Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / 2024 Florida Session Week 5

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2024 Florida Session Week 5 · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:17
  And here we go the third hour, affectually known as common Sense Amplified,
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  otherwise known as the Morning Show with Preston, Scott and Preston. That's Grant
• 0:28
  Allen and this, Ladies and Gentlemen is Sal Newso with the James Madison Institute.
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  He's our legislative expert. He is the vice president Policy at JMI and
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  joins us now on the phone line. Hello, sir, how are you.
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  Good morning to you. I'm doing great from sunny Palm Beach County.
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  How are you today? Awesome? We were just talking in the last segment.
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  How terrific is it that in Florida we have a governor that is behind
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  pushing nudging such common sense things, as you know, driver's licenses, notifying
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  people that the person that's holding this is exactly the biological gender that they were
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  born to be. Yeah, go figure. I mean, it seems like
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  in twenty twenty four that the fact that that is potentially controversial is odd to
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  me, But yes, we do. And in addition, he's also created
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  quite a juxtaposition between Florida and in San Francisco. There was a press conference
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  he gave last week in support of House Built sixteen thirty five, which would,
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  among a number of other things, it would prohibit homeless people from sleeping
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  in public places. So we talked about the need for more funding for sheltering
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  along with this idea that's kind of in the infancy stages on if we wanted
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  to do kind of camps where we could have temporary housing for them. But
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  clearly the juxtaposition and the contrast is comparing and contrasting Florida with California and the
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  challenges that they've got as a result of Deavin Newsom's policies in that respect.
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  Well, you know, I think a lot of people look at homelessness and
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  to me, it boils down to defining how you're helping somebody. Are you
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  helping somebody by enabling them to continue living in this way, or are you
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  helping them by putting a fence post around the situation and saying, Okay,
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  we need to identify why you're living this way and then do what we can
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  to help you get out of that situation. Yeah, and you've kind of
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  touched on what we've talked about previously with respect to kind of triaging homelessness.
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  I mean, you've got folks that are temporarily down on their luck, that
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  need a helping hand where services can be provided and get them into a better
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  situation. You've got a cohort of the population where they're mentally ill and they
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  need services in that direction. And then you've got a cohort of the population
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  that really just do not want anything. They want to be left alone,
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  want to be out on the streets. And granted that's probably the smallest of
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  the sub sections, but you know, policy needs to be targeted in this
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  direction. And I do see the governor kind of pointing in that direction.
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  He's also pointing to spring break. Oh yeah, he's combating the spring break
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  crowds. Some directives on sheriffs. Do whatever you need to do to keep
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  order to keep it from going off the rails. I mean, part of
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  me, you know, the I'm five years older than the governor, so
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  I get it a bit. But you know, I do have an appreciation
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  for the beastie boys and fighting for your right to party and all of that,
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  so I, you know, in all seriousness, a good it's a
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  good direction. We've had a lot of issues in areas like Fort Lauderdale in
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  Panama City years and years ago, in Daytona Beach, and you know,
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  it just seems to be getting more and more outrageous. And it's not that
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  I'm just getting older. So kind of kudos to him for trying to be
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  a little bit proactive in that respect. To the legislature. Both chambers passed
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  a budget. Is that on time by your account or is that a little
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  early compared to most sessions. Now, it's right about on time. We're
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  entering into week six now, and so they've got their preliminary budgets through each
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  of the chambers right now. They're about three hundred and fifty to four hundred
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  million dollars apart, which sounds like a lot of money, but when you're
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  talking one hundred and fifteen billion dollars, I do not believe it's going to
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  be something where they're extending the session because of differences between the two. As
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  we've noted in prior shows, that is an actual cut in the state budget
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  from the prior year. And what I will continue to point out the majority
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  of the cuts are coming in in federal pass through dollars. So in prior
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  years when the government, the federal government was passing the American Rescue Plan and
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  the build back better or all of these other things where they just kind of
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  print money cause inflation, they send money to the states and that inflates the
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  size of the state's budget in a way that it wouldn't ordinarily do. So
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  the both chambers and the governor, to his credit, are wisely seeing this
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  as we need to keep austerity in Florida's budget. They recognize that one time
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  infusions of cash should not be recurring, and so the debates that they're having
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  are still about increases in some of the areas like per pupil funding and some
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  other things. But the budget this year is going to be less than what
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  it has been what it was last year. Welcome to the MAAD Radio Network,
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  where we challenge you to make a difference in your world in a positive
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  way, improving the lives of others. It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott.
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  In the last seven we kind of determined that the budget being done on
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  in both chambers pretty much on time. Speaking of time, at this point,
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  if a bill's not through subcommittees, it's dead. Huh. Yeah.
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  Last week was the last week for almost all of the House subcommittee. So
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  if you have a bill and it's been referred to a subcommittee, but that
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  subcommittee is not passed. It on probably a roughly ninety nine point nine to
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  nine percent chance, it's dead for this session. So we're now moving into
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  major full committee hearings that will kind of be marathon sessions. Moving bills ahead.
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  Let's go through some of the bills, starting with House Bill forty nine.
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  Sure HB forty nine loosen's restrictions on sixteen and seventeen year old employees,
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  and we talked about it in previous sessions that we've had. Senate Companion passed
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  its first committee, the House passed it completely, so I haven't seen it
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  on its second agenda stop yet in the Senate, but it does appear to
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  have some momentum, and I do think something along the line there is going
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  to pass HB fifty nine. Yeah, from Michael Grant, the House companion
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  to the Senate's Live Healthy Bills made it through its second committee. This bill
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  has got a lot of momentum. It's going to pass. The main crux
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  of the bill is workforce expansion for healthcare practitioners. It's got some a lot
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  of funding for graduate medical residency slots. We've talked about licensing reforms to help
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  streamline people from out of state to get licensed in Florida. One innovative idea
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  I saw in it was something called an Interstate Licenser Compact, which would allow
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  a number of states to enter into this agreement where they would recognize licenses across
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  those states and kind of coordinate the requirements for those licenses. So they were
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  all very comparable. I love the idea. Yeah, it's a great one.
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  They've done it in some other areas. Healthcare has Aly's been a little
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  bit touchy because states can be a bit protective in that respect. But we
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  have a big shortage we've got to address. HB thirteen seventy one is one
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  I think we all should start paying attention to. It's from Rep. Ryan
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  Chamberlain. It would have direct one of the Legislative Analyst's Offices called APAGA,
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  to conduct a study to ascertain what it would look like to completely eliminate property
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  taxes in the state. So the majority of local revenues come from sales tax
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  and property taxes. Now there are other taxes and fees that could be either
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  increased or levy to make up for the revenue hit. One thought I heard,
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  which I thought was pretty intriguing was a combination of an increase in the
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  sales tax. Now that's regressive, so you know, it's consumption, so
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  you know, as a proportion of income, it hits the lower income,
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  the hardesty. But on top of that, a new tax that would be
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  one time paid at the outset of buying a home, almost like a one
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  time sales tax on your home. But should thirteen seventy one continue on.
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  I think this concept could pop up in the priorities of the incoming speaker,
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  because from South Florida, he's seeing it firsthand. It's a big issue down
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  there, the idea of being of course, letting someone actually own their own
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  home and the property or the property it sits on exactly. I mean,
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  you've talked about it. We've all talked about the fact that you may own
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  your home and your property, but if you don't pay your property taxes,
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  they can come and take your property. So it's just something that needs to
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  be addressed. Texas has done it. We can move forward here, and
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  that kind of brings us to go. We gotta take a break hold on.
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  Oh sure, yeah, the music is playing, my friends, so
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  hang on, we got more coming with Sal Newso one more segment left and
• 10:01
  abbreviated legislative update here on the Morning Show with Preston Scott WSLA on your phone
• 10:05
  with the iHeartRadio app and on hundreds of devices like Alexa, Google Home,
• 10:09
  Xbox, and Sonos. Hey. So here we go in Ihearts Radio station.
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  We are limited to three segments this morning. With our guest Sal News
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  of the James Madison Institute, he's vice president of Policy. We're talking about
• 10:24
  the legislative session SA. We were talking about the potential of property taxes going
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  by the wayside. There's another bill out there that speaks to condominium owners.
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  Tell us about it. Yeah, HB ten twenty nine expands the My State
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  Florida Home Program to condo owners. So, depending on the level of funding
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  that they put in the budget for this, and if the bill passes,
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  condo owners and I know you've got folks listening in Bay County and in Panama
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  City would be able to access that program, which provides a matching grant for
• 10:58
  storm hardening your facility. And it kind of segues nicely into my favorite bill
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  of twenty twenty four, Senate Bill thirteen twenty two. It passed. Its
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  second stop only has appropriations to get through before going to the Senate floor.
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  Now, again, this is the one that would require a two thirds vote
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  of any local government body before raising the millage rate. The amendment that was
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  passed in its Senate committee stop lined the bill up with the House bill,
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  so now they're identical, which means it's basically fast tracked. Now, one
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  thing of note, and I didn't realize this initially in the House built,
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  but the bill would end the process of municipal utilities funding local government operations.
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  So you can imagine, Yeah, in a city like Tallahassee, that's a
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  big deal. Mayor Daily called it a nuclear doomsday scenario. So really paying
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  attention to how that bill proceeds. Now, I would call that truth,
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  and I would call that truth in budgeting and truth in millage proposal. Yeah,
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  there's a concept called truth and taxation, and there's about three or four
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  different concepts within that and these are definitely within those. Okay, let's go
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  to Senate Bill seventeen eighty. Sure, if you remember last year, there
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  was a rather controversial bill related to defamation and what constitutes it. It kind
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  of got pilloried by the right and the left. Well, it's back in
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  a smaller form. Senator Jason Broder and Rep. Alexandrode are trying again,
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  and once again the language seems to be getting some negative remarks from both diddy
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  kind of the right and left. Now, the bill is a lot less
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  than last year, but it does create what they're calling a rebuttal presumption of
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  malice when using an anonymous source. Now, what that means is when an
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  article goes after so and only uses an anonymous source, it is presumed that
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  the article has malice toward the individual it's writing about. Now, that can
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  be rebutted, but it flips on its end the presumption that the source is
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  accurate and doesn't have malice. A large number of folks are pretty concerned about
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  the protections for sources. What can be done there. I'm paying attention again
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  because typically when a bill comes back in a second year and gets some movement,
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  there may be some momentum behind it. What's coming up this week?
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  We've got this week we've talked a little bit about the anti Semitism build of
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  defining anti Semitism bill Senate built one for eight is headed to the Rules Committee
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  before it hits the full Senate floor. The builds bipartisan. It passed its
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  first committee nine zero. But there are some concerns kind of being whispered from
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  groups on the left who want to be free to criticize Israel, along with
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  some that I've heard on the right who have some fears about scritual passages being
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  lumped in. Now I did some digging. I spoke to some folks in
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  the Capitol who are paying attention or you know, kind of working on this,
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  and they said the fear, at least on the right, it's unfounded
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  because the only time it would matter is if there's an actual crime being committed
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  where the definition of anti Semitism could be used to prosecute it as a hate
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  crime. And so I'm paying a little bit more attention to that. But
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  it's it's definitely something where I hadn't thought about those implications in you know,
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  when it first came out, but kind of seeing it now, you've got
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  Monday and Tuesday. The Chambers I think wisely decided that nobody wanted to fly
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  on the super early flights back up to tallahaffe after the Super Bowl, so
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  there is nothing going on until later this afternoon. But we do have a
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  lot of Appropriations Committee meetings to pass the agency bills along with getting those targeted
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  bills set for the full Appropriations Committee, which will begin those like eight hour
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  long meetings likely starting next week. In the week after. Basically on Wednesday,
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  you've got an all day floor session for the floor to send it,
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  along with some major committee hearings in the House, and the Appropriations and Ways
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  and Means Committee on the House is meeting for the majority of the day,
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  so when lawmakers are a little you know, a little grumbly and Valentine's Day,
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  that might be the reason why. Okay, if that's on their calendar
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  at all or radar. Sal well done, sir, you made it through.
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  We made it through. I'll be back in studio next week with you
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  looking forward to it Tuesday, it is. We've got a President's Day holiday
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  on Monday, so we'll be back Tuesday. South Thanks again, always a
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  pleasure. SALNWSOH with the James madd it's an institute, our guest. As
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  we look back on the week in the legislative session, a little look at
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  the week to come. We got you covered here in the Morning Show with Preston Scott