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Florida's 2024 Legislative Session Begins January 9th - Here's A Preview · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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Welcome to the third hour of the morning show. I'm Preston Scott. That's
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Grant Allen. It is Monday, December the eleventh show, fifty sixty three.
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It's great to be with you. And as the original Batman on TV
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said, we haven't a moment to lose, and so we begin Salnowzo with
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us vice president of Policy with the James Madison Institute. Had your boss on
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last week? I heard him. Yeah, we were, doctor Bob.
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He's been a minute. Yeah, he was talking to debate. He's out
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all over the place. It is rare that we're in the office at the
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same time this year, I guess. So, yeah, Yeah, there's
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a lot to do. We have our National Blueprint Florida initiative, and we
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actually have some folks staffed for that, and he's out all over the country
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now, is even not just the state of Florida kind of helping to promote
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that and do what needs to be done. I interface with our team on
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that regularly. My travels take me all over. So I want to say,
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I think I've seen him in person in the same room maybe a half
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a dozen times in the last several months. Well, it was good to
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have him on the program. One of the things we talked about was the
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debate between Governor Rond DeSantis and California Governor Gavin Newsom. Not trying to create
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waves here, I don't think it was a good idea. Doctor McClure thought
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it was a good idea, and maybe from a broader perspective, conservative versus
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I liberal, it is a good idea to get the ideas out there articulated
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on national television. Yeah. I think it is a great idea to debate
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conservative versus progressive state governance systems, and I think from that vantage point it
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was great and it would have been better had Gavin Newsom actually defended his own
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state. With that being said, politically speaking, I think it it almost
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seem like DeSantis was trying to punch down, and that's not a political tactic
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that I think is usually advisable. With that being said, I think he's
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continuing to look for ways that he can kind of chip away at what seems
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like an almost insurmountable Trump lead in a number of the early states. I'm
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curious, in your opinion, how does the governor balance his campaigning for you
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know, it's certainly going to take place through this legislative session, with the
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fact that we have a legislative session. It's a great question, and I
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don't know the answer to it because we've never really experienced this when jeb Ran
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he was out of office. We have not had a sitting governor as a
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you know, as a candidate at this level. So it's something very intriguing
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to me. I did notice it seemed like he submitted his budget request or
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his budget proposal a little earlier than normal, So he may have been trying
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to kind of front load some of the work when he had some time before.
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I think it's because of the proximity of the holidays. It could be
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it could be that as well. And the other thing is you also have
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kind of this, at least from my vantage point, I'm trying to gauge
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what the governor's policy priorities are going to be and where there's alignment or overlap
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with what Jmi's kind of policy agenda is. So those are some things that
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given where he's at in the campaign when Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina
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are are going to be a big question. Let's talk about the budget a
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little bit. Sure, budget comes in the governor's budget proposal is one hundred
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and fourteen billion dollars. Now, this is so double what the deficit is
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in California. Yeah, it's it's a. I mean, you can't even
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compare what Florida's state government operation is to California, New York, any of
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the progressive states. We are leaner, meaner, more efficient, more effective.
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But it's notable in respect to our prior budget because it's two billion dollars
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less than what the legislature sent to him and he signed last year. So
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too often I think we hear about budget cuts at the federal level, and
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all that that really means at the federal level is a reduction in the growth
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rate, so instance, so like talking about a reduction in the amount of
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the deficit. Yeah, it is a. At the federal level, budget
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cuts are a we were going to spend five billion more, but we're only
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going to spend four billion more, So we cut a billion dollars. That's
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not the case in Florida. We had a budget of one hundred and sixteen
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billion. The governor is proposing one hundred and fourteen billion. He is vice
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president of Policy with the James Madison Institute Salnuzo, and you're kind of getting
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you ready for the legislative session because it matters. It matters a lot.
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You don't have time to have a New Year's kind of fog over you.
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You need to be paying attention. We're here to kind of highlight what's coming
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our way. You talked about the budget. Where are the governor's priorities?
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Sure, And before I walk into that, I want to emphasize the point
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that you just made, because I say this often, dollar for dollar,
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you do not have a more You do not see more impact than you do
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in your state legislature or in whatever state you are. Congress does not do
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much, if anything, they don't even pass budgets anymore. Dollar for dollar,
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you should pay attention to what your state legislature does, regardless of where
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you're listening to. So in Florida, it's remarkable to me that with this
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one hundred and fourteen billion dollar budget, with a two billion dollar reduction,
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the governor still has over a billion dollars in tax relief, a one year
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exemption on fees related to homeowners insurance premiums. That's going to be very important,
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as we know, and we've talked about many times. The property insurance
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challenge in the market is winding its way and it's going to take a while
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before we get some relief there. You also have a bunch of sales tax
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holidays in Florida. We prefer apparently, and I know the reason for this,
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but we prefer sales tax holidays as opposed to just lowering the rate altogether.
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And the reason for that is a vast amount of our sales tax receipts
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are paid by tourists from other states. So the legislature tries to target tax
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relief at actual residents. And so that's one of the reasons why we have
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sales teace. Ostensibly, a resident knows it's coming and can target their purchasing
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in that season exactly, and they're advertised in the state. It makes a
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lot of sense in Florida and maybe Hawaii to do it that way. But
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you've got like a three month freedom summer holiday for outdoor rec and entertainment activity.
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You've got the back to school holidays. One that's notable because we'll probably
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revisit this in future segments when we get into the meat of the session.
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A doubling of the sales tax allowance for businesses. Now, what this means
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is businesses are required to collect and then remit the sales tax that requires compliance
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costs, you've got to prepare for legal, for tax, for all of
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this other stuff. Well, the state allows businesses to keep a portion of
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the sales taxes that they collect in order to accommodate to such offset. The
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amount that they allow businesses to keep is thirty dollars a month, and so,
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as you can imagine, three hundred and sixty dollars a year is not
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a whole lot of money, especially if you're a small business, sure,
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and it's going to cost you seventy five eighty thousand dollars if you get audited.
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So there's a proposal in there to double that. Okay, you've got
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one hundred and seven million for the My Safe Florida Homes, which is matching
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grants to help harden homes for storms. Education. One hundred and seventy five
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dollars per student increase in state education funding, which brings it to eighty eight
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hundred and forty two dollars per pupil. This is really important because of the
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ESA program because this corresponds to what parents get if they choose to take the
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Education Scholarship Account program one point twenty five billion for teacher salary increases and more
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than five billion in higher ED plus just shy of two hundred million to better
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focus workforce and vocational training programs. This is a challenge area for Florida.
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Everyone stresses for your degrees. We're a gross state. We have shortages in
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skilled vocations, plumbers, h VAC technicians, all of those traditions. Yeah,
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the trades need it. So transportation you got fifteen billion dollars. This
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one I paid attention to because I'm wondering about are the fights for tourism marketing
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over one hundred and five million visit Florida, four hundred million for housing,
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a billion for the Everglades, and three hundred million for water quality. And
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then the governor, i think wisely, is put in four hundred and fifty
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million for the care of pregnant women and children in need. This is one
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where you hear a lot from the left about you know, the right cares
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about children before they're born, but then doesn't care for them after. This
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is a very wise move. And lastly, my favorite line item in the
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budget a million for legal expenses, to sue whoever needs to be sued for
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the tragedy, travesty, abomination that was keeping the Florida State Seminoles out of
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the college football playoff. I think it's a waste of money. I'd rather
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do other things. It's a waste of money. I am totally okay with
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Okay, all right, back with more with Salnuzzo on the Morning Show with
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President Scott Back with Salnuzo, James Madison Institute. We're trying to get you
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ready. For example, the last segment, if you're a business owner,
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man, that's helpful. You're getting some information on some things that are being
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proposed in the budget that might be useful to you. This is why we're
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letting you know so that you can be busy advocating with your elected leaders.
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You know when he was talking about you get more for your state dollar than
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you do for your congressional dollar. And the biggest thing you get is access.
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You really can reach out to these people and email them and call them
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and go see them. You can't do that so much with members of Congress,
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very much so. And it is not uncommon for a constituent to arrange
10:39
for a meeting with their lawmaker to get a callback from their lawmaker and say
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hey, i'd love to get together. You meet with your lawmaker, and
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at the end that lawmaker gives you their cell phone number. Now that does
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not happen with a member of Congress. Now you have to go through hoops
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and jump through all kinds of things just to get a meeting with staff.
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And I would contend that the decisions that the legislature makes every session, regardless
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of state, have more of an impact on your day to day life than
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anything Congress does most years. Federalism. Yeah, let's talk about the legislature.
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Yeah, So, speaking of money, the legislature has one requirement,
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a balanced budget. We probably won't see their proposals till roughly the midpoint of
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session, and then they'll go through the budget conference process from there. My
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guess is that they're going to come in a little bit higher than where the
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governor is, but I'm just not sure how much higher. We advocate for
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what we call the conservative floorid to budget, which is taking the inflation rate
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for the country and then the population growth percentage and don't let your state budget
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in total go grow more than that figure. So, and they've adhered to
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that over the last ten twelve years. Is there a historical trend in the
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final year of a House Speaker or a Senate President in this case Renner Pasadomo
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in terms of how they aggressively budget, not that I'm aware of. It's
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a good question what I may want to take a look at, but I'm
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not as knowledgeable of that specific kind of mind frame on when they're kind of
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on the tail end and the new House Speaker and Senate President are on the
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ascension. But currently we've got about eight hundred and twenty bills that have been
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filed. On an average session, you may have as many as twenty five
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hundred the thirty five hundred, maybe even more. So I would expect a
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lot more to come between now and the filing deadline, which is I believe
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January fifth. A lot of what's been filed lately has been things like relief
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bills, some statutory cleanup language, but there have been a number of substantive
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policy bills that have been filed. Okay, So what I figured might be
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helpful as if we kind of divide these into a series of buckets and then
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kind of walk through what I'm seeing and where it's going. And so first
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off, let's tackle I guess education. We had a huge transformational year last
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year with HB one, and so what I'm imagining my listeners. HB one
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was, Yes, HB one was the Universal School Choice Bill, education savings
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accounts for all parents who want them. You can choose to continue with your
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public school, or you can choose to use that money in a variety of
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ways to educate your child. As is the case with something as monumental and
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as massive as that, there's inevitably going to be some challenges, some things
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that you find out some better ways of doing certain things. The Department of
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Education has been having to promulgate rules and regulations on what you can use the
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money for. My guess is that you're going to see a series of small
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bills that may turn into one larger bill that's going to be kind of clarifying
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and maybe expanding on HB one specifically, things like the online virtual education requirements.
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You know, some things along what parents can avail themselves to, whether
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it's you know, oculus headsets or virtual reality. There's a lot of online
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curriculum that are available and that are growing right now, and some other pieces
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of the program that you know, you see, there's been some concerns among
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homeschool parents as to how much state oversight they're going to have to be a
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part of if they take that scholarship money and use it to homeschool their kids.
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Prior to this, they just homeschooled their kids and they did not have
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to worry. So a number of different things. One other bill I'll call
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out is HB five zero one. It's important to the listening area. Representative
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Jason Chof Senator Corey Sigmon has it in the Senate aiming TCC to Tallahassee State
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College. Was it an inevitability? I think so. I think they wanted
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to hold off as long as possible because TCC has such a brand recognition in
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this area. But inevitably they just kind of have to adopt what all of
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the other state colleges around the state are doing. Thirty five pass sal Newzoh,
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no time to waste talking about the legislature which is coming into session January
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the ninth. It's literally right, we are less than thirty days away,
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and we're now in the healthcare bucket. Healthcare bucket, So just to set
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it up, Florida's got a big challenge in healthcare, and really it's kind
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of we're a victim of our success. We've got about nine hundred people moving
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to the state every day. More than two thirds of our population is over
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the age of sixty, which is the cohort of the population that requires the
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most healthcare. When you look at the numbers on healthcare providers, primary care
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doctors, nurses, specialists, et cetera, we're woefully short. Now,
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the House and the Senate are both making it a priority at the leadership level,
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and they're calling it the Healthy Live Healthy Initiative, which the Senate President
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announced last week. It's going to turn into a series of concrete proposals.
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I believe there's two bills right now. Senator Gail Harrol's got at least one,
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and I know Colleen Burton is also heading up parts of this. What
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they want to do is address supply side. So looking at residency slots,
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we need more people in residency slots in Florida because they're more likely to stay
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in the state when they do their residency. Here is there room they need
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to create more dollars for more residency slots. So in addition, to that,
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continuing to expand the what's called scope of practice. There's some bills on
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that that I'll get you, recognizing licenses from across other states, price transparency,
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so you've got a few bills. Senator Wright has got SB two twenty
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eight health insurance cost sharing. Now this is related to pharmacy benefit managers,
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but it's also in line with those proposals. HB two fifty seven Mike gel
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Lombardo Autonomous practice for registered nurse anesthesis, so expanding how how autonomously a nurse
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anesesis can practice without kind of direct oversight from a doctor, getting them practicing
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at the top of their field. SB eight ten from Senator Angolia further expands
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it for registered nurses, and then Senator Gail Harreld's got SB five eighty four
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on healthcare services. Right now, it's just really related to some Uh,
18:02
it's a short bill, it's only a couple of pages, and it's likely
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to be a shell for more that will be amended on later. In your
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opinion, is there a silver bullet bill out there that can really move the
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needle or are we dealing with a series of dominoes that you have to do
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this this, this, this, and start toppling things the ladder. Okay,
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there are there's a saying I use when I speak to groups about healthcare.
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Health insurance does not equal healthcare does not equal health. And what the
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way I analogize this is I have very good health insurance through JMI. I
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have also very good healthcare. I have good doctors and nurses and whatnot.
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We're in a great spot. I have horrible health because I love McDonald's French
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fries and I will eat them all day long. And each of those buckets
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have different policy solutions that meet what the challenges are in them, and so
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it is an try. I have a policy bucket, you you can do
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a number of things at to incentivize people to live healthier lifestyles. Okay,
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I'm just tending not to listen to them, and yeah, I see what
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you're saying. Yep. Onto the business bucket. So, Florida still the
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best place in the country to start and build a business. However, in
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order to maintain that ranking, the business climate will inevitably involve, evolve,
19:26
and we're just going to have to continue to do things. So HB thirty
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five from doctor Rudman and chev Jones requiring most brick and mortar businesses to accept
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cash. This is one I feel pretty strongly about in favor of SB forty
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two from Linda Stewart barber's and cosmetologist licenses. It also falls into the criminal
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justice reform bucket. You've got Senator Cheney SB forty nine. Pay attention to
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this when it's going to be controversial, allowing sixteen and seventy seventeen year olds
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to work thirty plus hours a week. And Senate Bill two eighty from Senator
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to Seglee, We're going to try and tackle vacation Renolds once again. Final
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segment for today with Sal Newso of the James Madison Institute, where he's vice
20:19
president of Policy. We're looking at the legislative session and bills that have been
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filed. This is just scratching the surface of what likely is coming. Yes,
20:29
indeed, government government, we get a lot in government. How much
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of this is useful? Is it scaling back or is it expansion? A
20:36
little bit of both. Okay, you got Hjr. Nineteen from Rep.
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Saltzman and Senator and Golia County commissioned term limits. Now this would go on
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the ballot. So if it passes and the governor. I think if just
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if it passes, the governor doesn't have a say in this one, it
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would go on to the ballot it. Do you see anything careful what you
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wish for in that bill? I do too. Yep, yep. With
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Thomas Ole said it brilliantly. There are no one solutions, there are only
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trade offs. So it's one where they're considering the trade OFFFS on one side
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better than the trade OFFFS on another. Okay, set a bill fifty four
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from Anna Maria Rodriguez and David Smith on the House side expunction. This is
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an important bill for the political dynamic. It passed both chambers unanimously. I
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think it only got one no vote in a committee. The governor vetoed it.
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So this is one where if they're going to override a veto or a
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thread of a veto, I think this may be one to pay attention.
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And this is all about records of juvenile offenders, no adults. It is
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if you have if you have one conviction during a certain timeframe, and you
21:55
have done four or five different things to get your life back in order and
22:00
on track, and you've got a clean record after this one conviction you are.
22:03
You can petition to get your record expungent. It's not automatic, but
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you can petition. Is that the problem though? That the petitioning sort of
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like the you know, the the clemency Board is a group of you know,
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it's the governor. And I don't think it's through the clemency Board.
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I think it's for by a judge, but I'll have to read out a
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little bit more specifically to make sure. But because that's cumbersome in the state
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of Florida, it's it's clunky and cumbersome. I agree with you there.
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I think the process from last year's bill was was much more streamlined. Okay,
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HB one seven, this is one we're paying attention to from Representative Esposito
22:41
Eve License fees now, yeah, shifting two ways to fund transportation, which
22:48
is usually done through the gas tax, so an electric vehicle doesn't do that.
22:51
So it's a two hundred dollars a year for an electric fifty dollars a
22:55
year. First enough, it's maybe a start. Now, remember, because
23:00
it's a tax increase or a fee increase, it's going to require two thirds
23:03
of both chambers to vote it through. So starting where it needs to start
23:07
fifty dollars for hybrids, twenty five for electric motorcycles. Senator Aaron Gral's got
23:15
Senate Bill four sixty four repeal of PIP trying again for auto policies. There,
23:21
we'll see what happens with some of the bad faith reforms that have been
23:26
talked about. That's really the pairing that they need there. Senate Bill four
23:30
seventy two from Senator Broter Sovereign immunity levels. How much you can sue the
23:33
government for. I'm in favor of upping. I think you should be able
23:37
to sue for a lot more. With the time left, I need you
23:40
to pick the best of the best. All right, let's most important.
23:42
Let's shift to tech because I expect two issues to emerge in tech. One
23:48
is age verifications, keeping kids safe online, and the other is going to
23:52
be artificial intelligence. What is it, what's its potential, and what is
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the government's role in regulating it? You think Florida needs to take a step
24:00
and lead on this vers since the Feds aren't one hundred percent. So you've
24:03
got Senate Bill four fifty four from Ileana Garcia. It's the first of I
24:07
expect a couple of these that are going to pop up on social media regulation
24:11
for children, requiring age verification for all social media platforms. And then you've
24:18
got Senate Bill six seventy six from Jen Bradley Food Service Platforms. Now,
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this is really a bill aimed at data privacy. It pre empts local governments
24:26
from regulating things like Uber Eats and door dash to collect all of that data
24:30
to be able to use on a person at a later date. The rest
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we will cover in our day before the start of the session. We had
24:38
a lot left on the paper. We will kick it back in come January.
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Good to see them always, A plus Christmas you as well, my
24:45
friend, Happy New Year, all those things. Yeah, forty seven past
24:49
the hour. Sound news are with me from the James Madison Institute.