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Florida's Legislative Session - Week One Review, Week Two Preview · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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And we spared ourselves away into the third hour of the radio program known as
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Common Sense Amplified. It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott. I'm Preston.
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That's Grant and with me in studio is Soal news of the James Madison Institute.
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Illo. Good morning to you. How are you. I'm doing great,
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How are you, sir? Good? Quick reaction to the Iowa Caucuses,
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the Hawkeye Cawkeye, as Rush would call it, Yeah, I think
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it probably fell out the way most people predicted. Did you see that big
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of a win for Trump based on the polls? Yeah, it just kind
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of I think the governor was attempting to overperform. I think he probably performed
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at the rate that most expected. He barns storm the state. I'm not
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sure what it does for his long term momentum versus short term momentum. My
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guess is he stays in the race, he continues to compete. New Hampshire
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is coming up soon, and Trump plays really really well in New Hampshire in
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addition to Iowa. So we'll have to see in your opinion. Let's set
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aside the personality and how anyone thinks of governor desandus inside the legislature. What
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is more problematic for him running for president or being in essence a final term
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governor. Oh, I think running for president is probably the more challenging element
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of this. He is a strong executive in the governor's office. He has
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with respect to the governor's office staff now the campaign staff, the governor's office
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staff, they do amazing work at weaving a legislative agenda together that works with
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the presiding officers. We've seen that for five going on six years now.
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So I definitely think he's got you know, he's got the wind at his
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back in terms of the legislative process. I think what worked well in Florida
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just has not translated as well on a national stage with respect to things like
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the media, what people are paying attention to, and all sorts of other
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things. A week ago today we had just dreadful weather come through the area,
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but the legislature opened the session. What was notable about what was said?
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Sure, yeah, the Capitol was the only building open and it was
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only because they had to come and give speeches and have the kickoff to the
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session. So the Senate President Kathleen Pasadomo, her last year as well as
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Senator or House Speaker Paul Renter. President Pasadonmo was unequivocal in her push to
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a dress what we have to address in the healthcare shortages in terms of the
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workforce in the state Florida as a growth state. I think I spoke about
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this last week. We have to get more practitioners, practicing nurses, doctor,
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special assurgeons, all of the above and then some. But at the
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same time, she was unequivocal under no circumstances would Florida be expanding Medicaid now.
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This is a provision of Obamacare that allows the states to expand up the
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pool of people that can go into Medicaid, and in Florida it would mean
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about eight hundred thousand individuals, mostly single, working, age able bodied adults,
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so people who could be in the workforce and getting benefits through their employer.
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The House Speaker echoed this no Medicaid expansion. In addition, Speaker Renter
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made a big, big point about his online safety bills that have been filed
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HB one and HB three, of note, there were some others, but
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those are the two big ones. And here's something that's intriguing because we talked
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a little bit about HB one in particular last week. Knowing Speaker Renters since
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he was a freshman in the House, I think one thing is abundantly clear.
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He as an individual truly believes that social media platforms Facebook, Instagram,
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Twitter, et cetera, they are on the same level as tobacco, alcohol,
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gambling, and that the state does have a very very clear role to
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play and restricting the use among minors. So he has highlighted that it is
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something that he believes, and he's governing or legislating in the States by principle
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in that manner, and the House is delivering at this point. What about
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voting? Anything come up with regard to mail in voting? Oh yeah,
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they put the kabash on that really quick. What meaning they were not interested
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in the proposal put forward by Senator and Golia about heavily restricting mail in voting
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in the Senate. That's a mistake. I think not having the conversation as
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a mistake. The provisions of the bill could have been touchy, but I
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definitely think it's a conversation that we should in terms of election systems, that
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we should continue to have. This is sort of a culinary segment if you
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step back and think about it, because we're actually talking to you and showing
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you and teaching you how they make sausage. It's really what this is about.
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And there are two things you never want to see made law and sausage.
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Well, and you were just touching on something in the break, following
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up on the discussion on the mail in balloting where it's about sausage making and
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there's a way you make the sausage. Yeah, And to his credit,
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as I mentioned before the break, I think Blaze's intentions are in the right
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right spot. I mean, we should continue to have the conversation of what
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needs to happen year after year to continue to make Florida's election system the gold
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standard for the United States. And to his credit, he does not care
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about what you know, what the polls may say, or what the media
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may say, or what the progressive left might say. He's he's a great
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shield. He's like, throw the arrows my way. I don't know the
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process under which that bill went from an idea into the media or reporting on
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it, but I do think based on the reactions, I'm not sure that
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the Speaker and the Senate President knew as much of what was going on or
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whether it was coming or not. And so I think to your point,
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there's a process and a protocol for getting something from an idea to the governor's
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desk, and you know it is what it is. It is what it
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is exactly. We talked, and you did a wonderful job last week presenting
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the bills that are going to impact most Floridians, sure, and Floridians the
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most, But there are always some bills that are filed late that get your
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attention. Absolutely, there are bills that are filed late. I mean there
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are a total of just under last I checked or thirty eight eighteen hundred bills.
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Eighteen hundred bills, I think it was like eighteen thirty three or something
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like that, and so they could be filed up to the ninth and so
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NAI doesn't even speak to committee bills that could potentially go forward later in the
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process. One thing I will note, and it's not necessarily a bill,
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but it was something that came down last week. The state finally got federal
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approval for a program that would allow Florida to import a slate of drugs from
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Canada. Prescription drugs the bill at originally passed three years ago, but it
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required federal approval. It got held up in the protocols with the Biden administration.
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The governor threatened to sue. There may have been a lawsuit file to
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get it kind of fast tracked. It finally came through, and that's going
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to be of note as we talk about one of the bills that is kind
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of coming down the pike that we've got some concerns on and something that we'll
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talk about in a bit. But a few that are of note that got
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filed HB eleven to seventy five from Representative Dean Black, requiring ballots to indicate
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who appointed a judge up for a retention vote. This is something that we
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get calls at JMI every single election cycle. I've got to vote on these
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judges. I've got no clue. I've never appeared before one of them,
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who appointed them, or what party are they now? Judges are nonpartisan,
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but they're appointed by a certain person, so whether Republican or Democrat. Very
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very drigging related back to prescription drugs, House Bill fourteen thirty one from Randy
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Fine, probably one of the most red meat conservative legislators in the state.
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He held a two hour hearing on prescription drug prices in the hopes of getting
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support for this bill, and it would adopt what are referred to as reference
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prices for certain drugs, pegging them to what is being done in Europe,
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and what they do is price controls. So his claim is because Europe has
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price controls, drug manufacturers inflate the prices here to make up the difference.
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Now, it's just one of those things. The idea actually started with Bernie
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Sanders, and so the fact that we're trying to import something from Bernie Sanders
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in Europe is very problematic. Now. I know drugs are a very touchy
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kind of topic, but we're paying a lot of attention to see where this
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one goes in the process. Back with Sal Knows of the James Madison Institute,
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we're talking about the legislative session. How about some other late filings.
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Sure, the Florida Business rent tax is something I wanted to make note of
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as well. As a result of the Internet Sales Tax Collection Bill to pass
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a little while back, there was a glide path for the business rent tax,
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which is a sales tax you pay on a commercial lease Florida is the
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only state in the nation that defrais it it'll go from four point five percent
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to two percent, and it will do so earlier than expected, and that's
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because of the strong economy. They replenished the Unemployment Trust Fund, which was
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a trigger, and so that's glidepathing down in the hopes of getting it to
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zero. I was just going to say, is that the absolute stated intended
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plan, just to kind of we're weaning ourselves off of that income. Absolutely,
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that is that is the goal to get it to zero. I want
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to say, every percentage point is a three hundred million dollar hit to the
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budget. So it's not a it's not a cheap thing to reduce. It
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definitely takes a toll. So the glidepath was the right way to do it.
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Another one related to online sports betting and gambling HB six to seventy nine
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from Jason Chof our representative here. Apparently there's a battle and I don't pay
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as much attention to it because it's not my thing, but there's a battle
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at hand as to what types of activities should be subject to the state's gambling
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regulations. So at what point does a fantasy sport that you sign up for
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become a game of chance versus a game of skill, and the regulatory mechanism
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at play there. Senate Bill fifteen sixty eight from Senator Hudson. Now,
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Jason Schof's bill is definitional. It is a two page bill that just defines
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what a fantasy sport is. Senate Bill fifteen sixty eight from Travis Hudson.
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My initial read on this one is that it would subject fantasy sports to the
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Florida Gaming Commission, effectively treating them the same way that gambling entities are treated.
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And I'm kind of I want to dive in more on this and get
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some reads from other folks. It's not a JMI issue, but it's one
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that, like, millions of people in the state play fantasy sports and sometimes
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there are prizes at play, sometimes there or not. And I want to
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get a sense of what the bills are doing and where this issue is navigating
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so that we can kind of unpack it a little bit more. You know,
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if you talk to people that do gamble, they would tell you that
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there is an art to it, no matter what the game of chance is,
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even slots. You know, people that play twenty one will tell you
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there's remarkable skill to playing twenty one. Same thing with poker. People that
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do fantasy sports say, hey, there's a great skill in determining who's on
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my team. Yeah. Now, I have played poker for thirty years,
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and it is a game of skill. You hardly ever play just your hand.
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If you're only playing your hand, you're likely not winning. You play
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your opponents as much, and so there is a huge skill in it.
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And I understand and twenty one in blackjack enough to know that there are ways
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to make the odds better toward you based on what cards are out and what
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the It'd be fair to say that a lot of this really revolves around games
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of skill that involve an element of chance. Yeah, exactly, And so
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there's going to be some sausage making yep, as this moves forward in terms
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of how fantasy sports plug into because you also have the Seminole Tribe Compact,
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which we didn't even mention in this discussion, but that has to play a
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role in terms of how this all shakes out in the end. House Bill
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won. House Bill one last week got its first committee hearing, sailed through
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thirteen to one. Little creepy though the more I unpacked this, the more
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concerned I get, and it's sailed through thirty thirteen to one. One Democrat
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Ashley Gant voted against it. She was a Democrat and said she agreed with
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the intent, but she thought the bill infringed on appearance right to deterrmine what
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their child should have access to. It's a legitimate thought. Our concerns come
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in the fact that two other states have passed this, and one's already effectively
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been tossed because it was stayed pending First Amendment litigation. I come back to
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my comments from the first segment. The speaker legitimately and honestly believes that social
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media is akin to alcohol and tobacco and gambling, and he is kind of
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set to make a stand on that, and let's have the discussion maybe in
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the courts now. The Senate version of this has not been on an agenda
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yet. I checked last night. I haven't checked this morning for the Wednesday
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and Thursday calendars, but I've not seen it on an agenda yet. But
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even with the best of intentions, this just has smacked me as being the
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government being mom and dad instead of mom and dad being mom and Dad,
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Yeah, it's one. Jmi's got some concerns on but thirteen to one the
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constituency is kind of not with us on this one. So two seconds,
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whoops, sausage making on the radio. Right there, we do our own
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sausage making. Yes, we have two segments left. Salnuzzo doing some quick
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math. He's looking at the number of bills he's got to try to fit
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in here exactly. And so let's transition now, and let's get to some
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other bills that were discussed moving through committeeses whatever. Yeah. CENTINBIL seventy sixteen
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and seventy eighteen, they passed fiscal policy unanimously. Now, these are the
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Live Healthy Initiative from Senate President Pasadomo, and it's aimed primarily at the healthcare
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workforce. The underlying bill puts about eight hundred million dollars toward an array of
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programs, mostly aimed at increasing positions for graduate medical state students, incentivizing doctors
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and medical workers in Florida to serve in rural areas, to get more people
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from out of state into the state. And there's some other bills that the
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House Speaker is pushing on licensed recognition or reciprocity that will help their increasing reimbursement
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rates for Medicaid, especially in the mental health services and disability services. And
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these reimbursement rates are strictly on the professional side, correct, correct, And
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this is something where Medicaid traditionally pays or reimburses at a much lower rate than
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traditional insurance. The other measure Senate Bill seventy eighteen, this is intriguing when
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it sets up a Healthcare Innovation Council to administer a fund to provide low interest
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loans, so less than one percent for projects advancing technology in the healthcare industry.
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We've been working quite a bit over the last couple of years on things
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like how do you effectively administer telehealth and how do you expand it in a
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way that's both safe and effective, how do you adopt artificial intelligence into healthcare?
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What are the things that can and should be done to advanced technology?
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And yet, at the same time, have some guardrails because it's folks lives
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we're talking about. When you see a one percent low interest loan administered ostensibly
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by the state, right yet in that state money, taxpayer money going out,
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how do you feel about that? From the perspective of competing in the
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private with the private sector, well, at some level, I think there
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is an argument to be made where the market for a particular thing like this
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is so far into the future, and yet the challenge is right now.
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So a market for a loan to do a startup on AI in technology related
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to healthcare might be fire five or ten years off, or the conditions in
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terms for it may be so outside the realm of what a small business can
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do that you know, conventional private lender is not going to play for They're
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not talking about it yet, they're not touching them yet. So I think
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there's a role to be played to either incentivize the market or get the market
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kickstarted. Now. If five ten years from now the state is competing with
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existing providers, I think philosophically, you've got a much bigger point to make
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there. What the Senate vote on You've got. The full Senate voted on
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a slate of three bills related to education deregulation seven thousand, seven thousand and
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two, seven thousand and four, a host of provisions in each, but
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largely focusing on teacher recruitment, classroom innovation, and testing requirements. Senator Kalatiude,
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Senator Hudson, and Senator Simon carried the three bills respectively. They're pretty
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sweeping in terms terms of the level of mandates that that are, that they're
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trying to get schools innovated and kind of playing by the same rules that charters
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play. For now, what I would suggest is, when the House moves
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companion bills, maybe we can take a segment or two and unpack all of
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those provisions, uh and kind of go from there. Salowso Vice President of
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Policy James Madison Institute. Some bills that also came through, came up,
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got discussed, got voted on. What else, all right? We got
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HB six ZHO one Preemption and elimination of Citizen Police Review Board's role in investigation
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of activities. I included that one because Tallahassee has one UH one eighty seven
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on the House side defining anti Semitism for the purpose of hate speech. Okay,
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wait, wait, wait, wait, go back real quickly, the
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Citizens Review thing. What happened? Oh, it passed through committee. All
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of these have passed through committee. Okay, yep. HB one eighty seven
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defining anti Semitism HB one fifty one, putting into statute a three percent cola
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for Florida Retirement System employees. It would also allow a one time jump if
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you were in the four A one K program and want to go over to
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the pension program. For the record, JMI and Americans for Prosperity actually oppose
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this. We would prefer that the legislature vote on this each year. This
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would put it into statute automatically. HB four sixty one excusing new mothers birth
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to six months from jury duty. It's headed to the house floored. Yeah,
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there are already excusals for expectant moms and working moms. This would add
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to it. It passed unanimously out of committee HB three eighty five mandating every
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county establish a safe custody exchange spot. Senate Bill five eighty also pass Judiciary.
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Both of those are going to go to the floor. That spot would
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have to be monitored by the local, the county sheriff. I believe is
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this for contested type of thing? Yes, yeah, request it as a
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parent. Get there are issues in exchange or you've got, you know,
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kind of concerns about it. Eifrickly, exactly right. Forty nine from Linda
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Cheney occupational reform for sixteen and seventeen year olds at past committee. It's getting
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a lot of notoriety from the left in the media. There HB four A
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one from Toby overdoor tech stalking via air tags makes it a felony unanimous.
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This is an example of new technology. People are stalking one another people by
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putting an air tag on their car. Yeah, just kind of crazy.
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And so that's kind of a spot. Look at what passed through and now
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we can move into this coming week. What kind of week are we expecting
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And does the governor being in constant campaign mode play any role at all in
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what's going to happen. I'm not sure that it plays as much a role
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now. I think in future weeks we've got that as a quot question.
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One thing that I think is a big deal is we've got a special election
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for a very competitive House seat HD thirty five in the Orlando area. The
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incumbent member, Rep. Hawkins had to resign when he took the job of
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president of South Florida State College. So you've got basically the voting numbers or
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the registration numbers are a third to third to third Republican Democrat, no party
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affiliate. And when you say house seat, we're talking congressional house, no
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scenario, Statehouse. And so that individual when he or she is elected,
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there's a female running on the Republican side, a Democrats, a male running
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on the Democrat side, Speaker Renter will kind of swear them in immediately and
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they'll come right to Tallahassee. Today the Senate Committee taking up some election related
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bills AI in advertising, things like deep fakes for political ads you can make.
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I think we saw an ad with the governor like suspending is presidential campaign
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turned out to be a deep fake. So they're taking up that term limits
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for municipal officials. We've got them from school for school board members. They're
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taking up a bill on city and county commissions. We're gonna have to trademark
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our face. Well, I mean, this is where AI is going well.
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And so there's the discussions on things like sland or libel, trademarking,
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disclosure, all of that. So all of that is up for discussion and
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debate this session. If you're interested in what we talked about earlier with the
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respected gambling Fantasy Sports Senate Regulated Industries Committee hearing is hearing. A few bills
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related there tomorrow. HB one and HB three HB three is age verification for
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adult content are being heard before Judiciary. Those are the final stops before the
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House floor, and on Thursday, Senate Fiscal Policy will once again try to
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figure out the balance on regulating short term vacation. Reynolds, the AIRB and
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B bill is back. Say that five times really Senate Bill two to eighty
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from Senator Di Segli, And there you have it. Boy, we're gonna
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have a lot to talk about every week. Tons, I'm gonna have to
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you know, it's tough being a loud mouth, obnoxious Yankee with you.
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I'm so good at it by myself, not there's two of us. Thank
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you, sir, Always a pleasure of my friends. Sal Newso, Vice
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President of Policy James Madison institute your legislative update here on the Morning Show with Preston Scott