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A battle is brewing between Governor Ron DeSantis and MAGA over next year's race for governor.

There are proposals to entirely eliminate property taxes in Florida and perhaps raise the sales tax higher.

Florida gets its own version of the DOGE program, and the state of Florida sues the Target corporation over the sale of LGBTQ merchandise.

All coming up right now on Florida This Week.

♪ Music ♪ Welcome back.

Joining us this week, Travis Horn is the founder and CEO of Bullhorn Communications and a Republican.

Tara Newsom is an attorney and a political science professor at St. Petersburg College.

Lizette Campos is a journalist and a communications and media strategist, and Patrick Manteiga is the editor and publisher of La Gaceta Newspaper and a Democrat.

So nice to have all of you here.

Great to see you.

Great to see you.

Well, the MAGA movement and the governor may be on a collision course over who succeeds Ron DeSantis in next year's race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

This week, Naples area Congressman Byron Donalds announced on Fox News that he was running for the Republican nomination for governor in 2026.

After a lot of prayer, a lot of thoughts with my family and my friends, I'm here to announce my candidacy to be the next governor of the great state of Florida.

And Sean, we have a wonderful state.

I got to Florida when I was 17 years old, off of a Greyhound bus with just a trunk full of clothes, and over the rest of my time in Florida, I built a family.

I built a career 17 years in financial services.

I joined the Tea Party movement was in the conservative movement.

I was able to serve four years in the state legislature, four years in Congress, and I think now is the time to now take the mantle and lead our state into the future.

Donalds was endorsed for governor by President Donald Trump last week.

In Tampa this week, DeSantis, who cannot run again due to term limits, took a swipe at Donalds record.

You know, you.

Got a guy like Byron, he just hasn't been a part of any of the victories that we've had here over the left over these last years.

He's just not been a part of it.

He's been in other states campaigning, doing that, and that's fine.

But okay, well then deliver results up there.

You know, that's what I want to see.

I want to see them delivering results for the people of Florida.

DeSantis suggested his wife, Casey, would make a good candidate for governor, and that she would win more votes than he did.

Travis, that's a pretty harsh soundbite from the governor there against Byron Donalds.

Is this.

Is this personal or is this a MAGA DeSantis movement split?

I wouldn't say it's a MAGA DeSantis split.

You know, I've been around Florida Republican politics since 1994 and the contract with America.

I just I was invited to the press conference.

I've been supportive of the governor and his agenda.

I consider myself one of his friends in town and certainly have invited him out to events and things, and it didn't didn't leave me with a great feeling.

I didn't feel real good about it.

Starting a primary this soon?

Um, it's funny.

I joked with him about his wife running for office in Ybor City at the Italian club when he kicked off his first campaign.

I don't think he took it very I don't think I think it was very funny to him then, but now seems to be a great idea.

I you know, I don't like Republican infighting.

Like, you know, I'm sort of Reaganesque in that.

And it just it really did not leave me with a good feeling.

I think that we don't get up and criticize, let that race settle out.

You know, if you want to run your, you know, Casey, if she wants to run, which is what I've heard from her in the public eye, is that she's not very hyped up for running.

But if she decides to do so, it should be a vigorous primary.

She is making speeches around the state that sounds like she's running.

>> A very meaningful campaign ads on the internet.

I'm going to tell you this as a Republican, this president has the longest coattails of any I've ever seen in our party, and I wouldn't want to be on the on the flip side of that.

Patrick...Byron Donalds challenged the the governor rather, when the new teaching standards on black history came out, suggesting that people who were enslaved benefited from slavery.

Byron Donalds objected to that.

And that was that's part of the rift between Donalds and DeSantis.

I also think that DeSantis just wants to continue to control the state when he's not governor, and so he wants his person to be in.

And when Donald Trump goes ahead and makes that endorsement, it makes his endorsement kind of secondary.

And so I assume there's going to be a lot of Republicans who want to be governor of the state of Florida.

I don't think this is just going to be Byron walking in with a Trump endorsement.

It's a big state.

And this state has never elected an African-American statewide.

And I think it'd be hard for.

Donalds to win.

Statewide.

I think I think he's got to he's got to work.

I mean, he has no, no, I'm structure statewide doesn't have a statewide name.

He's really going to have to hustle.

Uh, Lissette, the governor's wife has really high approval ratings among Republicans.

The governor is touting her.

And as I mentioned before, she's making speeches.

And two universities have done polls that say that she would be doing very well with voters.

The majority of voters.

But, you know, looking at it from a purely strategic point, like who would be her target audience that that would gravitate to her.

And when you look at the fact that, you know, she would be, if she's elected the first female governor of the state of Florida, we're one of only 18 that's never had a woman governor.

That means a lot to certain, you know, certain voters.

Also, the fact that she's been working for the last seven years, the whole Florida initiative, working with families, helping them with training, work, training and also housing.

And so there is a long line of people who know her through that and would support her.

And then the other thing, she's a breast cancer survivor.

She's really been out there advocating for early detection.

And again, this is an audience that knows her, that respects what she's done.

So strategically.

There are certain audiences that that do naturally gravitate towards her.

And I think that that's something that opponents are going to have to chip away at one at a time.

Hey, let me be clear.

She'd be a great candidate.

If she's our nominee, I'd support her.

I even put her name on a NASCAR in support of her when she was battling breast cancer.

We put it on a pink ribbon on about ten.

NASCAR's and her and her name on the front of one.

So, I mean, I support her.

I can't though, uh, get out of the way.

Insurgent candidates like John Morgan, who is flirting with this capitalist third party, which probably won't fly, but he might be the right messenger with the right message.

Remember, he brought marijuana to the table.

This time it got 56% of the vote.

There's a lot of folks that support that would support his more moderate message.

And there's a million no party affiliates that nobody's paying attention to, that he could come in and become very competitive If he aligned himself with the Democratic Party.

Patrick, I want to bring up another sign of the rift between Trump and DeSantis and happened this week.

Andrew and Tristan Tait, the influencer brothers who face charges in Romania of human trafficking, trafficking of minors and sexual intercourse with a minor, landed in Fort Lauderdale this week.

Their attorney says they feel safe here now that Donald Trump is president.

However, governor DeSantis says they are not welcome.

We have no involvement in that.

I read about it through the media.

Clearly, the federal government has jurisdiction, whether they want to rebuff his entry into the United States.

And I have confidence that whether it's Pam Bondi or Kristi Noem, that they will be looking at that.

I do know our Attorney General James Uthmeier, is looking at what state hooks and jurisdiction we may have to be able to to deal with this, but the reality is, is no, Florida is not a place where you're welcome.

Uh, with that, with those that that type of conduct in the air, and I don't know how it came to this.

We were not involved.

We were not notified.

I found out through the media that this was something that was happening.

And, Patrick, the Financial Times is out with a report today saying that the governor opened the door to make this happen.

It's a free.

state of Florida.

Everybody comes here.

It's so much better than the red.

The blue states.

You know, you know, this is what you get sometimes.

And and you have this immigration.

You can't always do the things you want.

But, you know, we're getting ready to have a situation where if you got enough money, you come in this country with $5 million and do what you want to and, you know, jump, jump the line.

Yeah.

And so you do see this mess.

And, you know, I'm happy the governor's trying to push him out.

And hopefully he's good at it.

Yeah.

And I hope I didn't misspeak, but Trump, according to the Financial Times, opened the door to make this happen.

Travis, to give you the last word on this.

I'm not up to speed on that issue.

All right, this week, governor DeSantis announced he was creating a Florida version of the federal Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, similar to what the Trump administration is doing in Washington.

The governor said over the next year, the state will attempt to sunset 70 state boards and commissions, cut 900 positions, require universities to undergo independent reviews and audits, and look into the ways local governments are spending money, all in an effort to cut out what he calls waste, fraud and abuse.

Lissette, what do you make of this move?

It's interesting to me, when you look at the fact that Florida already has a government efficiency task force that the voters approved back in 2006 under Governor Jeb Bush.

And when you look at their output, it is stunningly light.

They meet every four years.

They have recommendations every year.

And if you look at the last report that they did, it was three pages, one pages, three bullet points of recommendations.

And so if those are the people that are looking at our efficiencies in government, then maybe it would not be a bad idea.

Whether you call it DOGE or whether you call it streamlining.

Someone should be looking at how we spend our money and what we do with our tax dollars.

And we really should not be depending on government efficiency task force for that.

Tara.

Since 1999, Republicans have controlled the state legislature and the governor's mansion.

So if there is overspending in government, whose fault is it?

I think voters are going to be asking that.

You know, governor DeSantis was masterful with his Florida blueprint and exporting it to DC.

Now he's importing this dodge efficiency.

And there's a lot of the same questions on the state level that we have on the national level.

Why didn't governor DeSantis use that government efficiency task force in a better way, in a more efficient way?

And what will this do to our neighbors?

There are essential services that might go out the the way, because I is at the heart of evaluating that.

And, you know, we're going to have to look at our neighbors and say, do we really want I to be making those decisions.

Why didn't the governor and the state legislature make those decisions before?

And the other piece here, when we look at our universities and colleges and we have a lot to be proud of in the state of Florida, we have University of Florida, one of the top top ten in the entire country.

St. Pete College, where I work was just labeled number one for online bachelor's programs.

So why fix something that's not broken, and why use something that might be still under development?

AI is exciting.

It's scary.

It's not perfect.

It could bring innovation.

But are we ready to apply that to real jobs and real institutions?

It could be that we're signaling, at least with our institutions and higher ed, that people may not want our graduates, you know, because they're unsure of how we calculate courses using AI.

And we might not have tech companies or other companies come to Florida worried about our educational system because of that.

I'm certain that we can always find better ways of doing things.

And that's right.

If you know the inactivity of that, that commission or committee is is disconcerting.

But it's also, you know, again, we have sort of ingrained it in our in our Republican mantra that we look for fraud, waste and abuse.

And we we want to focus on those things.

And I'm glad to see they're doing at the federal level.

In fact, the impact at the federal level has really been I know there's been a lot of hand-wringing about Elon and firings, really, the people who have been let go are just not or jobs not reposted is really minuscule.

Look at my friend Jamie Miller down in Sarasota.

Reasonable Arguments blog just posted and talked about that at nauseam where, I mean, typically corporations will fire 17.5, 18% will be their firings in any round of firings.

We haven't reached any.

We haven't even reached a fraction of 1% at the federal level.

So I'm not concerned about that.

I'm also I also have had a hunch always, that our university system could use more of a focus on spending.

And and I'm not saddened to hear that they're going to be under some scrutiny.

But again, we as Republicans do, we do bear some responsibility.

If there's been misspending, I'm going to accept that and say, let's fix it and moving forward.

But if you start to look at some of the things he's saying, it also looks like he's really going to do a DEI witch hunt in the universities.

I don't think he's looking for waste.

I think he's looking for any programs that they've changed the name of and haven't gotten rid of.

So when you start to see some of his public comments, this really, I think is going to be about Dei and not about actually going through and doing a good audit to see if we're spending money correctly.

And if he wants to audit something, he can audit his own travel expenses.

You know, he can audit us flying people from Texas to Martha's Vineyard.

There's a lot of things that he's done that deserve a good audit.

I just have to say, it's often about authority.

Who has the constitutional authority on the federal level, who has the constitutional authority on the state level?

And, you know, when I have a toothache, I go to a dentist when I want to fix my universities and colleges, I don't necessarily want to go to a non academician to help me with that.

Or it could be a partnership with businesses to try to figure out what can our educational system provide to bring in, to bring in more, more business here.

Well, Governor Ron DeSantis says he backs the idea of banning local governments from collecting property taxes.

This is pinching people, and I think that's something that you should look at.

You buy a home, you own it outright free and clear, and yet you have to continue to pony up money to the government just for the courtesy of using your own property.

That's not we don't tax like that in almost any other instance.

There's a move in the Florida Senate to study the idea.

If the ban were to happen, it would need to pass as a constitutional amendment with support from 60% of voters.

However, it could force a rise in sales taxes and cuts to local government, including police, fire and education spending.

Here's Tampa City Council member Luis Viera.

What's missing in politics is common sense, and people talk about these fancy million dollar studies.

And I go, look, here's money that goes to support our cops and our firefighters.

If you take it away, we will have a problem.

Viera says that property taxes are preferable to sales taxes, which are regressive.

Property taxes are highly imperfect, but under a sales tax system, if you're Homer Simpson, you're going to be paying a much higher tax rate than Mr. Burns.

And that's the bottom line of it is.

Patrick, what do you think?

What would happen if property taxes were to go away and we were to rely on some other form of taxation?

Mr. Burns would save a lot of money.

Um, it's a bad idea.

Um, sales taxes are regressive.

They're also volatile.

So, you know, when you have big events happen, sometimes people will stop spending on large items, and therefore you don't collect as much sales tax.

It's been a problem that we've had in the past in this state because, uh, sometimes we've had times when people have been spending here and we've had trouble come up with the money for education and things like that.

The other thing is, is that, you know, you have some cities that don't have a very large retail base and don't have businesses in them that collect taxes.

So if you have one of these small cities and you're no longer able to collect property taxes on the on the residences where those residences don't collect sales tax either.

And so that means, you know, in Tampa you might be okay because you have stadiums and arenas that produce sales tax.

But in places like Temple Terrace and Plant City and in New Port Richey, you might not be okay because you just don't have enough places to produce sales tax.

I've got to say though, that the idea of finally, maybe one day really, truly owning a piece of property and not having to pay the government for it resonated with me.

That's the one thing that really struck me in the press conference.

I'm not saying that I entirely want to wipe out our property tax system, that I'm full scale on board with that right now with the way our budget is configured for the state.

But I'm okay with us having a conversation about it and looking at it more closely.

And it is wonderful to see folks who are in a position of authority to say, let's do the research, let's hear the different opinions, and let's talk about this with the experts, because politicians should not be deciding this.

You know, the experts should be the ones looking at this carefully.

We had Senator J. Collins at the Tampa Bay chamber speaking to our board, and he asked pointed questions.

I want to know what you think.

And there were different opinions in the room and that is how we get to a good answer.

You know, one of the things that we've we've found at the chamber is our emerging leaders of Tampa Bay, the largest young professionals group in in our region, 21 to 35 years old.

And their number one complaint is the fact that attainable housing is not something that they can afford.

And there's a difference between affordable housing and workforce housing.

And so the programs and the resources that are available for affordable housing are not available to them because of their income structure.

So we really do need to have a very serious conversation about how we provide more attainable housing, workforce housing for our young professionals.

Tara think about that?

Is that the way to, you know to have more affordable housing?

We all grumble about property taxes.

Nobody likes to pay it.

But $46 billion is what our property tax produces and we have over $100 billion budget.

So this is going to be almost half okay.

So where are we going to get that money.

And one of those big places that funds from property taxes is education.

Half of our education is paid from property taxes.

And you know, how are voters are going to wonder how how how how probably sales tax.

And we know that sales tax does two things.

It strips fiscal autonomy from local government, which most of us know is where real decisions affecting real people happen.

And it also disproportionately affects those who are working families.

And so, you know, is this going to be coupled with a tax reform from the national level?

If so, that's going to make for a very interesting midterm election in 2026, because you're going to have voters having less change in their pockets, and they're going to go to the voting booth.

And that may not work out well for those that are shepherding this.

In Patrick, I think the Republican pushback might be, well, you're going to give this tax is going to fall heavily on visitors to the state on the tourists.

It could.

But, you know, when you talk about having a good conversation, it's a bad conversation.

We start off with, let's get rid of property tax.

The conversation should be, how are we going to tax people?

Because we're going to shift this taxation.

We're not getting rid of a tax, we're just going to shift it.

And so while there were going to be some visitors that are paying this, you know, I know a lot of people have 20, 30 pieces of property and they've got three, three person household.

So they're going to stop paying a whole lot of tax and they're going to get a little bit of sales tax increase when they go to the grocery store.

It's no big deal for them.

Poor people are going to pay a lot more in the state of Florida.

Adjustments, working people are going to be paying a lot more.

And so that's the real problem.

Adjustments to homestead could potentially take care of that.

So yeah.

But but you're doing a way for the the property tax.

So there's no more homestead.

Well I'm saying.

If maybe that would be a fallback position entirely instead of entirely wiping out a midway position.

Maybe there's an increase to homestead exemptions.

Well, the state of Florida is suing the Target Corporation for allegedly defrauding investors over the sale of LGBTQ pride merchandise.

The Miami New Times reports that back in May of 2023, Target became the focus of right wing outrage when it launched its annual Pride Month collection.

The merchandise featured clothing items for transgender customers, including T-shirts with slogans like trans people will always exist and cure transphobia, not trans people.

anti-LGBTQ groups and conservative activists sparked a backlash against the retailer, spreading misinformation, for instance claiming that target was marketing a product to children that was meant for transgender adults and organized boycotts that escalated into people harassing and threatening store employees.

Now, Florida's Attorney General James Uthmeier, has filed a lawsuit alleging the retailer did not properly disclose to investors the risk of its 2023 LGBTQ pride merchandizing campaign, ultimately causing the retailer's stock price to plummet.

Tara, is this a good use of Florida taxpayer money to sue Target?

Well, the lead organization that's fighting against this suit called this action asinine, performative buffoonery and an attack on First Amendment rights.

And I think most of us want to protect, of course, our Bill of Rights.

And so this is really unusual to see a state attorney general go after a corporate First Amendment rights that are legal.

And they certainly haven't we haven't seen them go after consumer First Amendment rights either.

That's unconstitutional.

And the precedent that this will set is very disturbing.

If the court allows for this to go forward, that would mean any time government owned shares in any company, they could censor free speech.

So they could certainly buy shares in Alphabet or Meta and control the speech on social media or any other shareholder action that they would have.

So it's very problematic.

The equivalent equivocation of LGBTQ plus products and sexualization is really at the heart of this.

Let's just let's just say what it is.

It's the idea that the messaging of target, just like the messaging of Disney, that these corporations are supporting pride events and pride products, would equal sexualization of children.

Well, listen, I have four kids.

They wear all sorts of stuff.

That doesn't mean every time they express themselves it has sex on their mind.

And really, I think that last year, when we saw the head of the Republican Party and the co-founder of moms for Liberty, they taught us a whole lot about polyamorous relationships that was never introduced in the target products.

So I'm not sure that this is a fair place to start.

And certainly as somebody that enjoys the Florida pension, is very grateful for it.

We see when we invest ups and downs in the market, it is just what it is.

We said, I got to ask you, what do you think?

Is this a good use of taxpayer money to sue target?

I see it as a, as a, as a matter of authority.

And this is a matter that should be decided in the shareholders meeting and not in the courts.

I mean, Brian Cornell has been the target CEO for more than ten years.

He has to answer for his actions and whatever decisions he makes and how that affects the stock and the share.

And that's something that those are all very good and important questions that should be asked by the shareholders, not in a court of law decided by a judge.

And Patrick, we just have about 30s.

But our attorneys general have gotten very involved in lawsuits over the past few years.

Yeah, I wish he would sue insurance companies for not paying the the bills that they owe Florida taxpayers instead of this.

This is hurting locally.

I talked to the Tampa Pride parades, lost Chase Manhattan, the VA and Walmart is sponsors because of this attack against gays and against transgender and against this.

And and so it's having an effect across the board.

And I'm sorry to see this is the first move of our new attorney general has decided to put a stamp on.

Before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

And, Travis, let's start with you.

What else is going on this week?

So I just learned that, former county commissioner, State Representative Mike Owen, has introduced something under the DOJ's Florida float umbrella, which is to say, extending term limits to make it where you can only serve eight years total.

You can't just sit out a year or two and come back off the bench and run for office.

And that's in conflict with blazing goalie is proposal to extend.

Would it seem?

It would seem to be.

Yeah.

We set your other big story.

USF President Rhea Law announcing that she will be stepping down.

That is such a huge story, not just for anyone who cares about USF or the universities, but for our economy.

The USF system has a 6 billion with a capital B economic impact on the local economy, and so whoever they select to be the next president will be consequential for all of us, for the entire region.

Really important job.

All right, Patrick, your other big story.

Randy fine has put in a bill that continues to attack government unions, going after teachers unions and other.

It raises the bar for how many people have to vote for certification and recertification of these public unions, but it exempts firefighters and police, which generally have been Republican supporting unions.

And so it appears that this is all about politics and has nothing to do with anything that the senators should be paying attention.

To around the state.

A lot of unions are being decertified.

Yes, Tara, the other big story.

March and April are chock full of good stuff.

Next week we have the state of the Union the same day that our state legislature opens up.

So we're waiting to see what big policy bombs we're going to come on Tuesday night.

And whether or not the state legislature is going to take on home insurance reform, condo crisis.

And then, of course, you know the rays decision.

We're waiting with bated breath.

And whether we're going to keep a baseball team here in Tampa Bay and March Madness in my house, my 15 year old and I are going to be watching March Madness.

And I'm so proud of Tampa Bay for holding the women's Final Four.

It comes right after Women's History Month, and it's a great way to to make an impact in Tampa Bay for women.

Lots of rumors out there about what's going to happen to the rays.

Hey, thank you all for a great program.

Nice to have you here.

[Tara] Thank you.

Thanks to our panel members this week, Travis Horn, Lissette Campos, Patrick Manteiga and Tara Newsom send your comments about this program to FTW at wedu.org Remember, this show is on every Friday night at 8:30pm and Sunday afternoon at 12:30pm, and you can watch past shows on YouTube.

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Have a great weekend!

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