- This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[Music] - Hi, everybody.

For the first time in over 50 years, Florida's race for governor may go without a single debate.

In Sarasota a legal opinion from the state's attorney general is at the center of a fight over thousands of housing units.

Governor DeSantis has named a new head of Florida law enforcement, and his past includes a controversial chapter.

And a federal report is raising new questions about the cost of operating Alligator Alcatraz.

Our panel takes it up next on Florida This Week.

[Music] Welcome back to Florida This Week, everybody.

I'm Lissette Campos joining us today.

We have Tara Newsom, attorney and professor.

We have Travis Horn, Republican strategist and president of Bullhorn Communications.

And Victor DiMaio, president of the Hillsborough County Democratic Hispanic Caucus.

We begin with an election season tradition that may not happen this year.

For the first time in more than 50 years, Florida's governor's race may see no debates at all.

Democratic nominee David Jolly has rejected all debates against Republican Byron Donalds.

He had this to say on MS Now.

- I think he's acting with bad faith and continues to peddle lies.

And Rev.

you can't debate a liar.

- We can do it any time, any place, anywhere.

I've agreed to three.

Let's do it.

- It's important to note that Donalds himself declined to debate his Republican opponents before the primary.

Donald citing his lead in polling and fundraising at that time.

The pattern extends to the Senate race.

Republican Ashley Moody has refused three separate debate proposals from Democratic challenger Angie Nixon.

- I just think that there is a control factor, and candidates and their campaigns want to control everything to the point where real journalism can't break through and have a healthy, fair debate.

- A Brookings Institution analysis found the number of debates in the country's most competitive Senate races has declined sharply since 2010.

In Florida, though, the pattern is not uniform.

Some down-ballot races are still debating.

In Florida's 14th Congressional District, Kathy Castor and Mike Beltran have multiple debates scheduled.

The St.

Petersburg mayor's race has one planned on October the 13th.

But in three congressional races favoring incumbents, all have refused debates despite requests from the challengers.

We're talking about District 12 Republican Congressman Gus Bilirakis, Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna in District 13, and Republican Congresswoman Laurel Lee in District 15?

I'd like to ask all of you right off the bat, what does this mean for voters when the candidates at the top of the ticket won't be on the same stage, won't debate?

Tara, I'd like to start with you.

- I think it absolutely harms the democratic process.

Listen.

Traditions are meant to be followed because they help voters get in touch with the positions of the candidates.

This strategic avoidance that's trying to control the narrative and push people to the echo chambers of the social media that the candidate can appeal to is really what this is all about.

And so you know, we no longer will see that side by side comparison to see candidates under pressure.

The reason that's really important was really on stage this week.

I'm sure we all watched at the U.S.

Senate Judiciary Committee, where U.S.

Senator from Missouri, Schmidt, you know, folded under pressure when his questioning line of questioning for the special prosecutor was revealed as not very, you know, productive or actually factual.

And so we didn't see that.

So not only is it under pressure, it's also being accountable for your policy understanding and being able to articulate what is your policy all about.

And there's also this lack of transparency.

There's no forum that's unbiased now for voters to actually pay attention to.

- What the campaign staff are trying to do.

And, you know, you well noted.

Was it 50, 50 or 56 years, 52, 52 years?

Well, we haven't had a hurricane in the Atlantic form this year and first time in 120 some years.

I mean, we look we've got we've got the internet.

So these folks have both got records that we can analyze and we can look at.

So I feel a little better about that.

Um, they're not these aren't Lincoln and Douglas.

You know, this isn't the 1850s.

We have the internet.

We can look at that.

I get the whole game theory.

You know, who has more to lose when you get on stage?

We have those meltdown moments, right?

That can be pivotal in a campaign.

I would think that David Jolly would be begging to get on stage.

- Well, let me just clarify something.

- That.

- We need to clarify, though.

David Jolly did agree to three debates.

They were just the three different ones than Byron Donalds campaign.

So what ended up happening is he played into the Byron Donalds campaign, but he had agreed.

- That's not what that's not what he just said on the tower.

He said, oh, he's a liar.

I'm not a liar.

- That's a clip because he agreed to three debates.

And then when he backed out and put out a press release for three different days, that's what this governor is raising.

- He should hire youTara.

- No, no, I'm just saying the facts are the facts.

- And I'll tell you, as a former president of the of the Tampa Tiger Bay club, the biggest struggle we had was people getting the wanting to debate because they're consultants.

And this goes on the R&D side.

But as you can see by the promo, at the very beginning, the vast majority of the people who didn't want to debate are Republicans.

They're incumbents.

No, seriously, there was there was there was four Republican.

- Or Democrat running for governor right now.

You know, I love rhetoric.

I love political rhetoric.

- I love to see what you had for Republican congressional candidates who did not win.

- Was doing a.

- Radio is a great point.

We're talking.

This is it.

It's a talking point of the campaigns.

And we're not talking about their stance on their issues like affordability, housing.

Kathy is saying.

- That she is she's the new across the aisle Democrat to work with Republicans, and she votes with them 98% of the time with the Democrats.

That's a fact that we can look up and verify whether she says it on stage or not.

Still, I would love to see her on stage.

I would give her.

- If I had if I had my druthers, I'd love to see the Jolly debate as well.

But the fact of the matter is the consultants get together.

They agree to three debates, a piece, a piece.

But there was a lot of Mickey Mouse stuff going on behind the scenes, and they just everybody got pissed off.

And that was the end of that.

But I can tell you, my half of my career was getting debates together for Tiger Bay.

And I was on the board still for many years.

And I can tell you, the most problems we had were from Republican consultants.

And you know who these guys are, the real person.

They don't want to get tripped up or slipped up and make a mistake and cause the election.

And that can happen.

- Guess who loses the voter and that's who loses here because they're getting fed through their Instagram.

- Let's talk about the voters.

When you look at the demographics, right?

We have Democrats account for 32 percent of Florida voters.

The GOP, 38% nonpartisan, comprised more than 27% of the voters.

So this is an opportunity for you to reach that 27%.

There was a poll from the Stetson University Center for Public Opinion Research that said that 21 to 25% of voters say they don't know Donalds and Jolly.

- Right.

- The debates could change that.

- No, maybe.

But I know it didn't help Donalds to have that $20 million because he lost every county in the Panhandle during the primary to somebody from Tampa who had no money.

So I think I think Donalds is the one that has the most to lose here more than Jolly, to be honest with you.

I just think you put him, if Jolly gets on the debate.

And if I was, if I was, uh.

I wish Jolly would debate.

To be honest with you, I heard him.

He was at Tiger Bay just last week, he explained his position.

I don't say I agree with it, because if I was if I was running against Donalds, I would just let me at him because I would love to.

- Just doesn't want.

He was never a good Democrat.

He's not a good Republican.

He's not a good Democrat.

He's going to have trouble, trouble appealing.

Like I said to those people in the middle who look at trust as a factor and how someone how they're going to vote.

So I don't think that you can say one side or the other.

- That's your opinion.

- I'd love to see them both.

- You know, the real the real trouble is that voters won't can't make that decision if they aren't being messaged to.

And one of the things that you brought up is that the debate is a way to message to all voters so that they can make that decision themselves.

- To be clear, I love I love political debates.

I'm a political science student.

You know.

- Some of the debates are happening in the down ballot races, right?

Not at the top of the ballot, but the down ballot races.

Um, why do you think that pattern exists?

I'd like to ask you.

- You know, all politics are local, and a lot of people put the pressure on the candidates in a local environment to go ahead and debate.

And, you know, you're insulated on a statewide office.

You don't feel that pressure.

And certainly your donors are wanting you to win.

And if not, debating means, uh, you know, a win, it's well worth their money.

- There's also there's also less to lose.

- And what's going on right now in our viewing area is that all the big Republicans who have who have, like Laurel Lee, Bilirakis, all these guys are have all kinds of money.

They can control the message.

They can buy TV, they can do Facebook ads, they can do mail, they can control the campaign from A to Z. A Democrat doesn't have that kind of resources.

- We're going to shift our attention now to Sarasota next.

A legal fight in Sarasota County has implications for thousands of homes and the very nature of several rural neighborhoods.

In a legal opinion issued on September the 16th, the Attorney General's office undercut Sarasota County's own interpretation of the Live Local Act.

That's a state law designed to spur affordable housing construction.

The opinion concluded that rural properties allowing even limited commercial use, like a veterinary clinic or a plant nursery, can qualify as mixed use land.

Now that's important because that would then make it eligible for development under the act.

The interpretation directly favors developers currently suing Sarasota County in six separate lawsuits.

Together, those cases could clear the way for construction of more than 7500 housing units, proposals that are currently on pause.

Tara, I'd like to ask you legally, how much weight does this guidance from the State Attorney's Office hold?

- Well, first off, let's talk about this in a broader context.

This is Home Rule showdown, right?

Home Rule is the idea in the state of Florida that's embodied in our Constitution, that local communities can make decisions to govern themselves, and they're in the best position to decide about zoning and all the rest.

Okay.

So Live local act is a preemption, a preemption of home rule.

It says the state actually can go in and dictate that because there is this affordability crisis, and that's what this is all about.

But, you know, we've never really seen an attorney general weigh in on a scale before litigation.

And his opinion is now being cited in over six cases in Sarasota.

And so this is not necessarily binding, but it certainly is instructive to the court on how they would see this debate.

But it's important to note that Sarasota County commissioners voted unanimously that they didn't want this development.

And so if you're really wanting to honor the Constitution, you really want to honor that home rule.

This is more of political theater from the attorney general's office.

And this is something really interesting.

You know, Republicans have deviated from that long standing Republican tradition of local governance is the best place to go, and that we should have limited government, not centralizing all the power in Tallahassee.

And let me just add this piece to it.

If amendment three is successful and we have the property tax go through, you will see even greater centralization of power because vulnerable, financially vulnerable communities will then have to depend on begging the state for money.

And so you have the eradication of the meaningfulness of home rule, and then this dependency on Tallahassee.

And that does not look like traditional Republican principles that I was raised with.

- The Sarasota.

- Oh my gosh, I can't believe.

- You in principle that the preemption and the battle that we the battlefield we talked about, right?

But also like we talked about earlier was, you know, is there, is there a taking and who's taking it?

Is it the county folks who are taking property essentially by having onerous zoning?

Right.

Or the state who's doing it?

You know what I mean?

And is, is affordable housing.

I thought affordable housing was, you know, something our Democrat friends agree with us on.

And then you've got these folks who just want to want to go and build affordable housing.

- No, but yeah, but this bill is horrendous.

Obviously, I've read the bill.

It's a it's a taking of local power, local control, which which Tara said is which was a Republican principle.

Now they've just thrown that to the wind because of developers.

And the big lobbyists in Tallahassee have paid off all these Republican legislators that passes through.

And now they're.

And it's funny, because I look at the mailers going out, like with certain candidates saying, oh, we got to stop these villains.

Well, hell, you voted for the damn thing.

- See, the government that governs least governs best, not the government that governs lowest.

So, okay, maybe we can continue to have that conversation.

- Maybe.

I just want to clarify that.

- Live Local act dates back to 2023.

During the last session, they did update it and they updated with specific verbiage to protect rural neighborhoods and farmlands.

However, they did say that there was if developers wanted to, um, propose something they could before July 1st.

- If.

- They backdated.

- It, if they backdated it.

And so.

- This is when the requests are.

- Coming.

- Opinion is advisory.

It's not, it's persuasive in court.

It carries some weight, but it's not authoritative.

- It's not judge has the a final authority.

- Let's just go back to the actual Live Local Act itself and this broader constitutional question really, which is should we be honoring the state constitution, that home rule, that local communities are in the best position to make decisions for themselves, or we will continue to chip away at local authority?

And what why is that happening under Republican leadership?

- Well, that's a federal system.

We had a zoning decision right here in Tampa where the developer came in.

All the neighbors, you know, circle the wagons.

They did not want this thing had to happen.

And what's going to happen?

The developer is going to go to court, sue, under the Home Rule law and get this big, massive development in South Tampa that nobody in the neighborhood wants.

But that's what they're going to do.

That's what's going to happen.

It's happening in every community in the.

- State.

- And we will continue to follow it.

We're going to turn our attention now to the top Florida law enforcement officer this week, governor DeSantis and his cabinet named Larry Keefe as the new commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The FDLE appointment still requires State Senate confirmation.

Keefe replaces Mark Glass, who is leaving the role after four years to join the Miami-Dade County Sheriff's Office.

Keefe previously served as U.S.

Attorney for the Northern District of Florida and as the governor's self-described public safety czar.

His record isn't without controversy, though.

In 2022, Keefe organized flights for about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard.

The operation drew national attention and led this Florida legislature to limit the state's ability to conduct immigration enforcement operations outside the state of Florida.

Public records also show that Keefe used a private email address under an alias name to help a former client win the contract to operate those migrant flights.

Travis, I have to start with you.

Is this a great or a bad choice?

- He's clearly the governor's prerogative.

He's clearly he's a trusted guy I met.

You know, I've gotten to know him.

Commissioner glass, I like him.

He's a good guy.

I wish him the best down in South Florida.

The new guy.

I really don't know a whole lot about him.

Other than.

Other than what?

What we've talked about.

- That that helps me.

So let's just talk about him.

- I'm glad to help you, Tara.

- Thank you so much.

Let's just do a simple report card.

All right.

- So as immigration czar, he spent $1.6 million of Florida taxpayers.

Then he spent 1 million of Florida taxpayer dollars to defend that political theater.

Okay, then.

Oh, P.S.

by the way, luring immigrants with job promises, which is what happened in the Martha Vineyard.

- Luring illegals, luring illegals.

Let's make sure we get the verbiage right.

- Well, some of us think that people have the right to migrate.

And if they follow the law and if they're in the process, they're not illegal.

But let me just say this.

If you lure if you lure a migrant and it turns out that you were fraudulent, in that they can then be eligible to a visa because they were a victim of a crime.

And so these same.

- These same, these same - individuals might be the victims of a crime.

Okay, let's keep going with this.

He assisted in state contracts to help previous private clients in his law practice get the migrant contracts.

Oh, and he was also the counselor to the DeSantis administration.

And some people say it's an abuse of power.

When, of course, Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren was removed and suspended.

And just for bad judgment case, in case you want to think about bad judgment.

He's aligned in a law partner with Matt Gaetz in a northern Florida law firm.

And, you know, Matt Gaetz, of course, had a 42 page scathing House of Ethics report talking about drug use, underage sex use and obstruction of justice.

And although he was not convicted, you know, one has to say you are the company you keep.

And maybe that's not such a great idea.

- Victor...she's, Tara has said it all.

She's just saying these are the facts of the report card.

- So whether... - Not I'll take on both of you.

- The question.

- The question that's been asked, is there no one else that the governor could have picked?

- He's got a few months left.

- What advantages.

- Is he'll be there for an hour and a half, and the election will be over, and then he'll be gone.

- For weeks until election.

- Especially if he becomes governor.

So he'll be he'll be out the door.

- All right, well, we're going to move on to a new federal report that's raising plenty of questions about the cost of running the Florida Immigration Detention Center known as Alligator Alcatraz.

The U.S.

Government Accountability Office found that the DeSantis administration operated the immigration facility without proper authorization from federal officials.

Investigators found that ICE never entered into a formal agreement authorizing the facility's operation, and it also found that the cost per detainee ran nearly three times higher than the standard ICE facility, which is $2.49 a day compared to ICE's medium rate of $92.

By the time that Alligator Alcatraz closed in June, Florida had received about $84 million of the promised $680 million federal grant.

Investigators also noted that the same high cost pattern continues at a second facility that's still operating in Sanderson, Florida.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that the agency has saved taxpayers more than $13 billion overall under the current leadership.

The facility was originally proposed by James Uthmeier, then serving as governor DeSantis chief of staff.

These numbers, this report is rather um.

It's rather shocking when you look at just in the title of the document alone, it says immigration detention, urgent planning needed to avoid further waste of taxpayer dollars.

- That's what we lose sight of right now with all this hand-wringing over this, is that Biden created this problem.

The Democrats, your Democrat Party, created this problem.

I can't believe it all goes back to that.

Now, granted, I thought I thought Alligator Alcatraz.

Now that was some great.

It was some great.

If you wanna call it political theater, call it whatever you want.

It goes back to look Reagan standing in front of the Statue of Liberty for a photo op.

It meant something.

People in America saw the ice and that our federal government was taking action.

I don't know why.

I don't know why.

I don't know why the accounting and why we're spending so much more.

I'll give you that.

And I want to look into that and figure out why that is.

Of course, it's out in the middle of nowhere.

It is surrounded by alligators.

It is in.

- The swamp.

- According to the, "GAO report."

This is happening because there were no bids.

- There was no it was again, it wouldn't.

- Be in this problem if it wasn't for the Democrats.

- Can we just... - Remember these are human lives.

There's a human rights cost here that we can't even calculate.

There's a denial of constitutional rights, that they're illegals.

- They could stay home.

- Guess what?

The United States Supreme Court and your federal law that you appeal to and have says that even people who are not legally here have due process rights, they have habeas corpus rights, knowing why they've been held, they have the right to counsel denied.

Yes, yes.

- Habeas Corpus.

- Denial of council.

There were countless.

- People that had denial of 1st.

Amendment rights.

- There was looking Hispanic.

They got dragged into.

- They're not a meme, they're human beings.

- These are human beings.

- You got all the Biden and Obama - judges ruling against Trump.

- Every time he turns aroun - This has nothing to do with Joe Biden.

This is... This is a theater.

- This has everything to do with Joe Biden.

- This is a colossal waste of money, taxpayer money that went to no bid contracts.

I mean, actually, DeSantis and I were the guy who threw.

- Open the floodgates.

I would say.

- These.

- Guys just.

- You guys should go to jail for what they.

- Did.

Even if you're right, these are human lives.

And you wouldn't want the abuse of our Constitution to continue even if it was.

Even if I want him arrested.

Except people deserve constitutional protections, and they are human beings.

- They deserve them.

Right.

- But that's they've been denied those due process denied, counsel denied.

And there's also systemic.

- There is.

- No.

- There's evidence of that.

And then there's also this idea of these disappearances.

There's over 800 people that went to Al Jazeera.

Listen.

Listen.

- Because you guys are shameless.

- Because there was state.

The state was in charge of it.

The ice tracking system did not have to be allocated.

And so there are people that we don't know where they went.

You know, there's also environmental degradation.

There was a clean air lawsuit that was put $124,000 a day on the state.

Now that has been dropped.

But I have to tell you, the report card of alligator Alcatraz is not looking good.

And that's why the entire country is paying attention to.

Is this a Republican leadership, a fiscal responsibility that's going to stay with DeSantis for his legacy.

- And for our viewers?

- I think.

- I.

- Think.

- It's really important that our viewers know that these are documents that are readily available.

They should by no means base their opinions on this based solely on what we're saying on the show or what they read in the media.

I mean, these are documents, the GAO.

The GAO report is that doesn't.

- Make it okay to.

- Also not establish Alligator records.

I don't know why you keep going out and buying this?

This is Ron DeSantis and Uthmeier.

This is their little baby.

I just want.

- To remind.

- You, I'm ready to double down.

You know what?

I just want to remind you something.

- Remind you of the last speech that Ronald Reagan gave his final farewell to America was a love letter to immigrants because of how important they were to our American experience.

Love immigrants.

Well, Alligator Alcatraz does not compute with the same kind of sentiments from the Republican Party.

- Before we run out of time.

Other big stories of the week.

Each of you have your own unique perspective and vantage point.

So, Tara, I'm going to start with you.

- Hey, it's all about voting for me.

That's a story to watch today.

You start to receive your mail in ballots.

And of course, mail in ballots can be dropped off.

They can be mailed in.

We really encourage people to mail them back in or drop them off early, because that prevents campaigns from spending more money trying to outreach.

But that makes me think about all these other voters in the state of Florida, like the 1.9 million Cubans in Florida who are really watching for this Cuban surprise that we think might happen, which is that America, America may end up, you know, going into Cuba like a Venezuelan type experience.

And so, you know, we have to consider Cuban Americans are a big part of the Republican voting bloc that creates a win in the state of Florida.

And will they splinter because ICE and affordability are not Cuban issues.

They're not Republican issues.

They're American issues.

So I'm watching those.

- Travis, you say that I got to sit down with a great Cuban legislator of Cuban descent whose parents were landowners.

And I think he was one of the largest food production ranchers down in Cuba.

Cattle cattle producers.

Senator Avila, I got to sit down with him over in.

- St.

Pete Avila, the choice for lieutenant governor.

- I think he was a great choice.

He's a great choice.

Love, love his family story of successfully immigrating to America and working hard.

And he talked a lot about that.

And I think he was a great obviously, he was a great pick.

And you know, Byron again has showed his maturity and picking someone like Senator Avila who can appeal to those Cubans and South Floridians.

- And Victor what's your important story for us.

- Well, I grew up with Gwen Graham when I was Bob Graham's press secretary in Tallahassee, and she was a fantastic pick for Jolly to pick as well.

So he kind of balances his ticket pretty well.

Um, I want to give a shout out to a dear friend who just passed away.

Uh, her name was Kathy Bartolotti.

She was one of these behind the scenes people that you don't hear a lot about.

But both parties, Republican and Democrat, have people that don't do it for the for the limelight.

They just do it because in their heart and soul, they feel like the Democratic Party was something that meant a lot to them.

So she just passed away this week, um, after suffering a stroke about five years ago.

So we, we wish her, her and her family the best.

And I'm thinking about you too, Kathy, because you were my mentor in the Democratic Party when I started.

And I'm still a Democrat, the yellow dog Democrat.

So, uh, we will miss you.

And we just have to find some new, younger person to fill the shoes and inspire others like she did to me.

- Thank you for sharing that with us.

That's all the time that we have.

Again, we want to thank our panelists Tara Newsom, Victor DiMaio, and Travis Horn.

Earlier in the show, we talked about the importance of political debates in races, and we talked about that with expert Ron Sachs.

He is a veteran of Florida politics.

He has his own firm, has been the man behind the scenes producing all of these high profile political debates over the years.

- When Charlie Crist had a fan down at the foot of his podium because he likes to have a fan to cool him off at a debate that was technically against the rules.

Rick Scott declined to come out on the stage on a live, statewide debate for, I don't know, 5 or 6 minutes.

You know, if I had represented him, I would have dragged him out there rather than give Charlie Crist like a monologue, like a late night show.

So there are these moments that define debates very often.

- And you can hear the full conversation with him on, on our YouTube channel.

You can see it by going to YouTube.com/WEDUPBS.

We know you have plenty of choices for your news and information, and we thank you for choosing us.

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