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

- Coming up next on WEDU, governor DeSantis suspends his presidential campaign and returns to Tallahassee.

Whether or not abortion rights will be on the ballot this year is now in the hands of the Florida Supreme Court.

There's an effort to roll back child labor protections in Florida, and big business tries to reduce some workers' wages here in Florida.

All this and more right now on Florida this week.

(upbeat music) Welcome back, joining us on the panel this week.

Paula Dockery is a former state senator and a former state representative and a former Republican.

Amy Weintraub is the Reproductive Rights Program Director for Progress Florida.

Travis Horn is the president and CEO of Bullhorn Communications and a Republican.

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

So nice to have you all in the studio.

Great to see you.

- Pleasure to be back.

- Certainly.

- Well, coming off a disappointing showing in the Iowa caucuses, governor Ron DeSantis suspended his presidential campaign and return to Florida.

As the Tampa Bay Times reported, Lawmakers and lobbyists are waiting to see which version of the governor they're going to get.

Will he be subservient to former President Trump and as many allies in Tallahassee?

Will he come up with a bold new list of policy objectives?

Will the governor, who still has three years left on his final term face a less compliant Republican majority in the state legislature?

DeSantis is already showing Floridians and legislative leaders that he intends to wield the full power of his office in the time he has left.

Within 24 hours of suspending his campaign, DeSantis held back-to-back meetings and calls with legislative staff, chimed in on national border security issues and reminded lawmakers that he is still willing to use his veto power.

A Monday DeSantis sank a GOP led effort to use Florida taxpayer money to pay off Donald Trump's legal expenses.

The show of force was seen by some of his allies as an indication that the governor is again taking charge in Tallahassee.

And Paul Matt Dixon and the NBC news crew came up with this list of missteps by the DeSantis campaign.

I want to ask you about 'em.

DeSantis burned through money on staff way too early and then used a lot of money to do private air travel.

There was infighting with the never back down Super PAC and a great deal of that staff had turnovers.

He moved too far to the right, scared off some country club conservatives who are also often big donors, and he failed to build a grassroots small donor base.

So much of his massive financial halls were maxed out donations from wealthy donors.

That's what NBC news says.

What do you think?

What were the problems with the DeSantis campaign?

- Yeah, no, I think those were all valid.

And the problem with relying on those big donors is when they turn on you, there goes a lot of your money to the question of what's he, how is he going to govern now.

We've seen five years of him, and even though a year of that, or a little more than a year of that was on the campaign trail for president, he, you know, he has his own ideology and it's pretty far right.

And it's a lot of it has to do with culture issues.

And I think he's gonna fall right back into the, the culture war frame that he was in before he took off for Iowa.

- Travis, I wanna put up a list of allies of DeSantis, house speaker Paul Renner, Senate President, Kathleen Passadomo, State Senator Blaise Ingoglia.

These are some of the big name Republicans up there in Tallahassee and around the state who leaned toward DeSantis, Those who leaned toward Trump State, CFO, Jimmy Patronis, state senator Joe Gruters, congressman Matt Gaetz, state representative Randy Fine, campaign consultants, Susie Wildes and agriculture commissioner Wilton Simpson.

So, I mean, there were a lot of people in members of Congress, for instance, who were Republicans who endorsed Trump and not DeSantis.

How strong are the allies of DeSantis and how- - Well we're gonna find out, you know, I thought his message would resonate.

Some of the far right stuff would resonate better in Iowa.

Turns out it did about as well as my diet's been going.

Which is not to say, to say not very well, he just never seen the game traction out there and you know, it's a long ways out there.

So you gotta travel out there somehow.

I don't know a lot of, I don't about the private air travel.

- A lot of personality too.

- You you know, it's Ronald Reagan bonded with the people.

He was the great communicator and I'm not sure, I mean, I have seen every candidate I've ever seen get better.

Okay.

I've seen some pretty poor announcements and candidates get better on this stump.

He has gotten better over the years.

He has, I think he's gotten better connecting with people and me he won me over.

I really wasn't a huge a fan early on, given some, you know what?

I can see his personality, you know, and the way they interact with people.

But he's really, I mean, he's a hard worker.

He's gonna be back in there.

He is in Osceola County right now at an event.

- He was in the Everglades on Thursday, so- - Yeah.

So he's right back at work.

- What about Paula's point that he's liable to concentrate on cultural issues, bring out the, you know, Florida's the state where woke goes to die.

Bring out that phrase again.

- I think maybe those cultural issues were an eye towards the primary for the presidency.

And so there's some real nuts and bolts issues that probably need to be addressed with regard to transportation and taxation and our state and running our state.

So hopefully he'll dig down in the weeds and get into some of those issues and we can really address some of those things that I think maybe haven't been on the front burner for a little too long.

- Stanley, where do you think the governor's gonna head?

I mean, during his state of the state message, he really didn't offer any new initiatives.

He wanted to, he said, look, we've done really great the last four years of my- - I think that there's two Ron DeSantis, I think there's two different people.

When he first took office, I thought that he was really gonna govern the whole state.

And then I think when he decided to run for president, I think he became ultra right, I think that he started with these cultural issues, everything against equity and equality.

I think his real big problem was, is that he was running against somebody who does the same thing.

So when it comes down to it, you're comparing a Cadillac against an Oldsmobile and there the delta wasn't enough.

So that's the reason why he finished where he did.

- Amy Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said that when DeSantis this week stepped down and suspended his campaign, he was saving himself for the next presidential election.

And Newsom thought that this was a smart thing for de DeSantis to do.

- To step down?

- Yeah.

- Well I think that it was an obvious step.

It was an easy decision for him.

He didn't have, there was no path forward.

But I'll tell you, I was in Tallahassee this week and the whole complex is full of anxiety.

I heard staffers bemoaning openly about his return and what the future weeks hold and the culture wars, I'm afraid they're not over.

I mean, we see legislation that legislators themselves are presenting that deepen, that attack on those who, are most at the margins of our society already.

So we are absolutely bracing ourselves for more book bands and more, you know, hit downs on our trans Floridians and more, we see plenty more attacks on reproductive freedom in the bills that have been presented.

And we certainly expect that DeSantis is gonna support and actually try to advance his own agenda along these lines.

- Stanley, you were gonna say something?

- Well, I don't think that that, his political aspirations upwards are over.

I think that he's gonna really try to like, not induce, but I think he's gonna amplify his brand.

And so I would agree with you very much.

'Cause he's gonna try to use those things when he runs in president, you know, like in the years to come.

- Amplifies.

So I don't know about amplify his brand, I will say I believe the governor is a true conservative and he actually believes what he's out there doing.

And when he makes an appointment to the judiciary as an example, I know that he grills those appointees in his office and that he is not taking any of that lightly.

And if they think you're not a real conservative, you're gonna have a problem getting appointed.

- Yeah, but one of Gavin Newsom's points was that, that the governor would lose the Florida primary in March if he continued his race.

But I'm wondering how far does the anti woke campaign, how far do the culture war issues propel DeSantis if he's waiting for 2028?

(Travis laughing) - I agree with Gavin Newsom that getting out of the race might be the right thing for him to do if he has political aspirations.

But I think he damaged himself so much during this race that he doesn't have a bright political future.

- Okay, we'll see if he shows up on Fox News a lot.

- Again, I think that it was a smart reason for him to drop out for one thing.

One of the things that he said against the candidate from South Carolina, he says, well, how can you be a viable candidate if you lose your own state?

Truth of the matter is he would've lost the state of Florida.

That's one of the reasons why I think he dropped out.

- He's also outta money and his donor base was drying out.

- I think he's about to lose South Carolina too, so.

- Alright, well, this past week, both pro-choice and anti-abortion groups marked the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the US.

There were marches across the country and in St. Petersburg, Roe was overturned by the new Trump appointed conservative majority on the US Supreme Court.

Now, abortion rights groups have gathered enough signatures on petitions to put preservation of abortion access on the Florida ballot this November, the State Supreme Court will review the ballot language next month on February 7th to decide whether voters will have a chance to weigh in.

The amendment sponsored by Floridians Protecting Freedom is meant to limit government interference with abortion, banning or striking down any Florida law that prohibits penalizes delays or restricts abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health as determined by the patient's healthcare provider.

Amy, you're on the pro-choice side.

Do you have any faith in the Florida Supreme Court?

Do you think that they're gonna allow this measure to go on the ballot given the makeup, the conservative makeup of the Florida Supreme Court?

- Well just remember that what they're deciding is not whether or not they agree with what, with the essence of the ballot initiative.

It's simply, does the language cover one issue?

Is it understandable and readable that most Floridians can read it and understand it?

And is it within a certain number of words doesn't go over the maximum number of words?

That's really all they needed to figure out.

And we believe we worked really hard for a year, did lots of research, lots and involved many, many legal scholars, constitutional experts, et cetera to make sure that we hit those marks.

And so we have really, really strong confidence and our legal team is awesome, and they're fully prepared to defend it in oral arguments on February 7th.

So yeah, we believe that they will, they will see that it meets those marks and it will be on the ballot.

- Travis, do you think the Florida Supreme Court is likely to approve the language?

- I think they're likely to approve it.

I think, look, we have a mechanism in place in Florida and every other state in the union to allow people to put things on the ballot whether we agree with them or not.

And so I think it'll make it to the ballot and I think Floridians will get a chance to weigh in on it.

- And Paula, what do you think that'll do to turn out, what do you think that'll do to, you know, the 2024 November election?

- Yeah, interestingly, polling shows that not only are there over 60% of the voters who agree with the ballot initiative, but over 50% of Republican voters.

So I think it's going to increase voter turnout, particularly among those who want to see this pass.

So I think that's another reason why I'm a little nervous about what the Supreme Court is going to do because Amy is 100% correct that there're supposed to be limited to those two tests.

But once it gets before a very, very, very conservative Florida Supreme Court, who knows what's gonna go on.

We remember back to the Solar Amendment that was as confusing as can be, and they let that on the ballot with people.

- I think the fact that so few republicans if your numbers are correct, the 50% metric for Republicans and support the measure.

- 53.

- 53.

So I think that makes it a little less contentious and may not have some of the coattail effects that some folks on the left hope for whenever they see these initiatives placed on the ballot.

So I'll be looking at that.

- I hope you're right.

Yeah.

- I think it's just gonna be one of those things that Florins get a chance to vote on.

- When it comes to coattails, Amy, what are you seeing?

Are you seeing more young people fired up over, the issue of pro-choice?

- The number of people who are coming out in support of the ballot measure?

It has been an astounding thing, in the field when I've been out in downtown St. Pete on the beaches, et cetera, collecting the petition forms, the number of Republicans who are easy, eager to sign the number of young people, the number of seniors, the number of males who are eager to sign.

People want government out of their personal healthcare decisions, and including decisions around pregnancy.

And so yeah, it's a winner.

It's definitely a winner.

- Okay.

- Well, a bill that would loosen work restrictions and allow 16 and 17 year olds to work more hours is headed for a full vote on the Florida house floor.

HB 49 passed the Florida Commerce Committee on Tuesday.

It's last stop before going to the full house.

It passed 13 to five, largely along party lines with Democrats against it.

The bill could allow employers to hire high school students to work overnight and work more than 30 hours a week during the school year.

HB 49 was filed by Republican representative Linda Cheney of St. Petersburg Beach.

It would not only allow companies to put minors ages 16 and 17 on night shifts, but it would also give them the authority to determine how late the student works, regardless of how dangerous the work is.

- Nearly a million searches have been performed, how can I get a job as a teen?

They want to work, but these restrictions discourage employers from hiring them.

This bill gets government out of their way to choose the path that's best for them and their families.

- That this bill is not about youth freedom to work, it's about corporate freedom to exploit.

- The bill also features language that would allow employers to treat minors as adults under labor laws.

It would also block counties and municipal governments from enforcing restrictions on underage employees.

If signed into law, Florida would become the latest state to pass major legislation, weakening child labor laws after Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey and New Hampshire.

So Travis is Linda Cheney Wright.

Are there too many restrictions on employers?

And that's- - A couple different questions.

- Making it hard to hire 16 and 17 year olds.

- Well, there are too many restrictions on employers.

I'm not convinced yet that this is one of them, but I am intrigued by this whole discussion and, you know, I remember we had to get work permits to work certain hours when I was a kid in school.

I was in work program though, and certainly new kids who were on a vocational track who were not on a college track and who probably could work more hours.

I did know some folks who were emancipated, who wanted to work more hours and couldn't.

So I don't, this actually, I do know this legislation doesn't take us outside the federal, there's still federal regulations that prohibit, you know, child labor to the extreme.

And I certainly know we don't have any coal mines in Florida.

We're not gonna see kids out there breaking big rocks into little rocks in the hot summer sun for, you know, days on end.

- Three democrats voted in the committee to support this bill.

- Right.

- One of the democrats, Susan Valdez of Tampa said not entirely with it, but I think it can change for the better by the time it gets to the floor.

- Right.

It'll be interesting to see how it evolves.

And this isn't one that, that is a big red flag for me and I have a lot of big concerns about.

- Yeah.

Stanley, is there a big red flag for you?

Do you think this opens a door to exploitation of children?

- I do.

And to me, I kind of go back looking at this from a historical vantage point.

You know, why did we have child labor laws?

Okay?

Because everybody knows what's gonna happen is that the jobs that no one else wants are going to be occupied by these children.

And let's just look at this.

Okay, you go to school for eight hours, alright, and then you're gonna work for eight hours at night.

You can't convince me that that's not gonna impact kids' grades.

But the worst thing about that is it's also gonna impact their destination.

They're gonna probably exclude themselves from college or even trade opportunities.

They're gonna end up in menial jobs.

And I'll bet you if this passes, when you go 20 years and you're gonna do statistical analysis of this, you're gonna find out that these kids took themselves out of the quote unquote living wage population.

And I really believe that.

- Amy, what do you think about the bill?

- Who are the kids that Stanley's talking about?

The kids are kids from migrant families and from families with low incomes.

They are the ones who are going to be exploited by this.

And you know, we need, in Florida, we need every child to have a quality education.

We need them to be able to arrive at school ready to learn.

Having worked overnight, the night before is not, is not gonna lend to that.

- And a lot of teachers say kids are falling asleep at school and distracted.

- Working all night isn't gonna help.

- Yeah.

Alright.

- That was in school.

(all laughing) - In related news of Bill and the legislature meant to stop working Floridians from getting higher pay or better benefits was given to lawmakers by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, a big business lobbying group that represents major employers like Publix, Bank of America and Walt Disney World.

According to emails obtained in a public records request from the investigative website seeking rents, The emails suggests the chamber had help writing the wages and benefits bill from a billionaire backed Think Tank called the Foundation for Government Accountability.

That's the same organization that wrote the bill to weaken Florida's child labor laws.

The wages and benefits bill is House Bill 433.

It began as an attempt to stop cities and counties across Florida from passing heat protection ordinances.

Those are local laws that would require employers to provide safety measures like cool drinking water and periodic breaks to roofers, farm workers and others who work outdoors in extreme heat.

But a few weeks after the bill was filed, the Republican controlled Florida House of Representatives expanded the legislation.

In addition to stopping local heat protection laws.

The new version of the bill would also erase living wage ordinances that have been adopted in many of Florida's big cities and urban counties.

Those ordinances typically require companies that receive local government contracts to pay their employees a few dollars more than the statewide minimum wage, which is currently $12 an hour.

The cities of St. Petersburg, Orlando and Gainesville are among the communities that have passed living wage laws for contractors.

So Stanley, this gets to the point who should control?

Should local communities control their wage, ordinances, local wages, or should Tallahassee control local wages?

It gets back to this big question about preemption of local ordinances.

- Two points before I answer your question.

One is I'm a humanistic capitalist, and two is, is that the economic conditions vary in our state.

And I think that it's totally wrong for someone to consider that you can only pay X for a job when that job is different, has different costs related to where you live in this state, transportation, insurance, and we can just go down a whole list.

I think that's totally wrong.

And I think that this is another example to me, of the party that's supposed to be less government being more government and, excuse me, the government.

And I think it's totally wrong.

- Well, hold on to again, like I said, I'm a government, the governments lease governs best Republican.

Okay, I agree with you on that premise, but who's, so if we're enacting, so are you saying you're in favor of living wages?

Is that correct Stanley?

- I'm saying that living wages are different by where you live.

Okay, let, I'll give you a good example.

Okay.

When I came here 21 years ago, I decided I wanted to get in the apartment business.

Okay?

It was too expensive for me to enter into that in Hillsborough County.

So I did my work in Pinellas County.

Now, how did I figure that out?

I looked at all the costs related, I looked at how I could rent and then I looked at, you know, how much I would have to be you pay on my burden.

So what I'm saying is, if you came out and said that you have to pay X for your repair person, I'm saying that that would've impeded my ability to operate in that county.

- So we agree then, right?

So no living wage, I mean this is the notion.

I mean, look, inflation is outta control, right?

I get it.

No one, there's, I don't know what a living wage is.

I mean it's how, how do you determine that?

- You know, you just said inflation's outta control.

Let's, kind of, one of the problems I think is that we don't really understand how inflation occurs.

Okay?

If you have a strong dollar, you're gonna have more imports.

And guess what comes along with that inflation?

Okay, they go hand in hand.

I'm not an economist, but I do know that.

- This question of local preemption.

- Right.

- So, if St. Petersburg says we wanna pay government contractors, we wanna make them pay their employees $2 more should Tallahassee say to St. Petersburg, you can't do that?

- Well with so many, I mean, Paula, with so many- - I say no.

- You say no.

- I say no.

No, you know, it used to be that my former party, the Republican party, said that local government should be making these kind of decisions.

The government that governs best is the one that's the most local and ever in the last decade, we just keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away at all these local government decisions.

And I think it's wrong.

And I think the Republicans ought to go back to what they used to believe in, which is letting local governments decide what's best for their communities.

- Our legislature oversees 67 counties and all the cities and municipalities in those counties.

And so I don't know that living wage, I mean, how does that, you know, how are we gonna, how are we going to work across all these jurisdictions?

And how are these companies, statewide companies, how are they gonna- - I'd like to give you analogy.

- Yeah.

- Okay?

- Why should your house rules have to adapt the house rules of the Gray family.

Shouldn't have to, but the government is trying to do that with us, with our communities.

It's wrong.

- Okay.

Well before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

Paula Dockery, let's start with you other big story.

- So this week there was a lot of talk about the state legislature wanting to use state our state tax dollars up to $5 million to help supposed billionaire Donald Trump with his legal fees.

And it got a lot of negative press.

And then when Governor DeSantis came home, he said, you know, we're not gonna do that.

I'm gonna veto it.

The bill's been withdrawn.

I know from 16 years in the legislature that just because something goes away does not mean it doesn't come back.

There's still a lot of session left be on the lookout.

It could find its way onto some other bill that slips by.

So I think it's a travesty to even consider using state taxpayer dollars to pay for anybody's legal fees, let alone somebody who is being accused of some very serious crimes.

- Alright, Amy, your other big story.

- Well, the ballot initiative is not the only case that the Supreme Court is currently considering that has to do with abortion.

The other is their consideration of the 15 week abortion ban that was passed two years ago by the legislature and signed into law.

They're trying to figure out does the privacy clause in our state constitution cover that or not?

Does it make it illegal?

And we don't expect them to decide, on the favor of reproductive freedom.

And when that happens, it will actually trigger the six week abortion ban that was passed just last year to go into effect.

And so at that point we'll have a public health crisis in Florida and across the southeast.

And so watch the news on that.

That decision could come out literally any day.

- Alright Travis, you have the big story.

- Since we're all in favor of local control, we have a government, we have a local government here with a real problem in Ybor City.

Our, it's a real gem our historic district.

But we've had, you know, criminal activity continue and in the way of, you know, violent crimes shootings and so will our mayor's office act and will our city council get that in hand?

And you know, are they seeing it across the state?

Is that a statewide issue or is that just something here locally that we need to get a handle on?

- And that issue of imposing a curfew on young people, in Ybor City comes up before the city council in a few weeks.

- Yep.

- I'd favor it.

- Alright Stanley, your other big story.

- Why is it okay for a presidential candidate to tell members of Congress do not solve a problem that Congress should have been solving years ago?

And why is it okay for that person to basically help states incur additional costs?

I think that that's something that needs to be talked about.

- Alright, well thank you all for a great show.

Travis Horn, Paula Dockery, Amy Weintraub, and Stanley Gray.

Thank you.

Great to see you.

- Thank you.

Great to see you.

- Thank you for watching.

Send us your comments at FTW@wedu.org and like us on Facebook, you can view this in past shows online at wedu.org or on the PBS app.

Florida this week is now available as a podcast.

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

If you're going to the Gasparilla Parade.

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