Subscribe now

By Craig Pittman

Florida Phoenix

NEWS HEADLINE: How Florida quietly removed climate change content from textbooks

“Good morning, class! Please take your seats. I’m your new science teacher, Mr. Ilg.

“You’re probably wondering what happened to your old teacher, Ms. Glowasky. She made one factual comment on Facebook about Charlie Kirk, got fired, sued the school board, and collected a $650,000 settlement. She told the vice principal it was like winning the First Amendment lottery.

“Anyway, please open your textbooks to page 77. Yes, you in the third row, you have your hand up. What’s your question?”

KID IN THIRD ROW: “Mr. Ilg, why aren’t we starting at the beginning of the textbook?

TEACHER (speaking slowly): “Good question. This is science class, and science is all about asking questions and looking for answers. In this case, the answer is, ‘Because the state Education Department wants me to skip over all that stuff about evolution.’ Now let’s get back to today’s lesson, which is about climate change. How much do you already know about that subject? Yes, you in the fifth row?”

KID IN THE FIFTH ROW: “It’s making, like, our world a hella lot hotter. Even at night.”

TEACHER: “Yes, anyone else? You in the second row?”

KID IN THE SECOND ROW: “The higher temperature is heating up the water and making hurricanes much more intense.”

TEACHER: “Excellent. You in the fourth row, your hand is up.”

KID IN THE FOURTH ROW: “Because of sea level rise, the storm surge goes much further inland. My mom’s in real estate and she says it’s changing where people are moving to in Florida.”

TEACHER: “Very good. Anyone else? You in the front row?”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW (holding up the textbook): “Mr. Ilg, while everyone’s been talking, I’ve been skimming this part of our textbook, and it doesn’t say climate change is bad. It even claims the excess carbon dioxide that’s killing our planet can actually HELP plants! What’s up with that?”

TEACHER (taken aback): “Oh, uh… You noticed that, huh?”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW (sounding disgusted): “Well c’mon, Mr. Ilg, we LIVE in this world. We can see what’s happening. We’re not stupid. Although this textbook seems to think we are.”

A world of information

TEACHER: “Okay, let me try to explain.” (Inhales deeply, then exhales.) “The Florida Department of Education is the branch of state government that oversees the selection of textbooks you get. A couple of years ago, the department told publishers they should play down the climate change stuff in Florida’s textbooks because the science isn’t settled.”

(Someone makes a derisive raspberry sound.)

TEACHER (narrowing his eyes at the sound): “You in the back, did you have something to say?”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “Yeah, I said (makes raspberry sound again). That’s a bigger bunch of bull than the University of South Florida mascot.”

TEACHER: “What makes you say that?”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “Because the scientists DO agree that climate change is real and it’s real bad. It’s the politicians who refuse to accept reality.”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW: “Yeah, like that 80-year-old loser in the White House who keeps saying it’s a hoax. Everybody knows he’s just trying to suck up to the oil industry dudes who helped him get re-elected.” (Multiple kids nod their heads.)

KID IN BACK ROW: “Yeah, him saying it’s a hoax is about as believable as him blaming vandals for what he did to the Washington Reflecting Pool.”

TEACHER: “Now wait a minute. Back up a second. How do you know the scientists are all in agreement?”

KID IN THE BACK ROW <rolls his eyes>: “Do you think we get all our information from our textbooks like kids back in the ’50s used to do?”

TEACHER: “I … uh, you know I never thought about it.”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “Well, we don’t. We have access to the internet and we use it. And I mean use it a LOT.”

KID IN THE SECOND ROW: “Right. Like, we know how to search for answers online. We’ve been doing that for years. Plus, there’s a lot of social media we can use now. We can get information from TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. We’ve got a world full of sources to tell us what’s going on beyond the classroom and these textbooks.”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “Right. For instance, I follow Greta Thunberg on Instagram and Hank Green on TikTok.”

KID IN THE THIRD ROW: “Oh, you should try Ecotok Collective! They’re awesome.”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW (waving a hand around, making her bracelets clink together): “See? All these accounts act like an instant fact-check about what’s in these weaselly textbooks.”

TEACHER (in a voice full of wonder): “I had no idea.”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “Heck, there are even video games about climate change, and, like, not one of them tries to claim that it might be a GOOD thing.”

KID IN THE FOURTH ROW: “Is there one with Mario and Luigi?”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “No — and don’t even ask about Minecraft.”

The tell-tale turtles

KID IN THE THIRD ROW: “You know, Mr. Ilg, we have, like, an environment club here in school. We talk about issues and bring in special speakers. We were just talking about climate change, like, I dunno, two weeks ago.”

KID IN THE SECOND ROW: “Yeah, like, my aunt came in and talked to the club about what it’s like volunteering with her sea turtle rescue group. She said the temperature of the sand, like, determines whether sea turtle eggs hatch out as male or female turtles. And she said that the sand has been, like, sooooo hot over the past 15 years that they’ve seen all or mostly all female sea turtles — hardly any males.”

KID IN THE THIRD ROW (nodding vigorously): “Oh man, that was so weird!”

TEACHER (speaking slowly): “I didn’t know that was happening. That’s a biological marker of climate change that’s pretty hard to ignore, isn’t it?”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “You’re right it’s hard to ignore, Mr. Ilg. But even though it’s been happening for so long, she told us the politicians continue to ignore it because it doesn’t fit what they believe.”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW: “You shouldn’t be surprised at us being aware of this stuff, Mr. Ilg. Kids like us have been, like, on the front lines of the fight against climate change. A few years ago, a bunch of kids filed a lawsuit over it. One of them was a 10-year-old from Florida.”

TEACHER (nodding): “I kinda remember that. Whatever happened to that case?”

KID IN THE BACK ROW (consulting his phone): “Says here the Supreme Court shot ‘em down last year.”

KID IN THE SECOND ROW (sounding angry): “That bunch of creeps! They’re gonna kill us all. How many of them own stock in fossil fuels?”

Fossil fuel fooling

KID IN THE FRONT ROW: “Hey, do you remember the Great American Teach-In last year? One of our speakers was Dawn Shirreffs from the Environmental Defense Fund.”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “The Environmental Defense Fund has a cool TikTok too.”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW: “Right. So anyway, she was talking about how we’ve got to be ready for this kind of stuff, because the fossil fuel industry has spent years spreading misinformation about the climate. They’re desperate to fool people so they can keep selling this product that’s polluting the atmosphere, ruining the world, and killing people.”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “Yeah, plus they’ve been spending beaucoup bucks on campaign contributions, too. Buying loyalty.”

KID IN THE THIRD ROW: “She also talked about how politicians who sell out to these people wind up undermining, like, the confidence we have in government and in education.”

TEACHER (appalled): “Oh, I hope that’s not true.”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW: “She warned us to be careful about anyone trying to mislead us about what fossil fuels are doing to our future. Especially the way they influence politicians. And, apparently, textbooks.”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: (Clears throat.) “So, let’s talk about which politicians have been pushing for weakening Florida textbooks and trying to fool us students.”

A current events discussion

TEACHER (looking uncomfortable): “I’d rather not get into any political stuff. I’m not Ms. Glowasky.”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW: “Think of it as, like, a current events discussion. We’re supposed to have those from time to time, right? So, what we’re wondering is, who twisted the arm of the textbook publishers to play down the role climate change has in everything that’s going wrong?”

KID IN THE THIRD ROW: “I wonder if it was the Florida Legislature. My uncle is a pilot at MacDill Air Force Base, and he was cracking up last year when the Legislature banned ‘chemtrails.’ He was laughing so hard he was falling over. They cut climate change out of the law like it’s no big deal, but they’re freaking out about chemtrails? He said anyone with any sense knows those don’t exist. Banning them was like banning the Skunk Ape.”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “No, I bet it was the governor. That smells like his work.”

TEACHER (speaking cautiously): “The Education Department is under Gov. Ron DeSantis.”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW: “Figures. I remember he’s the guy claiming that slavery wasn’t all that bad.”

KID IN THE FOURTH ROW: “Didn’t DeSantis work as a teacher somewhere?”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “Yeah, I think it was in Georgia.”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW (looking at her phone): “Yeah, here’s a New York Times story about that. Says he spent a year working as a teacher at a private school. Some students thought he was cool because he was a jock, but some said he came across as smug and superior. One Black student said he treated her badly because of her skin color. And he liked partying with the seniors, even though that was against the rules.”

KID IN THE THIRD ROW: “Can you imagine what would happen if he tried that now?”

KID IN THE FRONT ROW: “Oh man, this is wild! Listen to this: The story says he made some weird comments about the Civil War and so, for the school’s video yearbook, some of the kids made a video that made fun of him.”

KID IN THE BACK ROW (in a speculative voice): “I wonder if he’s devoted the rest of his life to getting revenge.”

TEACHER (sounding skeptical): “That seems a trifle far-fetched.”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “No, no, hear me out! He decides to get vengeance on the whole education system. He works his way up to being governor, then takes a wrecking ball to the schools. He pays teachers so poorly they leave. He shuts down their unions so they can’t fight back. He turns the censors loose on the school libraries. He gives so much money to private schools that a lot of public ones have to close. Then, as the finishing touch, he undermines confidence in the textbooks.”

TEACHER (shaking his head): “That’s crazy. What’s your name, young man?”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “My name is Danny — Danny Glowasky.”

TEACHER: “You mean …”

KID IN THE BACK ROW: “Yeah, that was my mom who used to teach this class.”

TEACHER: (Stands with his mouth open, then closes it and clears his throat.) “OK, this concludes our discussion of climate change. Let’s move on to the next section of our textbook, which is about — oh shoot. It’s about sexual reproduction.”

Leave a comment

Craig Pittman is a native Floridian. In 30 years at the Tampa Bay Times, he won numerous state and national awards for his environmental reporting. He is the author of six books. In 2020 the Florida Heritage Book Festival named him a Florida Literary Legend. Craig is co-host of the "Welcome to Florida" podcast. He lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and children.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

Thanks for your support

Since this newsletter was launched a year ago, hundreds of thousands of subscribers have joined the Tropic Press community, making this one of the fastest-growing publications of its kind.

Our goal is to reach as many voters as possible so we can increase engagement in the political process and, hopefully, raise interest in voting this coming November.

If you are encountering this newsletter for the first time, please consider subscribing. If you are already a subscriber, consider upgrading your subscription to help this work continue.

Regardless, every person you share this with is one more potential vote for change.

Please share and help us make Florida — and America — better for all of us.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Is expanding the Supreme Court to 13 members a good idea? Or would term limits be better? The House may vote today on this issue. Republicans want to cap the court at nine. What do you think? Cast your votes in the reader polls below.

Subscribe now

By Ashley Murray

States Newsroom

WASHINGTON — As public opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court flags amid decisions that have roiled the nation, Democrats renewed calls ahead of the midterms to expand the high court, while House Republicans are considering a constitutional amendment this week that proposes to cap the number at nine.

Just Monday, the court gave the green light to President Donald Trump’s ballroom expansion and is expected to issue a major ruling soon on Trump’s vote-by-mail order that could throw the midterm elections into chaos.

Over the weekend, Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said, “I think that we are in a position now that calls for some significant actions taken by the Congress.

“And we ought to expand — and 13 is a pretty good number. A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the court,” the 17-term House Democrat said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.”

Clyburn said conservatives on the court, specifically naming Justice Clarence Thomas, have decided to “take the country back” in time.

In late April, the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority struck down a protection in the Voting Rights Act that assured the vote of majority Black congressional districts could not be diluted.

In June, the court upheld the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guaranteeing birthright citizenship, but the decision was not unanimous. Four justices dissented, arguing that there are some exceptions for certain babies born to immigrants on U.S. soil, depending on their parents’ immigration status.

Clyburn is not the only Democrat to call for court expansion. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, a likely 2028 presidential hopeful, also advocated for a 13-justice high court during July 31 comments at the National Urban League meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Other high-profile Democrats have said in recent weeks and months they want to see change at the Supreme Court, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

As for public opinion, Pew Research found that just over half of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Supreme Court, according to survey results published July 30, a near-historic low.

A Gallup poll published July 28 found confidence in the Supreme Court at a record low of 33%.

Constitutional amendment

While many Democrats’ answer to the dissatisfaction is to add more justices, the House is poised to vote as soon as today on a Republican resolution to propose a constitutional amendment that would codify the number of justices at nine.

House Republican leadership is expected to bring the resolution to the floor under a suspension of rules, meaning that a two-thirds majority would be required to pass it.

The resolution would also have to pass the Senate to begin the seven-year clock for three-fifths of states, or 38, to ratify it.

Johnson fears ‘political palooza’

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday that he expects the resolution to hit the floor today.

Johnson accused the Democratic Socialists of America, whom he referred to as the “communist socialists in the Democrat party who are taking the party over,” of wanting “to pack the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“We’re gonna make sure that doesn’t happen,” the Louisiana Republican said.

“There’s a couple of Democrats here in the House who have suggested that they’re not on board with the Democratic Socialists of America, just a few. They’re gonna get a chance to show us tomorrow. … Nine justices has worked well.”

Johnson added expanding the court risks turning into “a political palooza.”

His office did not respond to a States Newsroom request for comment on whether he believes the resolution would succeed or if leadership has put the bill on the floor calendar to send a message ahead of the November midterm elections in which control of the House is at stake.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., introduced the resolution in January 2025. The resolution was referred to the House calendar on July 6 of this year. Biggs won the GOP primary for Arizona governor in July.

Biggs argued in early June that his resolution would protect the court from people “threatening to pack this iconic American institution to ensure favorable outcomes for their causes.”

“This action will protect the Court’s legitimacy, preserve the checks and balances that safeguard our cherished freedoms, and ensure every American’s rights remain secure – no matter who holds political power,” he said in a statement after the House Committee on the Judiciary advanced the legislation.

Rep. Derrick Schmidt, R-Kansas, signed on as a cosponsor in early June, and Rep. Rick Allen, R-Ga., on July 16. Both men are in solidly Republican districts, according to the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.

‘Magical thinking’

Not all think that expanding the Supreme Court or restricting its size to nine justices will fix what many see as serious flaws.

Gabe Roth, executive director of the nonprofit Fix the Court, said both ideas are “pretty cynical positions.”

“I think it just is part of this magical thinking that all of a sudden we’re going to have 13 justices and everything is going to be okay in the federal judiciary. That voting rights will come back, abortion rights will come back, and that’s not how cases reach the court,” said Roth, whose organization advocates for “non-ideological fixes.”

On the “keep nine” side, Roth said there’s a belief that the court now has a “perfect construct.”

“It’s not,” he said, adding “I don’t see why keep nine is a good idea other than to try to rile up the base.”

Instead Roth wants to see term limits gradually phased in over time.

“Every democracy that’s younger than ours has term limits or age limits for their apex court justices. Forty-nine out of 50 states have term limits, age limits, or retention elections for their apex courts,” he told States Newsroom in an interview Tuesday.

The Supreme Court lacks term limits “because King George was firing colonial judges, and so some monarch’s mental decrepitude shouldn’t be a reason for maintaining something 250 years later,” Roth said, referring to Great Britain’s King George III at-will firing of judges in the colonies.

Founders of the United States wrote into the Constitution several guardrails against influencing the court, including giving judges lifetime appointments, according to the American Bar Association.

Roth supports legislation introduced last year by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., that would limit a justice’s Supreme Court service to 18 years, and would give each president a chance to nominate one justice during their first and third years in office.

That means the number of justices could fluctuate at times, depending on retirements or deaths.

“It’s basically like you add a new justice every two years, and you know, if there are 10 or 11 justices for 10 or 15 years, so be it,” he said.

Democrats “came to the number four because that would give Democrats a 7-6 majority. It’s not like they’re pulling four out of thin air,” he said, referring to advocates who want 13 justices.

The system would be “fair” and “regularized,” Roth added.

“​​So we don’t have a system where Trump gets three (nominations) in one term, and then Jimmy Carter got zero in his one term.”

Eight cosponsors, all Democrats, joined Khanna’s legislation. They include Reps. Don Beyer, D-Va., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich, Sean Casten, D-Ill., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., Juan Vargas, D-Calif., Summer Lee, D-Pa., and Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz.

Both Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., have sponsored other legislation to create term limits for Supreme Court justices.

Johnson’s bill, first introduced in 2023, has 86 Democratic cosponsors.

Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Alex Padilla, D-Calif., joined Whitehouse to reintroduce their term limits bill in July.

Ashley Murray covers the nation’s capital as a senior reporter for States Newsroom. Her coverage areas include domestic policy and appropriations. Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

What do you think?

Leave a comment

Thanks for your support

Since this newsletter was launched a year ago, hundreds of thousands of subscribers have joined the Tropic Press community, making this one of the fastest-growing publications of its kind.

Our goal is to reach as many voters as possible so we can increase engagement in the political process and, hopefully, raise interest in voting this coming November.

If you are encountering this newsletter for the first time, please consider subscribing. If you are already a subscriber, consider upgrading your subscription to help this work continue.

Regardless, every person you share this with is one more potential vote for change.

Please share and help us make Florida — and America — better for all of us.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Ten million dollars of Medicaid funds that should have been used to help poor Florida children were, instead, rerouted by the DeSantis administration for political purposes. A grand jury report detailing this abuse has been kept secret for months. Finally, the public gets to see the depth of the scandal.

Subscribe now

By Michael Barfield

Florida Trident

For seven months, the finding sat in a sealed envelope at the Leon County Clerk of Court’s office in Tallahassee: A state grand jury had concluded that Florida officials misappropriated $10 million in taxpayer money and funneled it, through a charity tied to First Lady Case DeSantis, into political committees run by the appointed Attorney General that spent it on an election.

No public docket showed the case. The Second Judicial Circuit told a lawyer for a coalition of news organizations it had “no records responsive” to a request for the case number and docket sheet. The Leon County Clerk first said it could neither confirm nor deny that any such records existed, then said it had none. The presentment was filed under seal on Jan. 28, and, according to reporting published first by CBS News Miami investigative reporter Jim DeFede, who obtained a copy, the people named in it, including Attorney General James Uthmeier, spent the months since blocking its release through closed court proceedings.

What the report says, DeFede reported, is this: The DeSantis administration diverted $10 million from a Medicaid overbilling settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation as part of what the grand jury called “a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.” Money owed to Florida taxpayers as compensation for a health care contractor’s overcharges on the program that insures poor children instead ended up in political action committees and the Republican Party of Florida, where it was spent in the fall of 2024 to defeat Amendment 3, the marijuana legalization initiative.

And then, having found the money was taken, the grand jury declined to charge anyone.

“Despite our finding that the money was misappropriated,” the panel wrote, according to the copy DeFede obtained, “we find insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally.”

A settlement that sat for three years, then moved in days

The underlying facts have been reported in pieces since April 2025, when state Rep. Alex Andrade’s House Health Care Budget Subcommittee began pulling at the thread. The grand jury’s account, as described by DeFede, assembles them into a sequence.

In 2021, Florida determined that Centene, one of the country’s largest Medicaid contractors, had overbilled the state roughly $67 million for prescription drugs under Florida’s Medicaid program — money that, as the grand jury framed it, was owed back to taxpayers who fund health coverage for poor children. Other states that caught Centene doing the same thing settled quickly and announced it. Florida did not. Settlement offers went unanswered for three years.

Then, in September 2024, the state moved abruptly — and with new conditions. On Sept. 12, the draft settlement was modified so that $62 million would go to the state and $5 million to the Hope Florida Foundation. A day later, on Sept. 13, the split changed again: $57 million to the state, $10 million to Hope Florida. The grand jury found no explanation in the record for why the charity’s cut doubled overnight.

Nobody, the grand jury wrote, would own the decision. “Nobody will take responsibility for deciding the $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida,” the report states, “or had any memory of who made it.”

The panel rejected the framing offered by Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Jason Weida, now the governor’s chief of staff, who signed the agreement and characterized the $10 million as a “bonus” rather than money owed back to taxpayers. “We find that the full Centene settlement was taxpayer reimbursement,” the grand jury wrote. “This money was part of the damages Centene owed to Florida taxpayers.”

Signed during a hurricane

The grand jury’s timeline runs directly through two of the worst weeks Florida had in 2024.

Hurricane Helene came ashore in the Big Bend on Sept. 26, killing at least 18 people in Florida and causing an estimated $14 billion in damage. The next day, Sept. 27, with the state Emergency Operations Center in full response, Cassandra Pasley, chief of staff at the Florida Department of Health, was asked to sign a settlement agreement she had never seen. She testified she would not have signed it had she known the money would end up with political committees.

Centene wired the $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation on Oct. 4. Hurricane Milton made landfall on Oct. 9. On Oct. 11, amid that response, Uthmeier — then the governor’s chief of staff — personally contacted Amy Ronshausen, executive director of Save Our Society from Drugs, and directed her to apply for a Hope Florida grant.

“The Centene settlement itself seems rushed,” the grand jury wrote. “Once reached, it took a mere 7 days to fund. We believe the rush was due to the impending election, which was just 45 days away.”

Twenty-five days, two grants, one destination

Within 25 days of receiving the money, the Hope Florida Foundation had given all of it away in two $5 million grants.

Secure Florida’s Future, an arm of the Florida Chamber of Commerce headed by Mark Wilson, received $5 million on an application stating the money would fund “webinars, podcasts, summits” promoting Hope Florida. Within days, $3.75 million went to Keep Florida Clean, the political committee chaired by Uthmeier.

Save Our Society from Drugs received its $5 million on an application approved within hours of submission. Within a week, $4.75 million of it went to Keep Florida Clean.

Both applications, the grand jury found, “mischaracterized” the purpose of the money and represented that it would not be used politically. In total, Keep Florida Clean took in $8.5 million. From there, $7 million went to the Republican Party of Florida and $1.23 million to the Florida Freedom Fund, another committee associated with Uthmeier.

Joshua Hay, chair of the Hope Florida Foundation, testified that he approved the transfers without asking questions, under the impression the money was needed to help hurricane victims.

As for the charity at the center of it all — Hope Florida, the welfare-navigation initiative championed by First Lady Casey DeSantis — the grand jury could not verify that it was much of anything. “Hope Florida was touted by some witnesses as a high-profile project with a high success rate, but we were unable to get any evidence to substantiate these representations,” the report states. “On the contrary, other witnesses referred to Hope Florida as just a concept and did not have a clear understanding of what it did, where it existed, or how it operated.”

There was no press release, no notice to the Legislature, no restriction on how the money could be spent, and no oversight of what happened to it.

Who the report names — and who never testified

The grand jury placed Uthmeier “in a position of authority” directing the funds once they reached Hope Florida. It concluded that then-Attorney General Ashley Moody, now a U.S. senator, knew of the diversion plan and “authorized” her chief deputy to sign the settlement. That deputy, John Guard, appointed by DeSantis to the Second District Court of Appeal in January, signed despite “reservations,” having raised concerns that the arrangement violated Florida statutes requiring legislative approval to spend state money.

Gov. Ron DeSantis was not called to testify. Neither was Moody. Neither was Uthmeier.

The grand jury closed by recommending the Legislature pass two laws: one requiring all money received by the state be deposited into the General Fund, with penalties for violations; and one setting clear rules, with tracking, monitoring, and consequences for how entities like Hope Florida may use taxpayer dollars.

The fight to make it public

Florida law does not make a grand jury presentment secret forever. Section 905.28, F.S., delays release so that a person named in a report may ask a judge to repress or expunge material about them. But the statute has been amended to incorporate Chapter 119 and Article I, Section 24 of the Florida Constitution, and the Florida Supreme Court held in Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Marko that “implicit in the power of the grand jury to investigate and expose official misconduct is the right of the people to be informed of its findings.” Criticism or damage to reputation, the courts have said, is not by itself a reason to bury a presentment.

In March, the Florida Center for Government Accountability, publisher of the Florida Trident, and this reporter, appearing pro se, moved to intervene in the Leon County proceeding. (Disclosure: the author is executive director of FLCGA and a movant in that case.) The motion, filed by attorneys Barbara Petersen and Robert Craig Waters, does not ask the court for the grand jury’s secrets. It asks for something narrower and, arguably, more basic: that the case exist in public. Rule 2.420 of the Florida Rules of Judicial Administration forbids a court from making a case number confidential, requires any sealing order to contain specific findings that it is no broader than necessary, and requires the clerk to post that order on its website and in the courthouse. No such order has been found.

“If the public has no right to intervene and be heard in these proceedings,” the motion argues, “the result could be a process in which public officials and recipients of public funds are publicly reprimanded by a grand jury while the entire presentment is later suppressed or expunged without meaningful scrutiny.”

Uthmeier’s office has declined to say whether he sought to keep the report sealed, noting only that “grand jury proceedings are confidential” and that “unauthorized disclosure of those proceedings is a crime.” In April he called the matter a “big nothingburger,” adding: “I have not been indicted. I’ve not been a suspect or a target. I have not been involved in any criminal activity.” Asked about Hope Florida on Wednesday, DeSantis said he “wasn’t involved in the settlement agreement, but I’m very happy with how everything was done,” and called the controversy a hoax.

Three weeks after the grand jury’s report, Uthmeier announced a public corruption Public Integrity Unit to prosecute “anyone using a position of public trust for personal benefit.” Its mandate: public money routed to nonprofits.

Voters go to the polls in November. Uthmeier is on the ballot, facing Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez. The grand jury’s report is not.

Leave a comment

This article is shared with Tropic Press readers courtesy of Florida Trident. The reporter, Michael Barfield, is an award-winning investigative reporter who helps strengthen transparency and accountability across Florida. He assists reporters and the public with public records questions and requests, and he oversees and supports the organization’s litigation to enforce open government. He’s a frequent lecturer on Florida’s Public Records Act and Sunshine Law, serves on the governance committee of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Barfield is a former President of the ACLU of Florida, a life member of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and has twice been named by Sarasota Magazine as one of the most influential people in Sarasota. He lives in Sarasota with his wife, Iru.

The Florida Trident is a news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by the Florida Center for Government Accountability in the wake of shrinking newsroom budgets and staff across the country. To help the center’s work, you can donate here:

DONATE

Thanks for your support

Since this newsletter was launched a year ago, hundreds of thousands of subscribers have joined the Tropic Press community, making this one of the fastest-growing publications of its kind.

Our goal is to reach as many voters as possible so we can increase engagement in the political process and, hopefully, raise interest in voting this coming November.

If you are encountering this newsletter for the first time, please consider subscribing. If you are already a subscriber, consider upgrading your subscription to help this work continue.

Regardless, every person you share this with is one more potential vote for change.

Please share and help us make Florida — and America — better for all of us.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

A federal court ruling in Idaho is making its way through the appeals process that could have implications for states like Florida with highly restrictive abortion laws by broadening exceptions to include mental health issues. More on Florida’s laws following this guest article.

Subscribe now

By Kelcie Moseley-Morris

Stateline

A federal court ruling out of Idaho has potential implications for exceptions in abortion bans nationwide and could eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court to decide.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled earlier this month that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides a narrow right for a pregnant patient to obtain an abortion if the pregnancy could be a risk to their health, including their mental health. It’s the first ruling since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health in 2022 to find that the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion access in certain situations.

Mary Ziegler, a legal historian and law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, said Winmill’s ruling could be the beginning of a “slow erosion” of the Dobbs decision, similar to the way that anti-abortion advocates used lawsuits and legislation to chip away at the law established by Roe v. Wade after it was decided in 1973.

“They kind of worked over the course of decades to do a death by a thousand cuts, chipping away at its breadth,” Ziegler said. “This may be kind of a funhouse mirror version of that.”

For years, anti-abortion state officials and advocacy groups used various legal tactics to diminish access to abortion nationwide after Roe v. Wade determined that the procedure was a constitutional right. Over time, state legislatures passed procedural laws that made it more difficult for providers to offer abortion services, as well as so-called “fetal pain” laws, and worked up to passing the six-week and 15-week abortion bans that eventually led to Dobbs.

Two years ago, U.S. Supreme Court justices were asked to consider whether Idaho could set aside federal law mandating stabilizing care in an emergency if that stabilizing care, in a doctor’s opinion, was to terminate a pregnancy. Now the question could be whether any pregnancy scenario where a patient’s physical or mental health is threatened is something that all states can regulate under Dobbs.

Health exceptions

Out of the 13 states that have near-total abortion bans, five have no exception for preserving a pregnant patient’s health, including Idaho, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

All 13 have an exception to save a pregnant woman’s life, but doctors say there most often is no clear moment when they can easily say a person will die without an immediate abortion. Instead, doctors are left to guess whether terminating a pregnancy to save a patient would cost them their license to practice or land them in prison.

Even in states with health exceptions, some doctors hesitate to act because of the ban, opting for delays that can cause medical complications such as organ damage or fertility loss. An Arkansas woman said she was denied an abortion during a miscarriage in 2024, resulting in a days-long ordeal that eventually led to her being transferred out of state to Kansas, where abortion is legal.

Winmill’s legal decision blocks enforcement of Idaho’s near-total abortion ban when a pregnancy is terminated under those circumstances. Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, a Republican, appealed the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, and also asked Winmill to pause that injunction while the decision is appealed.

“The state’s interest in protecting unborn children from unjustified abortion is irreparably harmed by the order, and public interest and equity support a stay for that same reason,” Idaho Assistant Solicitor General Aaron Green wrote in the request for a stay.

The attorney general and leadership at the Idaho Family Policy Center, a religious organization that helped craft the legislation that established the state’s ban, have expressed confidence that Winmill’s decision will be reversed quickly.

“The Fourteenth Amendment protects the basic rights that are part of the historical fabric of our nation, not a right to take the life of an innocent child in the womb, an act that was a crime at the time that the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified,” said Caleb Pirc, general counsel for the Idaho Family Policy Center, in a statement. “We fully expect Judge Winmill’s attempt to shoehorn a right to abortion into the Constitution to be swiftly rejected on appeal.”

Supreme Court watch

Dr. Stacy Seyb, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist for Idaho’s largest health system, St. Luke’s, sued state officials and the Idaho Board of Medicine in 2024, arguing that the state’s near-total ban prevented him from providing appropriate care to all of his patients. Maternal-fetal medicine specialists handle the most high-risk pregnancies, including patients carrying multiples and those with conditions such as high blood pressure and gestational diabetes.

In his ruling, Winmill wrote that although Dobbs allowed states to regulate abortion access, that case was about elective abortions, and that his ruling was about a pregnant woman’s ability to seek care under “the most difficult and tragic circumstances,” almost always when the woman wanted the pregnancy.

“By banning health-preserving abortion, Idaho attempts to deny this fundamental right on the basis that the threat of harm comes from a fetus, which depends on the woman for survival,” Winmill wrote. “But a pregnant woman’s health is not a state resource to be allocated at the legislature’s whim. The Fourteenth Amendment exists precisely to prevent subjugation like this.”

Winmill discussed the history of abortion bans in his opinion, writing that when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, the states and territories that restricted abortion also included exceptions for therapeutic purposes when a doctor was acting in good faith.

But Winmill went further than many judges have gone by including a pregnancy’s threats to mental health, something that only Alabama has recognized as an explicit healthcare exception for abortions among states with bans, according to KFF. There, a psychiatrist is required to diagnose a pregnant patient with a serious mental illness that could result in their death or the death of the fetus in order to qualify for that exception.

“The brain is an organ of the body, and healthcare providers use empirical tools to reliably assess the risk of suicidality and the most effective treatments,” Winmill wrote. “It is an affront to human dignity to bar pregnant women from receiving life-saving care on the basis that the threat comes from a mental health condition rather than a physical health condition.”

Idaho’s role

Idaho has been at the center of the national debate about when health conditions take priority over an abortion ban since the first year after the Dobbs decision.

The U.S. Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden sued Idaho to require that it acknowledge a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act — better known as EMTALA — in the context of patients who come to the emergency room with pregnancies that may need to be terminated to prevent infection or other adverse health outcomes.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard that case in late April 2024, but sent it back to the lower appellate court in June, saying it was too early in the process for justices to have considered ruling on it. The case was later dropped by the DOJ under President Donald Trump, but St. Luke’s filed its own lawsuit against the state that is still ongoing. That case is also before Winmill in federal court.

At the time of the EMTALA arguments, Idaho officials had argued that if it allowed women to get a legal abortion in an emergency room, anyone could come to a hospital’s emergency department and threaten to harm themselves.

Tanya Pellegrini, co-director of litigation at The Lawyering Project and one of the attorneys who represented Seyb in this month’s case, said that wasn’t true under EMTALA, and it won’t be true following Winmill’s ruling.

“I think the order really speaks for itself in terms of why mental health should not be treated differently from physical health,” Pellegrini said.

Ziegler said she won’t be surprised if Seyb’s case ends up before the Supreme Court in the near future, because it strikes at the heart of questions about the Dobbs decision that have yet to be fully resolved.

“It’s a really important question that they’ll have to address sooner or later,” Ziegler said.

Leave a comment

Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes Florida Phoenix, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

To support the work of Florida Phoenix, please click here:

DONATE

Editor’s Note

As mentioned at the top of this article, this ruling could impact Florida and other states with highly restrictive laws limiting reproductive care for women. Florida does not allow for mental health issues when considering the welfare of women seeking pregnancy termination. Here are the current rules, drawn from a Google AI search:

Abortion is banned in Florida after six weeks of gestational age. Under Chapter 390 of the Florida Statutes, the state enforces a strict six-week limit alongside mandatory administrative hurdles.

Permitted Exceptions

Abortion is legally permitted after six weeks only under narrow, certified circumstances:

• Life and Physical Health: To save the life of the pregnant individual or to avert a serious risk of substantial, irreversible impairment of a major bodily function (certified by two physicians). Psychological conditions do not qualify.

• Fatal Fetal Abnormalities: Allowed up to the third trimester if two physicians certify a terminal condition incompatible with life outside the womb.

• Rape, Incest, and Human Trafficking: Allowed up to 15 weeks if the patient provides official documentation, such as a medical record or police report.

Procedural Restrictions

Patients seeking legal care before the six-week mark must navigate several statutory restrictions:

• Two-Trip Mandatory Delay: Patients must attend two separate in-person appointments at least 24 hours apart to complete counseling and obtain care.

• Mandatory Ultrasounds: A physician must perform an ultrasound to determine gestational age prior to any procedure.

• Medication Restrictions: Telehealth prescriptions and mailing abortion pills are banned. The first dose of a medication abortion must be ingested in person at the clinic.

• Minors: Patients age 17 and younger require notarized parental consent and notification, unless a judicial waiver is granted by a judge.

• Funding Limits: Public funds and state Medicaid are prohibited from covering abortion care except in rare cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest.

Legal and Constitutional Status

The state’s current legal status remains highly restrictive following major constitutional developments:

• Privacy Clause Ruling: The Florida Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution’s right to privacy does not protect abortion rights, clearing the path for the current ban.

• Constitutional Amendments: Florida voters previously considered Amendment 4, which sought to establish a constitutional right to abortion; however, it failed to reach the required 60% supermajority threshold.

  ---

Thanks for your support

Since this newsletter was launched a year ago, hundreds of thousands of subscribers have joined the Tropic Press community, making this one of the fastest-growing publications of its kind.

Our goal here is to reach as many voters as possible, so that we can increase engagement in the political process and, hopefully, raise interest in voting this coming November.

If you are encountering this newsletter for the first time, please consider subscribing. If you are already a subscriber, consider upgrading your subscription to help this work continue.

Regardless, every person you share this with is one more potential vote for change.

Please share and help us make Florida — and America — better for all of us.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

By William March

Florida Trident

Byron Donalds, who cruised to an easy victory in the Republican primary for governor with the endorsement of Donald Trump, has maintained two separate campaigns – one for the governorship and one for re-election to his U.S. House seat – during almost his entire campaign for governor.

Despite a warning from federal election authorities that he was skirting campaign finance laws, Donalds continued to raise and spend money for more than 18 months in a campaign for re-election to his U.S. House seat.

Since the start of 2025, Donalds’ campaign for his House seat has taken in $738,092, and spent more than $2.1 million – most of it since he declared on Feb. 26, 2025 that he was running for governor and not running for House re-election.

The biggest chunk of that spending was taking $1.2 million he had raised to run for re-election to Congress and passing it to a political action committee, Friends of Byron Donalds, backing his run for governor.

But his campaign for re-election to the House has also taken in $30,000 from PACs, spent $136,561.47 for “security services” and paid $36,000 to a polling and research firm, all since he announced he was not actually running for the House.

Donalds is the U.S. House representative from Florida’s District 19 in southwest Florida, encompassing coastal areas from Fort Myers to Naples.

Six months after he initially announced in February 2025 that he was running for governor and not for re-election to Congress, the Federal Elections Commission warned Donalds that he should stop accepting contributions to his House campaign and refund those donations he had accepted since his announcement.

In response, the Donalds campaign told the FEC that he was still in fact “an active candidate” for House re-election.

It wasn’t until earlier this month, on Aug. 5, that Donalds’ House re-election campaign told the FEC it would stop raising and spending money and declared – for the second time – that he was not a House candidate.

The timeline:

• Feb. 25, 2025 – Donalds notifies the FEC that he is not running for re-election to the House, saying he “is not seeking re-election and will not be conducting any further activities with respect to the 2026 primary election.”

• Feb. 26, 2025 – Donalds files as a candidate for governor of Florida and immediately transfers $1.2 million from his House campaign to Friends of Byron Donalds.

• July 15, 2025 – Despite having declared he was no longer a House candidate, Donalds files a campaign finance report with the FEC showing his House campaign raised $74,693.49 and spent $146,084 in the previous three months.

• Aug. 5, 2025 – An FEC official tells the Donalds campaign that because he is no longer a House candidate, its contributions received since his February announcement “must be refunded” except the amount used to pay off debts.

• Aug. 6, 2025 – Donalds campaign treasurer Bradley Crate responds to the FEC with a letter saying Donalds “has not officially ended his Congressional re-election campaign and he has made no announcement to that effect,” and “is still an active candidate for the 2025-2026 Election Cycle.”

• June 6, 2026 – Donalds files qualifying papers for governor of Florida.

• Aug. 8 – Crate sends a letter to the FEC saying Donalds is not running for re-election to the House after all.

The Donalds campaign didn’t respond to an inquiry from the Florida Trident with questions about his contradictory statements on whether he was running for re-election to Congress and why his House campaign continued spending on items such as polling and security services.

FEC reports show Donalds has refunded some donations to his House campaign, but far from all that he raised since initially declaring he was no longer a House candidate.

The Trident initially reported in September 2025 about Donalds’ dual campaigns.

At that time, Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, told the Trident that any enforcement action by the FEC was unlikely, regardless of whether the campaign violated campaign finance regulations.

Only two of the six seats on the commission that governs the FEC are filled, and the six-member commission hasn’t had a quorum since May 2025. That means the commission cannot “resolve enforcement and audit matters, implement rules, issue advisory opinions, and litigate most cases,” according to a statement in May by Commission Chair Shana Broussard.

The bipartisan FEC members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Jeff Swartz, professor emeritus at Cooley Law School in Tampa, speculated that Donalds may have kept his House campaign open as a way of “keeping his powder dry” – preserving the option to run for House re-election in case another strong candidate emerged for governor.

Leave a comment

William March has written about politics in the Tampa Bay area for the past 40 years. He has worked for newspapers in his native North Carolina and for the Tampa Tribune, the Tampa Bay Times and the Associated Press in Florida. Trident Staff Writer Melanie Payne contributed to this report.

The Florida Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by the Florida Center for Government Accountability in the wake of shrinking newsroom budgets and staff across the country. This article is published with the Trident’s permission. To support the Trident’s work, click here:

Donate

Thanks for your support

Since this newsletter was launched a year ago, hundreds of thousands of subscribers have joined the Tropic Press community, making this one of the fastest-growing publications of its kind.

Our goal here is to reach as many voters — especially Democrats and independents — as possible, so that we can increase engagement in the political process and, hopefully, raise interest in voting this coming November.

We do that with original reporting and commentary and by sharing worthwhile articles from other publications, such as today’s story from Florida Trident.

If you are encountering this newsletter for the first time, please consider subscribing. If you are already a subscriber, consider upgrading your subscription to help this work continue.

Regardless, every person you share this with is one more potential vote for change.

Please share and help us make Florida — and America — better for all of us.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

By Jay Waagmeester

Florida Phoenix

As of 2 p.m. Thursday, 1.33 million voters had returned vote-by-mail ballots or voted early in Florida’s primary elections. Just over 1 million vote-by-mail ballots were yet to be returned.

Among the votes cast, 555,056 were from Democrats and 593,800 from Republicans. About 160,000 ballots cast were by No Party Affiliation voters.

Of the 1 million vote-by-mail ballots outstanding, about 325,000 were for Republicans and 429,000 for Democrats. Another 228,000 belonged to NPA voters.

Republicans enjoy a lead of nearly 1.6 million registered voters. As of Thursday, about 55,000 more Democrats than Republicans had returned ballots by mail. Nearly 100,000 more Republicans have voted early than Democrats.

Early voting ends Saturday, and vote-by-mail ballots must be returned to county election supervisors by 7 p.m. election day Tuesday, Aug. 18 — no matter the postmark. For more information on voting deadlines for the primary and general elections, check out the Phoenix Election 2026 landing page.

Historical

According to the archived 2020 primary vote-by-mail and early voting statistics, 2.9 million ballots were cast early or by mail that year, and 1.9 million mail ballots were not returned.

In 2022, 2.3 million mail ballots were not returned, while 2.36 million ballots were cast early or by mail.

In 2024, there were half as many ballots not returned, 1.02 million, compared to the 2.07 million cast early or by mail.

Outstanding vote-by-mail ballots in large counties | Ballots cast

Broward: 61,416 | 80,192

Collier: 18,464 | 32,227

Duval: 18,400 | 39,844

Hernando: 9,666 | 14,724

Hillsborough: 78,368 | 91,299

Lee: 49,928 | 74,118

Manatee: 21,202 | 28,332

Miami-Dade: 113,505 | 116,851

Orange: 53,277 | 73,984

Pinellas: 114,432 | 83,226

Volusia: 31,541 | 45,764

During a campaign rally Thursday in Wakulla County, gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds asked who there had already voted. Almost everyone raised hands.

Donalds commented on the overall shift in the share of voters who are Republican. He recalled a conversation he had with Florida GOP chair Evan Power in 2024. “I said, Evan, if you don’t get over 1.4 million by the time we hit election day, you’re in trouble.”

“But he accomplished it, and by the time we got to the November elections in 2024, the voter advantage in Florida, Republicans over Democrats, was more than 1.4 million voters. And, since then, he hasn’t stopped; it’s now gone to 1.5 million and counting.”

In 2018, the Florida Democratic Party had about 260,000 more registered voters than the Republican Party.

Leave a comment

Jay Waagmeester covers education for the Florida Phoenix. He previously worked for the Iowa Capital Dispatch and the Iowa State Daily. He grew up in Iowa and is a graduate of Iowa State University.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

EDITOR’S NOTE:

While, as this article from Florida Phoenix points out, Republicans do outnumber Democrats in Florida—by quite a lot—if you look at the broader picture of Democrats, minor party members, and voters with no party affiliation (NPAs), combined they vastly outnumber the number of Floridians registered to the G.O.P. as you can see in this chart from the Florida Secretary of State’s office:

I would also note that voter registration does not determine election results. Turnout does.

So, while Floridians registered as NPAs, for example, cannot vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary elections, they can vote in November. It’s reasonable to expect that voter turnout among NPAs will be smaller in the primary election next week than in the general election.

Polls indicate a high degree of dissatisfaction with Donald Trump among unaffiliated voters, and it is also reasonable to expect that at least some percentage of Republicans may sit this election out in disgust.

While the raw voter registration numbers may be against those opposed to the fascist impulses of the MAGA movement, there is every reason to believe that the general election in November is a realistic opportunity to change the political complexion of our state.

It will take a lot of work. But it is work worth doing.

Which is why I am so thankful for those of you who are subscribers to this newsletter. Please share this with your friends. It’s vital that we engage every possible voter.

Thank you.

J.C. Bruce

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Florida wants to use federal funds designated for electric car chargers for something else entirely— flying cars. No joke. Well, certainly not funny. Craig Pittman has the story, reprinted here with permission of Florida Phoenix, the Tallahassee-based news service.

Subscribe now

By Craig Pittman

Florida Phoenix

I watched a lot of cartoons as a kid. None was more visually stunning than “The Jetsons.” It focused on a family coping with life in a streamlined future filled with snazzy gadgets.

George Jetson, for instance, commutes to work in a flying car that’s quieter than your average vacuum cleaner. When he lands, George folds his vehicle up into a briefcase he then carries into his office. No need for roads OR parking!

Apparently, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Department of Transportation secretary, Jared Perdue, fell under the spell of this cartoon, too. Now they want to make it real using millions in federal funding intended for a different purpose.

The Miami Herald broke the story over the weekend. The headline said, “Florida wants to use cash meant for electric car chargers on flying cars instead.”

There’s just one problem with this plan: Flying cars do not exist.

For years the Florida DOT has been sitting on $197 million in federal grant money that it was supposed to spend on new chargers for electric cars and trucks. Now, the Herald says, the DOT has plans to steer (sorry!) that money to something bizarre. It wants to “build what it calls an ‘Aerial Highway Network’ that includes places the futuristic aircraft can charge, take off, and land.”

In the secret nine-page plan that the Herald got hold of, the DOT says the state is taking “a bold step in building an entirely new mode of transportation.” My hard-headed Cracker forebears would call this “buying a pig in a poke” — throwing money at something that’s not real.

“The Florida Department of Transportation will not waste taxpayer dollars and spend it on everyday passenger vehicles,” the DOT wrote in its flying-cars-are-cool report.

Of course, that’s exactly what the DOT promised the federal government the agency WOULD do with that money. It promised to spend it on chargers needed for the growing number of everyday electric vehicles.

The agency never mentioned that it would instead blow that cash on some cockamamie contraption conjured up by a 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon. They never brought up their plans to build 32 landing pads across the state and use state funds to supplement the federal grant.

I suspect DeSantis and Perdue know this looks bad. They’ve been trying for months to hide the DOT document from the public.

As the Herald explained, “The state’s flying-car pivot only came to light after the Miami Herald filed a records request in January, which went unfulfilled until the newspaper’s lawyer got involved.”

“It’s a complete misappropriation of these funds,” said Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “This just shows how of touch their decision-making is.”

Smith suspects he knows who the beneficiaries will be. It’s not the average Florida driver. Instead, he said, “This is a giveaway to the people who need it the least.”

Roads vs. politics

The millions of taxpayer dollars at stake here came from one of the worst-named bills ever considered by Congress.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which passed in 2021, included language to expand the nation’s fast-charging network for electric cars and trucks. The provision called for adding more chargers within a mile of all interstate highways. That would help EV drivers travel greater distances without getting stranded.

It wasn’t intended as a total government giveaway. Businesses that received the funding, such as Buc-ees and Wawa, would get enough to cover about 80% of the costs. They would be required to put up the other 20%.

Florida’s DOT submitted a plan for spending the money properly, and the federal government approved it. After all, drivers in Florida have really fallen in love with EVs.

A report last year noted that Florida leads all other Southeastern states in the number of EVs sold — roughly half a million in 2024. This is a good thing.

It’s not just that EVs are cleaner for the air and offer a way to combat that thing about the climate that DeSantis doesn’t want us to mention. Given the soaring cost of gas since the start of the Iran War, you can understand why drivers might prefer vehicles that don’t require a second mortgage to fill the tank.

“Every time the gas prices go up, I say thank you that my price is always the same,” said Leighanne Boone of the Sustainable Tallahassee Ride Electric Club. “I plug in every night.”

What Florida lacks is sufficient public places for rapid charging on the road. As the Herald pointed out, “Florida boasts the second-highest number of EVs in the country but still falls behind the national average on chargers per vehicle.”

“We definitely need more charging infrastructure,” Boone told me. Range anxiety is a deterrent for potential buyers, she explained. Greater availability “will encourage the average driver to go electric.”

Instead of spending the money for more chargers the way it promised, the DOT put it aside. Meanwhile, the agency set up a website called “Roads Are Not For Politics.” Contrary to its name, the site features a list of culture-war complaints, such as “COVID tyranny.” It also offers off-base criticism of EVs.

In the DOT press release about this (which has since been removed), DeSantis said, “We listen to Floridians and meet their needs. Roads are not for politics.”

Except they weren’t listening to Floridians OR meeting their needs. They were playing politics. And now they want to go back on their word to the feds and spend the money on something that hasn’t been built yet.

And I mean spending a LOT. The DOT’s secret plan estimates that each of the 32 landing pads would cost about $5.6 million to build. That’s after going through testing at the DOT’s 775-acre Auburndale test track, the Suntrax Center.

The plan calls for building these landing pads near airports, luxury apartment buildings, and golf courses. All that’s missing is a listing of such hoity-toity locations as Miami’s Indian Creek Island, aka the “Billionaires’ Bunker,” and the Ocean Reef Club in North Key Largo.

Meanwhile, the growing number of EV drivers have to keep scanning the exit ramps and hope they spot a place to pull over and charge.

“It’s disappointing,” Boone said.

Former trailblazer

I watched a Florida DOT video touting this flying car foofaraw, complete with AI mockups of what they might look like. The video didn’t mention where the money would come from, just how groovy it would be.

“It’s an opportunity to introduce a new mode of transportation to the world,” Perdue said, as giddy as Olivia Newton-John soaring into the clouds in John Travolta’s flying car at the end of “Grease.”

Florida once fancied itself as a trailblazer in aviation.

In 1914, Tony Jannus flew a local politician from St. Petersburg to Tampa via seaplane, inaugurating the first regular commercial airline service in the nation. The ticket cost $400 and the ride lasted 22 minutes. No word on whether the airline lost the passenger’s luggage.

That same year, the Navy established its first flight training base in Pensacola. It’s still there. The Blue Angels stunt flying team is based at NAS Pensacola and recently sent hats, tents, and chairs flying during a too-low practice run over the beach.

So perhaps it makes sense that the DOT’s looking to the skies, now that our roads are so consistently clogged. It’s as if the agency is giving up on ever freeing our asphalt from those frustrating traffic jams.

“As Florida’s surface transportation networks reach capacity, and right of way is constrained,” it says, “additional modes of transportation are required to maintain economic development goals as well as quality of life for residents and visitors.”

People — especially people stuck in traffic — have been dreaming of taking off in flying cars for years. But we’re still waiting for the Jetsons’ car-briefcase combo.

“NASA had an air taxi program they were working on back in the 1980s,” recalled David King of Arizona State University, a transportation planning expert. So far, the only place you can see any “air taxis” is in the Bruce Willis science-fiction movie “The Fifth Element.”

Glorified helicopters

I had a lengthy conversation with King, who displayed an encyclopedic knowledge of the “flying car” phenomenon. It’s been a hot topic in Arizona in recent years, he said, and now has begun showing up in other states.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm about this,” he told me. “Strangely, it’s become a partisan Issue. It’s been seized on by people who think government shouldn’t be involved in mass transit, but it’s all about an unproven technology that, as of August 2026, is not currently available.”

While flying cars sound good on paper, King said, there are lots of details still to be worked out. For one thing, he said, forget about them relieving highway congestion.

The perpetually-under-construction Interstate 4, for instance, draws 180,000 to 200,000 vehicles a day. If and when the flying taxis DO appear, they can’t carry much, he said. Because of the weight of the battery, they can carry no more than three passengers and one pilot.

All the trucks have to keep their tires on the ground. These flying cars can’t carry freight the way 18-wheelers do.

You won’t travel far in your glorified helicopter, King said. Because the batteries are depleted after 40 minutes, “they just won’t stay in the air too long.”

Traveling to and from the 32 launch pads will still require use of land vehicles, he pointed out. And you may have to travel quite a ways because of the Federal Aviation Administration.

“As of now, the FAA will not approve any operations over populated areas,” King told me. “You can’t just put one of these things in the air and start flying.”

King used a transportation-related metaphor to describe the Florida DOT’s secretly swiping EV money to use for flying cars: “They’re putting the cart before the horse.”

Try a trebuchet

This kind of creative accounting has been a hallmark of the DeSantis administration.

I’m not just talking about the Hope Florida scandal. You remember that one — $10 million from a Medicaid settlement wound up in the hands of political consultants hired to counter the drive to legalize weed.

Remember, too, how DeSantis took $20 million from a disaster relief fund designed to cope with hurricane damage and instead used it to build a destructive immigrant detention camp in the Everglades. A lot of the no-bid contracts went to his donors, too.

Speaking of donors, don’t forget how he cajoled the Cabinet into spending $83 million from the Florida Wildlife Corridor fund on four acres of land in Destin that was nowhere near the wildlife corridor. The seller just happened to be one of his campaign contributors, making this transaction look more like a payback than a payment.

Usually when I call the governor’s office seeking a comment on one of these scandals, his spokespeople don’t even acknowledge receiving the inquiry. But this time, to my surprise, I got an immediate reply.

One of the governor’s spokespeople said he would refer my question to Perdue of DOT. And he did, too. I never got a response from Perdue’s people. Maybe they’re standing on a launch pad in Auburndale, waiting for George Jetson to pick them up for work.

Because I am at heart a problem-solver, I have a proposal for DeSantis and Perdue. It’s based on something that happened when my kids were in Boy Scouts.

A couple of teenage Scouts built a medieval siege engine called a “trebuchet.” It’s basically a fancy catapult. The boys would roll it out at various events and use it to hurl things like a Barney the Dinosaur toy a long distance.

I think the DOT should spend $1 million of its EV funds to build at Skytrax the most impressive trebuchet ever constructed. DeSantis and Perdue can put a Hot Wheels toy in the pouch. DOT employees can hurl the payload as far as possible and claim they finally created a flying car.

Then they can spend the remaining $196 million on what they SHOULD have spent it on in the first place.

Leave a comment

Craig Pittman is a native Floridian. In 30 years at the Tampa Bay Times, he won numerous state and national awards for his environmental reporting. He is the author of six books. In 2020 the Florida Heritage Book Festival named him a Florida Literary Legend. Craig is co-host of the “Welcome to Florida” podcast. He lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and children.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

Thanks for your support

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you are a rational person living in the Free State of Florida, but there are plenty of smart, reasonable people just like you here. The purpose of this newsletter and the Tropic Press website is to provide a source of news and commentary that shines a light through this irrational fog, both original reporting and contributions such as today’s article from the Florida Phoenix.

Thank you for your support as a subscriber. It is invaluable. This is especially so for those of you who have chosen to upgrade to paid subscriptions. Your contributions are making this possible.

J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Share Tropic Press!

As this newsletter was written, Tropic Press was reaching more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere. But there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

That’s a problem you can help solve.

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort by sharing this newsletter with friends.

If you are reading this as an email, simply forward it. Or you can use the link below. Thanks.

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Enormous data centers that suck up the water supply and cause electric rates to skyrocket are wildly unpopular.

But that isn’t stopping tech giants from using their money and influence to get their way— especially here in Florida.

While I am on the road this week, I’m still keeping up with news worth sharing, and I commend independent journalist Jason Garcia’s report on how Facebook is meddling in Florida elections.

Here’s a sample:

Meta Platforms — the Big Tech giant behind Facebook and Instagram and a leading developer of hyperscale data centers — just launched a campaign to fill the Florida Legislature with politicians friendly to the artificial intelligence industry.

The Mark Zuckerberg-led corporation is already funding advertisements on behalf of one key lawmaker: Rep. Mike Redondo, a Republican from Miami who is in line to become speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in a few years.

Redondo is part of a House GOP leadership team that killed a proposed “AI bill of rights” earlier this year that would have, among other things, exposed AI companies to heavy financial penalties if they permitted children to use chatbots without oversight from parents.

House leaders also weakened a law regulating large data centers just before passing it in March — via a last-minute amendment removing a provision from the bill that would have forbid local governments from signing non-disclosure agreements that hide the identities of data center operators like Meta.

You can read the full report and subscribe to Jason Garcia’s Substack newsletter here:

Jason Garcia

See you soon

I’m on a two-week sabbatical, but will be back before the Florida primary election. In the meantime, I hope to use this space to share articles of interest from guest contributors from time to time, such as today’s article.

I hope you found it thought-provoking. If so, please feel free to share it with friends.

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk. To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement through original reporting and commentary as well as shared stories such as today’s.

Currently, Tropic Press reaches more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

Share

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

By Mitch Perry

Florida Phoenix

As progressives rack up victories in other parts of the country against moderate Democrats, Florida’s Aug. 18 primary could prove a big test for that movement.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col Alex Vindman has tried to reserve his rhetorical fire for Sen. Ashley Moody, the Republican incumbent, instead of his Democratic primary opponent, the fiery Jacksonville state Rep. Angie Nixon, reprimanded by the House of Representatives earlier this year for her megaphone-fuelled protest on the House floor that disrupted a vote on new congressional district maps.

Nixon has plenty to criticize about Moody, as well. But she’s concentrated on contrasting her progressive stances against the more centrist Vindman, who is running for political office for the first time after moving to Broward County in 2023.

As the primary inches closer, tensions between the two continue to grow, from initial acrimony over Vindman’s refusal to debate Nixon before the primary, to outrage over a recent social media remark attacking Nixon as a “shitty human” who should “buy some professional clothes for the love of everything (including shoes).”

For his part, Vindman says he doesn’t believe hype about the growing clout of progressives — at least not in Florida.

“I think actually I’m not sure if I see those trend lines in Florida. I see them in urban cores in different parts of the country, New York. But what’s applicable in New York doesn’t necessarily resonate and carry over to the ‘Free State of Florida,’ Vindman told the Florida Phoenix last week.

Moody

As for Moody, on the campaign trail and social media she has denounced left-leaning Democrats — an argument that might lose its resonance if she faces Vindman rather than Nixon in the fall.

“They are anarchist psychos who want to destroy this country,” Moody said while speaking at the Republican Party of Florida’s Sunshine State Showdown in Hollywood last month. She cited a public opinion survey that she said showed how few Democrats say they love America.

“What’s on the ballot in November is more than just Republican vs. Democrat,” she declared. “It is: Are you a patriot or are you not?”

Moody is being challenged for the Republican nomination by three opponents — election integrity advocate Chris Gleason, physician and author Neelam Taneja Perry, and Presbyterian minister Ernie Rivera.

Polling

There’s been little public polling between the two Democrats as the primary nears. That dearth of information was in part a major reason why several news organizations (including the Phoenix) seized on a poll released last month that showed Nixon doing slightly better than Vindman against Moody in a presumptive one-on-one matchup in November.

There are clear distinctions between the two on domestic and foreign policy.

Both support a raise in the federal minimum wage. But while Vindman wants a boost to $17 per hour, Nixon says it should be much higher.

“I was one of the statewide organizers helping to lead that minimum wage campaign back in 2020, and so I want to be perfectly clear about that. So, raising it to $15 an hour, I believe at a minimum we need a $25-$26-dollar minimum wage, and we can get there by taking incremental steps as it relates to small businesses if they are worried about taking on that cost,” she said.

“We haven’t had a minimum wage increase in a generation,” Vindman said, noting the federal government last raised it to $7.25 in 2009. “It should be indexed to make sure people aren’t falling further and further behind.”

Israel

A key point of difference is support for Israel.

As the Phoenix has previously reported, Nixon has been outspoken in her support for Palestinian rights. When she sponsored a resolution calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, members of both political parties shunned her and said anyone who supported her proposal was antisemitic.

“Palestinians were losing their lives at record high rates,” Nixon said recently when asked about that moment. “And to have people turn their back on me. To be called a terrorist on the House floor. Ignorant. Antisemitic. That was very hurtful. But I will always fight to stand on the right side of history, and I believe that I was on the right side of history then just like I’m on the right side of history now.”

Vindman is a stalwart supporter of Israel, but critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and supportive of a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.

Debate?

A big point of contention is that Vindman has avoided a debate with Nixon, much to her disappointment. His “audacity” to refuse a debate, she said, is “wild to me.”

“It just shows you that he does not know Florida,” she said. “He has no clue in regard to the issues that we face here in this state. He’s a millionaire. He doesn’t understand working class issues.” (A review of Vindman’s Senate financial disclosure form shows that he has made more than $1.4 million from the Here Right Matters Foundation, which he founded).

Vindman has aimed most of his criticism towards Moody, not Nixon.

“Angie has been a terrific fighter in the state House, there’s no question,” he told reporters last month. “She’s been a champion. … She should be celebrated for her contributions.”

Trash talk

That point illustrates how, in a divisive political environment, the Democratic candidates initially tried to remain civil to one another. But as Aug. 18 neared, that changed.

Rachel Vindman, who is married to Alex Vindman, wrote an aggressive social media post on @threads late last week that she removed within hours and by day’s end had her issuing a public apology to Nixon.

Ms. Vindman never mentioned Nixon by name in her original post, something she made a point of. “I know you’re checking my page and yes I am talking about you, but I won’t say your name because you’re not worth it,” she wrote.

Rachel Vindman said a “s— human ” was making personal attacks against their opponent at campaign events “attended by less than 20 people.”

As an aside, she added, “Also, buy some professional clothes for the love of everything (that includes shoes.)”

Nixon supporters quickly responded.

“This is disgusting, tone deaf and beyond out of touch,” Central Florida Democratic state Sen. Lavon Bracy Davis wrote on Facebook.

During her six years in Tallahassee, Nixon hasn’t been able to get much passed in the GOP-controlled House — and she’s not the only one, given the GOP’s supermajorities in both legislative chambers.

She’s become better known for her activism, sometimes on the House floor, including protests against the Legislature’s approvals of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ congressional redistricting maps in 2022 and earlier this year.

Money, money, money

One of Vindman’s most remarkable feats as a candidate to date has been his ability to raise money — more than $19 million since getting into the race in January, more than anyone else in the contest (Moody had raised more than $14 million by the end of June). Many of those donations have come from across the country, demonstrating his appeal to liberals who remember his involvement in the 2019 impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump.

It’s a skill he shares with his identical twin brother — Eugene Vindman raised $14 million in his successful run for Congress in Virginia in 2024 and he’s already raised $12 million in his bid for re-election this year.

Vindman’s fundraising prowess may not mean that much in a one-on-one matchup with Moody. Democrat Val Demings crushed Marco Rubio in fundraising in the 2022 Senate race, yet Rubio won by 16 points that year.

“These previous races that you talked about were with true incumbents that had been tested, that had been proven in the field,” Vindman responds.

Moody has won two statewide elections, both by comfortable margins. She won her first race for attorney general by six points in 2018 and by 22 points in 2022. Vindman, however, has never run a statewide campaign before now.

All together now

While the candidates aren’t in lockstep on all issues, they hope to parlay Moody’s role in the Hope Florida Foundation controversy and the siphoning of $10 million in Medicaid funds to political committees. A Leon County grand jury investigated the transaction but its report, officially called a presentment, has not been released.

Vindman has launched a website with a petition calling on Moody to push for the release of the presentment.

A spokesperson for the Moody campaign said the senator doesn’t oppose public release of the report, but did not comment about whether the senator would advocate for its release.

“This was an Agency for Health Care Administration agreement that AHCA chose to negotiate and settle through AHCA-lawyers and outside counsel almost two years ago. This information is publicly available in previously released documents,” said Cameron Gambini, communications director for the Moody campaign. ‘The Senator has had no role in any grand jury proceedings and would certainly have no issue with the public release of any report.”

Nixon, meanwhile, has said Moody should resign from office.

Leave a comment

Mitch Perry has covered politics and government in Florida for more than two decades. Most recently he is the former politics reporter for Bay News 9. He has also worked at Florida Politics, Creative Loafing and WMNF Radio in Tampa. He was also part of the original staff when the Florida Phoenix was created in 2018. Florida Phoenix reporter Christine Sexton also contributed to this story.

Leave a comment

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

See you soon

I’m on a two-week sabbatical, but will be back before the Florida primary election. In the meantime, I hope to use this space to share articles of interest from guest contributors from time to time, such as today’s article.

I hope you found it thought provoking. If so, please feel free to share it with friends.

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk. To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement through original reporting and commentary as well as shared stories such as today’s.

Currently, Tropic Press reaches more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

Share

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Reminder:

Miss Mingo is also on vacation. Her Saturday column will return soon.

Subscribe now

By Jacob Fischler

States Newsroom

States do not have time before November’s midterm elections to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order mandating overhauls of their mail-in-voting systems, two dozen Democratic state officials told the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

Justices should keep a stay pausing the order in place through Election Day, the Democrats, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, wrote. The court is compelled to keep voting rules in place this close to an election, but the executive order would force massive changes on state administrators, they wrote.

Neither the president nor the U.S. Postal Service has authority to administer elections under the U.S. Constitution, which assigns that responsibility to state governments, the Democrats wrote.

Trump’s March 31 order directs USPS to collect lists of registered voters from each state and only mail ballots to registered voters, and the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age citizens in each state.

That would insert the executive branch directly into elections administration and the administration has not defended the legality of that move, the Democrats wrote.

Worse, the officials said, the order would create mass confusion at this point in the election cycle, meaning that the court should delay considering whether it is legal until after the midterms.

“Because of the high risk of errors and the limited window for correcting mistakes, many of the millions of voters who rely on mail voting—especially voters with disabilities and those in rural areas—would likely be denied mail ballots and, as a result, disenfranchised,” the state officials said. “Many more voters would be confused—either because they wouldn’t receive their mail ballots or would fear that USPS would fail to deliver their voted ballots to state officials for tabulation.”

Bonta signed the brief along with the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro also signed on.

Their filing was the Democrats’ response to the Justice Department request that the Supreme Court overturn an appeals court decision against lifting a district court stay of the executive order. The court is considering the issue on its emergency docket that allows for speedy decisions.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department did not return a message seeking comment.

No final rule

The administration argued that the states’ challenge was premature because the Postal Service and DHS had not yet written the rules the executive order directed.

While a three-judge panel of the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Democratic states, a separate case at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the administration that the states could not yet challenge the policy because there was no final rule. The case under consideration at the Supreme Court is from the 1st Circuit.

In an amicus brief supporting the federal government, a coalition of conservative groups led by attorney William Olson said Monday that the district court stay was possibly the first time a judge has blocked a notice of proposed rulemaking, which “is the very definition of an agency action which is not a final agency action.”

Sowing voter confusion

The states said the order itself, even without final rules from the affected agencies, would impose significant burdens on their election administrators. And the administration has detailed in court the steps the agencies must take to finalize the order’s mandates.

Forcing the states to wait until there is an actual rule in place, especially when the steps agencies have taken “do not materially differ” from the order, would mean state election officials could face an untenable situation of needing to prepare for the new requirements.

“If litigation challenging final implementation of the EO does not even begin for several more weeks, it would be extremely difficult—if not impossible—to obtain a definitive judicial resolution with enough time remaining for States to redesign and reorder their ballot mail, train elections officials, and adequately educate the public before the November midterms,” the state officials wrote.

That would drain significant resources from overworked election offices at a busy campaign time, and leave voters “confused about which rules govern,” they added.

Support for states

Several friend-of-the-court briefs weighed in on the states’ side.

Scores of state and local election officials and the nonprofit voting rights group Center for Election Innovation wrote in one amicus brief that if the executive order is allowed to proceed, it would put them in the “untenable position” of updating their mail-voting procedures in the midst of primaries and just weeks before a general election.

And Democratic campaign groups said the order was plainly unconstitutional and rejected the administration’s argument, saying it “makes little sense.”

In part, the administration argued the district court injunction caused irreparable harm because the administration was running out of time to implement the policy before the midterms, attorney Marc Elias wrote for the Democratic National Committee, three campaign groups and the Democratic leaders of each chamber of Congress.

“When the President launches an unconstitutional seizure of sensitive election powers during an election year, he may not avoid an injunction by insisting he is in a rush,” Elias wrote.

Leave a comment

Jacob Fischler covers federal policy and helps direct national coverage as deputy Washington bureau chief for States Newsroom. Based in Oregon, he focuses on Western issues. His coverage areas include climate, energy development, public lands and infrastructure.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

See you soon

I’m on a two-week sabbatical, but will be back before the Florida primary election. In the meantime, I hope to use this space to share articles of interest from guest contributors from time to time, such as today’s article.

I hope you found it thought provoking. If so, please feel free to share it with friends.

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk. To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement through original reporting and commentary as well as shared stories such as today’s.

Currently, Tropic Press reaches more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

By Barrington Salmon

Florida Phoenix

In announcing the closure of the Everglades immigration detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said the notorious facility — denounced as inhumane by civil rights groups — was always meant to be only temporary until more permanent detention centers could be secured, and federal officials now have that capacity.

“Alligator Alcatraz fulfilled the role that it was designed to serve,” DeSantis said. “Today it now has zero detainees. It has helped remove many, many dangerous people from the street and get them out of not only the state of Florida, but the United States of America.”

DeSantis said he was proud of what his administration had accomplished.

“We stood this up,” he said. “We surged critical resources. We built critical infrastructure. We were able to manage very complex operations, and we were able to execute the mission when called upon efficiently.”

These comments are vintage DeSantis, a staged response to his deliberately inhumane decisions as he tries to save face. He may tout efficiency, but despite being open for less than a year, Alligator Alcatraz will likely turn out to be the single most expensive immigration detention center in the history of the United States, critics assert.

CBS News Miami reports that financial analyses by its journalists indicate that operating the detention camp in the Everglades and Baker County cost as much as $3,571 per detainee each day, more than 20 times the national average. Critics have decried these massive, no-bid contracts, which drew more than $1 billion in taxpayer dollars away from essential state health, food security, and housing programs.

A recent Miami Herald investigation estimates that while misusing more than $1 billion on the detention camps, he guided taxpayers’ dollars to between 55 and 83 companies owned or operated by political allies, friends, and donors.

Over a year, DeSantis repeatedly dipped into Florida’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund — described by Democratic and other critics as a slush fund — to finance his anti-immigrant operation, circumventing regular channels and ignoring checks and balances.

Since 2023, DeSantis manipulated the process by waiving more than 24 state laws and regulations and extending the 60-day emergency more than 20 times. All to pave the way to erect “Alligator Alcatraz,” the detention camp on land sacred to the Miccosukee Tribe. Critics are deeply concerned that there has been no accountability to the legislature or the public and everything was conducted in secret.

Human cost

DeSantis’ vanity project came at a tremendous human cost. He boasts that his agents have seized almost 22,000 undocumented immigrants. Hundreds disappeared into the detention network, all dehumanized and mistreated.

Amnesty International paints pictures of cruelty and despair. Human beings forced to endure calamitous living conditions: trapped in cages; no AC in sweltering heat; overflowing toilets; and routine flooding during severe weather.

When it comes to the public’s money, DeSantis and most of those in the political class act as if the supply is infinite and that he has the right to use it for projects that harm the very people they purport to serve.

Sea change

Also of widespread concern is DeSantis’s use of taxpayers’ money to subvert higher education while enriching his MAGA buddies, as well as the manner in which he has hijacked higher education.

“This is a conservative capture of Florida’s public higher education,” said Robert Cassanello, a University of Central Florida history professor who is president of the United Faculty of Florida union. “It’s all ideological, and politically driven.”

As the Florida Tributary’s Michael Vasquez reports, DeSantis has used an army of loyalists to build a conservative higher-ed empire.

“With only a year left in office, Gov. Ron DeSantis has a limited window of time to wield power in Tallahassee. But on college campuses across Florida, DeSantis continues to expand his army of political loyalists — both college presidents and university trustees, who are poised to dominate for many years to come, no matter who is elected governor in 2026,” Vasquez wrote.

“As a result, higher education could become DeSantis’ enduring political legacy. And the governor’s final year in office will provide still more opportunities to push academia in a conservative direction.

Vasquez reports that DeSantis’ hijack is “intertwined with the conservative Heritage Foundation … which authored the controversial Project 2025 blueprint to guide the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape Washington.”

“With President Donald Trump term limited as well, aligning with Heritage could benefit DeSantis politically in the future,” Vasquez explained. “This Heritage-inspired sea change has outraged alumni and the communities surrounding Florida’s college campuses, some of whom view DeSantis’ allies as interlopers — many of the leaders DeSantis has installed have no previous connections to the schools they now run, limited experience in higher education, or live out of state. Those limitations have not stopped these new leaders from burrowing deep into the universities’ affairs, according to public records obtained by The Tributary, from micro-managing the materials presented in individual classrooms to replacing signs on bathrooms.”

Well-placed allies

Guided by the Heritage Foundation, DeSantis, Christopher Rufo, and a coterie of far-right allies on the boards of trustees and elsewhere in the higher education firmament have engineered the changes.

DeSantis has forced out progressive and forward-thinking university presidents and replaced them with men and women carrying the anti-Black, anti-woman, anti-LGBTQ+ banner. They willingly manipulate curricula, erase Black history, dismantle DEI and affirmative action programs, and impose a cold, sterile, far-right conservative syllabus across campuses.

Meanwhile, allies on trustee boards engineered exorbitant paydays for each president installed at public state universities.

The takeover began when DeSantis and his allies dismantled New College of Florida. Since 2023, former House Speaker and close DeSantis ally Richard Corcoran has run the Sarasota university. His base salary is $699,000, while his total annual compensation frequently exceeds $1.2 million, including perks like an $84,000 housing stipend, a $12,000 car allowance, and lucrative performance/retention bonuses.

In February, he received a $200,000 bonus performance award for the third year in a row, and that was followed by another $600,000 bonus days later for an “accrued retention payment” for continuing “uninterrupted service” for the past three years.

He is feasting at the public trough despite New College having a student population of fewer than 700.

Former Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez was named sole finalist during the search for president of Florida International University. She’d served as interim and was voted in as permanent last summer. Nuñez has an annual base salary of $925,000 as part of her five-year contract and she is eligible to receive annual performance bonuses of up to $400,000.

Former Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. was ensconced as president of the University of West Florida with a lavish total annual compensation package of $946,040. This includes a $674,000 base salary, up to $107,840 in annual performance-based incentives, a $60,000 housing allowance, a $14,000 car allowance, and an $89,000 retirement supplement.

As has become commonplace in this process, Diaz was approved in a single-candidate competition — despite clear rules intended to require “more than two” finalists for trustees to consider.

Diaz has been a chief architect of the state’s retooling of public higher education with support from both DeSantis and members of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Phoenix columnist Diane Roberts captures the greed with which these people operate.

UF trustees chair Mori Hosseini, a real estate magnate, rules the University of Florida the way DeSantis has operated in the Sunshine State, she writes: “No part of the university is free from his influence. He pushed UF’s distinguished College of Medicine to hire the state’s science-challenged surgeon general. Now UF pays Dr. Joseph Ladapo more than $300,000 per year — not that he does anything so pedestrian as actually teach classes.”

Few of those in DeSantis’ orbit aren’t enjoying exorbitant paychecks at the public’s expense, Roberts added.

“A trustee who hasn’t been identified had a hand in arranging an adjunct gig at UF’s law school for Florida’s attorney general [James Uthmeier]. The average pay for an adjunct professor is between $3,000-$7,000 per course. Uthmeier’s getting $100,000 for two hours of instruction per week.

“The AG doesn’t see the problem.”

Uthmeier recently staged an event to announce a statewide audit: He wants to “combat public corruption” and root out “bribes, kickbacks, conflicts of interest, evidence of money being spent on special interests, personal interests, personal gain,” Roberts wrote.

Critics have not taken all this lying down. Students, faculty and labor unions have fought back against the corruption of the process, several have filed lawsuits, but DeSantis and crew have sidelined or ignored detractors and continued on their merry way.

The profound hostility that Florida’s politicians have towards universities and their insistence on using ideological purity tests to choose their leaders not only “makes Florida look stupid,” as Roberts points out, but it is also jeopardizing the futures of the next generation.

More Articles by Barrington Salmon

Barrington Salmon lived and wrote in Florida (Miami and Tallahassee) for 20 years. He is a 2017 Annenberg National Fellow (University of Southern California) who freelances for publications including Trice Edney Newswire, and his stories appear in Yahoo, Raw Story, The Miami Times, and the Phoenix. He formerly wrote for The Final Call, NNPA/BlackPressUSA, Al Jazeera, The Washington Informer, and Sputnik News. Salmon was educated in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, and the United States. He lives in the nation's capital and can be heard on his Livestream video blog, “Speak Freely with Barrington Salmon.” Connect with Barrington on Speak Freely and follow him on Instagram and on his Facebook pages, Barrington M. Salmon & BarringtonSalmonWrites.

Leave a comment

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

See you soon

I’m on a two-week sabbatical, but will be back before the Florida primary election. In the meantime, I hope to use this space to share articles of interest from guest contributors from time to time, such as today’s piece by Barrington Salmon.

I hope you found it thought provoking. If so, please feel free to share it with friends.

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk. To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement through original reporting and commentary as well as shared stories such as today’s.

Currently, Tropic Press reaches more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

Share

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Today’s sponsor: The Strange Files

Alexander Strange wants to get to Florida in the worst way. So, he arrives in a coffin. Chilling in its own right but made more so by the prediction of a New Orleans soothsayer that he soon will face death. Little does he know how true that will be. But he’ll find out soon enough at the Devil’s Millhopper.

Book Two of the Strange Files series takes our favorite weird news reporter on a bizarre scavenger hunt all over the Gunshine State. Join him in his journey here:

Tropic Press Books

By Barrington Salmon

Florida Phoenix

“Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.” – Margaret Atwood

Republicans have long held a stranglehold on the political levers of power in Florida. Yet, in one of the surest signs of hubris, the longer they’ve controlled the direction of state politics, the more they’ve demonstrated the belief that only they have the prudence, political instincts, or sagacity to properly run the state.

In almost three decades of one-party rule, Florida has become a swamp where haughty men and women strut in costumes of arrogance and condescension, foisting partisan political beliefs on the majority; stuffing their pockets and those of their wealthy, connected friends; and protecting the well-heeled while disregarding the will of the people.

“The effects of decades of Republican rule in Florida — accelerated by a legislative supermajority under Gov. Ron DeSantis — have transformed the state into a national laboratory for conservative governance, the Hill reports. “This approach has led to starkly polarized outcomes, marked by significant economic and population growth on one side, and intense legal, cultural, and educational battles on the other.”

And Florida is the worse for it.

DeSantis is the tip of the spear. He has run roughshod over anyone standing in his way — using political muscle to force unpopular conservative policies into law while trying to intimidate those who oppose or criticize him. He has targeted educators, activists, labor unions, political and corporate leaders, young people, Democrats, civil and human rights advocates, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. DeSantis has not been above using cops, the courts, and compliant state employees to achieve his ends.

The governor — now at the tail end of his second term — has glorified culture wars, injecting a toxic stew of anger, resentment, and anti-immigrant bias into the political discourse. He has tried to upend as much of the state’s political infrastructure as possible and reshape it into what he hopes becomes a permanent far-right footprint.

At a time when Floridians are being hammered by inflation — driven in large part by the unprovoked U.S. attack on Iran — runaway rents, and crushing insurance costs, if you can get any, DeSantis and his administration have been on a taxpayer-supported spending spree. They have been appallingly cavalier with taxpayers’ money.

While trying to project himself as the nation’s immigrant crusader, DeSantis has squandered more than $1 billion on immigration detention camps he set up in Florida.

A recent Miami Herald investigation estimates that he misused more than $990 million on these facilities, guiding taxpayers’ dollars to between 55 and 83 companies owned or operated by his political allies, friends, and donors.

Checks and balances

Over the course of a year, DeSantis used the state’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund — intended to support natural disaster relief — to pay for his anti-immigrant operation. He circumvented regular channels, ignored or removed checks and balances, and awarded contracts in a no-bid process. Since 2023, DeSantis waived more than 24 state laws and regulations and extended a 60-day emergency to justify access to the emergency fund more than 20 times.

All to pave the way to erect “Alligator Alcatraz,” the detention camp in the Everglades on land sacred to the Miccosukee Tribe. Critics are deeply concerned that there has been no accountability to the Legislature or the public.

Following a tour of the Everglades facility, Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost called it a project to “funnel our taxpayer money to corporations,” labelling the over-the-top immigration expenses as an “almost criminal use” of tax dollars while Floridians “struggle to afford housing, healthcare, and insurance.”

Jeff Brandes agreed. “State leaders are going to spin it as a success, of course, but it’s all spin. Nobody can say that taxpayer money was well spent,” said Brandes, a former Republican state lawmaker who now leads the nonpartisan Florida Policy Project.

The Miami Herald found that the state signed off on $210 million to three companies affiliated with the Miami-based CDR Cos., whose executives, Carlos Duart and Tina Vidal-Duart, are DeSantis allies and donors to his failed presidential bid. Duart is a DeSantis appointee to Florida International University’s Board of Trustees and Vidal-Duart is a former board member of the Hope Florida Foundation, the embattled charity created in support of Casey DeSantis’ anti-welfare initiative.

Most of the money directed to CDR was for medical facilities and “site prep” at Alligator Alcatraz, according to contracts. Another $100 million was to a new joint venture CDR formed with the private prison company GEO Group late last year to provide staffing for “Deportation Depot,” in Baker County. Other contracts for the sites include $112 million to IRG Global Management, $83 million to Garner Environmental Services, and $79 million to GardaWorld, a company that donated $5,000 to a political committee backing DeSantis’ presidential run.

None of these dozens of contracts were negotiated through a competitive bidding process to ensure the state was getting the best deal.

‘Necessity’

DeSantis has argued that the state-run detention centers were crucial to carrying out Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans.

“I’m doing it out of necessity. I’m not doing it because I just think we should just do it for a press release. We had nowhere else to put these folks. [The Department of Homeland Security] did not have any place to put them. Now they’ve had [a] place to put them and that’s been very, very positive.”

But some experts say the cost of DeSantis’ detention project is much higher than the federally operated immigration detention facilities, and largely on Florida taxpayers’ dime.

Emergency managers told FEMA that it would take $1.7 billion — enough to give every teacher in Florida a $6,000 bonus — to operate both facilities. Since 2022, the Legislature has injected $4.8 billion into the emergency fund. Now the fund’s coffers have dwindled to $6.9 million. During the last legislative session, Republicans allowed the Legislature to add an extra $250 million into the account this fiscal year.

The Phoenix reports that, in total, about $405 million was spent on immigration through the first half of the year alone — considerably more than in previous years, when the total was $49 million. Most of the money went to private contractors through 83 contracts, including multimillion-dollar deals with companies providing toilets, emergency management, and environmental services.

Records show that emergency staff working around the clock spent at least $166,000 on food at more than 50 restaurants and nearly $717,000 on travel, including private jets and hotel stays. Officials say the food was for emergency staff and one expensive jet flight was described as rescuing Floridians in Israel. In addition, DeSantis and the state used the emergency fund to shell out more than $1.7 million to outside law firms fighting lawsuits over environmental rules and detainees’ rights at immigration facilities. If the feds opt not to reimburse Florida, taxpayers will likely be stuck with the bill.

Democratic Senate Leader Lori Berman of Boca Raton offered a proposal to restrict how much the governor’s agencies could pull from the trust but it failed along party lines, the Phoenix’s Liv Caputo reports. “The amendment said that if the governor wants to repeatedly call for the use of emergency funds for anything other than a natural disaster, the Legislature’s joint budget commission would have to approve it. That’s a House-Senate panel that reviews interim spending requests,” Caputo wrote.

“I support the right of the governor to use emergency trust fund dollars to protect our state from hurricanes, natural disasters, and real emergencies,” Democratic Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith of Orlando said. “But that’s not what we have seen. We don’t have the appropriate guardrails on the emergency trust fund. And as a result, the spending has been off the rails.”

As long as Republicans control supermajorities in both legislative chambers, they can ignore calls for accountability and moderation. DeSantis and allied lawmakers and have swatted away every attempt by Democrats to erect guardrails.

Power has gone to the heads of MAGA Republicans in Florida, who have completely embraced Florida’s flirtation with tyranny. DeSantis’ behavior signals America’s descent into a hellish existence. There is no fig leaf, no pretense of civil liberties or due process. Alligator Alcatraz is closing, but detention camps aren’t going away. They are a national multi-billion-dollar enterprise targeting Black and brown people.

For now.

Human costs

DeSantis has never cared about the human cost as detailed by detainees and immigration advocates: the chain link cages, lack of air conditioning, abysmal physical conditions, worms in the food, toilets that didn’t flush, floors flooded with fecal waste, mosquitoes and other insects everywhere.

What is even more infuriating is that after the devastating harm inflicted on largely innocent immigrants, DeSantis announced on June 25 that the administration was closing down the facility because it “had served its purpose.” He claims that the detention center, opened in July 2025, was always only meant to be temporary.

Now, undocumented immigrants and the occasional citizen will be kidnapped by the state and deposited in one of the vast network of detention centers that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE are setting up.

God help us all.

Tomorrow: Corruption by Another Name (Part II)

More Articles by Barrington Salmon

Barrington Salmon lived and wrote in Florida (Miami and Tallahassee) for 20 years. He is a 2017 Annenberg National Fellow (University of Southern California) who freelances for publications including Trice Edney Newswire, and his stories appear in Yahoo, Raw Story, The Miami Times, and the Phoenix. He formerly wrote for The Final Call, NNPA/BlackPressUSA, Al Jazeera, The Washington Informer, and Sputnik News. Salmon was educated in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, and the United States. He lives in the nation’s capital and can be heard on his Livestream video blog, “Speak Freely with Barrington Salmon.” Connect with Barrington on Speak Freely and follow him on Instagram and on his Facebook pages, Barrington M. Salmon & BarringtonSalmonWrites.

Leave a comment

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

See you soon

I’m on a two-week sabbatical but will be back before the Florida primary election. In the meantime, I hope to use this space to share articles of interest from guest contributors from time to time, such as today’s piece by Barrington Salmon.

I hope you found it thought-provoking. If so, please feel free to share it with friends.

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk. To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement through original reporting and commentary as well as shared stories such as today’s.

Currently, Tropic Press reaches more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

Share

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Today’s sponsor: The Strange Files

Alexander Strange wants to get to Florida in the worst way. So, he arrives in a coffin. Chilling in its own right but made more so by the prediction of a New Orleans soothsayer that he soon will face death. Little does he know how true that will be. But he’ll find out soon enough at the Devil’s Millhopper.

Book Two of the Strange Files series takes our favorite weird news reporter on a bizarre scavenger hunt all over the Gunshine State. Join him in his journey here:

Tropic Press Books

Subscribe now

By Jeff Brandes

Everyone is talking about property taxes. Almost nobody is talking about power.

That’s strange because power, not taxes, is what this debate is really about. The sales pitch is simple: property taxes are unpopular, homeowners are angry, government has grown, and cutting tax bills will provide relief. Who doesn’t like that? But there is a difference between cutting taxes and changing who controls government. Florida is not debating a tax cut. Florida is debating a fundamental redesign of how local government is financed.

For more than half a century, Florida has embraced home rule. The idea was simple: Local communities should make local decisions. If a city council spends too much, voters can replace it. If a county commission raises taxes, voters can replace it. The people making spending decisions are accountable to the people paying the bills. That system is imperfect, but it is transparent. If your local government fails, you know exactly where to direct your frustration and exactly who to vote against.

Now imagine a different system. Imagine counties and cities that can no longer fund themselves. Imagine local officials traveling to Tallahassee not to seek a grant for a new project, but to keep deputies on patrol, firefighters in stations, and ambulances on the road. At that point, who is really running local government? The answer is not the county commission. The answer is not the city council.

The answer is whoever controls the money.

We use your personal data for interest-based advertising, as outlined in our Privacy Notice.

That is the part nobody wants to discuss. Property taxes are not simply a revenue source. They are the mechanism that allows local governments to govern themselves. Remove enough of that revenue and local governments do not disappear. They become dependent. And dependency changes behavior. A business dependent on one customer changes its behavior. A nonprofit dependent on one donor changes its behavior. A county dependent on Tallahassee changes its behavior. The money moves. The incentives move. The accountability moves. And eventually, the power moves.

There is an irony here that should give conservatives pause. A proposal intended to shrink government could ultimately centralize it. When counties and cities become financially dependent on Tallahassee, the governor effectively becomes the mayor of communities he was never elected to run. Imagine a future governor deciding which counties receive funding for deputies, which cities receive support for fire services, and which communities must wait. Local government becomes less local. Home rule becomes a slogan instead of a governing principle.

Supporters frame this debate as a battle between taxpayers and government. That is the wrong framework. The real question is whether Florida wants independent local governments or dependent local governments. Because independent local government means paying your own bills.

The numbers involved are staggering. Property taxes generate tens of billions of dollars each year for local governments. State economists have modeled scenarios creating roughly an $18.3 billion hole. Municipal governments receive approximately 43 percent of their general fund revenue from property taxes. Property taxes account for roughly 79 percent of municipal tax revenue. Those are not trimming-around-the-edges numbers. Those are rebuild-the-engine-while-the-plane-is-flying numbers. Yet much of the public discussion proceeds as though this is simply a tax cut. It isn’t. It is one of the largest transfers of financial responsibility in modern Florida history.

Maybe it works. Maybe local governments become dramatically more efficient. Maybe new revenue sources emerge. Maybe the state permanently assumes a larger role. But if that’s the plan, let’s be honest enough to say so. What we should not do is pretend the consequences stop at the property tax bill.

State economists are already projecting structural deficits beginning in fiscal year 2027-28 and growing in the years that follow. If Florida itself is heading toward tighter budgets, is this really the moment to shift even greater responsibility for local government onto the state? Florida may be creating a future where local governments are increasingly dependent on a state government that is itself under growing fiscal pressure.

Then there are the people largely missing from this conversation. Nearly one-third of Floridians rent their homes. If local governments replace property taxes with higher fees, assessments, utility taxes, sales taxes, or state transfers, renters will still pay. Businesses will still pay. Consumers will still pay. The bill does not disappear. It changes addresses.

Milton Friedman often reminded people that government has no money of its own. Every dollar government spends comes from somebody else. That remains true today. The question is not whether Floridians will pay for local government. The question is how. And more importantly, who will decide.

That is the blast radius nobody is talking about.

Because once the dust settles, Floridians may discover they did not merely change a tax system. They changed the balance of power between local communities and the state itself. And unlike a tax bill, that is a change that will be far harder to reverse.

Leave a comment

Jeff Brandes is President of the Florida Policy Project, a nonpartisan public policy research organization focused on Florida’s biggest challenges, including affordability, housing, transportation, and insurance. He served for 12 years in the Florida Legislature, including service in both the Florida House and Senate.

This article originally appeared in Florida Trident and is republished here with their permission. The Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. It is a publication of the Florida Center for Government Accountability. You can support this work by donating here:

DONATE

Please share this post

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk. To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement through original reporting and commentary and shared stories such as today’s article first published in Florida Trident.

Currently, Tropic Press is reaching more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

Today’s sponsor: The Strange Files

Alexander Strange wants to get to Florida in the worst way. So, he arrives in a coffin. Chilling in its own right but made more so by the prediction of a New Orleans soothsayer that he soon will face death. Little does he know how true that will be. But he’ll find out soon enough at the Devil’s Millhopper.

Book Two of the Strange Files series takes our favorite weird news reporter on a bizarre scavenger hunt all over the Gunshine State. Join him in his journey here:

Tropic Press Books

Subscribe now

By Mitch Perry

Florida Phoenix

Florida manatees and panthers are suddenly much more vulnerable, environmentalists say, thanks to the Trump administration’s recently announced rollback of Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections.

Now Florida Democrats are calling on Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to immediately withdraw their agencies’ final “blanket rule,” which they say would eliminate protections for threatened species and revise critical habitat exclusions.

The departments of the Interior and Commerce rescinded the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act in a rule published earlier this month. That prompted four Democratic members of Congress on Monday to write in a letter to Burgum and Lutnick that removing habitat modification and degradation from the long-held definition of “harm” amounts “to an endorsement of habitat degradation.”

“Given that habitat loss is the leading cause of species extinction, the rule is in direct opposition to the ESA’s stated purpose ‘to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved,’ a key component for the conservation of species themselves,” says the letter, written by Democrats Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Kathy Castor, Darren Soto, and Maxwell Frost.

“This change will significantly impede efforts to protect and conserve our nation’s threatened and endangered species of fish, wildlife and plants,” the letter adds.

Among the species the ESA has saved from extinction since it was signed into law in 1973 are the Florida panther, the manatee, the American crocodile, and the hawksbill sea turtle.

“The rule change directly threatens the unique habitats that support the plants and animals for which our state is renowned,” the Democrats wrote. “Climate change coupled with unprecedented urban growth in Florida and around the nation has pushed our wildlife to the brink. This rule will significantly weaken the ESA and usher in the often-irreversible loss of habitat, hastening the extinction of plants and animals that are a vital part of our state’s culture and tourism economy.”

Burgum has said the changes are commonsense moves to eliminate red tape and restore landowners’ property rights.

“For years, federal agencies abused the ESA to obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,” Burgum said in a statement. “That approach turned routine activity into a regulatory trap, drove up costs that impacted people’s lives, and expanded federal authority beyond what Congress intended. This action restores common sense, respects private property, provides much-needed certainty for landowners and follows the statute Congress actually passed.”

The rule change is scheduled to take effect on Sept. 14. Two other ESA rollbacks would end automatic protections for newly listed threatened species (such as those on the brink of endangered status) and give more weight to economic factors when considering critical habitat designations.

A coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit earlier this month challenging the “harm rule.”

Leave a comment

The reporter of this story, Mitch Perry, has covered politics and government in Florida for more than two decades. Most recently, he is the former politics reporter for Bay News 9. He has also worked at Florida Politics, Creative Loafing and WMNF Radio in Tampa. He was also part of the original staff when the Florida Phoenix was created in 2018.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

Please share this post

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk. To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement.

Currently, Tropic Press reaches more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

Today’s sponsor: The Strange Files

Alexander Strange wants to get to Florida in the worst way. So, he arrives in a coffin. Chilling in its own right but made more so by the prediction of a New Orleans soothsayer that he soon will face death. Little does he know how true that will be. But he’ll find out soon enough at the Devil’s Millhopper.

Book Two of the Strange Files series takes our favorite weird news reporter on a bizarre scavenger hunt all over the Gunshine State. Join him in his journey here:

Tropic Press Books

By Christine Sexton

Florida Phoenix

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has suggested that opposition to abortion could have helped fuel a measles outbreak in Florida since many cases are tied to a private Roman Catholic college.

Federal data show Florida had 141 confirmed measles cases as of July 23, ranking the state fifth in the nation for most infections.

During a press conference in Orlando last week, a reporter asked Ladapo about his level of concern about the measles cases and what he’d tell Florida families about the rising number of cases.

The surgeon general, long known for his vaccine skepticism, initially replied, “Oh, no. Everyone’s got to take a vaccine.”

But he followed, noting that “a lot of those cases” were reported at Ave Maria University, a private Roman Catholic college in Collier County. Ninety-three measles cases were reported in Collier County where the university is located.

“You know, for some people — people may or may not know that the measles vaccines is developed with the cells that are a progeny from … an aborted fetus, and you know whether there’s a connection between the fact that you know some of the students at this university chose not to receive that vaccine, and it happens to be a vaccine that is related to the practice of abortion, I’m not sure.”

Measles vaccines are made from two cell strains that came from human fetal lung tissue in the 1960s. These original tissues were collected from elective abortions, and scientists used them to grow the live measles virus safely. These same fetal cells have continued to grow in the laboratory and are used to make vaccines today. No further sources of fetal cells are needed to make these vaccines.

The Pontifical Academy for Life in 2017 issued updated moral considerations on vaccinations, telling Roman Catholic parents they should vaccinate their children for the good of the children and the community, and they can do so with a “clear conscience,” the Catholic Standard reported.

Ave Maria University did not immediately respond to Florida Phoenix’s requests for comment.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles spreads through the air when a sick person coughs or sneezes. The virus can stay in the air for two hours after the infected person leaves. It is so contagious that about nine out of 10 people who come near a person with measles will become infected if not vaccinated.

The best way to avoid measles is with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. To stop the spread of the measles virus and for a population to be considered safe from infection, referred to as herd immunity, 95% of the population should be vaccinated.

According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 89% of kindergarten students in the 2024-25 academic year had been vaccinated in Florida against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine series.

Meanwhile, Toluwalasè A. Ajayi, M.D., chair of the American Medical Association, urged families Friday to get vaccinated as the number of measles cases surges.

“The MMR vaccine has protected our communities for decades. There is no cure for measles, but vaccination is a safe and effective way to prevent it,” he said in a prepared statement.

“Choosing to vaccinate protects not only you and your family, but also babies, people with weakened immune systems, and others who can’t be vaccinated. Protecting yourself helps protect your entire community. If you have questions about measles, please talk with your doctor.”

Ladapo and his boss — Gov. Ron DeSantis — held a press conference last year calling on the Legislature to eliminate all vaccine mandates from Florida statutes.

A bill that would specifically have made it easier for parents to opt out mandated school vaccines was killed by the Florida House. DeSantis, who is term-limited out of office, promised to keep the issue on the front burner during his last months in the Governor’s Mansion.

Leave a comment

This story’s reporter, Christine Sexton of the Florida Phoenix, has spent more than 30 years covering Florida health care, insurance policy, and state politics, and has covered the state’s last six governors. She lives in Tallahassee.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

Related Reading:

Centers for Disease Control on Measles

Amid measles uptick, infectious diseases specialist says Church recommends vaccination

Please share this post

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk. To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement.

Currently, Tropic Press is reaching more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Thanks to today’s sponsor

Check out YouTube’s newest and newsiest current events podcast, based right here in the Sunshine State. Get your day started every Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. I’ll be on the air with Dave today at 8:15 a.m. Check it out here:

The Dave Elliott Show

As a tropical storm bore down on Florida’s Panhandle, state records show that Gov. Ron DeSantis used funds designed to help Floridians recover from natural disasters—such as storms and hurricanes—for his pet immigration projects like Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot. Reporter Liz Caputo of the Florida Phoenix has the story, and it is reprinted here with permission of the Tallahassee-based news service.

Subscribe now

By Liv Caputo

Florida Phoenix

The DeSantis administration spent nearly two-thirds of Florida’s emergency fund last fiscal year on fighting illegal immigration, dwarfing spending for severe weather, international rescues, and other emergency missions for which the fund was created.

State records show that the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM), the agency in charge of the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” lockups, shelled out $890 million in taxpayer dollars between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026.

Of that, $564 million — about 63% — went to immigration enforcement, meaning emergency managers spent more on immigration than all emergency missions combined last year.

The rest paid for assistance to counties and other states, costs associated with rescuing Americans from Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, and severe weather — including snow in the Panhandle, storms in Northwest Florida, and heavy October rainfall.

The spending represents a significant shift in the purpose of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund, a trust created in 2022 to allow Gov. Ron DeSantis to quickly pay for disasters like hurricanes, floods, and more without legislative approval.

But in 2023, the trust became a financing vehicle for one of DeSantis’ top priorities: immigration. Gearing up for a presidential run and enjoying an iron grip over the GOP Legislature, DeSantis declared a state of emergency on immigration — one that he’s renewed at least 20 times since.

This opened the fund’s dollars to immigration enforcement, allowing FDEM to spend $573 million out of it since 2023 — 98% of which was paid for in the past year. This is largely because of the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot,” facilities, state-run detention centers erected last summer, lauded by President Trump, and mirrored by Republican states nationwide.

But these costs represent just a fraction of the total to be spent on immigration. As the Phoenix previously reported, immigration contracts signed by FDEM are valued at roughly $1.01 billion. This doesn’t include isolated immigration costs like food, supplies, or travel.

FDEM still owes the vendors that built and ran the facilities at least another half a billion dollars.

Despite those outstanding costs, the fund has under $7 million left. Lawmakers approved another $250 million for the trust in June, but FDEM hasn’t asked for the money yet.

The agency also missed the deadline for a new quarterly report detailing the fund’s health and cash projections, a requirement lawmakers added this year. Representatives of the Senate president and House speaker told the Phoenix they had not received the report, which was due five days ago. FDEM did not respond to questions about when it would submit the information.

Immigration spending from the fund last fiscal year exceeded the individual costs of several past emergency responses, including Hurricane Idalia, Hurricane Debby, Hurricane Nicole, and evacuation flights for Americans from Israel and Haiti.

The estimated $1.01 billion in immigration-related contracts, meanwhile, would rank as the third-largest use of the trust since its creation, behind only Hurricane Ian ($2.5 billion) and Hurricane Milton ($1.5 billion).

The reporter on this story, Liv Caputo, covers immigration for the Florida Phoenix. She’s had her work cited in The New York Times, the Miami Herald, and the New York Post, as well as having been republished here at Tropic Press. She worked previously at The Floridian Press and The Florida Standard. A Florida native, she graduated from Florida State University.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

Please share this post

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk. To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement.

Currently, Tropic Press is reaching more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Share

Thanks to today’s sponsor…

Check out YouTube’s newest and newsiest current events podcast, based right here in the Sunshine State. Get your day started every Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Check it out here:

The Dave Elliott Show

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

By Mitch Perry

Florida Phoenix

LAKE BUENA VISTA — A series of special and local election victories over the past year have boosted Florida Democrats’ confidence they’ll continue that winning streak into the November midterm elections.

But with more than 1.5 million more registered Republicans than Democrats in the Sunshine State, it won’t be easy.

Pete Buttigieg acknowledges that reality.

The former Department of Transportation Secretary and 2020 presidential candidate was the keynote speaker at the Florida Democratic Party’s Leadership Blue gala at the Coronado Springs Convention Center at Walt Disney World Resort.

Ours was the 29th state he has visited since leaving the Biden administration and preparing for another potential presidential run in 2028. He acknowledged a “blue wave” could be in the offing for Democrats this fall, but emphasized that is “not automatic,” noting how congressional redistricting in red states like Florida and Texas could mitigate any gains in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“But even with that tilted playing field, I see enormous opportunity for Democrats,” Buttigieg told a group of reporters minutes after finishing his speech in front of the more than 900 people.

“I see us competing in places that would have been written off just a few months ago,” he continued. “We’re talking about states and individual districts. And we’ve seen some wins. The fact that Mar-a-Lago is now represented by a Democratic legislator right here in Florida, the fact that Miami just voted for a Democratic mayor for the first time in a generation, shows you that different things are possible. It will never be easy or automatic in more conservative areas, but it’s absolutely within reach.”

Buttigieg was referencing Eileen Higgins’ victory in the Miami mayor’s race in December, the first Democrat to win that seat in decades, and Emily Gregory‘s March win in House District 87, which had gone for Republican Mike Caruso by 19 points just a year-and-a-half before.

More stunning than that was Brian Nathan’s victory on March 24 against Republican Josie Tomkow in the state Senate District 14 seat, where he was outspent 10:1 in a district won by Republican Jay Collins by nearly 10 points in 2022.

Expectations

Buttigieg kicked off his speech by saying, “I know we can compete and win in Florida because I feel how many people here and across the country are ready for something different and ready for something better.”

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried’s stated electoral goals sounded relatively modest — she wants to lift her party out of the superminority status it holds in both chambers of the Florida Legislature. (It would need six victories in the House and two in the Senate to get that accomplished, she said).

Other speakers during the evening included incoming Senate leader Tracie Davis, incoming House leader Christine Hunschofsky, and Orlando Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, fresh off being re-elected last month after no Democrat or Republican filed to challenge him before the qualifying deadline. The 29-year-old Frost brought the most energy by far of any of the speakers who took the stage at the Coronado Springs Convention Center.

“Florida Democrats, let’s be honest with ourselves, many in this nation look at our state and they don’t really see us, they see what we’re up against,” he said. “Today, many think the state’s not worth fighting for.”

The next chapter in Florida won’t be written by those “naysayers,” he continued, but by the individuals sitting in the audience. And he stressed that Democrats can’t get tripped up when labeled “socialists” or worse, such as the invective thrown their way at the Republican Party of Florida’s “Sunshine Showdown” conference at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood last month.

“Our opposition, they’re going to call us every name in the book,” Frost said. “I don’t care if you’re a progressive, I don’t care if you’re a moderate, they’re going to call you every name in the book. Please, Florida Democrats, don’t take the bait. Every second you spend saying, ‘No, I’m not,” it’s a second you’re not talking about the issues that most Floridians care about.”

Buttigieg puts Florida Republicans on blast

Buttigieg’s appearance in Florida comes as he is prominently mentioned as a top contender for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028. Just last week, a poll by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV in Detroit of 500 voters in the battleground state of Michigan placed Buttigieg in second place, trailing only former Vice President Kamala Harris.

The former Transportation secretary touted some of his accomplishments in office while serving in the Biden administration during his 23-minute address, noting his agency had helped fund more than 70,000 infrastructure projects, including modernizing terminals at airports in Orlando and Tampa as well as adding new truck parking spaces along the I-4 corridor.

Then he turned to Florida Republicans. He “took pleasure,” he said, in working with Republican leaders across the country to implement the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, “but not so much Republicans here in Florida,” none of whom supported that legislation.

He could always count on Florida GOP officials “to take credit for something that they voted against,” he said, specifically mentioning a press event held by U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan with House Speaker Mike Johnson at the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport in November 2023.

As the Phoenix reported at the time, “The two men spoke in a new section under construction for the airport’s new terminal expansion project, a $100 million investment that includes a five-gate terminal, a four-lane security checkpoint and five boarding hold rooms which will seat nearly 1,000 people.”

Buttigieg noted how Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected $320 million in federal transportation funding “because the word ‘carbon’ was in the title of the program,” but later ended up taking the money. (FDOT officials called the funds “politicization of our roadways” and initially declined the money).

He laid into Florida U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the GOP’s likely nominee for governor this fall. He began by noting that Donalds “was ranked the second most far-right wing conservative in the entire U.S. House of Representatives,” referring to a 2024 “report card” by GovTrack.us.

“He tried to pass a national abortion ban, voted to overturn the 2020 election, and repeatedly voted against commonsense background gun checks for gun safety, including voting no on a safety bill that his own Florida Republicans had come to pass after the Parkland massacre,” Buttigieg said. “He wants to be your governor. I think we can do better than that.”

U.S. Rep. Randy Fine of Florida’s Space Coast was another target.

“With the cost of living out of control, our nation at war, Rep. Fine committed his time in Washington to developing unique legislation like — I’m not making this up — Protecting Puppies from Sharia Law Act.”

He then noted a November 2025 poll from Florida Atlantic University’s Business and Economic Polling Initiative reporting that nearly half of Floridians say they have considered moving out of the state due to the cost of living.

“That is not bad luck,” he said. “That is what happens when you have 27 years of one-party rule.”

When it’s proven something doesn’t work, one usually tries something else, Buttigieg said. But Republicans aren’t doing that — “They’re just trying to change the rules,” he continued, referring to the congressional redistricting that went into law in May, designed to add up to four Republican seats to the 28-member party congressional delegation.

In advance of his appearance, the Republican National Committee issued a press release blasting Buttigieg and saying all Democrats, “especially Alex Vindman, Jared Moskowitz, Darren Soto, and Kathy Castor, should be asked if they agree with their new spokesman” about a variety of alleged transgressions, specifically listing “open border and mass amnesty for illegal aliens,” “taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens,” and “Bernie Sanders-style socialist healthcare.”

The Democrats’ confab took place exactly one month before the Aug. 18 primary elections. The deadline to register to vote in that election is today.

The reporter of this story, Mitch Perry, has covered politics and government in Florida for more than two decades. Most recently, he is the former politics reporter for Bay News 9. He has also worked at Florida Politics, Creative Loafing and WMNF Radio in Tampa. He was also part of the original staff when the Florida Phoenix was created in 2018.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

Please share this post

Our democracy as we’ve known it for 250 years is at risk, as you can see from today’s newsletter.

To save it, we will need a groundswell of support from voters in the coming midterm election.

The purpose of this newsletter—and the accompanying Tropic Press website—is to encourage that engagement.

Currently, Tropic Press is reaching more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere, which is great, but there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

You can help spread the word.

Please like this post. Comment if you are so inclined. But, please, also take a moment to share it with people you know.

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce

Share

Thanks to today’s sponsor…

Check out YouTube’s newest and newsiest current events podcast, based right here in the Sunshine State. Get your day started every Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Check it out here:

The Dave Elliott Show

As Craig Pittman points out, here in Florida we know all about algae growth and what causes it. We even know how to stop it. We just don’t do it. Painting the Reflecting Pool blue and pouring in bleach isn’t the answer. Tropic Press is pleased to share Craig’s essay today with the permission of Florida Phoenix, the Tallahassee-based news service.

Subscribe now

By Craig Pittman

Florida Phoenix

Dear Mr. President,

Greetings from Florida, your adopted home state and the place where you seem to go golfing every week or so.

I hear you’ve been having a big problem with a nasty intruder in the Reflecting Pool there in Washington — not antifa, but an algae bloom.

You must be deeply annoyed to see the media treat this as a huge embarrassment for you. Slate called it “an inescapable metaphor for the Trump administration’s ineptitude, profligate spending, careless meddling with iconic federal properties, and general bad taste.” And that’s one of the milder descriptions.

Then to hear comics comparing it to the Iran War and calling it “The Strait of Warm Ooze,” must have you in a ketchup-hurling fury.

After all, your whole goal here was to hand out some no-bid government contracts to donors to do a quick rush job to help America enjoy a pretty blue Reflecting Pool in time for the big Fourth of July celebration.

Now, instead of blue water, you’ve been dealing with a green mess that looks like something the Creature from the Black Lagoon would have called home.

To help you out, I’d like to offer some suggestions. After all, we’ve been dealing with algae blooms here in Florida for yeeeeeears.

I well remember the Fourth of July weekend 10 years ago, when a putrid blue-green algae as thick as guacamole forced Martin County officials to close Jensen Beach — about an hour north of Mar-a-Lago — as a health hazard.

“I’ve seen Jensen Beach closed for sharks,” the owner of the town’s Driftwood Motel told me then. “I’ve never seen it closed for an algae bloom before.”

One of her friends, a nurse, told me the worst part was the stench: “It smells like death on a cracker.”

A similar algae bloom erupted on the state’s other coast, prompting our governor at the time — a fellow you now know as Sen. Rick Scott — to declare a state of emergency.

We’re STILL dealing with this mess, too. Just last week, the Florida Department of Health issued an alert to everyone to beware the toxic algae in Lake Okeechobee. Residents were warned not to swim at certain places in the lake and to keep their pets away from it, too, or they’d wind up as dead as that trio of ducks found in the Reflecting Pool.

So, while I’m not coming to you with tears in my eyes, I am happy to offer some guidance for how to deal with your algae bloom based on how we’ve dealt with ours.

First, whatever you do, do NOT seek any advice from Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The master of the greenwash

I know your relationship with Gov. D has had more ups and downs than a playground teeter-totter in a hurricane.

An “up” was when your endorsement in 2018 helped him win office. A “down” was when he ran against you for the presidential nomination in 2024 and you dubbed him “DeSannctimonious.”

When it comes to dealing with algae blooms, you should treat the governor as if his name is DON’T-Santis.

The reason why dates to 2018, when we were afflicted with so many toxic algae blooms that it was called “the Summer of Slime.”

Scott, then the governor, was running for U.S. Senate. A lot of people blamed him for allowing the increase in pollution that was fueling the algae blooms. They booed him so thoroughly that he fled the protesters. For years afterward, he was known as “Red Tide Rick.” (Come to think of it, don’t ask him for advice either.)

DeSantis vowed to fix the algae bloom problem, and people believed him. After he was elected, he wrote an op-ed for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that said, “I will fulfill promises from the campaign trail. That means prioritizing environmental issues, like water quality and cleaning the environmental mess that has resulted in toxic blue-green algae and exacerbated red tide around the state.”

After he took office, he appointed a panel of actual scientists to recommend countermeasures for the algae blooms. They did.

Then, I am sorry to say, he and the Legislature ignored nearly all of their recommendations. They passed a law that didn’t require polluters to do anything. He then hailed that weak law as if it were a major environmental victory.

“DeSantis is the master of the greenwash, and that has left us literally covered in slime,” said Cris Costello of the Sierra Club.

Algae blooms have continued, killing off so much seagrass in the Indian River Lagoon that more than 1,000 manatees starved to death.

Instead of doing what the scientists recommended, DeSantis cut a secret deal with an Israeli company called BlueGreen (no I am not making that up) Water Technologies. The state paid the Israeli company millions to repeatedly dump a hydrogen peroxide mix into algae-tainted waterways.

That cleared up the algae for a little while. But because the governor didn’t order his agencies to stop the pollution, the blooms just keep coming back.

“DeSantis’ fight against algal blooms in Florida will fail,” the CEO of BlueGreen Water Technologies wrote on social media in 2019. “There is no question that preventing raw sewage and runoffs from spilling into waterways must be addressed.”

DeSantis’ betrayal of his campaign promise turned out to be a harbinger of his whole career. He vetoed funding for restoring the Ocklawaha River, built a destructive tent city in the Big Cypress Preserve (even though that completely undercut all the restoration work he’s approved for the Everglades), and tried to put golf courses in Jonathan Dickinson State Park.

I hear your National Park Service has also been dumping hydrogen peroxide in the Reflecting Pool. You can see why that’s at best a temporary fix, but temporary is fine with DeSantis.

Unlike him, you should try to focus on the root causes of the bloom.

How to handle the heat

I consulted a number of my fellow Floridians about what you should do. You’ve probably never met any of them because they don’t hang out at any fancy-schmancy places like your Mar-A-Lago country club.

But they do know about algae blooms.

These folks reminded me that microscopic algae linger in small amounts in still water. The two ingredients for sparking the massive explosion that we call a bloom are 1) heat and 2) nutrients.

Let’s talk about the heat, first. That’s going to be the stickiest part of the discussion.

Although you’ve repeatedly complained about what you call “the Climate Change Hoax,” the data show that our days and nights are, in fact, getting warmer. It’s the reason our oceans are warming up and our hurricanes grow stronger a lot faster.

Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that one of the consequences of living in this warmer world is that there will be more toxic algae blooms just like the one we saw in the Reflecting Pool.

Since you keep telling us how smart you are, I’m sure you can see why it’s a bad idea to reject clear and convincing facts about the climate crisis that everyone can see.

Even your pal Vladimir Putin acknowledges that climate change is real. And the country run by your friend Xi Jinping, China, is on track to hit net zero emissions earlier than its goal.

I know how reluctant you are to ever admit you’re wrong. But doing something about the algae bloom doesn’t require you to announce that you’ve been wrong all along about climate change.

Instead, you can just say you’ve changed your mind about the color.

Don’t paint it black

When you first announced you’d be repainting the Reflecting Pool, you said, “You’re going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool. The way it’s supposed to be. Much better than it ever was, actually.”

You said you’d initially considered painting it turquoise but then someone persuaded you to paint it a deep blue like the American flag.

One of my sources, Gary Roderick, used to be the southeast bureau chief for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. He pointed out that repainting the pool surface as a deep blue made it more likely that the water would get really hot, because darker colors tend to absorb more heat from the sun.

The only thing that would have been worse is to copy the Rolling Stones and paint it black. Imagine how hot the water would be then!

Now that the hydrogen peroxide is making the blue paint peel off (or vandals are cutting it, as you have claimed), this is the perfect time to repaint it a lighter color.

Here‘s my advice: Announce that you’ve reconsidered. Now, you say, instead of turquoise or blue, you think that the pool should be dazzling white.

Why white? Explain that you want it to match the purity of the character of our nation’s founding fathers. I bet the folks on Fox would fall all over themselves praising you for that.

If you repainted the Reflecting Pool white, it would tend to reflect (heh heh!) the rays from the sun that are currently warming the water like it’s a pot on the stove.

Doesn’t that seem like the move of a smart guy who’s aced all his cognitive tests?

Now let’s talk about what you’ve been feeding those little green monsters.

The cement pond

As we’ve learned in Florida, feeding the algae blooms nutrients like fertilizer and sewage tends to make them grow like those wacky pro-algae protesters have been chanting at the Reflecting Pool: “Let’s grow, algae, let’s grow!”

Some folks, like Capt. Karl Deigert of the Florida Rights of Nature Network, also blame the state’s rampant spraying of herbicides for fueling Florida’s blooms.

So, what’s making the blooms happen in the pool?

Despite the name, the Reflecting Pool is not, in fact, a pool at all. It covers nearly eight acres of surface area and contains more than 6 million gallons of water. Even a big, strong swimmer like Olympian Michael Phelps would get tuckered out swimming laps in that sucker.

The Reflecting Pool more closely resembles the “cement pond” the Clampetts of “The Beverly Hillsbillies” splashed around in. It’s a big concrete basin designed to reflect the surrounding monuments.

The water in the Reflecting Pool is not tap water (although city water sometimes gets used), nor is it from a Florida bottler like Zephyrhills. Instead, it’s drawn from the Tidal Basin, connected to the Potomac River, which earlier this year was heavily polluted by a 300 million gallon sewage spill.

The Reflecting Pool’s water goes through a filtration system, but it can’t catch every impurity, so I’m guessing some of the sewage got through.

Meanwhile, the nanobubblers that had been installed in the pool to guarantee clean water were apparently turned off for your Ultimate Fighting Championship birthday event. By the time they were turned back on, the algae had gotten quite a head start.

The hydrogen peroxide actually made things worse.

By dumping peroxide in the pool, park service employees knocked out the blue-green algae but that just made room for “a more persistent and harder-to-get-rid-of green algae,” according to Wayne Carmichael, a biological sciences professor at Wright State University, quoted by PBS.

Now the nanobubblers are back bubbling away and the algae has faded. But it could easily come back, especially if there’s another Potomac sewage spill. After all, algae also showed up bigly in 2012 after the last big renovation.

Now the park service is saying they’re going to drain it again sometime after the Fourth of July and start over. So, here’s my suggestion for eliminating what’s fueling the algae.

One of the donors supporting your Freedom 250 celebration was a Florida company known as Mosaic. The company mines phosphate, the main ingredient in fertilizer, and needs federal approval to expand one of its ginormous gypsum stacks.

Despite Mosaic’s frequent TV ad claims that it’s a friend of the environment, a lot of people around the state have blamed the company for the pollution that’s repeatedly fueled Florida’s algae blooms.

Why not ask Mosaic to foot the bill for refilling the Reflecting Pool with clean, filtered water that’s missing the Potomac poo-poo factor? Given their massive sales, I’m sure you could ask them to kick in some of the other kind of green to keep it clean, too.

Leave a comment

Craig Pittman is a native Floridian. In 30 years at the Tampa Bay Times, he won numerous state and national awards for his environmental reporting. He is the author of six books. In 2020 the Florida Heritage Book Festival named him a Florida Literary Legend. Craig is co-host of the "Welcome to Florida" podcast. He lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and children.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

Thanks for your support

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you are a rational person living in the Free State of Florida, but there are plenty of smart, reasonable people just like you here. The purpose of this newsletter and the Tropic Press website is to provide a source of news and commentary that shines a light through this irrational fog, both original reporting and contributions such as today’s article from the Florida Phoenix.

Thank you for your support as a subscriber. It is invaluable. This is especially so for those of you who have chosen to upgrade to paid subscriptions. Your contributions are making this possible.

J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Share Tropic Press!

As this newsletter was written, Tropic Press was reaching more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere. But there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

That’s a problem you can help solve.

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort by sharing this newsletter with friends.

If you are reading this as an email, simply forward it. Or you can use the link below. Thanks.

Share Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

By William Oelfke

I agree completely with Charlie Kirk when he encouraged all citizens to read the Declaration of Independence, for it defines who we are as Americans. We are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If only Charlie had examined this Declaration more closely, he would have discovered it spells out in candid detail the abuses of the King of Great Britain against us as Americans.

A few of the King’s abuses are listed here:

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has quartered large bodies of armed troops among us: protecting them by mock trial from punishment for any murders they committed on the inhabitants of these states.

He has cut off trade with all parts of the world.

He has imposed taxes on us without our consent.

He has deprived us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

He has excited domestic insurrections among us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless savages, whose known rule of warfare is indiscriminate destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Today, as we approach the United States Semiquincentennial, we should follow Charlie Kirk’s advice and read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety, after all, it defines July 4, 1776 as the original “No Kings Day”.

William Oelfke is a retired professor of physics and astronomy and a longtime resident of Central Florida.

Subscribe now

By Jonathan Shorman

States Newsroom

U.S. Senate Democrats have introduced legislation to require Congress to sign off on any deployment of federal troops to the polls, as President Donald Trump and his administration refuse to rule out the idea.

Fears of troops or other federal agents at voting sites have long loomed over the approaching midterm elections in November. Democrats and voting rights advocates have grown alarmed in recent months as Trump has publicly entertained the possibility. Other administration officials have mocked or sidestepped questions about possible deployments.

The legislation, the Protect Our Polls Act, would require Congress to pass a resolution approving any deployment beforehand. Federal law prohibits troops and other armed federal personnel from polling places, but contains an exception to “repel armed enemies of the United States” — fueling speculation that Trump could invoke this exception to bypass the ban.

“He is trying to nationalize the elections, and he is telling us in his own words what he is trying to do,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, said at a news conference at the Capitol. “On top of that, Trump’s nominees for his Cabinet positions have come up here and refused to rule out uniformed military or federal law enforcement being sent to the polls on Election Day.”

White House justification

The bill would require the White House, 48 hours before any deployment, to provide Congress with intelligence, legal justifications, deployment plans and evidence that state and local officials are unable to address the threat themselves.

It also prohibits military personnel from using federal funds to access election records, a provision designed to block troops from seizing ballots.

Slotkin is offering the bill alongside Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Alex Padilla of California, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

“One of the things I’m very proud of is that I served to protect the Constitution of the United States and our democracy,” said Gallego, a Marine veteran. “I swore that oath, and the last thing any Marine, sailor, Army, Coastie, Air Force, spacemen — whatever they call them nowadays — wants to do is to undermine that. We’re here to protect democracy, we’re not here to undermine democracy.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that if Democrats “really cared about securing our elections,” the party would pass the SAVE America Act.

The legislation would require voters to provide documents, such as a birth certificate or passport, proving their citizenship. The measure has stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Democrats and a handful of Republicans.

In May, Trump told reporters that he would “do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections,” in response to questions about sending National Guard personnel or federal immigration agents to voting locations in November.

Amendments blocked

At a Senate hearing in April, Slotkin pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on sending troops to the polls. He called the questions “another gotcha hypothetical.”

The Democratic legislation comes a week after Slotkin said Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee blocked two amendments to ban troops at the polls during work on the National Defense Authorization Act. The committee typically works on the defense spending bill behind closed doors.

The Protect Our Polls Act has virtually no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Congress. Still, its introduction underscores the level of concern among Democrats as Trump’s efforts to influence the midterm elections come into focus.

The Department of Justice has spent a year demanding states turn over unredacted copies of their voter rolls, including sensitive personal data on voters. DOJ officials have said in court that the department wants to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security, which operates a powerful computer program that can identify possible noncitizen voters.

The DOJ has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for the data, but no judge has so far ruled in the administration’s favor.

Investigations

The Department of Justice is also engaged in several election-related investigations over past elections.

The FBI raided a Georgia elections warehouse in January and seized ballots from the 2020 election. Election officials have been subpoenaed in Minneapolis, and the FBI last week searched the office of an Ohio voting rights group.

And Trump signed an executive order that restricts voting by mail. It would require states to provide lists of voters to the U.S. Postal Service before using the mail to send ballots and directs Homeland Security to share lists of voting-age citizens with every state. The order remains in effect for now, despite a series of lawsuits challenging it.

“There’s a common theme here,” Padilla said at a Democratic forum on election security. “All of these things are illegal and many unconstitutional.”

Leave a comment

Jonathan Shorman covers democracy for States Newsroom. His coverage area includes elections and voting rights, fights over state and federal power, civil liberties and more. An alumnus of the University of Kansas, he previously covered politics for The Kansas City Star.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

DONATE

Thanks for your support

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you are a rational person living in the Free State of Florida, but there are plenty of smart, reasonable people just like you here. The purpose of this newsletter and the Tropic Press website is to provide a source of news and commentary that shines a light through this irrational fog, both original reporting and contributions such as today’s article first published in the Florida Phoenix.

Thank you for your support as a subscriber. It is invaluable. This is especially so for those of you who have chosen to upgrade to paid subscriptions. Your contributions are making this possible.

J.C. Bruce

Subscribe now

Share Tropic Press!

As this newsletter was written, Tropic Press was reaching more than 700,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere. But there are literally millions of Florida Democrats and independents we are not reaching yet.

That’s a problem you can help solve.

With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn our state and this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort by sharing this newsletter with friends.

If you are reading this as an email, simply forward it. Or you can use the link below. Thanks.

Share