Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / The Florida 2023 Session Was One For The Ages

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The Florida 2023 Session Was One For The Ages · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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It is the third hour of the morning show with Preston Scott. I am
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literally turning the page on the radio program Grant Allen over there in Studio one.
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Am here in Studio one B, and I am joined by Salt News
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of the James Madison Institute, Vice President of Policy. But more importantly,
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he is our our governmental guru. He is the sense of all things legislative.
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How are you? I'm doing great. How are you sir? You
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were delayed one week by jury jury duty, Yes, indeed, and you
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didn't even get to serve. You just had to go through the hoop jump.
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Yeah. I got picked into a pool, sat in the gallery for
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a couple of hours as they did what did you even get to answer any
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questions? Yeah? They raise hand questions. But then they had a group
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of folks in the box and so it was a jury of only six with
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two alternates. And so the kind of case wasn't I don't know if I'm
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at liberty, I guess I could say it was a sexual battery on a
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minor. Yeah it was. It was a rough one. Yeah. Well
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but you didn't you didn't get chosen. Didn't didn't get chosen. So you've
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had a week now to kind of digest everything. Um, well, we'll
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have time to go through some of these bills in depth in the coming months,
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as well as talk about things that maybe ought to be on the radar
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of the legislature come fall for committee weeks. But as you look at this
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session, what stands out the most to you from a legislative perspective. Gosh,
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I would stipulate, and we've got a piece in town Hall, the
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media publication that calls this the single most transformational legislative session in a hundred years
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in any state. So to answer the question, yeah, to answer the
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question, I think the totality of what this legislature accomplished in sixty days is
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unlike anything that we, our partners are coalition members across the country have ever
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seen in any state in the last century. Why. It's a great question,
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and I think there's two things to this. There's a why and a
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how. Okay, So the why is you had voters sending not a Republican
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majority, but a Republican supermajority to both chambers. So the traditional roadblocks on
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some of the more assertive or aggressive conservative policies, which would either get extremely
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watered down or just hit a roadblock in one chamber or another were lifted.
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So with twenty eight Republicans in the Florida State Senate, you have the ability
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to lose six or seven and still get a bill passed. Same holds crew
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in the House, you had eighty five down to eighty four Republicans, you
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could afford to lose some of those center moderate Republicans from South Florida districts or
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other parts of the state where they were representing a center to in some cases
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center left constituency. Those things put, you know, kind of put aside
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and allowed this legislature to just run the table on conservative policy such as such
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as HB one, universal school choice for every single one of Florida's three point
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something million students, sweeping tort reform, permitless carry of firearms. Now that's
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an incremental one, but permitless carry was not even thought of. Let me
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just ask you on tort reform. Yeah, a little more meat on the
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bone, a good bit of meat on the bone, or a lot of
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meat still left on the bone on that one. Oh, very little meat
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on the bone, very little. That bill was a unheard of in a
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year a year ago, prior. Okay, yeah, without question, the
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anti ESG package, full paycheck protection for public sector employees, the Teacher's Bill
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of Rights, rooting out diversity, equity, inclusion from the state university system,
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rooting in stock. Do you believe it's rooted out? It is getting
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rooted out because I think, like the Parental Bill of Rights in general,
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there needed to be and there still needs to be mechanisms to enforce it.
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And I feel the same thing about that, absolutely. But the legislature's role
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is to create the glide path. Okay, it is the job of regulators
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and the governors and over and all of that charter school funding, allowing the
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classic learning tests, were bright futures and state university admissions, banning Central Bank
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digital currency, social media education for kids, a backdown on aiding and employing
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illegal immigrants, broadband expansion. I hear the music, and my list is,
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oh, I know, And that's why we're going to continue to go
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through this list. Let me just ask you. Yep. You might have
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heard my discussion Simon Hankinson from the Heritage Foundation about the role employers play.
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Correct, Are we talking about some serious crackdown on employers hiring illegals. Yes,
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e verify at the twenty five employee or more level is a big crackdown.
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Yes, we could go to one employer more. But politics and policy
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are the art of the possible, So this is this is a good move.
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In the morning show at Preston Scott By News Radio one hundred point seven
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WFLA, he's vice president of policy with the James Madison Institute, and our
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guests sound news with us, we're talking about the legislative wins and how remarkable
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transformational the twenty twenty three session was Your list continues, Yeah, the list
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continues. I mean we left off at the break at I think it was
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broadband expansion, and it's important to note that the legislature's path on this was
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to do so without increasing or incentivizing government regulations or government ownership of broadband network.
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So that's a big win. An additional telemedicine expansion protecting physicians who have
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religious objections to some medical procedures. A massive affordable housing package that includes a
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preemption on rent control at the local level. How does that work at the
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local level. So a local developer who might want to build a new development
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in an area of a county can if they allocate a certain percentage depending on
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the size of the development to houses, and the building of houses that fall
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a certain level of affordability below the median level can get some tax incentives on
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that. So the tax incentives only happen if they build houses that are less
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expensive than or workforce housing needs in those communities. Okay, preempting living wage
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ordinances. This is a big deal because you have these counties that are saying,
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if you want to operate a business and contract with our municipality, you
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have to pay your workers twenty five thirty dollars an hour. That's gone away.
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Abortion ban at six weeks one of the more contentious ones. Banning gender
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quote unquote care for minors, gender transitions, and things like that. Public
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restroom facilities according to sex at birth. Now, does that mean that,
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for example, Leon County is one that has allowed people to use whatever bathroom
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they want, They're going to have to change public facilities. They will have
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to change or have single use facilities. An expansion of the parents' rights in
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education film prevention of compelled speech on university campuses. You cannot be required to
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sign an oath of some sort to get a job on campus to teach to
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be a speaker on that campus. That is a big deal as well.
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No TikTok on government devices. The Data Privacy Bill had passed on the last
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day, and while it's certainly not a perfect bill from the standpoint of small
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businesses, it has a lot of good in their school board term limits to
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eight years, additional financial disclosure requirements for local elected officials. They're going to
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be at the state level of requirements for financial disclosure, further election security transparency,
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and reforms to pharmacy benefit managers. The list is just insane. Banning
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ownership of land near secure facilities by Chinese nationals just enough. That's one that
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I think there's still meet up. There's still there's still a lot of meat
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on the bone. A great first step. There no driving golf carts without
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a license anymore. You know one I followed, not that my kids drive
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golf carts. I don't even own one. Changes to the criminal justice system
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child rape and non unanimous capital verdicts, so the death penalty can be opposed
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on child rapists, which is going to go to the Supreme Court because it
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counters a existing Supreme Court presidency reform to permanent alimony, a permanent ban on
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mask and vaccine mandates including private businesses, elimination of enterprise full orda, and
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expansion of Kidcare, which is a safety net insurance program for children in the
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state. I mean that list is undisputed. There is nothing like it in
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this country at a state legislative chamber session, and we would argue one hundred
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years twenty one minutes after the our sald news oh JMI with us the list
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of wins for conservatism, for doing things the right way, so volumeous.
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It took a segment and a half, and we still didn't get it all
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in. No, I had skipped over one kind of allowing small businesses,
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protecting them by allowing them to challenge local ordinances at the county or city level
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that impact their business by a certain percentage. What brought this up? I'm
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always fascinated by the things that stimulate some of these bills. Sure, this
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one was one that last session. It was a priority of then Senate President
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now Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, and it didn't make it across the finish line.
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I didn't hear anything about it until about two thirds of the way through
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session and it had been filed, it had gotten a little bit attraction,
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but not very much, and then all of a sudden it picked up steam
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and went full bore. What are the issues that are going to head to
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the ballot that voters are going to settle in twenty four? Sure, you've
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got a couple of good ones. Is it twenty four that they'll vote on
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it? Okay? Yeah, it's in the presidential cycle, so part of
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the school board races. So making it such that the school board races,
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which are already very party driven in the sense like you know who, if
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you're paying attention, who is the conservative candidate? Who is the more progressive
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or liberal candidate? That is one where we're now going to attach a party
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to that to allow the folks who aren't paying as much attention the ability to
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know kind of where a person stands. So that's got to get a sixty
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percent threshold. But yeah, does that offer strategic advantages to either side based
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on the makeup of the community versus a quote nonpartisan race. Yeah, I
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think in your heavily partisan counties, liberal or a Republican or Democrat, I
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think it's going to kind of reinforce some of the wins there that that team
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gets. So that is something where, you know, harder for a Democrat
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to win in some areas, harder for a Republican win or none other.
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Yeah, exactly, And I think it'll probably come out in a wall,
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but voters will know a little bit more than they might otherwise. Another one
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is upping the threshold on constitutional amendments from sixty percent to sixty six percent two
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thirds majority. Anything, in my opinion, anything we can do that would
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make it harder to amend the Constitution. I'm in favor for now. Whether
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this actually gets to sixty percent, I don't know. It's going to have
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an uphill climb in my opinions, simply because I think the Left is going
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to pour a lot of money into it. What about the hunting and fishing
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rights. Yeah, this is one, you know, it's kind of like
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a It's definitely a feel good one because I don't know that there's any kind
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of implication other than it being in the Constitution. I'd be interested to know
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as a function of this, should it pass, and I would probably expect
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it to pass whether or not. Regulators then make changes to the laws governing
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getting a hunting or fishing license, maybe the costs or things along those lines
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that might enable people to do so more inexpensively. Okay, budget wise,
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where are we the budget? I mean, we've gotten through two and a
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half segments and they only have that requirement. But they did pass a one
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hundred and seventeen billion dollar budget. Now that is a roughly seven point something
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billion dollars increase over less than half of what California is, less than half
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of what New York is. Ye, and New York has fewer residents.
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So the you know, the numbers in the efficiency put Florida at either forty
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ninth or fiftieth in the amount of budgeting per capita that happens in the state.
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So a very good, very fiscally conservative budget. A few of the
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numbers. Forty seven billion for health and Human services, A portion of that
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is flow through from the federal government from DC for medicaid in their portion.
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Twenty six point eight billion for K twelve, which is a more than two
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billion dollars increase, which this one includes what the governor is starting to call
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a categorical it's a line item for teacher pay increases separate and apart from the
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main education bill, and that's an important thing because of what was transpiring with
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the teachers unions in prior sessions. Twenty one billion for transportation, a little
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more than eleven billion for agriculture, six point seven billion for criminal justice,
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and five billion for the Department of Environmental Protection. It includes a five percent
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bump for state worker pay, another ninety six million for agency targeted raises,
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a billion three in tax cuts, and eleven billion set aside in reserves,
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which is just phenomenal considering the fact that we do not have an income tax.
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The large kind of portion of our revenue comes from sales and use taxes,
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a lot of tourism, and we've got an economy that produces eleven billion
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dollars to be able to set aside in reserve. Just another reason to support
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a consumption tax over a general income tax. Oh yeah, absolutely, And
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I thought you were going to go with the property tax bit on that that
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will upcome another day. Yeah, yeah, And I'm philosophically, I'm with
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you. The way it works out and how to practically enact that is just
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a bit of a challenge, But I think there is something that can be
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said for fiscal conservatism at the state level produces exponentially more value than what progressive
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leftism does at the state level. If you look at states like New York
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and Illinois, we get far more for our money governing and far more for
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our economy and our economic output than anything that you could you could put up
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from the left. This is the Morning Show with Preston Scott's. Yeah,
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I'm Preston Scott. That's Grant Allen, and this is sal News with the
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James Madison Institute my guest. And so who lost? What didn't make the
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cut? Oh? What lost? And who lost? Our different questions?
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Okay, fair enough, what didn't make the cut? What didn't make the
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cut? What lost? A very little? There was not a whole lot.
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And when I looked at the percentages of the bills that went through,
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it was like eighteen hundred and eighteen hundred and seventy three bills were filed and
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three hundred and fifty six made it across the finish line. Now, ordinarily
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a traditional session will have around three thousand bills, so the batting average was
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much higher this session than others. So not a whole lot didn't make it.
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That was substantive is that because going into it, there's kind of an
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understanding. Okay, the GOP's got the supermajority, and they kind of know
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going in what's gonna get entertained and what's not. Yeah. That, plus,
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I think they recognize that there was a lot of oxygen that had to
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be spent on big bills, and so a number of these other smaller bills
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just either got rolled into a bigger package or just didn't get filed. And
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I think it's important to note that big bills can be defined a couple of
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ways. It can be attention getters that might be good for political campaign but
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also bills that are very consequential. And I would argue that we have very
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consequential bills that have been passed that, oh, by the way, will
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provide some fodder. Yeah. Absolutely. And to give you an example of
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data Privacy bill, it didn't get a whole lot of press. It wasn't
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contentious in the normal stretch, It was not a social issue that you'd see
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kind of a lot of ink being poured out on because it's abortion or trans
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issues and things like that. But yet it is incredibly consequential. It involves
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a whole lot of work to get the policy as right as it could be,
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to get passage and things along those lines. But so what didn't make
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it the defamation reform that we had kind of talked about a number of had
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my remarks ready, you had your two minutes of testimony ready to go,
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and the temporarily postponed. They heard I was coming down there and they said
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we will table the bill versus letting him to dick. They pulled it immediately
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upon you entering the committee room. That's almost literal. It really did happen
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that way. That's you sat down and the chair said we are temporarily postponing
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the following bills, and yours was one of them. Thank you very much.
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Yeah, so that didn't make it. I have a feeling that they're
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going to try to retool this, and I don't know if they'll be able
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to retool it in a way that makes conservatives happy in the media especially,
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But I think this is going to come back driving too slow in the left
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lane. I was really upset that this one did not make the cut.
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But were you Yeah, Yeah, I gotta let foot my friend. Yeah,
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but we don't need a law. Let just do the right. Yeah,
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just get over, get and moved. Get get over. The bill
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on vacation reynals, it got way down in negotiation between a couple of committees.
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This is one to your point about it's not going to get a lot
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of press, but it is very consequential because what you're trying to do,
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or what they're trying to do, is balanced property rights. The property rights
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of an individual who has a home and who might want to rent it out,
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versus the property right of a neighbor who doesn't want you know, who
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moved into a neighborhood and may not you know, want their nighttime you know
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activities, you know, kind of all of the loudness and all the cars
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and everything along those lines, and who didn't sign up for a tourism spot
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in their neighborhood. So the CFO bill on IRS regulation that got held up,
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I think if more in the Congress is done with the eighty million dollars
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and all the IRS agents, you'll see that when you come back. The
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sorry chip Lamarca removing the restrictions on wine containers. He fought the good fight.
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The senator, as he called it, the senators a bunch of communists
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and so you know that was that was his comment. I don't know.
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It might have been off the record, it was, it was, and
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jest they try to put it onto an agency bill, but he's been he's
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been trying for a number of years. I'm with him in that battle.
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I'd like to buy a five gallon jugo wine myself. Do they not know
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that that the eighteen to twenty one law for gun purchases is they're going to
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lose that eventually? Eventually I think they are. But I mean just the
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Supreme Court is going to just hammer that. Yeah, at this Supreme Court
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especially, I think once that case or once it's litigated up at that level.
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Sal Neuzzo with us one more segment before we go to monthly meetings.
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Ye here in the Morning Show with Preston Scott tomorrow, I'm gonna ask my
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listeners, okay, not will he or won't he? But should he or
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should he not? Run for president? Governor Rond de Santas. And I
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only say that not because he's not a quality candidate. I say that because,
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in my opinion, Donald Trump is starting to suck the air out of
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the room. I think, if so, are you asking me the same
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question. I'm going to ask that question tomorrow, so I figure, why
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not ask you that today? And I'll tell you this. I think if
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you were to have asked me that question three weeks ago, I would concur
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Donald Trump is sucking the oxygen out of the room, and DeSantis he took
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an unforced error, you know, a little bit here or there. But
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I see a lot of parallels between twenty eighteen and now, and I think
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that Donald Trump's ability to suck the oxygen out of the room, particularly this
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past weekend, was kind of reduced. If you saw what happened in Iowa.
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They had a very sparse audience for the Trump rally and he canceled it
21:45
blaming the tornado watch. And then you have the governor in the blue button
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down with the Khaki's flipping pork chops at the Iowa Festival. And I don't
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know if this is a turning point, bearing in mind he has not even
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officially announced his running I think for a candidate who is not actually a candidate
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yet officially, for him to be within that kind of a distance from the
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former president, with the level of kind of cult of personality he has,
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I think I'm on the he should at this point, okay, and it's
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pretty much a foregone conclusion that he will. I don't think there's any anybody
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that thinks he won't at that he's not testing the water at this point anymore.
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No, And in fact, there was a report that he was going
22:34
to in May announce an exploratory committee, and then that report kind of got
22:40
retracted or pulled back because they either change their mind or decided in lieu of
22:45
that that he was going to announce fully. At some point we talked ever
22:48
so briefly about the fact that you can govern remotely in this day and age
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the way that you know, much the same way that a traveling president governs
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remotely. Absolutely, that said, I would, are you on behalf of
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the governor that governing Florida actively while campaigning is his best campaign Oh? Probably,
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Yeah. Absolutely. I think when you look at what his strengths are
23:11
going to be in terms of how he would project his viability for president of
23:17
the United States, it's going to be his governing of the state of Florida.
23:21
The policy wins, the stories from the Hurricane Ian recovery, all of
23:26
those things are going to be his his selling point. What else should we
23:33
know about the governor's travels. He's beginning to get kind of his I think
23:40
he would. He's beginning to get his sea legs on a lot of these
23:42
trips, where in prior ones you'd see him behind a podium with the suit
23:48
and tie and the boots. Now he's in the genes, he's in Khaki's,
23:52
he's doing a lot more rope lines, he's he's smiling a lot more,
23:57
which I mean is something you've got to learn as a as a political
24:00
candidate. It's a it's a different game in Iowa and in New Hampshire.
24:04
Um, they're not your constituent shoe, No they are not. They're interviewing
24:08
you. And if you know anything about the Iowa caucuses, it is it
24:12
is like a WWE Battle Royale when it happens. So, um, yeah,
24:18
those are those are some you know, those are the things he's going
24:22
to learn. And look, we're still a year out, so we're in
24:26
good shape. And he can now resign or not resign and run. Oh
24:30
yeah he can. He can run the table as the governor of Florida,
24:34
go through the entire campaign and up until the election, up until the election.
24:41
Yeah, and if things don't turn out, he still has a year
24:45
and a half or two years of of being governor of Florida. Would your
24:48
analysis be at this point that whoever the Republican nominee is, as long as
24:53
it's not Donald Trump, can win or only specific one or two including Trump.
25:00
Do you think Trump can beat Biden? I think Trump can beat Biden.
25:04
I don't think he will beat Biden. Him beating Biden would require changes
25:11
to him that I don't think he's capable of. I think Ronda Santis precapable
25:15
or willing. Willing, Yeah, willing and capable. I think de Santis
25:19
has the best chance of beating Biden, especially in the three or four swing
25:25
states that are going to ultimately decide the election. We'll have lots to talk
25:29
about, it to tons to talk about. As always, thanks for all
25:32
your work. It's always a pleasure. My friend sal news Oh with us
25:34
throughout the legislative session. Now with the recap our guests on the Morning Show
25:38
with Preston Scott