This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] Coming up, lawmakers are working on a series of bills in advance of the January legislative session.

Governor Ron DeSantis wants a bill of rights on artificial intelligence, but President Trump is threatening to stop any state from taking the lead on AI regulation.

The latest in the consumer battle on energy bills.

A well-known Muslim civil rights organization named a terrorist group in Florida.

That's next on this episode of Florida This Week.

[music] Welcome back everybody, I'm Lissette Campos.

Joining our panel this week we have Kim Droege, the host of the TV show, Connecting With Kim.

Patrick Manteiga, the publisher of La Gaceta newspaper, and Yacob Reyes, a reporter for Axios Tampa Bay.

Florida's governor is taking aim at one of the country's most prominent Muslim civil rights groups.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed an executive order labeling the Council on American-Islamic relations, most commonly known as CAIR, as a foreign terrorist organization, end quote.

CAIR has fired back at a press conference in Tampa announcing a lawsuit.

The chapter's interim executive director called the order, quote, defamatory and unconstitutional, end quote.

To our governor, your designation has no basis in law or fact.

This order by DeSantis follows Texas, whose governor also labeled CAIR a foreign terrorist group.

CAIR was founded in 1994 and has chapters in nearly two dozen states.

Kim, I'd like to start with you.

Your your reaction to this.

If the US government has not declared CAIR a terrorist organization, is it surprising that a state would.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today?

Lissette, I got to say, uh, to my way of thinking, this is a federal issue should be handled at the federal level.

I can't imagine that these two organizations have not aren't consistently under investigation.

Normally, when you take a bold action of this or maybe even precipitous action of this sort, you back it up with some very concrete examples of egregious acts or that justify your classification.

Now, lawsuits of this level are slippery slope.

Uh, CAIR of course and the Muslim Brotherhood will be fighting, well CAIR in particular fighting lawsuits on two different fronts.

Uh, maybe money's not an issue for them.

In our case, it will be taxpayer money used to fight a lawsuit.

And I think that it opens up it's a slippery slope in the sense that document discovery and things of this nature will come to light.

And that's something that DeSantis has said you know.

I'd like to welcome it.

I'd like to ask you, Patrick, about that.

The governor has said that he welcomes the opportunity for the lawsuit, because then the state will be able to look at their financial records as part of the legal discovery.

Do you think that this is something that could become an even bigger problem?

I believe the federal government is already monitoring them.

I think they've been monitored since the day they were founded.

I think they've been the most investigated group that I can imagine.

And I think that the federal government would have been the first one to say, yeah, we have a problem there.

Um, you know, I almost have a great feeling that they won't find anything because like I said, I believe that they're constantly being monitored.

Um, I think the governor is using it as a distraction.

I think that the economy's not good.

I think that there's a lot of problems here in Florida.

And I think, why not point the finger at Muslims and say, hey, there's terrorism here.

Um, this is a stupid thing for a state to do.

This is a national issue.

Um, and I think really, at the end of the day, I think the governor is trying to set it up to perhaps stop voucher money from going to Muslim schools.

He's really trying to, uh, make this a Christian state.

And and he really got very upset that he started realizing that a lot of that education money was going to educate children, schools.

Yeah.

Yacob.

Yeah, I think I mean, this sends a really awful message, I think, to the Muslim community in Tampa Bay.

Um, you know, you look back and you see that, uh, earlier, um, a group of, uh, Christian nationalists came to the University of South Florida and harassed students who were praying, um, I mean, and CAIR has spoke out, you know, in support of the students, you know, against those who came to harass them, asking USF for a strong response.

And and, you know, I just think, you know, this happens.

And then only a few weeks later, DeSantis does this.

And a lot of what DeSantis does is always, I think, in terms of, you know, gaining some momentum with the conservative base.

Um, you know, we saw this with death penalty.

Um, and I think, you know, seeing Texas do something, Florida felt it needed an answer.

And I just think, uh, I think he's definitely aiming for, you know, to pad his resume for, for 2028.

You mentioned that care came out and criticized what happened on the campus at USF.

I think it's also important to know that there were religious leaders, pastors and priests who came out as well and criticized what those men did.

Um, but the governor didn't the governor didn't criticize what happened.

He's not there.

He's not been there for the Muslim community on any front at any time in the last few years.

And it really looks like he's got a war against this religion in this state.

And these are taxpayers, uh, they're Americans and they should be treated as such.

And that respect just is not is not happening.

Well, the worst part is we have so much dissension in in this country right now, fueling more dissension, fueling more discrimination is not necessarily, in my opinion, a good move, and particularly at this time of year when we should all be extending each other grace, love and tolerance.

It really heightens the level of political stress in a community that doesn't need any additional.

Have there been any reports in when you're covering the news in the community about problems in recent weeks or months with the Muslim community?

Why would this come up now?

I mean, not that I've seen.

I know that after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, uh, Hillsborough commissioner took action against an official, um, who who, you know, was active in the Muslim community, um, because of comments that were made on Facebook.

But beyond that, I've not seen anything.

And so I think this is really an unprompted, um, action.

And if they're terrorists, you shouldn't be, uh, sending legislation.

You should be sending the cops and arrested them.

I mean, you know, it's against the law.

And so if you've got evidence, arrest people, but they don't have evidence.

This is a smear campaign.

Well, we will continue to follow it.

Moving on to our next subject.

AI artificial intelligence is a top issue for lawmakers in Tallahassee.

It's the first time the Capitol has launched an AI themed agenda, but the state's push to regulate AI is at odds with the white House.

Take a look.

Artificial intelligence seems to be everywhere.

It's in tech devices, cars, health care, finance, customer service, the list goes on and on.

But now, lawmakers in Florida and other states are trying to build roadmaps for AI.

But the Trump administration insists the rules should be written at the federal level, saying the president will issue an executive order to block states from crafting their own AI regulation, if necessary.

When they need approvals on things, they have to come to one source.

They can't go to California or New York, but if they had to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states, you could forget it because it's not possible to do.

Meanwhile, Governor Ron DeSantis is urging lawmakers to push ahead with what he calls an AI bill of rights.

We will never, ever be able to credibly shed ourselves of our responsibility to think for ourselves.

We cannot turn it all over to machines and think it's all going to work out great in the end.

The DeSantis plan would add guardrails around AI, including parental controls for minors, limits on commercial use of a person's name, image and likeness, and require clear or obvious notification when consumers are interacting with AI chatbots.

The proposal also bars utilities from raising rates to support energy hungry data centers, and blocks taxpayer subsidies for their construction.

So far, the AI measures have broad bipartisan support in Tallahassee and are likely headed to vote during January's legislative session.

Yacob, I'd like to start this one with you.

Where do you think this is going to land?

Do you think it's going to go anywhere?

Well, I mean, Florida has has done a lot in the past.

Um, you know, I think of when they, when they try to, um, protect minors on social media, I think about that, like big tech regulation that Florida tried to do and how that got strung up in lawsuits.

Um, and I can envision something similar happening here.

But also Florida has like already kind of been at the forefront of trying to regulate AI Um, they lawmakers filed bills in past legislative sessions, uh, to stop AI in political ads.

Um, there was also legislation filed, uh, to, to stop deepfakes, uh, you know, with sexual content without obviously express permission.

Um, so like, they've made some moves in this I think like kind of trying to when it gets to like parental control and things of that nature.

These are familiar themes that we've seen before, and a lot of it leads to a lot of litigation and takes years for us to actually see some kind of change.

But it's an arena that lawmakers in Florida have been in for a while now.

Kim, tell me your opinion on this.

Well, you know, recently we did an entire luncheon panel devoted to AI at Tampa Tiger Bay Club in November.

Because AI is here and it's now, it's being used.

We are a groundbreaker in Florida as far as our educational institutions.

USF has had a whole college devoted to it and will continue to grow that.

So yeah, I do think it merits and warrants some management.

And I recently caught a program on another network about a young woman interacting with a chatbot, which ended up leading to her suicide.

So there are dangers in the AI world.

And that's and that's one of the reasons why supporters of this bill say that it's important to do this.

You know, the other thing, Patrick, that I've looked at is there's also a bill under consideration that would cut the opportunity to use AI by the insurance company to decide claims that one, as a hurricane survivor, is extremely scary to me to think that AI that that's even a possibility.

What are some of the other pitfalls that should be if they're going to tackle this?

What are some of the other areas they should really be looking at.

Grading papers in schools?

Um, there's a whole list.

I mean, you know, for the federal government to say that it should, uh, have one blanket rules over AI is very odd, considering they believe that every state should have its own rules about abortion.

But the reality is, is the state regulates insurance, so the state needs to have AI rules regarding insurance.

State regulates the electric companies.

So we're going to have to have rules about that.

We regulate our schools.

So we're going to have to have rules about that.

You know to me the biggest scary part about the AI issue is the cost to consumers.

20% of of our future electric needs are going to be driven by AI data centers.

And to think that we're going to have to pay for these things in front as consumers, so somebody can make a lot of money on AI doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

And and so I'm glad that that's part of this, this, this bill.

But yeah, I mean, you know, we should know when, when AI is involved in anything.

Um, reporters should let it know if they're using this to, to, uh, be part of their story.

Um, and and so if your paper's being graded by AI, then I think you should know it that that a teacher did not do it.

And one of the things that we hear from young professional organizations that are affiliated with the chambers across the region is that automation is being, um, basically replaced is replacing a lot of these, these entry level jobs where they start their careers.

And so there's a lot of concern about how AI is changing the workforce.

We even just had a case in Oviedo.

Oviedo, Florida, near Orlando, where we shut down a school because an AI program that looked through the cameras to determine if kids had guns at school thought a clarinet was a rifle.

And we shut down a school for it.

I mean, you know, this is kind of a silly thing that we're doing here.

We're getting a we're getting way ahead of, of of the proof that this works all the time.

There's also the veracity of it.

I mean, I one day I just googled a historical event that I actually knew the answer to, and I googled it, using the AI to that event.

And the answer that was presented to me was totally inaccurate.

That is not what happened at all.

So but I'm one of those people that investigate, drill down knew the answer.

Where the where's the source of this information?

But other people don't do that.

And it is very difficult.

I mean, I'm sure the reporters at Axios, where you're looking at information and you're now wondering how legitimate is this source?

Even when there's a source that's named, you're always wondering, is it accurate?

No, definitely.

And I think, you know, looking all around, you know, it wasn't so long ago that I was in school myself.

And it's like, you know, they you know, there's been a lot of discussion, like with laptops putting laptops in schools and, and in the end, right, trying to implement all this technology like are the, are the results actually there.

And that would be my broader question.

I think there's a rush to incorporate AI in the classroom and rush to incorporate.

But like a lot of what needs to be taught, I think, and and what young professionals need to know are like are something that they can't, like, get from AI.

I think AI could be a tool that can be leveraged, but I think when it replaces human thought, I think that's where it becomes a problem.

Important, important points.

We're going to move on to our next segment.

Segment one that is affecting so many families.

Have you compared your recent utility bill to last year's.

The cost of power is climbing at twice the rate of inflation according to U.S.

Consumer Price Index.

With Florida's major utility providers winning bids to raise to raise the rates, lawmakers are advancing reforms to the state agency that approves increases.

Take a look.

Florida's Public Service Commission, commonly referred to as PSC, is best known for its role as the rate setter for investor owned utilities.

It recently approved a nearly $7 billion rate increase for Florida Power and Light, impacting some 12 million customers.

It is the largest rate hike in U.S.

history.

Filed on the heels of that increase is Senate Bill 126.

It calls on the PSC to justify affordability when setting rates among other reforms.

Here's how the proposal breaks down.

The number of PSC commissioners would increase from 5 to 7, and include one certified public accountant and a chartered financial analyst.

It requires PSC to adequately support its conclusions, explaining in more detail.

Also, the PSC must provide explanations when accepting or denying settlement agreements with utilities.

And finally, the PSC would need to report back annually on public utility rates to include benchmarks as well as analysis on economics costs.

Return on equity and executive compensation.

One provision that was dropped from the original bill would have capped a utility's return on equity, which essentially is the profit margin investor owned utility companies are allowed to have.

The recently approved rate increase for FPL included a nearly 11% return for investors.

Senate Bill 126 cleared its last committee stop with unanimous approval, and the bill's sponsor for this is Don Gaetz of Crestview.

Patrick, this is a topic that you've looked at for the newspaper for a number of years.

Your response, your reaction.

Well, you know, okay, he's making an effort, but this doesn't go far enough.

We should cap, uh, what the increases are per year 5%, 2%, whatever it is.

But but consumers can't just do whatever the electric utilities want.

Number two is the PSC should be elected.

Right now, the PSC is doing the bidding of the electric companies.

It has forever.

And if they were elected and they had to go to the voters to get their position, I think they look at life a little bit differently.

The other issue is, is that there's no real reforms in here on on the fact that these electric companies are able to charge us for, for, uh, new plants before they build them.

Uh, and that we are the insurance company for, uh, the electric utility.

So when they have a loss during hurricanes, we pay them 100% of their loss.

Who does that?

They don't have any skin in this game.

And and the bill they present is one that we pay.

We don't.

We don't audit it.

We don't.

We don't say, hey, you know, that was a 30 year old telephone pole.

Why am I going to pay for a new one?

You should have replaced it anyway.

And so this is just the consumers are really getting hurt here.

Um, it continues to be bad.

And let's all remember that the governor appointed each one of these people.

So the governor can't say, oh, we need to do something about it when he's keeping appointing people who aren't doing something about it.

And so, Senator, Senator Jason Pizzo, who is a no party affiliation in South Florida, he has said that he supports not putting a cap because he says, I'm not for capping.

I think that that's socialism.

Kim.

Well, they are monopoly.

You can't get more socialistic than that.

Um, I'm in agreement with Patrick.

I mean, it seems like any time and every time they go before the commission, they get whatever they ask for.

I'm a TECO customer.

Uh, I will say one thing for them.

Uh, positive is that, uh, until Milton, I never lost power, so kudos to them.

But I think they're guaranteed returns and all that sort of thing.

I don't go along with that.

And I and I think it should be COLA because the rest of us are subjected to COLA, so why shouldn't they be subjected to COLA.

And I think.

When you say COLA can you, can you explain what the acronym mean.

On their increases, as well as their guarantees of return?

Nobody should.

Yeah they should.

Cost of living.

They should not be getting carte blanche.

Uh, so I'm in total agreement with Patrick here.

I think, uh, any stab is is a step in the right direction.

It needs to go farther.

I think we all agree with that.

But, um, you know, at the end of the day, we all want the electricity to work, right?

I mean, at the end of the day, that's what we want.

And there's this seems to feed the move of several municipalities to go the route of municipal, municipally owned utility companies.

We know that St.

Pete is in the process of studying that Clearwater.

Right, know, we've definitely seen that in Pinellas.

And, you know, I think about TECO customers especially like, you know, earlier this year they paid some of the highest, uh, electricity rates in the nation.

And when you look at like, um, when this, uh, previous rate hike, I think last year that went into effect in January when it went before this commission, um, you know, what they, uh, cited as a reason for approving this was, well, you know, Teco is in a place that's, you know, highly vulnerable to hurricanes.

Um, but, like, you know, when you when you really look into that reasoning.

Right?

And you see that TECO has a mechanism through which they can recoup their losses, like it starts to it starts to make you question kind of the reasoning that allowed this to take place, you know, to begin with, you know, you couple that rate hike and then what they were, the mechanism they were using to recoup from their losses.

And, you know, that leads to like really, really high bills.

So I don't know, I obviously I've not seen, you know.

Um, it just seems like the consumers are really not following this as closely as they should.

Um, it's.

I don't think that when I look at the data that's on their websites, you know, it's all written there, but how many consumers go to their website to look at and really dig into the information on why the rate hike and the transparency?

I mean, it's transparency is only good if you're looking and understanding and really filtering the information.

You've just given up.

Yeah, I think they don't think they can do anything about it and they can't.

I mean, they really can't.

I mean, you know, right now the electric companies make deal with some of the bigger electric users to cut down their rates.

Where are we in this?

You know, we're subsidizing some big companies who are eating a lot of electricity and and for their profits.

And so it just it's a system that doesn't work if we're going to have these monopolies, I'd much rather be owned by government because government doesn't have to make a profit.

And we certainly would save at least 10% of our bill right there.

Well, this week it's been really hard to narrow down all the topics for this show because there's so much going on.

You know, in South Florida, you had the first female mayor elected to the city of Miami ever.

The first Democrat elected mayor in Miami in 30 years.

What are some of the other big stories that we're following?

I'd like to start with you, Yacob.

Right, one of the stories I'm following is, you know, some of the public safety measures that that could be taken up by the Tampa City Council in response to the crash that happened in Ybor City.

Um, I think, you know, they were wanting to host a town hall with the community.

Um, that got postponed.

But, uh, you know, the Liebraca is going to speak to the council and, you know, um, councilman, uh, chairman, uh, Clendenin said that, you know, you know, everything is on the table.

So I'm curious to see what happens.

I am going to shamelessly plug legislation I'm working on with Senator Daryl and Representative Michael Owen for this legislative session, which is a aimed at, uh, being becoming the third state in the Union to provide some protection, some regulation and some audit trail for cryptocurrency kiosks, which are currently being used to scam seniors and other vulnerable adults out of their life savings.

And so I'm hoping that some of the the legislature, the committees and the legislature will pass this bill so we can curb some of this activity.

And, number one, have a way to claw back some of those funds if we can prove that it was illegal.

Patrick.

The mayor announced today that the police headquarters is up for sale.

And what's interesting is that she has no idea what she wants to do after she sells it.

They don't have a plan of what they want to build.

They don't have any money for what they want to build.

Uh, city council was caught off guard on this.

And to me, it looks like she's trying to back council into, uh, into having to build a very expensive police station.

Bercaw has our police chief has said that it could cost $400 million for a police headquarters.

Um, and I think he wants to back.

They want to back city council and having to raise taxes.

Well, we're going to move on.

One last thing that we have on the show really important.

Before we close out, we'd like to remember Stanley Gray, a respected community leader and a dear friend to this program.

Gary retired a captain in the US Marines and is credited with reviving the Urban League in Hillsborough County.

As president of the group, he worked tirelessly to expand opportunity and economic empowerment in our community.

He will be missed by all of us at Florida This Week.

And Patrick, I'd like to ask you, because you sat with him so many times on this panel, you know, he's he has so many different layers to the legacy that he leaves.

What would you say is the legacy that that touched your heart the most?

You know, it was nice to see that this gentleman who served his country so, so well decided that he wanted to continue that job and to serve his community in a different way.

And and he really wanted to, uh, get African American youth involved in politics, to get them involved in elections to get them trained well, to get them excited about education and.

And that's what needs to happen.

You know, our problems in our schools a lot of times isn't our education system.

It's the fact that you got to get these kids excited.

They have to have support.

And they and they've got to be driven forward in this and feel like there's a future for them.

And and he did that.

And and it's nice to see somebody do that.

Who, who really could have just retired and gone fishing.

Instead he decided to double down and and really try.

He ran for school board once.

Uh, his heart was there, but he didn't win.

And, uh, I'm better to have known him.

We talked to different people in the community, and so many of them said how grateful they were for the weekend schools that he started at the local church, so that the teenagers can come in and learn about black history and how important that was, because they felt he felt that they weren't getting that in school.

And so parents agreed.

And they had their kids go into the weekend schools.

He was.

I had the pleasure of having him on connecting with Kim.

I've known him for a long time.

He was an active member of Tampa Tiger Bay club, so I saw him there a lot.

And I just I was shocked when I heard the news.

And I just want to say, you know, rest in peace and we'll miss you.

Our hearts go out to his family.

Thank you so much for coming in.

Again, many thanks to our panelists sharing their time and expertise Kim Droege, Patrick Manteiga, and Yacob Reyes.

That's all our time for now.

On behalf of the entire team here at WEDU, thank you so much for watching.

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