

- Sean, what do you think?

Is mental health assistance the answer?

- No, I think it is, but I think sometimes we need to admit that racism isn't mental health, it's racism sometimes.

And we shouldn't be afraid to say what was behind that attack.

There's racism, there's white supremacy, and we need to get at that, and we don't need to use terms right or left.

I don't even think that has a place in this debate.

We need to root out hate wherever it is.

We need to make sure people have access to mental health like Yvonne said, but we need to also understand what caused Buffalo and stop being afraid of what it is.

He had the N word written on the gun and he had the word reparations written on the gun.

And he hunted black people in a supermarket.

That's racism and that's white supremacy, and we need to be clear what it is so we can be clear on how to root it out.

- Peter, what do you think?

What's the best approach to the rise in terrorism and, really, according to the numbers, it's angry, white people who are carrying out most of the domestic terror attacks.

- Well, it certainly isn't setting up a disinformation board, which is what President Biden had to roll back.

Unfortunately, we're not going to lower the temperature here until we get past the Donald Trump period.

I know this is crazy, and I know my Democratic friends are not gonna believe this, but we need somebody strong like a DeSantis to finally push Donald Trump off the ledge and then just have a strong Republican, and that would maybe break the fever that is Tallahassee, but I don't, or that is DC.

I think at this point until Donald Trump is taken off the stage, we are gonna have to endure these kind of tragedies again and again.

- And Patrick, what's your answer to this outbreak of domestic terrorism?

- I think that we do need the tools to connect the dots better.

A lot of times we have people that are making threats online, they're tweeting it and then they purchase a lot of guns and ammunitions.

And why can't we put those things together?

The second I type in anything on the internet or have any kind of conversation, I'm automatically getting all these things, trying to sell me what I just talked about and so, if we can monitor it for capitalism, why can't we monitor it for safety?

So a lot of times there's a lot of clues being left out there.

People are slowly building up to this, law enforcement should be able to say, "Okay, you've made... "You're threatening a school board, "you think they all should die.

"And then two weeks later you buy 2000 rounds of ammunition "on Amazon, and then three weeks later, "you rent a car and you buy a plane ticket "to go to the school board that you just threatened."

Why can't we put these dots together.

And I don't even know what we're talking about.

We're talking about conservative terrorism or liberal terrorism.

Terrorism's terrorism, and I just really care what...

I care less what motivates you, but we do need to stop and in so long as we are gonna have everybody in America with a gun, we're gonna have to do a better job of figuring out which one of those are actually willing to pull the trigger.

- Well, Florida Secretary of State, Laurel Lee, announced this week that she's running for Congress in District 15.

That's a newly drawn seat, which includes parts of Hillsboro, Pascoe and Polk counties in Northeast Tampa, along with half of the City of Lakeland.

(air whooshing) Lee enters an already crowded Republican primary.

that includes army veteran, Jerry Torres, former Congressman, Dennis Ross, state representative, Jackie Toledo and military veteran, Jay Collins.

DeSantis has already announced that he will replace Lee with a controversial state representative, Cord Byrd, a Republican from Neptune Beach.

Several Democrats immediately criticized Byrd's appointment.

State representative, Carlos Smith, said, "This may be DeSantis' most frightening "appointment to date.

"Florida now has a Q-Anon conspiracy theorist "and promoter of the big lie "overseeing our state elections "and DeSantis' elections police."

Sean, you served up there in Tallahassee.

Cord Byrd, is he the right person to be in charge of Florida's election system?

- No, I don't think so.

I served with representative Byrd, Secretary of State Byrd right now and listen, I understand elections have consequences.

So I'm not saying you don't get to appoint a Conservative Republican as Secretary of State, but this one is a little much.

And he was the sponsor of the anti protest bill.

He was the sponsor of the ban on sanctuary cities as they were called back then, he has been the sponsor of some very aggressive legislation and he also curses at the black caucus on the floor.

He turned around to the Democrats and said, "Y'all are a bunch of effing jokes."

That person ought not be Secretary of State.

You don't get rewarded for that.

You could be a representative, your people can elect you, but to then ascend to be the top elections official in the State of Florida after doing that kind of stuff, I don't think that is appropriate.

- Patrick, what do you think about Cord Byrd being appointed to Secretary of State?

- Well, I'm disappointed.

You want somebody to be running elections who has the appearance of being fair, who tries.

I think that Laurel Lee was a good picture, she'd been a judge and so you got some sense that she had fairness on her mind, that she understood it, that she knew how to try and play that role.

This gentleman has never had that role, and when you even look at the press release, Governor DeSantis sent out, and he says that, "This guy has a number of bills sponsoring "that will protect freedom in Florida."

And he called sanctuary cities one of those bills, E-Verify, how did that protect freedom in Florida?

So the governor's looking at the wrong kind of resume points for the people he's appointed to stuff like this.

And so if you love democracy, you gotta love elections and you gotta love fair elections and I just don't see that love.

- Peter, I wanna ask you about the Congressional race that this opens up.

Laurel Lee is in it, but there's some big names in there along with Laurel Lee, Dennis Ross, the Congressman that served part of that area before is in it, Jackie Toledo's in it.

How would you handicap the Republican side?

The Republican primary in District 15?

- I think this reminds me a lot of the Congressional race that elected Byron Donalds two years ago, where 21% wins the race, you're gonna have 21, 20 and 19, something like that, a six-way primary that opens the door for a more fringe candidate, that's got a good hold on the base to get in there.

I think the thing that's interesting to Rob and the for-profit TV stations in our neighborhood, this is gonna be a 30, 40, maybe 50 million dollar congressional race, if Jerry Torres goes forward with this commitment to spend 15 million dollars here, look for club for growth, the other big national Republican entities to get involved here.

If you are a TV station producer or programmer, get ready to build that vacation house.

- Yvonne, I think Laurel does have this reputation as a moderate, she saw things from different angles, but she enters this race with some pretty hardcore conservatives in District 15.

- She does, she's done a great job in that role as Secretary of State and at that conversation, she's set a high standard.

And my hope is that we will hold that person to that.

We've got great election supervisors across the state, but this race that she's entering into, a lot of diversity of choices and deep relationships, that's the other part of that.

- Which makes me wonder why she got in the race?

Because you've got Dennis Ross and Jackie Toledo and some other pretty well-known names in the area.

- Well, Laurel has worked hard and I applaud the process.

We were talking about that before the show, a little bit to vet this through, Dennis has worked hard, is a friend to many in that community, for sure, as well.

Jackie's been more recent in serving.

There's a lot of dynamics, it's gonna play out.

I don't think it's all gonna be pleasant, but it is gonna be an exciting and dynamic race.

And I'm thankful that we've got some great choices.

- All right, well, Democrats have now lost two contenders for the redrawing congressional District 13 seed in Pinellas County, which is now held by Charlie Crist.

- [Narrator] Pinellas County was split in half by the governor's redistricting maps, just approved by the state legislature.

The Eastern half of Pinellas, which leans Democratic, has now been added to Democrat Kathy Castor's seat in Tampa.

The Western half of Pinellas, which leans Republican, now comprises the majority of the district.

As a result, two Democratic state representatives have dropped out of the race for the seat.

State representative, Michele Rayner, says she will instead run again for a seat in the Florida House and fellow house member, Ben Diamond, is dropping his bid.

Diamond says the newly drawn map is unconstitutional and he believes the courts will reject it.

He plans to sit this election out and run for the district in two years.

That leaves former White House aide, Eric Lynn, the only major Democrat left in the race.

- Peter, the Democrats hope that the courts are gonna side with them and throw out the map that was developed by the governor and then signed onto by the legislature.

What's it look like the courts are gonna do?

- It's the Florida Supreme Court, which is already conservative, and now Ron DeSantis gets to make another appointment there.

I think that there's almost little chance that you're gonna see it thrown out in time for this election or even in the future.

And so if there's anything that gets done, I could possibly see them reconfiguring Northeast Florida, but unfortunately for Pinellas residents who now are sharing their district with Hillsboro, I just don't see much happening with those maps in the near future.

- Hey, Yvonne, that means that the Florida courts will be throwing out the fair district amendments that were passed by voters just a few years ago, overwhelmingly.

- Yes, we are definitely in flux.

And to see how this all lands, again, as I mentioned the process, it'd be nice to have candidates on both sides that were viable, but it doesn't seem like that's gonna be the case in this race.

- And Patrick, what's the future for people like Ben Diamond then?

- Well, it's tough, going up the ladder to Congress is hard.

You can't get there, and then you can't run for Senate and you can't move on and once again, I think people need to remember who to blame on this.

This DeSantis, a guy who says he loves freedom, loves democracy, this is not freedom, this is not democracy.

This is gaming it before anybody has a chance to vote.

This is how people like Vladimir Putin get elected and elected and elected and get more and more power.

They just adjust the system enough to where it's unfair.

And so you can have a democracy where you know who's gonna win before election ever happens.

And that's what we're starting to get to.

You have not only the Pinellas seat, but also this Hillsboro seat that we just talked about, same things happened there.

Democrats just aren't gonna have a chance there and so Pinellas is a fairly purple place, but they're gonna have a conversation between the right and the far right on their election.

Not really anything on the left because of the way it's been set up purposely and the governor knows better.

He knows exactly what he's doing, and he's doing it blatantly.

And if the courts don't stop him, then they continue to allow democracy to be eroded away in the State of Florida and it's just bad for us.

- Sean, I think it's fair to say that people don't like gerrymandering, whether they're Democrats or Republicans or independents, yet it looks like, I think the courts are gonna rule in favor of the governor's plan.

And also I think the US Supreme Court will probably back it up if it gets to that.

- I'm not so sure everyone doesn't like gerrymandering.

(laughing) - I would tell you- - Majorities, majorities.

- Love it.

Yeah, gerrymandering's bad.

I thought fair districts was supposed to stop exactly what we're looking at right now.

And the courts will do what the courts are gonna do.

I agree with Peter, unfortunately, that I think the higher you go, the less chance you're gonna get of getting a receptive court.

I don't know, it's tough.

- [Rob] Is there anything the public can do about gerrymandering?

- Yeah, they can do what we asked them to do, which was pass fair districts.

We thought we had asked them to do what would stop this and they did it and it didn't stop it.

So elections have consequences.

And so people get to appoint judges and they get to appoint people, the higher up appellate judges, Supreme Court judges.

We just gotta, better people gotta win elections.

- And on the first round, the legislature did do a good job with trying to respect the law and the governor of their own party decided to overturn it.

So, there was real effort this time to try and do it right, but one man, one man overturned it.

- And Peter, would you add to that?

I mean, is there anything the public can do to stop gerrymandering going on here in Florida?

- Well, one man's gerrymandering is another man's art and the point that I would kind of push back on is if you do look at that North Florida seat, which is what is the crux of this issue, it's 200 miles and it extends from Jacksonville to Tallahassee.

It was gerrymandered in its own way to provide minority majority access.

The problem with all of these, is you have two very conflicting issues.

Do you preserve minority majority access or do you have compact districts?

Those two concepts just can't operate in the same world right now.

- The maps are allowing them both to operate in the same map, that's the problem.

- Well, in a shift in policy, away from the Trump administration, the Biden administration announced changes in policy to Cuban Venezuela.

- [Narrator] It announced this week that it will authorize flights to Cuban cities outside of Havana and allow group travel to Cuba for educational purposes.

The US is also lifting a cap on family remittances and bringing back a program that reunites families.

The administration also said it would ease sanctions on Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro's government, if he commits to talks with US-backed opposition leader, Juan Guaidó.

The move to ease US relations with Cuba and Venezuela is sure to anger some immigrants from those countries, many of whom make up a large number of voters in Southeast Florida.

Even some Democrats are distancing themselves from the new policies.

Val Demings, who's running for the US Senate tweeted, "Easing sanctions on Venezuela only empowers "Maduro and his cronies."

She said, "We don't support the Venezuelan people "struggling for freedom and democracy "by appeasing his murderous regime.

"We must focus on lowering the cost of gas "for Florida families without giving comfort to dictators."

- Patrick, are we appeasing Maduro in Venezuela?

And is this the wrong policy toward Cuba?

- Well when you talk about taking the pressure off the Cuba, you're taking pressure off the Cuban people.

And a lot of this is also taking pressure off the Venezuelan people.

It is tough in these two countries.

I was just in Cuba.

There's no tourism there.

People are having a hard time making it.

The tour guide I hadn't had business in two years and they're not worried about democracy at the moment.

They're worried about beans and rice.

They're worried about having a job.

And most of the people in these two countries aren't worried about changing the country.

They're just wanting to get out.

Everybody in Cuba right now just wants to leave, which is putting huge pressure on our border.

So by changing policy there, you're helping the Cuban people and the Venezuelan people, but you're also helping the pressure on our borders.

If these countries continue to be as unsuccessful as they are and you don't like illegal immigration, then you're fighting yourself here.

20,000 Cubans are allowed to come here every year.

And we haven't let any of them in, in the past few years.

And you're getting 30, 40,000 trying to cross the border every month now, and it's a horrible tragedy and one that doesn't have to happen.

- Peter, do you think this does further damage to the Democrats when it comes to the Hispanic vote here in Florida?

- Absolutely, it is, as if Joe Biden is writing off Florida right now, he's pouring gasoline onto Miami Dade, South Florida politics, it's a terrible move, when you look at how that county has continued to trend, it's still a democratic county, but the margin, I think it was only went eight points the last time.

I mean, it's almost gonna flip and it also just gives another talking point against Val Demings, who may be the only statewide Democrat that can win this year.

That you're gonna hear all the socialism arguments.

It's just a disaster.

- Yvonne though, the Latino vote in South Florida didn't really support Joe Biden last time.

It was as if he had already lost it compared to some of the numbers put up by Hillary Clinton, before that some of the other Democrats that had run Barack Obama.

So the Biden administration really didn't get their support anyway.

- Right, so as Peter said, if they just written that off and but where else does this play?

That's my question and economics, as it comes to us thriving here and what the Hispanics are looking for, I believe as far as economic opportunity and you look at what you saw in those streets.

You can't imagine what that life would be like.

And how do we ever combat that?

How do we ever transition?

- What about Patrick's point though, that you're just increasing the pressure on those countries if they can't have normal relations with the US?

- Right, I think there's gotta be some sort of transformative policy that ultimately, the government there doesn't work.

And, I mean, I think there's industrious, intelligent, incredible people that given the right circumstances could have a successful.

I mean, they'd live in paradise, if financially, economically, they could survive.

- Well, Sean, I've heard some Democrats say that the Biden administration's been too slow to reopen relations with Cuba.

- I'm just gonna be simple here.

If the leading candidate for the US Senate has to distance herself from the president's policy, that tells you how bad it is.

So I don't really need to explain more than that.

The fact that Val has to back away from what Biden is doing, tells you all you need to know and it tells you that Peter's right, that Biden won Miami-Dade by 30.

I mean, Clinton won Miami-Dade by 30 points, Biden won by seven or eight.

- Well, I disagree.

And the reason why I disagree is because if you want to punish Cuba and Venezuela, you're gonna vote Republican all day.

There's no reason to vote for a Democrat.

There's no Democrat who's gone nearly as far as Donald Trump did, or what DeSantis will do as any Democrat will.

So we've lost this game already.

So the issue is, if you normalize relations with Cuba and people can see that it actually has helped the Cuban people, and it helps Florida and our relations and does a better job in Latin America, perhaps we can get over this issue.

We've been fighting, Democrats have been playing a second dirty game on this Cuba issue for 60 years, and we continue to lose on it because we never can get to the right side of the Republicans on it.

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

Peter, let's start with you.

What are the big stories out there?

- Well, we've got special session next week in the Florida legislature to try and combat the property insurance crisis.

Based on our reporting, don't look for the call for that special session to be expanded, to include any other issues like constitutional carry or data privacy.

All the lobbyists I talk to say, "This is gonna be a single, "they're gonna say it's a double," not much is gonna get done next week.

- Okay, Sean, your other big story.

- My big story is that I am infuriated, regardless of party, about the lack of response to the Buffalo shooting and the reason behind it.

The fact that the governor and attorney general of this state can't bring themselves to say not a word, but a damn word, about Buffalo and what was behind it, is insulting and infuriating and it really speaks to where we are in our politics.

- Yvonne, you have a big story.

- I'm gonna go on a positive note.

There's a lot of bad news out there, economically scary news, but I was with a group of about 50 employers yesterday, specifically looking at jobs and trending and so on, and there's a lot of opportunity, there's a lot of our companies that are thriving, looking for new talent, looking to grow and I was very encouraged by that and I'm grateful to be here in Florida and the opportunities that we have.

- So you don't see a recession barreling at us.

- I think that there is recession, but I think Florida is uniquely positioned and I think that there is a lot of great things happening here.

Hopefully, we come in late and out early and the cycles of the economy are certainly part of it but I think there's a lot of great things happening here that we need to give a tip of our hat to.

- All right, and Patrick, your other big story?

- Well, my big news is 100 years ago.

May 22nd, 1922, Victoriano Manteiga printed his first edition of "La Gaceta" and so, very proud of my family for being able to keep it around for this long.

So I know my story's all self-serving, but I owe it to my father and my grandfather to talk about it.

- That's very sweet.

- That's awesome.

- Congratulations.

- Awesome.

- Congratulations.

The nation's positively on that, yeah.

- The nation's only trilingual newspaper.

Look, right here.

- A little advertisement.

(panelists laughing) - Thank you all for a great show.

Peter, thank you, and thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at ftw@wedu.org.

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

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