>>This week on NewsNight, Florida legislators debate a major overhaul of the state's taxation model, including a sales tax cut and a shift to using tourist development tax revenues to pay for rebates for property owners.

Plus, a look at the future of the Democratic Party in Florida amid setbacks.

NewsNight starts now.

(Music) Hello, I'm Steve Mort.

Welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in Central Florida and how they shape our community.

It was the final scheduled week of the Florida legislative session.

It was a session marked by steep divisions between the governor and fellow Republicans, and a decision by a top Democrat to call it quits.

I'm here at Saint Leo University to talk with political scientist Frank Orlando about what was a rough and tumble session.

>>The wa Governor DeSantis has governed has been for a long time, my way or the highway, and it's been successful for him.

It's worked out.

But eventually that wears on people.

And I think that has really worn on many legislators, that have served around this time, both inside of the legislature and other members of the Republican Party in Florida.

>>I mean, we're a big, diverse state.

>>He's in many ways a lame duck at this point, right?

He's not running for governor again.

And so, what really strength does he have electorally to keep them in line?

That's one thing.

I think another thing is looking forward.

I think the idea is limiting his strength now makes it harde for him to anoint a successor.

And we all know what the stakes are there.

And then finally, when you have such a big majority, of course, the flashpoint are going to start coming from within the majority.

>>Well, let's tal about some of those flashpoints.

We had several key legislative defeats for the governor.

We also had the controversy over Hope Florida and the spending on trying to defeat amendment three.

What do you see as the key flashpoints?

>>I think even if you go back to January and February with the immigration enforcement, who was going to run that, ho it was all going to shake down, that set the tone for how this entire thing was going to go.

And the fact that the governor really wasn't able to declare complete victory on that showed to senators to representatives that there was another path forward, that they could kind of safely go at the governor and win.

You know, for example, something like Hope Florida.

Last session, I don't think this would have happened.

I don't think there would have been the push back from within the party.

But the overarching thing is the budget issue.

And so there are tax concern -- there are other things that on the backdrop of every other issue, has kind of been hanging there.

Republican ideas were taking too much money.

If we have -- if we have more money than we're spending, then we should look at shrinking the size of the government and the amount of money we're taking in.

But the problem is, there's lots of different ways to do that, and everybody has a different flavor of how to do that.

And this is another way for the legislature and the governo to stay at each other's throats.

>>I'm proud that my longstanding plea for an autonomous legislature has been heeded.

>>Well what about the Democrats, then?

Senate Minority Leader Jason Pizzo quit the party.

He called it dead.

He was tipped to run for governor as a Democrat.

I mean how would you assess the state of the Florida Democrats right now?

>>Yeah, it's not strong.

(laughs) Steve, when one of your legislative leader leaves the party and not really someone that, you know, not super expected, you know?

Like you've alread had a couple state House members switch parties immediately after their reelection, okay?

Now you have a party leader leaving the party.

And like you said, someone that was tabbed as maybe running there.

>>He's going to be an NPA though, a non-party affiliate.

>>Yes.

He hasn't switched parties, which is important to point out, right?

That' not the sign of a healthy party.

I would say this, that things might come back to them a little bit in a midterm environment where the president might be less popular.

You know, I don't know if Florida will be as susceptible to some of that as some other places, but I think there's places like suburban Orlando and even Jacksonville where they might be able to take advantage of discontent with the governor -- with the governor and with the president.

But I also don't think chasing or changing who you are, and trying to be Republicans-light is the right strategy, as well.

And so I think, you know, capturing the support of enthusiastic voters, keeping them engaged is important.

I just don't think being Republicans-light is really going to help them.

>>Political scientis Frank Orlando there from Saint Leo University.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio, Steven Lemongello, politics editor from the Orlando Sentinel.

I feel like every time you come on, Steve, we say it's a busy week, but certainly >>it's always a busy week >>a lot of busy, busy politics to report.

And good to see you today.

Cheryn Stone, host of Engag on Central Florida Public Media.

Good to see you Cheryn.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>And Curtis McLeod, afternoon anchor at Spectrum News 13.

Nice to see you as well, Curtis.

>>Alway a pleasure, Steve.

>>All right.

Well, let's talk about it then, shall we?

I want to note we are recording this progra on Thursday morning, by the way, so much of what we discuss her may date by air time, including when lawmakers may knocked on the head for this session amid the ongoing infighting.

Curtis, let me start with you.

This session, marked by several defeats for the governor, clashes between the House and the governor and the House and the Senate, as well.

I mean, what stands out to you in terms of the areas where the governor and legislators kind of butted heads?

>>You know, it kind of really started with this whole back and forth over immigration, Steve.

And I think that was-- >>In the special session.

>>In the special session, that was where i kind, of kind of -- we first saw a little bit of this rearing its head during that special session.

And it's like, “okay, what's going on here?” Basically, I called it, you know, if you will -- so the legislature saying, “hey, we won't be told what to do.

We're going to do it our way and kind of set the framework here.” >>Frank Orlando making the point actually that did kind of sow the seeds for a lot of this contention.

>>Exactly.

It was interesting when he said that because I was like, okay, this is exactly, you know, how this all kind of like set the stage for how this legislative session was going to go.

And as we can see now, we're at the ninth hour and there's still no definite budget.

And that says we all kno the one thing that we have to do in order to get to sine di is to, you know, sign a budget.

And the governor signs off on a budge and we're still not there yet.

>>You have to do.

>>You have to do everything else is minute, but -- I won't say minute - but it doesn't have to be done.

This has to be done.

>>Steve, what do you think?

Yeah.

This is -- it's just you can see more of this because again, DeSantis is he was, you know, first for the last few years, the next president and then his wife was the next governor.

And now it does not seem that's going to happen.

So the legislature is looking to see where things lie.

And they're just like, we're going to do -- like they're doing what Congress isn't doing.

And sort of like, again, like showing that the legislature has a place in government.

>>I mean a good example of the distance between lawmakers and the governor came just this week.

He's made shaking up higher education a big part of his platform.

And lawmakers push back o a crucial part of that.

>>Yeah.

They said they're trying to take, you know, limit his ability to just, you know, appoint these, you know, presidents of colleges, which is something he's had a lot of fun doing in the last few years.

And it's very interesting, like, you know, when they when the legislature talked about, you know, well, you know, we're all against being well, overall, we're all anti-woke here, but, you know, there should still be transparency.

A lot of these sort of appointment have been very nontransparent.

And, you know they sort of want to end that.

>>Yeah.

Transparency over college presidents the hiring of college presidents and universit presidents has been a big issue.

Major flashpoint, of course, between House lawmakers and the governor has been over Hope Florida as we mentioned there, that's the state charity thats spearheaded by First Lady Casey DeSantis.

For those who haven't followed this closely, just outline what prompted a bipartisa investigation into Hope Florida.

>>I think like most things, it's about the money and how it's being spent.

So charity that's an important word there.

Lawmakers started this investigation over the flow of funding from this charity.

Florida reached this settlement, and it had to do with an overbilling dispute with a company called Centene -- that's a medicaid contractor in the state.

>>Yeah.

>>So under this settlement, Centene agrees to donate $10 million to that charity.

Then this charity then gives a 10 million to 2 nonprofits, and then from there they give it to political action committees.

One of them campaigns against Florida's recreational marijuana amendment that, remember, the governor was so against and fought that hard.

So they get this donation from this charity.

>>That was eventuall defeated.

>>And it was defeated.

So it was just that flow of funding there.

>>That committee investigation that was led by Republican Representative Alex Andrade, that did wrap up, but he still had pretty tough word for the DeSantis administration.

What do we know about what could happe going forward with that, Curtis?

>>I think that he definitely made it very clear.

We're talking about Representative Andrade.

He is not letting up on this.

While there may -- while this committee says they've stopped their investigation, things have shut down.

He made it very clear that, you know, next session, and, you know, when they reconvene later.

He's going to make it a point to try to see what he can do, even going so fa as to pitch legislation, Steve, that may set the groundwork for how funds are certainly used or how they're doing, especially when it deals with, with Medicaid funds.

He did say that he intends to still look into the governor's spending because he made it very clear this is in reference to Andrade, that he does not trust th governor with taxpayer dollars.

>>There have been some things that have been achieved, during this session.

I wanted to mention one before we moved on, Cheryn, because you mentioned it last time you were on the program, and that was the issue of fluoride in water that we talked about.

It now looks like Florida will become only the second state, right, i the country to ban fluoridation.

What should people know about that?

>>Yeah, fluoride has been added to the water supply nationwide for decades.

And it's at the recommended levels to help kids and their dental health as theyre developing.

And this legislation is interesting to me.

It doesn't actually mention fluoride.

It says that municipalities cannot add wate quality additives to the water.

So this anti-fluoridation movement has really become popular.

We saw State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, he recommended against it.

And in just the last few months since he said that last year, we've seen local municipalities blocking it, this process from being added to the water supply.

Now, critics are saying that this is going to hur the most vulnerable population.

The people who can afford to go to a private dentist, they're not the ones that are going to be affected by this.

It's the kids that rely on that additive for their dental health.

I do want to point out that organizations, like the American Dental Association, still continue to support fluoridation, but this Florida ba would go into effect July 1st.

>>And supporters of this bill say they're concerned about the health impacts long-term of fluoride in the water.

We're going to talk more about what passe and what failed in the session next week on the program, whe the dust settles a little bit.

In the meantime, you can find my full length interview with political scientist Frank Orlando on our website.

You'll also find every past episode of NewsNight there, as well.

It's all at wucf.org/NewsNight.

Okay, nex tonight, the debate over taxing and spending as negotiations on the budget continue.

The House and Senate have been trying at least to hammer out spending allocations, but is still billions of dollars in disagreement.

Meanwhile, House lawmakers this week passed a cut to the state sale tax and an overhaul in tourist development taxe that would require TDT revenues to be used to provide property tax relief.

Here's Republican Stat Representative James Buchanan.

>>When it comes to property taxes, and I said this last year but I strongly prescribe to it.

It's like a mortgage that's on your home the government has in-perpetuity forever.

To the extent of which we can continue to give folks tax relief, we should be doing it.

The rate that this TDT tax has grown has been astronomical, far exceeded any of our expectations.

>>James Buchanan.

But Democrats are concerned some want counties to have more discretion to spend TDT dollars on big ticket projects like infrastructure.

Others along with the tourism industry, worry about the impact of spending less on the hospitality sector.

Here's Democrat Leonard Spencer.

>>In Central Florida., for every dollar we invest in marketing Orange County sees a $33 return.

33 to 1.

Now, if we could guarantee that return anywhere else you wouldn't hesitate to invest.

These current proposals in this bill to divert funds away from their intended purpose will wind up being a very costly mistake.

We would hurt small businesses, the hotel housekeeper, the line cook, the rideshare driver who are working hard trying to make ends meet.

>>Leonard Spencer.

The Senate has its own tax package.

Again, we are recording the show on Thursday morning, so things may change when it comes to these tax packages and budget talks and where the lawmakers may end up revisiting all of this later.

Cheryn, we'll start with you on this one.

How would TDT money be allocated under this proposed legislation from the House?

>> TDT funding doesn't sound like the most exciting thing, but it's so important.

>>It is.

>>And we're talking about several million dollars here hundreds of millions of dollars.

So this Florida House plan would require that 75% of TDT revenue goes directly to lowering property taxes, and then that other percentage local governments would have -- that flexibility we're talking about -- have more flexibility in deciding how they want to spend the rest of their money.

>>I mean, it's interesting, isn't it, Steve?

That, you know, the bulk of TDT monies would go to property tax relief, but the counties would have broad discretion over the remainder under this proposals.

That's something that Democrats, right, have long called for.

And I wonder why some are still pushing back.

>>Yeah.

This has been something Democrats have been saying.

Like, “wh are we spending all this money on, you know, extra rooms for the convention center where we can build roads and stuff like that?” >>Yeah.

>>But, what they're saying and what counties are saying is like, again, there's so little of that is actually going, you know, the flexibility is ove a very small percentage of that, you know they'd like to have the option to, you know, take a little bit more of that for roads.

There's also concerns that counties may just like increase the millage rates just to make up the difference of that.

>>Yeah.

>>Yeah.

And also the concerns about like ongoing projects like how is this going to work when they have like things, you know coming out over several years.

So there's a lot of, you know, questions they have over this thing despite their past, you know, idea of just wanting to end, you know, pure going to tourism stuff, you know, from the TDT tax.

>>I mean, I wonder what less money for tourism marketing could mean for the industry, Curtis.

I mean, especially given the international visits, to the U.S. for many parts of the world, send visitors to Florida are currently down.

And we got some -- we got news this week that the economy shrank, right, in the last quarter.

Presumably, the tourism industr is going to be pushing back on less marketing money.

>>Oh, yeah, definitely.

They are.

Of course we can expect that, Steve, especially when you look at neighboring Canada where we've seen, you know, less and less people just driving across the border here, we were talking to more than 10%.

>>A precipitous decline.

>>Yeah, exactly.

More than 10%.

This was just back in February a decline of people coming in.

And when you think about Florida, it is a huge draw for people all over the world here.

And we know Florida marketing, especially with a lot of the theme parks and everything and particular you've got a lo of new attractions in the area, that marketing is going to be through the roof with trying to encourage people to come.

Yes, there may be these, you know, the worry about, you know, the economy and pulling back.

But still, as we saw with Covid and right after Covid, people found ways in, you know, I hate to use that reference.

Jurassic Park reference: Life finds a way.

People find a way to do what they want to do.

That's the bottom line.

And they're going to find a way to get here.

But when it comes to these theme parks and the tourism industry, they're going to definitely push back and want to make sure they have that marketing, so that they can get people to come here.

>>Yeah, there's been concern abou those extra checks at airports and the impact that might have on international visitation.

We reached out to Visit Orlando, Steve to get their thoughts on this.

We didn't hear back by the time we taped this program.

What could a shake-up though in TDT allocations mean for agencies like this in Orlando?

>>A lot of Republicans have been trying to, you know, defund or get rid of these agencies for years.

And, it looks like, you know, visit Florida.

and all these local agencies, like Visit Orlando, are in the crosshairs here if this happens.

And, you know, I gues it's one of those things where this stuff has just always happened.

There's always been this, you know, pushing of, you know, visit Florida, visit, you know, from across the country in the world, like, we don't really know what happened, what will happen if that ends?

There seems to be an assumption that people will alway want to come and visit Florida.

And these advertising campaigns had really nothing to do with that.

But like, we don't know that.>> Yeah, we always hear on the Orange County Commission push back against funding Visit Orlando out of the TDT money every time they talk about those allocations.

You did some recent coverage, Cheryn, on the discussion around TDT, what have you been learning from local stakeholders?

Well, Orange County collects the largest share of TDT of any other Florida county.

So just last year, this is $350 million that is being generated by the state revenues.

So it's a lot on the line here.

I think to sum it up, what I found is those who benefit as the law stand now, are taking advantage of it.

And those who would like the money to be spent on them, they want to see reform.

Quick example looking at the Greater Orlando Sports Commission and the Florida Citrus Sports CEO talked to them.

They think that investing the money in sports obviously is a great return on investment.

So we see them pushing for like the Jaguars to play some of their games here in Orlando.

They want to spend money on trying to lure WWE WrestleMani because again, they would argue that turnaround is going to be so great.

It's worth it.

Then I talked to someone, the executive director of the Christian Service Center for the Homeless, he would like to see it reformed and would like to see that money to be more flexible, to help in other services and whatever the county needs at that point.

>>Yeah.

I mean, the governor wants to eliminate property taxes, right, Curtis?

Altogether.

He's had some pushback from from lawmakers on that.

But the House has launched a special committee, I think to look at that with a view to sort of taking this up in the ‘26 session needs voter approval as well, right?

>>Yes, it does need voter approval.

And it's going to take a little bit of time, Steve, because a lot of the pushback is coming from the the question that we've seen saying, “okay, where is the money going to come from once you cut this and where's the how do we make up tha that extra cash that we need?” So they're saying “hey, let's table this for now and work on it in the background and see if we can come to a workable solution to see if we can get there.” But I think the big question is where is the shortfall?

How do you make up that shortfall?

>>Yeah.

Let's take a 10,000ft view, Steve.

I mean, these disagreements over tax relief and how it's going to look.

The Senate, of course, as I mentioned, has its own tax package.

Is that part of what' making this whole reconciliation process between the House and the Senate versions just so contentious?

And I wonder how far apart these two sides are.

>>They're sort of like, they're kind of far apart, but also not.

They're sort of like a “tastes great, less filling” sort of thing.

The Senate wants to eliminate all sales taxes on certain items.

Meanwhile, the House wants a straight across the board reductio of only about, you know, .75%.

Meanwhile, of course, DeSantis wants to end, you know, property taxes.

And he said that he wants a lot of that to come via sales taxes from -- he always mention Canadian tourists who are here.

He wants to, you know, soak the Canadian tourists.

Democrats want more flexibility for counties like we said before.

So yeah, it's just sort of -- they're sort of ther but not, and they just sort of, like sort of arguing past each other.

>>Well we'll see how those negotiations go or don't go over the coming days.

Meanwhile, you can find us on social media for at WUCFTV on Facebook and Instagram and also find us at NewsNightWUCF on X.

Okay, finally tonight, turmoil for Florida Democrats.

The party's leader in the Florida Senate, Jason Pizzo, abruptly announced last wee that he was switching his voter registration to no party affiliation.

>>The Democratic Party in Florida is dead, but there are good people that can resuscitate it, but they don't want it to be me.

That's not convenient.

It's not cool.

The Republican Party has a lot of problems.

I said, and you've heard me say that the pendulum is going to swing so far, and the gluttony so strong and so viscous, that it's going to swing back.

I'm not asking--I'm not having a Jerry Maguire moment right now.

Like, who's coming with me?

That's the truth.

The party that my dad volunteered for in JFK when he was 18 years ol in 1960 is not the party today.

It craves and screams anarchy and then demands amnesty.

That's not okay.

>>Senator Jason Pizzo.

Okay, Steve, not a fantastic moment for the Democrats, I guess.

I wonde what you make of that decision, and how damaging it is for them.

>>It's not a good when your -- essentially a potential -- your actual Senate leader and a potential, you know, gubernatorial candidate next year, just sort of quits and says the party is dead.

And, yeah, it's -- he had been like -- he had been sort of trending rightward over the last few years.

He was one of the few Democrats to vote for the Gulf of America thing.

It seemed like he was positioning himself to sort of be the centrist.

>>On E-Verify as well, I think.

>>Yeah, yeah.

So he sort of seemed like he was positioning itself, but now he's out.

So the question is, you know, does he, you know, run as an independent next year?

It just -- but of course the Democratic leadership, you saw the chair, Nikk Fried say, you know, essentially don't let the door kick you on the way out.

If not, if it's somethin like that, not that exact quote.

And, I think you know, because of then turned around bashed her.

So yeah, this is not good.

It leaves the Senate Democrats with the least number of currently people in the Senate since the state Senate since reconstruction in 1872, which is also not good.

>>I mean, Steve's right.

The Florida Democrat didn't exactly have fond words for Senator Pizzo on the way out.

>> No, they sure didnt.

And that's what she, Nikki Fried chair of the Democratic Party, she did say basically, you know, called him one of the most ineffective Democratic leaders, you know, in history -- in recent history.

And went on to say that, you know, “hey, we're pretty much better off without you.” I think that when looking at this, I remember in the newsroom when we heard this news, everybody kind of like, “oh my gosh, what in the world is going on here?” But then you saw, of course, the Democrats trying to kind of figure out, “okay, what do we do next?

How do we kind of salvage this and figure ou where to go from here?” >>Yeah.

How do we message it, as well?

>>Absolutely.

>>There is speculation at the same time, that the former Republican congressman from Pinellas, David Jolly, could mount a gubernatorial bid as a Democrat.

We'll have to wait to see what Jason Pizzo does.

Remind us who he is and why he says he switched parties.

>>Yeah, we're seeing the other way on this one.

>>Yeah.

>>I think a lot of people might recognize his face.

He's kind of rose to prominence as a political analyst.

He's frequently on cable news like MSNBC, and he's known for that, but also being a critic of Trump.

And he has lon been a critic of the president.

And he left -- shortly after he left Congress, he said that he found himself in this growing group of Republican known as the ‘Never Trumpers.

And he said that “you cannot be a Never Trumper and a Republican.

So he decided that it was time to leave the Republican Part back in 2018, and most recently this week, he's exploring launching this committee.

And he is officially registered Democrat in Florida.

>>And it seems that the Republicans were quite gleeful about this, right?

I mean, they see an analog there with Charlie Crist.

I mean, the comparison are pretty stark, arent they?

>>And it's not like this is new.

Like, oh, “let's try running like a former Republican as a Democrat,” like Charlie Crist did that twice -- it did not work.

And it worked even worse the second time.

>>Yeah.

I mean, even down to where they're from, right?

>>Yeah.

>>I mean, the Pinellas County connection.

I mean, it sort of demonstrates, doesn't it, that people generally tend to look askance at party switching.

And there's a history of that in Florida, right?

>>Yeah.

Like the people like the idea of just like, you know, saying who you are and what you're for and that sort of thing and trying to explain you know, switching partie and past positions and that just lead you down to like, you know, a long hallway of sort of, flip flopping and, and accusations of that, you know?

So, again, Democrats tried it twice with that.

We'll see if it works.

Third time's the charm?

You know, it' going to be interesting to see.

I know we still have time yet, how this gubernatorial shakes down, the gubernatorial race shakes up.

You know, we were talking earlie about the whole Casey DeSantis and now with Hope Florida, and we've got Byron Donalds, of course, with the support and backing up for the president.

>>Republican side.

Well, a lot to iron out both on the Democratic and Republican side, over the coming weeks.

A quick reminder you'll find much more NewsNight content on our website, wucf.org/NewsNight along the bottom of your screen, also on our YouTube page.

But that's all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Steven Lemongello from the Orlando Sentinel, Cheryn Stone, Central Florida Public Media, and Curtis McCloud, Spectrum News 13.

Thank you guys so much for coming in.

It was a really great conversation today.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30pm, here on WUCF.

From all of us here at NewsNight., take care and have a great week.

(music)