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Will The Governor Sign The Social Media Ban For Minors? · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

0:04
And it is the third hour of the morning show with Crustin Scott Show number
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fifty one oh two. We're now into the fifty one hundreds. Doty,
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I just felt better getting to fifty one hundred. That is Grand Allen over
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there in Studio one A. I'm Aaron Studio one B, and I am
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joined by Salnuzoh for another week with the James Madison Institute. Yes indeed,
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and we were unable to visit last week due to mostly a little interruption in
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my schedule, so we had a lot to catch up on. We do.
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The biggest of the decisions though, now sits on the desk of Florida
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Governor Ron de Santis. Break it down. Yes, indeed, so HB
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one, the social media band for kids under the age of sixteen, which
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also requires age verification for every account holder in order to prove that they're over
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sixteen or over, was passed by the legislature and it was sent immediately to
1:00
the governor, which is a little bit different than traditionally. Sometimes they'll send
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bills immediately if they know the governor wants to sign it immediately, but other
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times they'll wait, they'll hold back, they'll send bills in batches, but
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they sent it to his desk immediately. Wasn't there an expectation that the Senate
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was going to really kind of work this bill over from the House version and
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make some changes. Yes, indeed, and I had been hearing rumors through
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all of the committee hearings on the Senate side that the Senate was going to
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not necessarily water it down, but change the parameters to address some of the
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constitutional questions that were brought up throughout the process. They did not. They
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did file some amendments, but it did not change the major substance of the
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bill. So the bill is a ban on anyone under the age of sixteen
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from having an account with a platform that possesses certain types of what they call
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addictive features, so up to sixteen. So if they're sixteen and older,
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no issue, but they've got to verify their age somehow. Well every account,
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Yeah, every account holder has to verify their agent term. And there's
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part of the rub. And there's part of the rub the Supreme Court has
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ruled in the past that this would be an undue kind of have an undue
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impact on the protection of speech. The governor. Even when Nicki Haley was
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what he was running for president. NICKI Haley had proposed having all social media
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account holders have to kind of verify their identity. He came out very aggressively
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against it, which is leading into this big decision that he has. He
2:38
has seven days to either sign it or veto it. If he does nothing,
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it turns into law. It is the effect of signing it. And
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as of late last week he was saying that there is work to be done
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on this bill. He didn't appear to be satisfied with it, which lends
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him to say it lends us to guess he's going to veto it. Now,
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how we get to the other side of it. Do they have enough
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votes to override as veto? And that's the very interesting thing, because you
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also have this, you have two sides of this. You have the votes
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in the political will, because vetoing a governor or overriding a veto of a
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governor from your own party is not a small deal. I would suggest,
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just based on the votes and the will on the House side, I think
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they have the votes and they probably have the political will to override the veto.
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It takes a two thirds majority of both chambers to override the vote was
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far and away in favor of HB one on the House side. On the
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Senate side, it's a little bit tighter. The vote was twenty three yas,
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which is barely a majority. So you'd have to have some folks flip
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on the Senate side and vote to override a bill that they voted no on
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in order to override the veto. I don't want you to put a turbine
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on or look into a crystal ball, but you know the House and you
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know the Senate, how many of the members might change their vote in favor
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of and compose it simply because the governor's not supporting it, you mean,
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change their vote on it. They passed it, they passed no, They
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wouldn't override, they would they would side with the governor. Since the governor
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doesn't want to sign it, then we're not going to sign a lot to
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it. I think that's a very real concern because you do have members of
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the House that probably voted for HB one that would not want to go against
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the governor in the final you know, uh, in the final term of
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of his goubernatorial you know time, and and so that's also a very real
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concern. Well, the fact of the matter is some of them, a
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lot of them are up for re election this year. Yeah, Governor Desandas
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is not, and that also plays into popular support. Is behind HB one
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as it stands? Interesting, Yeah, if you look at the way that
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HB one polls, it pulls very, very favorably with the voting public.
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But the devil's in the details, and the details are murky. It is
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entirely a no man's land that I've experienced in my twenty plus years in policy
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with respect to how the legislature and the governor interact in a bill that's a
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speaker priority in something the governor has come out questioning. But so far,
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things like this have not fared well in court in other states. So we'll
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keep an eye on it. More to come with Sal news O. Back
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with salnewsoh Final week with the James Madison Institute, Final week. Yeah,
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buddy, we're gonna we'll talk about that a little bit later. Yes,
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SAR. The agency that manages Florida's medicaid program, Yep, there was an
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announcement or there is an announce what's going on. Well, So the medikey
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program in Florida's run a bit differently than most other states. We have a
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waiver. We use a managed care provider network. They have been rebidding that
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every so often, in I think it's every seven to ten years. They
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have pushed back the announcement on the companies and the organizations that are going to
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be involved in that to late March. It had gotten pushed back once before.
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I'm not sure why, but the reason it's important is you've got about
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six million people in the state that are within the Medicaid program. They want
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to make sure they have continuity of care, and so that's something I just
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thought would be interesting to note as well as so this is one that I
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paid attention to four JMI last year when the legislature passed and the governor signed
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a law that required all local officials, so county and city government officials to
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fill out the same financial disclosure requirements that a state legislator or a cabinet agency
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has, US Senate and the whole bit. Well. As a result of
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that law, you had a score of individuals who serve in small cities,
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small counties decide, you know what, it's not worth it for me,
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I'm going to resign my post rather than have to disclose a whole lot of
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where my finances are going. Now, you have about seventy five local officials
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from around the state that have banded together that are going to sue the state
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on this financial disclosure requirement. I'm not sure if the case has got any
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merit. I think it's probably something that is within the legislature's purview. So,
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but if you are in a mid size city, you may want to
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pay attention to whether or not your city or county commissioners are so local lawmakers
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don't want to lawmakers, the local elected officials don't want to disclose their finances
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the way that we ask state officials. That is correct in your opinion,
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Do they have merit to their argument? No? I don't think so either
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me neither. All right, let's move on to you know, I spoke
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at the Convention of States rally last week, and one of the things I
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talked about is Florida is the shining example. I had a lot of the
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things that they're wanting to see accomplished. Term limits, balance budgets work.
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Ye and oh, by the way, in a state that doesn't have a
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personal income tax either, and so there's there's a secret sauce here in Florida,
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and the tax issue in Florida and how that the legislature massages taxes in
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general is a really important part of the mix. Yeah, it's amazing to
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think that in a state growing as much as Florida does, about one thousand
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a day, that every single year we have a tax cut package. We
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do not raise taxes in the state, and yet we provide better services than
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most of those blue states basically with high tax and spend governing phenomena. Now
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rank and file workers would say, yeah, but it's at our expense.
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I mean, Florida does have the leanest state government operation imaginable. It's usually
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ranked fiftieth in the number of state workers per capita or per one hundred thousand
8:54
residents. But with that said, I mean, you know there is a
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market for in the state, so you know, state workers should be compensated
9:03
very well. They have an amazing benefits package that hasn't changed very much except
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gotten better over the last several years. So I would argue that they're they're
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well compensated. In closing, before we leave this segment, where are we
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with regard to any kind of tax packages in the session we're looking at about
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eight hundred and fifty million to nine hundred and fifty million in a tax cut
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package at present. They're taking a slightly different approach than prior years. They
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used to expand out these sales tax holidays for consumers for back to school and
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a number of other categories. They're taking a more aggressive approach on the business
9:43
rent tax this session, where it's slated to drop to two percent because of
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some stuff that had been passed in prior years, they want to drop it
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down, I believe, to one point twenty five percent. Remember, Florida
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is the only state in the United States that actually levies a sales tax on
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a commercial lease, so if you do not own the building that your business
10:03
operates and you have to pay that every month. Now, the Left is
10:07
trying to claim that this is a shift from taxing tax relief for workers to
10:13
tax relief to businesses. They fail to recognize that businesses don't pay taxes.
10:16
They pass that along to consumers. Never admit that. Ultimately, the business
10:22
climate, which is what we talked about at the outset of this segment,
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is what makes Florida such a great state compared to others. The U FLA
10:31
on your phone with the iHeart Radio app and on hundreds of devices like Alexa,
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Google Home, Xbox, and Sonos and Ihearts Radio station. Three bar
10:43
segments talking about the legislative session that is and is to come. So where
10:52
are we? Full legislature passed the Senate president Healthcare Priority. It was Centate
10:56
Bill seven sixteen. It was taken up by the House. It includes close
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to eight hundred million in funding to expand medical residency programs in the state to
11:07
recruit more practitioners, especially in areas where they're it's kind of rural, or
11:11
their healthcare deserts what they call, and a host of other elements. One
11:16
thing I'm dissecting on this is the changes to licensing for out of state and
11:22
foreign trained professionals in a number of areas where you've got someone who may have
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gone to an exceptional medical program in another country, has been practicing for twenty
11:33
years, comes to the United States, becomes a citizen, wants to be
11:37
a doctor, wants to fill a role, and is unable to because of
11:39
the licensing rules that are present. So right now the bill has gone to
11:46
the Governor's desk. It's over two hundred and thirty pages, So it's a
11:48
big one to take in House and Senate both moving on the effort to establish
11:54
eight year term limits for county commissioners HB fifty seven. It's ready for the
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House floor or one more stop for the Senate companion. But I did hear
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a report recently that instead of a mandate on the term limits, they're gonna
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put for any county that doesn't have a term limit, they're gonna mandate that
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they put it to the voters on a referendum. I don't know if that
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amendment will will pass and be a part of the bill, but I am
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paying attention to if the bill gets changed before it goes to the Senate floor.
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Okay, caps on HEMP and THCHC. It passed the full Senate pretty
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much unanimously. It's ready for the House floor. It's Senate Bill sixteen ninety
12:33
eight from Colleen Burton. It's kind of viewed as a preemptive move ahead of
12:39
the ballot initiative this cycle on recreational marijuana, but should be a disaster.
12:45
Yeah. It would also restrict many of the versions of fake THCHC that are
12:50
currently available without a medical marijuana license. It's something that I know a lot
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of people pay attention to. I expect the ballot. It's pulling over seventy
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percent last I checked, so on licenses HB three seventeen, it would prohibit
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driving in the left lane on a road with a speed limit of sixty five
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miles per hour or more. Two lane road, two lane road. It's
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headed to the governor, but he expressed he didn't I don't know that he's
13:20
going to sign this bill. He said something recently where he didn't understand how
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that would work if it was really enforceable, and he's not about signing unenforceable
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laws. I had no indication that it was not going to get signed,
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but that was just uttered. I think it was over the weekend. I'm
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just curious, how does that square with our texting and driving law that has
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been, for all intents and purposes, unenforceable. It's unenforceable. Plus I
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think they're moving, and I got to check the punts for the hands free
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and we may I got to check and see where that bill is at.
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I haven't heard much of it in the last couple of weeks. Property insurance,
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Yeah, HB fifteen three an effort to both build the market back on
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property insurance and then make sure insurers are acting in good faith. It's moving
14:05
in both chambers. You have these specialty insurance lines are called surplus lines,
14:11
and this bill would allow them to take down some policies from Citizens Property Insurance
14:16
Court, which way they were banned from prior to this. It would also
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expand the timeframe for insurers to cover homes that have been damaged in a hurricane.
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I think it's up to three years maybe or two years. And there's
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some additional disclosure requirements on the bill for insurers that they got to report to
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the Office of Insurance Regulation. What's the benefit to giving more time. Is
14:39
it to allow the insurance company more capital, more fluidity with their cash flow
14:45
or what. I think it's more aimed at the consumer so that the insurance
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company doesn't drop them at the first possible moment after a hurricane is damaged a
14:56
home, so they pay the claim and then drop them. I think it's
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meant to allow for a greater time window for premium payers to have consistency of
15:05
coverage as they move forward. Bottom line is we live in a peninsula.
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Yeah. I've said this often there are three parts to the insurance actuarial market.
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You've got geography, you've got weather, and you've got litigation. We
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can only control one of those, and that's litigation. Geography and weather are
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going to be what they are. We are a peninsula thirteen hundred miles a
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coast jutting out into a hurricane alley. It is what it is. We
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have to build a market that is actuarial sound for insurance providers in the private
15:37
market to actually ensure homes. Thirty five minutes past and with me sal newso
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for two more segments, and so we pick up with Senate Bill one zero
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zero six. Where are we with that? Yeah, this one's a one
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we started to pay attention to. It would severely restrict vaping products in the
15:58
state. Now apparently Florida Nation. There are a lot of businesses, yes
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exactly, and Florida leads in vaping products not the thing you use, but
16:08
the thing that goes into it that are actually produced in China and not approved
16:14
by the FDA. So the bill would restrict vaping in the state to only
16:18
products that the FDA has approved. Now it's moving relatively unanimously through the Senate,
16:26
but the objections I'm hearing from businesses are because the FDA has really only
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approved about three dozen or so products and they're exclusively made by the big tobacco
16:38
companies. Of course, you know, it's also moving on the House side.
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The Senate's got one more stop im pro because they're from China. Like
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if Bangladesh or if Thailand or Vietnam made these products, would they still have
16:53
the objections? I don't know. It's a good question, and one where
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I would also ask, is it's something either on that end or is it
17:00
something where there? And I don't think this legislature has any love for the
17:06
Food and Drug Administration, But is it something where they just want some level
17:11
of approval from a regulatory body of some sort before consumers are vaping it House
17:18
Built twelve seventy seven. It would prohibit price differences on municipal utilities, so
17:23
a resident of the city or county versus a non resident. It's ready for
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both full chambers. But it also limits the portion of utility revenues that could
17:36
be used to supplement general government budgets, which is something that we know happens.
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Why doesn't it eliminate it? I you know, it may have needed
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to be watered down. There's a sausage making that goes involved, but it's
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capped at ten percent of the utility revenue can be used to supplement the general
17:52
government budget. I don't like it so aggressive tax. It's a step in
17:57
the right direction. So eleven ninety five, the Millage Rate Bill from Rep.
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Garrison, my favorite bill of twenty twenty four, still moving in both
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chambers. The House is going to vote it through this week. The Senate
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com companion from Senator and Golie has one more stop. It would require a
18:15
supermajority of the Commission to approve any millage rate involved. Let's see, we've
18:23
got Senate Bill two eighty, the Vacation Rental Bill from Senator Di Segli.
18:30
The House campaignions ready for the Chamber to vote there. It would create up
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I just have to ask you on the millage bill. Yeah, how do
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they define super majority? Percentage? Is what? Two thirds? All right?
18:41
So on a five person it's still three to three, three to two
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yeah, yeah, So that is definitely a kink in the intent of the
18:51
bill. But so the Vacation Rental Bill would create a state level regulatory system
18:57
for short term vacation rentals, sink airby and b VRBO and the like.
19:02
It would also limit the ability of local governments to pass ordinances aimed specifically at
19:07
those vacation rentals. So if the city wants to pass a noise ordinance that
19:11
applies to everybody, great, but you can't do it just to vacation rentals.
19:15
Okay. Senate Bill five to four to four Swimming lesson Voucher Bill.
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We talked about it a couple of weeks. Back pass the Senate, it's
19:22
ready for the full House. It's a five hundred thousand dollars appropriation for every
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county to establish a program to help teach children under four how to swim.
19:32
The program requirements are income levels at or below two hundred percent of the poverty
19:37
level. What do you think of this? I think it's intriguing, and
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the reason being is that there were statistics brought forward that said one in four
19:45
children who die unexpectedly die from drowning, and so I think there's a really
19:52
good intention there. And one where I'm a limited government person, but I'm
19:59
not an no government person, so I'm intrigued by where it goes and how
20:03
it's implemented in some of the more rural areas of the state. We probably
20:08
want to talk about the defamation bill on the other side of this, but
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before that, the Senate's ready to pass measures calling for constitutional conventions on line
20:18
Item veto authority for the President, along with a measure calling for all laws
20:22
passed by the Congress to apply to members of Congress. I'm still struggling with
20:26
the idea that we're funding swimming lessons when that's something that you do as a
20:32
parent, you make sure your kid can swim. But that's anyway. Forty
20:34
minutes after Welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott forty one passed the our
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final segment here for the week with Salnuzzo and defamation bill. Yeah. So,
20:48
last year Rep. Alex androde proposed or file a bill related to the
20:56
defamation standards for Florida, and it got a lot of criticism on the right
21:03
from conservative news outlets that bill's come my speech ready. Yep, you did,
21:07
indeed, and then the bill got temporarily postponed. It was with you
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in the committee hearing. So House Bill seven five to seven. It is
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moving and it's despite concerns objections from many on both sides of the philosophical spectrum.
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Steven Miller, a former advisor to President Trump, came out against it.
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It would change Florida's threshold for defamation and it would change the standard when
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using an anonymous source to what's called a rebuttable presumption of malice. So it
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basically puts the onus on the news outlet or the journalist or the talk show
21:44
host to rebut that they did not have a malicious intent when using an anonymous
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source. So that's got a lot of conservatives concerned about journalistic integrity in areas
21:56
of talk radio, conservative media outlets, the threats of a ton of litigation.
22:02
But it's still moving. So I'm I do not know, and I'm
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not sure that there was such a big problem with this to begin with,
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So I don't really know the Do I need to pull my speech out?
22:18
No, it's it's past the point where that's gonna make an impact. But
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a lot of conservatives are issuing letters and working in kind of associations and coalitions
22:30
to try and influence the legislature to kind of abandon this idea as it moves
22:36
forward. Well, if the legislature's allegedly more conservative than it is liberal in
22:40
the state of Florida. This should be dead, I would think so,
22:42
but it seems to be moving. It still has legs to it. So
22:48
We've got a couple of others. House Built One seventeen is one that it's
22:52
not a policy bill, but it's definitely something that I'm intrigued by or would
22:56
require the release of the Jeffrey Epstein grand jury evidence. It passed both chambers.
23:02
The governor said he wants it. He wants to sign it and release
23:03
the information. It's related only to the case from two thousand and six,
23:08
which was in Florida down and I think it was the Palm Beach area where
23:14
he got some kind of sweetheart deal. So it's something that I'm looking into.
23:18
It's an intriguing one. Tell me your thoughts on the effort that seems
23:22
to be pretty overt and obvious to keep Matt Gates from running for governor.
23:26
Well, they did file our float a idea. I think it was last
23:32
week or the week before, and it only lasted a couple of days to
23:36
implement or go back to primary runoffs for state offices. And that I read
23:44
one article that was really meant to go at the possibility of Matt Gates running
23:48
for governor because they're kind of frightened that he might easily win a primary but
23:53
he would not win a general. That was only what I read. Okay,
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what do we have coming up to week? Coming up? This week?
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We've got some long committee meetings from the Senate Rules Committee this afternoon.
24:06
They will move bills onto the floor from there. Tuesday, both the House
24:10
Fiscal Policy and Senate Appropriations Committees have those eight hour long meetings. The House
24:15
members that are on that committee will have to run from the committee hearing to
24:19
the House floor because they have a long chamber session Wednesday, all day in
24:23
both chambers from nine to six or ten to six, taking up taking up
24:29
bills and passing them on to the governor. And then Wednesday is a massively
24:33
long day. Yeah, Wednesday, I think it's about eight or nine hours.
24:37
Lovely, Yep. This is going to get fun. Now, it's
24:41
getting fun. It's getting fun. Are you hearing anything contentious happening in the
24:45
Battle of the budget. Not yet. In fact, there are only about
24:48
three to four hundred million dollars apart. There was a question of a couple
24:52
of items that the governor had in his budget proposal that weren't in the House,
24:56
but they work those out. No, I see a lot of a
25:00
lot of agreement. I think it's going to land somewhere around one hundred and
25:04
sixteen billion dollars. I'm not sure he's gonna have much wiggle room to light
25:11
on and veto a ton there, but that would be my guess in terms
25:14
of where at pinpoints. And Tuesday of next week is the day that they
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need to get the budget ready in order for it to signy die on Friday,
25:23
and of course we'll have all of that to talk about on Monday.
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You got it, Thank you, sir, Always a pleasure, sal Newzoh
25:30
for this week with the James Madison Institute. We'll tell you about next week
25:33
on Monday, forty six past the hour