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Sarasota.

(gentle music) - Right now in WEDU, Republicans expand their party registration advantage over Democrats in Florida.

Florida leads the nation in dropping people from Medicaid.

The Democratic Party Chair alleges that the governor used state employees to solicit political donations, and Florida becomes less and less affordable for most people.

All this and more, right now on "Florida This Week."

(dramatic music) Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Pam McAloon is the Republican State Committeewoman from Pinellas County.

Darryl Paulson is a professor emeritus of government and politics at USF St. Petersburg.

Vic DiMaio is the president and CEO of DiMaio and Associates and a Democrat and Tara Newsom is an attorney and a political science professor at St. Petersburg College.

Nice to have you all on the set.

- Thank you.

- Great to see you.

- Good to see you.

- Well, another setback for ousted Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren.

On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court refused to reinstate Warren, Hillsborough County's elected prosecutor.

He was removed from office by Governor Ron DeSantis after signing statements of opposing prosecutions for abortions and gender affirming healthcare.

The high court ruled that Andrew Warren had waited too long to file his petition.

Warren said that he was disappointed with the decision and he added, "This is an issue that is crucial for democracy in Florida.

Rather than addressing the substance of the governor's illegal action, the court cited a technicality and avoided a ruling on the merits of the case."

The Republican Governor last year suspended Warren, accusing him of neglect of duty and incompetence after the Democratic State Attorney signed statements, along with other prosecutors across the country, opposing criminal charges against abortion providers or women seeking abortions.

He also said he wouldn't prosecute people for providing gender affirming healthcare.

And Tara, is it unusual for a high court to be that specific and to say, "Well, you waited too long?"

Because his term in office, Warren's term in office doesn't end until next year.

- I think this is just a judicial dance.

Remember, the state court, prior to this, said, on state and federal level, that he, his suspension was unprecedented and unconstitutional, but they didn't have the power to reinstate.

And this kind of posturing of our, you know, highest court is really saying, "Hey, we're not gonna take this case on the merits.

We're gonna hide from what really we need to decide."

And that could have really far reaching impact.

Think, now, we have precedent that the governor can, at any time, suspend any political officer for any reason whenever he chooses.

And so, this is very dangerous for the political process in the State of Florida.

- And Pam, do you think this sets a dangerous precedent?

- I don't think it sets a dangerous precedent.

The job of a state attorney is to enforce the law.

That's plain and simple, and judge, as for it being dangerous?

I mean, the governor has the right to also remove a judge who is not doing his or her job accurately or adequately and not fulfilling those responsibilities.

So, I look at it pretty, very simply in that particular case.

If you don't like the law and you're, you know, you're an attorney or a judge, you, well, you can work to change it, you know, as a private citizen.

But that doesn't mean that you just ignore it.

- Victor, Warren is running out of options.

He can go to the Florida Senate for a trial and try to get them to approve his reinstatement.

- He's not going there.

- He's not gonna go there?

- No, because that's, that'd be the death knell because the law says, if you, once you go there, they impeach him, then he can't run.

So, he does have two more.

I'm not an esteemed lawyer.

We do have one on the panel, but I know you, he has two more stops.

He can go to 11th Circuit and appeal and he can go to the Supreme Court.

And really, now we're in a time factor.

The thing about, I've done lawsuits as a plaintiff or whatever, and I know that, for a fact, that there's no time factor when it comes to law.

You know, you can ask for expedited hearing and that could mean six months to a year.

I mean, I've been personally involved in those types of cases and the court takes their sweet time about doing anything.

This is not going to McDonald's and ordering a burger.

These guys are, they take their time.

So, you are 100% correct.

This is a bunch of BS just to, because the entire court of the Supreme Court of the State of Florida is bought and paid for by Ron DeSantis.

And we found out just last week that they were also interviewed by the guy who also interviewed the Federalist Society judges that are sitting on the Supreme Court right now.

So, they're gonna do whatever the governor says.

- One last question.

Do you think Andrew Warren is gonna run for his old seat next year?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yes, he is.

No question.

- Think he's gonna win?

- Well, that remains to be seen.

- Okay.

- It depends on if Trump's on the ballot or DeSantis in the State of Florida and that's a whole other subject we can talk about.

- All right, well, the Florida Division of Elections reports that Republicans have increased their party registration advantage here in the Sunshine State.

The Republican Party of Florida now has a nearly 500,000 voter registration edge over the Florida Democratic Party as of the end of last month.

The GOP had 5.3 million registered voters as of May 31st, while the Democratic Party had 4.8 million.

Independents and third party voters combined total 4.3 million.

For Florida, which was once considered a swing state, that's good news for Republicans.

Darryl, why are Republicans doing so well and Democrats doing so poorly?

- Because Republicans are registering more voters than Democrats are.

(group laughs) Democrats always say that, you know, what we have to do is to register more Democrats.

And they always seem to do just the opposite, register fewer Democrats.

So if you register fewer, you're gonna lose.

But let me put in a word of caution here for the Republicans.

Right now, the Republicans have a 500,000 vote advantage.

Three years ago, the Democrats were in the lead in the State of Florida in terms of voter registration.

Things change very quickly.

Three years ago, everyone was talking about Florida as a tossup state, as a pink state, ties in all the major elections.

And elections were very close in Florida.

Gubernatorial elections, Senate elections, whatever, they were decided by a few thousand votes.

So, it's a very close race.

If you look at Florida in the last 50 years, Democrats dominated for all of those 50 year cycles if you're looking at the every 10 year cycle and what the registration figures were.

Memorize these numbers.

Democrats dominated every one of those years except the most recent years where the Republican had the 5,000 advantage.

So, things do change quickly.

And just very quickly, if you look at the local level, the Tampa Bay Area, Hillsborough County is dominated by Democrats.

All of the other four Tampa Bay area counties, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Sarasota are dominated by Republicans.

So, you put 'em all together, it's fairly close, but once again, you see these, you know, Republicans dominate here, Democrats dominate there, and by and large, it's still a very close state.

- And in Hillsborough County, Republicans are catching up.

So Tara, what do the Democrats need to do to make a comeback?

Or can they make a comeback?

- I absolutely agree with Dr. Paulson.

I think that this is really a moment in time in which we had no Democratic investment in the last gubernatorial election.

So, a lot of the get out the vote and the resourcing of knocking on doors was funded through the Republican Party.

And we're actually seeing that repeated during this election cycle.

And so, Democrats have to really get out there and take a page from the Republicans on their ground game.

They also have to, Democrats have to improve their messaging.

They need to get a clear message, not only to get out to vote, but what is the Democratic Party all about?

Is it moderate, middle class policies?

And can they really make that case?

I think it would be a big mistake, I think Dr. Paulson is 100% right to say that Republicans can start counting their wins right now.

The real story here is the no party affiliate.

They're growing at an exponential rate, and they're leaning more Democrat when, in the last 20 years, maybe more Republican.

But these no party affiliates are pro-abortion.

They are pro individual family rights.

They're pro reasonable gun regulation.

And they might just be part of the disgruntled Democrats that are feeling, kind of not embracing the Democratic Party's messaging, but will come back when it's time to vote.

And that's why Republicans shouldn't be so quick to say this is a big win.

- Victor, as the Democrat on this panel, (laughs) you had some thoughts about the last election.

I mean, the last election was, the presidential election was during the COVID crisis.

- Right.

- And the Democrats did a really bad job, you've told me in the past, - Yes.

- Of going door to door.

- Yes, and we had a headquarters here, but nationwide, the Democrat Party just shut down.

I mean, they wouldn't knock on doors.

They wouldn't go, Republican Party did.

They were not, they didn't care about COVID.

They were out there banging on doors, getting in people's faces, registering people.

And we did a small operation here, which was successful, but that didn't happen around the state.

- [Rob] So, are things changing?

- Well, the fact of the matter is this, look, we, the Democrats, Professor Paulson's 100% correct.

We had the registration advantage for 50 years.

And what happens?

The Republicans control the House, the Republicans control the Senate, they take over the governor's mansion with our advantage.

And now, they have an advantage for other reasons too.

Demographically, a lot of people are cashing out on New York because we're broadcast as a free state of Florida.

You can come here to die all you want.

If you don't wanna wear masks, you can do that too.

So, that, I've met people from Canada, from New York, from all over the country that are coming here now.

But we also have a reputation for being a swing state.

And the independents are really gonna determine, they actually determine every election.

And the fact that you're independent doesn't necessarily mean you're independent, it means you maybe, you really are Republican or Democrat.

You just don't wanna say that.

So, this, we still have a lot to see.

And I guarantee you, if the presidential election, which is coming up in this next cycle, if Donald Trump is on the ballot here in Florida, it's gonna be a whole new ballgame, because the last cycle, the national party only invested $1 million in the entire State of Florida for the Democratic Party.

And before that, Bloomberg gave us $50 million.

So that's what happened.

- Pam, how long will this Republican advantage remain?

I mean, is, are we permanently now a red state?

- I guess for as long as I'm state committee woman for the Republican Party.

(group laughing) Yes, we had an excellent ground game.

We knocked on over two and a half million doors statewide.

I did a lot of, well, a lot of door knocking just in Pinellas County alone.

We have a 17,000 voter advantage where the Republican registration is concerned.

But one thing that everyone's leaving out of the mix, we're talking about registering voters, we're talking about the ground game, all extremely important.

Mail ballots.

You know, that's something that the Democrats have done very well with.

- Right.

- We've caught up and we overtook this last time in Pinellas County where the elections were concerned.

But you also, - [Rob] You're no longer skeptical about mail ballots?

Yeah.

- I'm not skeptical.

No, I, - Well, 'cause Trump says that, you know, don't trust 'em.

- Unlimited, - Don't do it, you know?

- Well, - He's hurt you guys on that.

- Okay, but true.

However, you know, now Trump has said, go ahead and, you know, unless you have unlimited ballot harvesting, - Right.

- Mail ballots are fine.

So, it goes right back to election integrity.

And you know, that's basically what it is.

But you have to chase down those ballots, make certain that someone didn't just fill it out and then put it on the coffee table and turn it around and just left it there.

- So, if you do it, it's called picking up ballot, when we do it, it's called harvesting, so.

- Okay, all right.

- It's like the word woke, you know?

Which I've never, - I think we got our, got our message across.

- All right.

Well, more than a million people, adults and children have been dropped from Medicaid nationwide in recent months.

Florida dropped the most people of any state in the nation, 250,000.

That number is likely to go far higher.

Medicaid is a government health insurance program for people who have low incomes or who are working poor.

It was temporarily expanded during the COVID crisis.

That continuous enrollment period ended in April.

And now, states are checking eligibility.

According to state data, 10% of recipients were dropped because they were ineligible.

However, most people were dropped for procedural reasons, such as not being informed that they had been dropped or not filling out the necessary paperwork to remain on the program.

Florida's one of 10 states that have rejected efforts to expand Medicaid eligibility.

The Republican-controlled legislature has long opposed expansion, concerned about the potential future cost.

And Pam, what happens to these folks who are dropped from Medicaid here in Florida?

Where do they go?

- We have free clinics, and you know, despite, oh, people say, oh, that's just like, for, that's like a bandaid.

It really isn't.

I worked, my husband and I both, you know, we're both retired from the medical profession, and we worked in the Clearwater Free Clinic for 10 years.

And there are referrals that were given to patients for mammograms, you know, and for other situations or medical diagnosis.

- Is there enough capacity?

- That would require, - [Rob] Is there enough capacity in free clinics?

- Enough capacity?

Well, actually, the Clearwater Free Clinic did, I'm just using that as an example, did expand and they moved too.

They also included like psychiatric services for veterans.

So, there's, you know, there are options out there.

These people do not have insurance.

But as for the Medicaid problem, I had read whereby people were contacted, 56,000 people just didn't return the phone call.

They didn't follow up on the paperwork.

- That's a big part of the problem there.

- Yes.

And if you get on Medicaid now, there is like a retro, period of retroactivity, it's like 90 days where you could, if you have health, you know, a healthcare problem and you've had to spend money outta your pocket, whatever, you could actually recoup some of those expenses.

- Yeah, but the Republicans have sadly rejected the Medicare expansion that could have brought 80, we have almost a million people in the State of Florida, a million people that don't have any health insurance.

You're not gonna cover a million people in a free clinic.

I'm sorry.

I support the Judeo Christian Health Clinic.

That's not even a bandaid.

You know, these people, the, if God forbid, you need any kind of heart procedure or serious, very expensive, you're not gonna get in a free clinic.

If you have a cold, it's great, but it's not gonna help you anywhere else.

So, if we'd expanded that, we could have had these people covered.

And a lot more people have no insurance and they're dying.

People are dying in the State of Florida because the Republicans are refusing the expansion of Medicaid.

- Do you have those numbers?

- Yep.

- Do you have those numbers?

- When you've got a million people nationally that have been kicked out of the Medicaid program, and a quarter of those people are in the State of Florida, we're number one.

That's not a good thing to be number one in.

How are those people going to get medical care?

And yes, we've got free clinics, but I mean, all of those people are gonna be thrown into the market and it's gonna get worse, not better, for these people as we move along here and, - Well, I, you know, there, yeah.

- The reality is, is a lot of these people are working multiple jobs.

They're caring for multi-generational families, and they're trying their best to stretch into the middle class.

And these type of policies are not policies of hope and how to make it into the middle class.

They seem like more retribution.

- Yes.

It is.

- Okay.

- I just think that, whatever you expand or further subsidize to get more of too, I mean, you wanna encourage people to go on private insurance and that means jobs.

- Yeah, but these people have, - And we, just let me finish.

- Okay.

- And that means going to a state that is tax friendly too and business friendly.

And that's what we have in Florida.

- Okay.

Well, this week, Florida Democratic Party Chair, Nikki Fried, filed ethics complaints against Governor Ron DeSantis' top staff for allegedly soliciting campaign contributions from lobbyists and lawmakers for his 2024 White House campaign.

All three of the staff are state employees, including his chief of staff, legislative affairs director, and director of policy and budget.

Fried said these allegations represent a gross violation of state laws and ethics.

And they are yet another example of Ron abusing his public office for personal gain.

A DeSantis spokesman called the complaints, "Politically motivated attacks," saying, "If the governor's executive team wants to fundraise, knock doors, or volunteer their free time, more power to them.

They have First Amendment rights like every American."

Fried sighted reporting from NBC News that state officials had been sending text messages to lobbyists, asking for donations for DeSantis' presidential campaign.

She also cited the Sarasota Herald Tribune's report last month that the governor's staff brought up his campaign with GOP officials during the recent budget talks.

Tara, the governor's defense is, his spokespeople say, "Look, our staff can do whatever they want on their free time.

It's a free country."

Now, some of these solicitations have occurred during business hours, but the governor says, "Look, this is their private time that they're using to solicit the campaign donations."

- I think Nikki is trying to really highlight the fact that Florida used to be the gold standard in sunshine laws, open government, transparency, and these ethics violations, we know the Florida Ethics Commission's gonna take a long time.

This is gonna possibly have no sting to it anyway.

But I think she's really trying to insert the idea that, possibly, the DeSantis administration is having some real challenges in walking the long-standing ethical commitments that Republicans have had in the State of Florida.

But we just saw in the last legislative session, we are the, went from the Sunshine State to the doing government in shade.

We no longer can know the governor's travel plans.

We can no longer know who comes into the mansion.

And so, I think this filing of these complaints is not so much about what happened, but to really raise awareness about the ethical violations that could be happening.

But I think that there's something bigger at play here.

The Democrats are, this might not be a longstanding kind of effort.

She might have this week of, you know, flash in the pan kind of story, and she might wanna consider moving to issues that will really move Democrats, like the recent polling that says that most people in Florida have, 61% believe in abortion rights, that many people want LGBTQ rights, that people want parental freedom to include making decisions for LGBTQ children.

We could go on and on and on.

And so, those are issues that move Democrats and although she's making a good splash with this and trying to make awareness of the ethical violations, she might be better served by focusing on those really civil liberties kind of issues that move Democrats.

- Darryl, I wanna bring it back to the ethics complaints.

In the history of Florida, is it usual for paid staff to solicit campaign contributions from lobbyists?

I mean, in previous gubernatorial administrations, has that happened?

- Well, it happens, but it's not supposed to.

I mean, I wrote a piece a number of years ago for a book on campaign finance in the country, and I did the chapter on Florida and I called it, Who Gave it?

Who Got It?

Who Cares?

Because that's how things have changed in Florida.

We used to have, once again, government in the sunshine, and yet, many of those watchdog things have been thrown out.

So, I think somebody has to look at it.

And for a long time, both the federal and state government have had very strong policies, which said, if you're a public employee, you can't go out there and solicit funds while you're working, and you can say it's free time.

But who's gonna make that distinction?

Ron DeSantis?

- [Rob] Right.

- You know, when I worked for the State of Michigan, we took off, we took about, and I worked for a Republican.

We actually took vacation days to go door to door and do this.

- Right.

- And that's the Republican kind of precedence.

And so, this is unprecedented from a Republican.

- You were a state employee?

Okay.

- Florida Elections Commission and the Florida Ethics Commission is gonna weigh on it.

And it's, and the law is clear.

You cannot, this is taxpayer funded fundraising.

You, what, from eight to five, you work for the taxpayers.

After five o'clock, you can do what you want.

These guys were calling people, texting people, during the daytime, which is blatantly illegal.

It's blatantly against the law.

It's blatantly unethical, but they think they can do whatever the heck they want 'cause they control the, you know, all three branches of government.

That's what the issue is here.

- Pam, some of the legislators involved feel like these were strong arm tactics that the governor was asking, - I don't, yeah, - The governor's staff was asking for donations, while they had financial issues, line items in the budget that they wanted passed.

And they feel like the governor's using strong arm tactics to get the donation.

- Well, well again, you know, what you were saying about what would better serve the Democrats, could be a, you know, flash in the pan story.

I look at the fact that I find ironic that the person who's filing this is, you know, Nikki Fried, filing this particular complaint, had complaints filed against her ethically when it came to her wanting to run for governor, that she did not disclose her lobbying money that she had made well she's a lobbyist for the, I think the marijuana industry.

So, I find, I just find that rather ironic.

And I also looked at, does anybody remember Peter Strzok, and was that Lisa Carter?

How they were texting one another inside a public building talking about trying to stymie Trump, you know, being elected, and saying all kind, and I thought like, what?

How are you gonna do that?

I mean, to me, that doesn't seem very ethical either.

- Well, when, - But when I, you've gotta let me, you have to let me finish.

- Okay, all right.

- But, you know, but when it comes to line item things, so things that are more important, okay, that gets figured into the budget.

You know, we have a budget surplus of like $21 billion, tax relief of $2.7 billion.

So, I don't know exactly what you mean by that, but I will be quiet now.

And let somebody else.

- Okay.

We're out of time.

For many years, people from other states and other countries have been migrating to Florida, and for several decades, statistics show that about a thousand people move to Florida every day.

It's a point of pride for the governor.

And for a long time, the state enjoyed a reputation for being affordable, but that's changing.

The price of a single family home here has doubled in the last three years.

For renters, Florida is among the most expensive in the country, with Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Miami, North Port-Bradenton, and Deltona all ranking in the top 10 most expensive.

In Tampa, you must have a household income of at least $85,000 a year to afford the average rent.

And homeowners insurance is among the highest in the nation.

And when it comes to car insurance, Florida has one of the highest average annual full coverage rates in the country.

Some of the reasons, Florida's very prone to natural disasters, but it also has a high population density, which may contribute to more accidents on the roads.

Darryl, the legislature has passed a lot of cultural issues, laws, in the last several years.

How are they on dealing with homeowners insurance, car insurance, high cost of housing?

- Not so good.

(group laughing) If they were, we wouldn't have the highest homeowners insurance and car insurance in the country.

And we are right up there among the highest in both of those two categories.

So, the more things change, the more they stay the same sometimes.

And what's gonna happen here is Florida may be in the same position that California used to be in.

Everyone wanted to flock to California.

I mean, it was the Garden State and everyone wanted their beaches and all of the things that they had to offer.

And now, you've had a great flight from California in many respects.

I mean, you've had many of the wealthiest residents of California moving to other areas, adjacent states, because they find the expenses are too much in California.

And the same thing may happen right here in the State of Florida.

My daughter just moved to Florida this past week from Massachusetts where she's lived the last 15 years, and obviously, she's found the high price of housing.

We downsized three years ago.

I live in Palm Harbor, and we went from a very big 3,400 square foot house to one that was about half the size and paid about $320,000 for that house, which today is worth $560,000.

So, that's good for me.

It's bad for the person buying that house.

So, what may look good may be very bad for somebody else, and that's gonna be the problem that Florida is gonna have to face.

- Okay, we just have a minute and a half left.

What's the other big story of the week before we go?

What other story should we be paying attention to?

Pam, your other big story of the week?

- Well, actually, yes, Cuba wanting to move its, I mean, Cuba.

(laughs) China wanting to move its air, it's military base to Cuba, which is a hundred miles off the coast of Florida.

That scares me very much.

It really bothers me.

I think it's dangerous.

Also, that reminds me of, to me, that's Cuban Missile Crisis number two, part two.

Cuban Missile Crisis one was when I was a kid.

Dad was stationed in Japan and we were taking a boat across the ocean, 1962, and my mother was crying as we were leaving the coast of LA, well, California.

So, - Yeah.

- That just brings back very emotional memories for me.

- [Rob] We certainly don't want to bring back those days.

Darryl, your other big story of the week?

- Yeah, I did a piece for the Tampa Bay Times a few years ago about how Florida gets no respect.

We're the Rodney Dangerfield of national politics, and a lot of our politicians get no respect.

I mean, we've never had one of our political leaders be elected majority leader or Speaker of the House or President of the Senate.

They've never chaired one of the major committees in Congress.

They've never been Vice President of the United States, so they've never been a presidential candidate.

And things have stayed pretty much the same.

Some people would point to Donald Trump in 2016, but he was a New York resident at the time.

In 2020, he did have his residency in Florida and he lost.

So, we still have that record of, we don't get any respect in Florida.

- For a time, Sam Gibbons was way up there though, right?

- Yeah, oh, he was as, yeah, ways and means committee chair.

- Vic DiMaio?

- You're gonna see Hillsborough County move closer to doing a CIT tax renewable because it's just, we're just a couple years out of the 30 year expansion of the CIT tax expiring and there's a lot of wants and needs in the community and there's nowhere to pay for 'em.

So, including a new stadium, the Buck Stadium is ending its 30 year lifespan.

Like any house, it's gonna need a refurbishment or maybe a roof or something.

So, you're gonna see that discussion heating up in the next year or so pretty heartily.

- Tara, your other big story?

- Florida is leading the nation in higher education anarchy.

And I think what you're gonna start to see is this coalescing of former presidents of institutions.

Current presidents of institutions are afraid of losing funding.

But we're seeing through Campus Compact, a national organization, that they're pursuing former presidents from State College of Florida, UCF, Cal Berkeley, Harvard, UT Texas, and they're all coming together to say, "Hey listen, we deserve integrity and economic freedom."

And they're gonna start to push back and I think they're a force to be watching.

- All right, Tara, Darryl, Vic, Pam, thank you for a great show.

- All right.

- And thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at ftw@wedu.org and like us on Facebook.

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

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