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What Happened In Florida's Special Session? · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  And here we are. It is the second hour of the Morning Show with
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  Preston Scott still raising funds for our Orphan Shade project in Malawi. We're raising
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  now the monthly support. We raised the money last year to build a home,
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  raised about thirty eight thousand dollars. The home is under construction, the
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  foundation is up excited. They hope to have the home built within the next
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  three weeks. Then it's time to support the home and we are looking to
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  raise one thousand dollars a month in monthly support. That's the key recurring giving
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  and we are better than a third of the way there, so if you
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  can chip in learn more at the website WFLA FM dot com. Slash Preston
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  joined by Salnuzo, vice President of Policy of the James Madison Institute, to
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  Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving week to you, my friend. I'm doing great,
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  thankful, blessed. Yeah. How about you? Much the same?
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  Yeah? Yeah, I feel the same. How should Floridians feel post special
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  session? Oh? I think they should feel good. It's largely a few
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  things that the governor wanted to put in the rear view mirror before we get
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  into the regular session. Some stuff that you know, related to hurricane ideal,
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  your relief, related to insurance costs as well. And this whole issue
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  of state level sanctions on a ran is, while some folks will argue is
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  kind of not really important or not really impactful, I would suggest that it
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  carries a pretty big message, especially for groups and organizations that are looking to
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  invest and have their investments in the State Board of Administration and the State pension
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  program and things like that. Explain to listeners what you mean by actions taken
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  relative to Iran. Sure, So one of the things that they passed was
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  the State Board of Administration, which runs Florida's retirement system, is going to
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  divest in any funds that deal with companies or organizations that are what do they
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  call them, Oh, gosh, it's a special circumstance related to Iran.
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  And so it's is it simply put any money that finds its way into Iran
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  or Ranian control, Yeah, we're not investing in. Yeah. And these
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  are funds and organizations that operate probably a level below what the official federal sanctions
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  are. So these are companies that have significant assets within the state pension program
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  are going to start paying attention all right, staying with the same subject.
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  And I don't know if this overlaps at all. A lot has been made
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  of the governor's statements related to the speech the conduct of Palestinian student groups on
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  campuses. I know the concerns, but I also know that there's a big
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  difference between a school sponsored club engaging in what I believe is pro terrorist rhetoric
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  and individual students doing it. Yeah, and you have this kind of debate
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  happening in real time because you have students sponsored organizations that are issuing what are
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  incredibly inflammatory remarks, statements, letters, engaging in protests, and so you
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  have an effort underway or questions on whether or not the state university system,
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  the board of governors can actually just decertify the clubs and force them to either
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  move off campus and do something completely on their own. You also have Senator
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  Marco Rubio has called for withholding or withdrawing the visas of a lot of the
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  students who are participating in the exciting Yeah. And so there's a whole lot
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  going on in this realm, and you have on the other side folks claiming
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  or trying to make the claim that these are either targeted racist or violations of
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  free speech or things along those lines. So it is a very tumultuous dynamic
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  right now in the state university system, particularly in Florida. But as we've
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  seen across the country, there's a lot going on in this realm overall special
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  session. Mission accomplished. Yeah, mission accomplished. And we could talk in
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  the next segment about a few of the other little things that had gotten done
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  along with some of the stuff that's going on in committee weeks and what the
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  legislature is undertaking and of January. James Madison Institute, and our guest is
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  the vice president of policy. He is Sal Nuzo, and we've long maintained
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  it's the best coverage of what happens in our legislative session that you'll find anywhere
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  because Sal just is invested in this. This is what he does professionally,
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  is understands the policies, the legislative actions that are coming our way and explains
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  it to us in a way that I hope we're better citizens as a result
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  of having information. What are some of the other things in the special session
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  you want to mention? Sure, So they in addition to expanding the state
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  level sanctions, You got some additional funding for Hurricane Idahalia relief. You got
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  rid of the they got rid of the cap on scholarships available to students with
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  special needs that were on the wait list for funding of vouchers in what's called
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  the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program. And I know some folks may be kind of
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  like wondering, well, didn't we already pass Universal Education savings accounts? Those
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  are ramping up, and so you still have special needs category students in this
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  pot of the Family Empowerment money. And so there was a wait list of
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  several thousand students, and so they kind of backfilled that and are getting there
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  those folks and those parents funded. And the one all point to, because
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  we talk a lot about property insurance and what can we do to reduce the
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  growth of property insurance premiums, homeowners insurance crisis, et cetera. The state
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  added one hundred and seventy five million to the My Safe Florida Home program.
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  And what that does is it provides a matching grant, so you put up
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  up to ten thousand dollars. The state matches at ten thousand dollars and it's
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  solely for making your home more storm resilience, so hurricane shutters, different roof
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  all of the things that you might do to make your home hardened or a
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  storm. We might not think of it as much in Tallahassee because we don't
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  get the level and intensity of those storms. But if you're out on the
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  coast and you've got an additional ten thousand dollars to put up to do some
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  stuff, those are the tangible things that when a property insurance company is raiding
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  your home that they look at and say, okay, well, the replacement
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  mitigation is the mitigation on replacement value is up, so you know the premium
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  can come down or not grow as fast. Indirectly. Doesn't this in fact
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  benefit the state of Florida because of the number of people that are on the
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  state's insurance plan. Oh? Absolutely, absolutely so. Yeah, excellent point.
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  Regardless if you are on Citizen's Property Insurance Corp. Or if you're with
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  State Farm or whoever is writing your policy, this is going to be a
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  value to you. When you look at the special session, then, is
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  that pretty much what the governor set out to accomplish? Did they expand all?
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  No, they did not. What they called for was what they got
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  done. They wanted to do a handful of things. You had a couple
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  of Dems tried to inject the Palestinian and Israeli conflict or in a resolution that
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  got beat down. I think they were the only two Demo, the only
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  two members of the legislature that voted for it. So other than that,
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  there was nothing else. Governor obviously would sign those bills. But he's gotten
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  a few kind of pushbacks in federal court. Yeah, so the court handed
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  him. Federal court handed him a temporary loss on the law banning drag shows
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  where children are present. So, and it wasn't that they rejected the law.
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  A federal court had stated had issued an injunction that the law couldn't go
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  into effect while it was being litigated. The Supreme Court declined to lift that
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  injunction, so the laws on hold until the litigation, which who knows how
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  long that can take. However, you do have another federal judge that ruled
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  that the law protecting women in sports, thank you, was in fact constitutional.
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  So you've got kind of a mixed bag. There was another couple of
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  lawsuits that were filed. You know, whenever you're going to push the envelope
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  and push the bounds of conservative conservative policy. Is that really doing that though?
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  In these cases no, but the left is going to come at you
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  with whatever they can. In this case, it's litigation because the overwhelming majority
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  of Americans are agreeing with Governor DeSantis and the common sense approach of protecting women's
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  sports. And so the other cases that you have are things not in that
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  realm but in some other areas. And so all of that to say,
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  we are in an incredibly litigious environment. No way, man, time flies
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  when you're having fun. I know, third segment already, and we go
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  to five next time, but like, we'll run out of time then too.
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  We used to, we used to only do three segments during the session.
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  Used to used to and then we just lamented the fact that there was
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  too much. We didn't get too much. All right, I do want
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  you to touch on the tourism numbers because any opportunity that I get to stick
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  it in the eye of the NAACP, I want to do that because I
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  just think they're bigoted, racist organization. So go ahead. Well, in
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  spite of the NC double eight, in spite of the N double A C,
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  there's really not a lot of difference, but go ahead touching that.
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  In spite of the NAACP issuing a travel advisory for the state of Florida because
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  apparently we you know, we don't like minorities or something, I don't know,
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  despite that, the state tourism no numbers came in and it was over
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  thirty five million visitors in the most recent quarter, which was a record again,
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  And so what we're likely to see is somewhere north of one hundred and
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  thirty million people coming to the state to visit from every state, about one
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  hundred and something foreign countries. So kudos to the NAACP for promoting Florida as
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  a destination. I guess. Nice to know their branding works. So well,
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  yeah, yeah, go figure people are listening, all right. Some
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  bills that are filed so far, sure, yeah, So as we get
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  closer to January, the bill filing deadline is January fifth, I believe.
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  So is there a danger in that we're in the holiday season that there are
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  some bad bills. I mean, there are always bad bills, but you
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  know what I mean, that we're going to get something that just flies totally
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  under the radar because people are just distracted. I think there could be some
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  stuff that flies under the radar. I don't know that I would venture I
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  guess that there would be bad bills that have a shot at getting a whole
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  lot of traction on there I'll get weeded out. Yeah. What Florida does
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  that most states try to do and the federal government can't seem to understand is
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  how to actually legislate and how to move bills through committees with amendments and gain
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  consensus and actually pass legislation. But so interesting things that have been filed in
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  the last few weeks. So a Republican from down in the South Florida area,
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  Fabian Besabi, he's from a very very purple almost blue district he won
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  by maybe one hundred votes, filed a bill to push the abortion ban to
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  twelve weeks. And he's trying to call it a compromise proposal that he's attempting
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  to generate some consensus around let's navigate disparate viewpoints on this and let's land at
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  something that we can all agree on and move forward. I don't think it's
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  going to get very much traction because I don't think the left's going to agree
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  to anything they want abortion through all forty weeks of a woman's pregnancy. Well
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  and right now national they have no reason to move because it's allegedly hurting Republicans.
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  And you also have an effort that could very well get on the ballot
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  which would enshrine abortion rights in Florida's constitution. You know, it survives the
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  state constitution test, which the Supreme Court is going to weigh it on.
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  I think where they could knock it down is unclear, is in the fact
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  that it might be too much, a bit unclear in the language. But
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  I'm not an attorney, and don't pretend to be one, all right.
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  Rep. Joel Rudman, who's a doctor, filed to build or repeal the
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  eighteen to twenty year old ban on purchasing firearms. They've tried to do this
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  the last couple of years. The Senate has been the kind of obstacle.
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  We'll see what happens there. One that I'm paying attention to because this tends
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  to generate a lot of angst on the left and it's not something JMI works
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  on. But Representative Bernie Jacks and Senator Aaron Grahl want to provide for a
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  state level website that would provide a one stop shop for crisis pregnancies, so
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  where you can get resources, where you can go to find neonatal care,
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  where you can go for counseling, all of those things. And if you
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  remember, Senator Grawl was one of the sponsors of the six week and I
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  believe fifteen week abortion bill. So this is one that's kind of peaud my
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  interest. One thing that I've got to read more into and talk with some
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  folks. I'd read about this one, and I'm not sure I like this
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  one. And it's odd. Senate Education Committee heard and voted through bills on
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  reducing the testing requirements, formally ending the ban on social promotion, and dropping
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  the mandate on recess time in public schools, and so I'm trying to figure
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  out where they're going at with this. So it's one that I'm not sure
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  where they're where their motivation is on this one. It'll be fun, It'll
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  be fun. So we got two more committee weeks ahead of us, first
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  and second week of December. Not much that we're seeing in the way of
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  the really big legislation, you know that HB one Senate bill to that kind
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  of stuff, but we do have coming up for your entertainment pleasure. Governor
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  Ron DeSantis debating Governor Gavin Newsom on November thirtieth. We'll see Vie's We'll see.
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  I'm gonna watch it, John. I love the juxtaposition of y'all all
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  right, fine, Yan, I tried, I tried. He shouldn't do
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  it. He shouldn't. He shouldn't play in the sewer. He's definitely punching
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  down. Yeah, no, no reason to do this. He's I got
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  to shut up too. Good. Thank you, good to see him,
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  Thank you, good to see you. Happy Thanksgiving you as well, my
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  friend, Sal news O. The James Madison Institute twenty eight past