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

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] - Coming up on Florida This Week, Florida's property tax amendment lands in court.

A challenge to how the ballot will be worded in November could shape how voters understand what they're deciding.

As Florida's primary nears, the race for governor survives a court challenge, then turns personal.

Plus, it's strike one for the Rays at Tampa City Hall.

The council votes no, sending Rays owners back to the dugout, and the deal's future is suddenly in doubt, and questions are resurfacing for a U.S.

senator over Hope Florida's handling of millions of dollars from a Medicaid settlement.

Our panel breaks it all down.

Next on Florida This Week.

[music] Welcome back, everybody.

I'm your moderator, Lissette Campos.

Joining us on the panel today is Christina Diamond.

She's the CEO of Ruth's List Florida.

The organization recruits and trains Democratic pro-choice women running for office.

We have Abigail Hall, associate professor of economics at the University of Tampa and a widely published scholar examining public policy, government spending, and their impacts on everyday households.

Travis Horn is a Republican strategist and president of Bullhorn Communications, and Michael Van Sickler is the political editor of the Tampa Bay Times.

Florida's property tax amendment landed in court this week.

Three separate lawsuits seek changes to how the ballot measure is worded.

In Leon County Wednesday, plaintiffs argued the amendment's language reads like a political sales pitch.

For starters, they call the title quote, "Save Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes," unquote, suggestive.

They also pointed to political taglines in the amendment's provision, pointing to phrases like protecting small businesses and the phrase ensuring fairness.

Supporters say the wording simply describes what the measure does.

The judge's ruling is expected soon.

If approved, amendment three would increase the homestead property tax exemption from $50,000 to $250,000 by 2028.

It could cost local governments $12 billion statewide, but also erase non-school property taxes for 60% of homeowners with a homestead.

I'd like to start with you, Christina and Travis.

How are you seeing all this play out?

- Yeah, I think this is not the first time that we've seen a ballot initiative come in front of voters.

There always seems like there's a fight over the language, and they're always written in a political way.

I think across the board, we can agree that both Democrats and Republicans have come together on this ballot initiative to have real concerns about how this would play out in cities and counties.

So I love the conversation that we're looking at the wording, but I think we need to get to a point where maybe we're not doing as many ballot initiatives, and we're handling some of these problems in our legislature instead.

- Travis.

Well, that might be a point of agreement for us in general, but I will say, you know, obviously even on this show, I've been a pretty strident supporter of the Homestead Exemption Amendment, the language itself.

Again, how do you take how do you make it more objective if you can?

I don't know that you can.

The language seems they're going to look at different tests, like plain language tests.

What is it?

What does the amendment say?

And does it do what it says?

So but if we're going to have a discussion about the substantive matters of it, I mean, look, I've said before, you know, I wanted the $500,000 DeSantis plan.

Um, you know, some people have written very comprehensively about this amendment.

- That's right.

Abigail, you just published an article today where you talk about the different aspects of the property tax amendment.

And so tell us about how you see this.

- Yes.

So while the language of the ballot might be getting litigated at the moment, my concern is more about the numbers.

So one of the things that's important to emphasize about this potential amendment or any other, is that there are trade offs.

It would create winners and losers.

So it's correct that this would have a meaningful impact on reducing property taxes for 60% of Floridians.

The relevant question then is, well, where do we make up that lost revenue and who winds up paying more in taxes?

Should this be passed and whether or not we're interested in making those types of trade offs?

- Look, there's a there's a lot of doom and gloom in the explainer.

Okay.

There is.

It says, you know, we, you know, a lot of there's a lot of reasons not to do it, but we had a surplus of $11.8 billion, I think, in 2021, '22, something like that.

I mean, we've got surpluses.

We've got consistent surpluses.

And I want to see that seniors like my mom, I always use the example who's lived in her house for going on 50 years and will maybe die in that house and never have owned her home.

- Michael, when, when you look at what the judge has said, this is not a question of taking this item off of the ballot.

It's just how it's worded.

Um, when you look at this case, you have, you know, Ben Gibson, who's the attorney representing, Attorney General James Uthmeier, the secretary of state.

And when he says that voters have common sense, and then you look at the language that's supposed to be free of advocacy terms, um, how is this coming across for the average person being asked about this when you're doing stories?

- Well, the average person, I think, it's still at a point where they're reviewing it.

I think more important, the leadership across Florida that is needed if this thing is going to pass is kind of ambivalent at this point.

Even Governor Ron DeSantis and Travis, to your point, you were supportive of his original idea.

He basically said, this isn't what I wanted.

And so he's not going to be advocating for it.

So the question is, if not DeSantis, who will be advocating?

- That is correct but I'm taking the, "I want the $250,000 exemption" approach, and then let's see how it works.

If we if we prove then that there are problems that she very, very eloquently laid out and in her article, I think then we take another.

- Look on the ballot.

You're going to need somebody out front who to champion it.

And right now it's like an orphan.

- I don't know, I think look, I don't know, I haven't seen polling on it.

Have you guys seen any internal polling on it?

This says I.

- Think we're so early in the process.

We don't have determined ballot.

- There was an interesting poll that was done by the University of North Florida, and that survey really shows how important the language is because when they surveyed, they had 848 voters who said that they are going to vote in the in the in the mid-term.

And when they surveyed them, 61% supported the measure when the wording was that it would reserve property tax revenue for core public services.

But then when they asked the question, um, 45% supported when voters were told that the proposal may create an estimated $11.8 billion shortfall over the next two years.

So this is the same group.

- I do a 30-second spot on just say, hey, Floridians, if you if you'd like a tax cut coming up in the next election, you can vote yourself one, a significant tax cut.

- And if you would also like to see very clear incoming changes and reductions in essential services, particularly.

- Rural firefighters, I love I love firefighters and cops and all of our essential services would like to have the roads to.

But I'm willing to take a shot at this.

With the surpluses that we have and the clear revenue over the surpluses we've got, and take a shot at it.

- In my professional assessment, this type of policy, while I'm sympathetic to the underlying questions and sympathies surrounding as a Florida homeowner, property taxes and whether or not you actually own your home, if you are still paying taxes, the question is one of is this policy the most effective way of achieving that goal, while preserving the things that many people in our communities rely on?

And I think that this policy, frankly, is an overly blunt instrument.

- People's property tax is the single most biggest bill that they get in this city.

- Now, what were you going to say?

- I think part of this, too, is that all of these ballot initiatives are going to take enormous education to the public, right?

So if this passes, do your costs go up somewhere else to then go?

What we're talking about, where do police get paid from and firefighters?

Is this just some sort of cost shifting away from one tax to another tax that we might see somewhere else.

And so this is where educating voters is going to become key.

- And it's something that we of course will continue to follow.

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

The Republican primary race for governor turned very personal this week in court.

Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins tried to remove rival James Fishback from the ballot.

His suit argued that Fishback had not met Florida's seven year residency requirement to be the governor.

On Monday, a Leon County judge ruled in favor of Fishback keeping him in the race.

Fishback then fired back, demanding that Collins resign.

- They're trying to throw a fourth generation Floridian off the ballot because of a paperwork issue.

Judge Frank understands that's not going to happen.

That would be the greatest act of voter disenfranchisement in the history of Florida.

And so we're not going to let that happen.

- He claims that Collins misused taxpayer campaign funds for the lawsuit.

I'd like to get your reaction, Travis.

You're snickering.

You know, I mean, how do you and.

- Christina, state senator?

It seemed like a bit of a stunt.

I mean, when you've been here as short a period of time as Jay has in the state of Florida, you probably shouldn't poke poke the other guy for being here, especially if he's a native Floridian.

I mean, doesn't mean I'm definitely not a Fishbag supporter.

I'm a Byron Donald supporter.

I would make that clear, but I just think it was probably a bad strategic move on their part.

- Christina.

- I think we agree.

I think it uplifted James Fishback even more when that really didn't need to happen.

I think when I look at the Republican primary, I think what causes alarm for me when I look at this is that James Fishback is doing so well in this primary.

And that's maybe why Jay Collins went after him.

I mean, I do think Byron Donalds is going to be the Republican nominee, but I do think the second one is going to be James Fishback.

And I think if you look at his rhetoric, it is very concerning.

And I think that there's this younger population that is that is obviously voting for him.

And the data shows that.

But I find that it's concerning that he's doing so well in this Republican.

- Primary is certainly not free of controversies.

There are lawsuits from a former employee.

There are remarks that have been made that many folks believe are racist.

How do you see this?

- I think you can make a strong case.

They're racist.

And, you know, he has a series of financial problems that make you wonder about his organizational skills.

Um, he is very effective.

He is tapping into some real angst out there economically.

And so I think that's his strength.

But just the fact that we're talking about Fishback and Collins, two candidates who are running far, far below the frontrunner, Byron Donalds.

- Byron is leading in the polls.

- He's kind of, you know, I think proof that this is this kind of attention economy type of politics.

- Generating a lot of noise.

But I think he falls off after this.

And I hate to agree with my counterpart here from the other side, you know, that he is speaking to some issues, but he's also speaking in a way, in some ways that is disconcerting for me.

- Yeah, that's kind of personal.

You know, focusing.

- On personal issues as opposed to ones related to policy or again, kind of going after your opponent in the context of, oh, they're not eligible to be on the ballot, is really indicative of kind of the economics underlying politics.

If I don't feel like I can compete with my political opponent on matters of policy, I'll attempt to compete with them on matters of bureaucracy.

- And he's constantly attacking Israel.

And for me, that's they're an ally of ours.

They've been a good ally of ours.

And we're going to stand with them.

And it just comes across as anti-semitic.

- We are going to move on to our next topic, which is the Tampa Bay Rays, which all of you have an opinion on.

The Tampa Bay Rays ballpark plan hit a foul this week at Tampa City Hall.

In May, the City Council narrowly backed a framework for a $2.3 billion stadium off of Dale Mabry Highway.

But last Thursday, it pumped the brakes, blocking a land use change and also pulling a vote on the public funding.

Mayor Jane Castor first called it an attempt to kill the deal.

Then days later, she said there is no feud and that she's, quote, optimistic.

The Rays are now meeting with council members one on one.

The team's lease is up after 2028, so the clock is ticking.

What are the economic questions around this deal?

I think, Abigail.

- There are a lot.

So we can look at this from a variety of different perspectives.

So either from Florida taxpayers, from local political or elected officials and from the perspective of the Rays.

And I think when we're looking at this stadium deal, the real question that we need to think about is what's being promised and what are taxpayers on the hook for?

Oftentimes, when we see these grand proposals related to stadiums, we find that there's a tendency to overestimate the positive economic benefits and to systematically understate the potential cost.

And so I think to the extent that our local policymakers are attempting to do due diligence in making sure that taxpayers are not supplementing a deal, that comes out very well for the Rays, but maybe not so much for the local community.

I think the caution is warranted.

- On the council, you have Bill Carlson strongly opposed to the way the negotiations have been held.

You also have Lynn Hurtak.

Both of them are running for mayor.

Um, and then you have it does.

And then so it seems that the CRA is the pain point.

The Community Redevelopment Agency and Bill has said that they've not been consulted, have not been part directly involved in the negotiations.

Can you explain that to our viewers?

- Well, with the CRA we're talking about $181 million of public infrastructure money.

And Carlson's perspective is, "Hey where are the CRA?"

We're in charge of that.

- Council members are.

- So board members, you're going to the mayor and the administration, not us.

Kind of a you know, it's a very common thing, you see with councils and strong mayors.

Uh, you know, I think the voters voted for a strong mayor and expect the mayor to handle a lot of that.

But to his point, um, the, the fact that you have two council members running for mayor is going to complicate things.

So what the Rays might decide to do is screw it.

Let's just go to the county and negotiate tax increment financing instead, go around the CRA and get 100 million that way, and we can figure out the rest later.

So, you know, they might just try to avoid the election.

- To the county for another 100 million after they're already asking for.

- That might be a tough there's no good options here.

- And a lot of folks are asking, can the Rays build a ballpark without the city of Tampa?

- Again, this is something I think we and our counterparts agree on, at least from the electorate standpoint, right, is that everyone wants a beautiful ballpark.

Everyone wants professional sports franchises, but nobody wants to fund the stadiums because they're very costly and they put the public on the hook for a lot of a lot of economically, for a lot of things that they could be spending on parks and schools and things like that.

- And I think our elected officials are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing.

They're advocating for taxpayer dollars.

And so that's why we saw this play out in St.

Petersburg, and now we're seeing it play out in Tampa.

But they're doing what we elected them to do is to say, where is our taxpayer money?

Is it being put to good use?

And so I like that there's a lot of back and forth going on about this so that they can come to the right decision.

- Well, I'll very seldom go to the extent to say our office holders are doing exactly what we need them to do, but they are in this in this role.

I think it's potentially more, hey, if I vote for this, these people aren't going to vote for me again.

So I think that plays into the equation, of course.

- Well, our next story is one that is back in the headlines from last year.

It's now reached one of Florida's United States senators.

The Florida Phoenix is reporting that state Democratic Chair Nikki Fried is calling on Republican Senator Ashley Moody to help release a sealed grand jury report.

It's tied to the Hope Florida Foundation and to the $10 million that were diverted from a $10 million Medicaid settlement.

It was routed to the foundation.

That money then went to defeat the Marijuana Amendment.

Moody was attorney general at the time.

It was her office that approved the settlement.

The grand jury investigated, but no charges were filed and the report has never been released.

The Florida Phoenix says that Moody's campaign has not responded to their requests for comment.

Michael, who is the person that asked for this to be sealed, do we know?

Uthmeier has been asked, and he has not said it was.

- He has not said.

The nice thing about Florida law, I guess maybe federal law is like, if I think it's Florida law, if somebody is a subject of the investigation, they can say, oh, the report's ready?

I don't want to release.

And there could be some embarrassing stuff in there.

So it's kind of a self-serving exemption.

So you have this report here.

It's done.

We haven't seen it.

And there's also.

- See that's but in the law.

In the law in grand juries there's also a lot they can throw anything.

They can throw anything in there and say anything.

Doesn't have to be doesn't have to be supported by law or facts or evidence.

They can throw anything at the grand jury like they've always said, you can, you can, you can indict a grand slam or a ham sandwich with a grand jury.

- Uthmeier has been asked a series of questions that he has not answered.

Ashley Moody has asked a series of questions that she has not asked.

- This is this is a state.

This is a state issue.

It's not a federal issue.

She's moved on.

She's in federal office.

- She was the attorney.

- Seems like more of a hit.

- She approved moving $10 million of a settlement.

So, you know, to, um, two political committees.

- Look, the gentleman look, we said.

- There's no safeguard.

- Criticizing.

Right.

The gentleman who did the reporting from South Florida and CBS affiliate down there.

I met him, nice guy.

But he talks about this was the big concern.

And then he goes on in his article to just ding her on everything under the sun.

It was.

- Just reporters.

It's not just journalists who are raising questions.

You had House Republicans calling this a scandal and a crime.

- Yeah.

It wasn't she didn't she wasn't involved where the money went after it was directed to Florida after.

- She initiated routing the money to her.

- She didn't initiate any of the redirection of the money afterwards.

- She had to approve it.

- And all the media is asking is just Ashley Moody, please, let's.

- Go back and relitigate everything I did as attorney general.

- I think when I see these stories, because this story has been going on for a long time.

Hope Florida, it's been over a year.

When I see these stories and I look at them and the big picture, it just shows me Republicans are in charge of every aspect of the US Senate, the governor, the cabinet, the legislature.

And when you don't have anybody else across the aisle, also being a part of these conversations and checking and being a watchdog and making sure things like this don't happen.

This is a story that we could have all anticipated is when there is no checks and balances to any levels of our government.

This is what one party control looks like.

- Travis.

Well, I have to give you the counter.

- I mean, again, it feels like more of a hit piece.

It's just a let's relitigate everything she did as AG and we're talking about a federal election here.

We're talking about the federal election for our senator or not.

- But we're... also talking about the, on the other side, we're also talking.

- We're also talking about Medicaid dollars.

- I also tend to look at it as a forest through the trees, because if the roles were reversed and it was a purely democratic government, or you would see the same types of dynamics just on the opposite side of the aisle.

What this really emphasizes take the individual people out of it.

It highlights something very important about how it is that people have access to information about what our government officials are doing, how money is being used and how money is being spent, often under a very, very heavy veil of obfuscation.

- And with that, we are going to the big stories of the week.

This is a time when our experts share topics they think that our viewers would be interested about.

Um, Christina, what is your big story?

- I'm really excited that early voting is going on right now in Hillsborough County.

It's actually I'm sorry.

Mail ballots are going on right now.

Everybody has their mail-in ballots, but early voting starts on August 3rd and runs through August 16th.

I think all the conversations that we had today, your local elections matter.

And so look to see who's running and come out and vote.

- Travis.

- You know, my big story of the week is I think that the South Tower Drainage Project has been much talked about in the city.

I know that the cost of it has creeped up.

And word on the street is they did a survey.

The city did a survey recently.

I don't know what the results of that are, but I ultimately have to predict that my big story is that project will fail because I don't think they're gonna have the money for it.

And I certainly don't think the public will.

Especially with those business owners down South Howard are going to, I think they're going to have to go back to the drawing board and look at other options for how to.

- Remind our viewers the stretch of South Howard.

- That's I think it's from Swan down to Bayshore, I believe.

And it's they're talking about the numbers of years they were talking about it taking, I think, was really the.

One of the big problems I had.

I'm a I'm a post commander of a VFW nearby, and I don't want to shut down that entire street.

It makes it really difficult for our members to get there.

And it's they were predicting for years and construction guys were saying, well, that probably means eight years.

So I think they put a tunnel under the ocean from Calais to Dover for in four years.

- Abigail, what's your big story of the week?

- So as someone who's not a native Floridian but has come to really appreciate being outdoors in Florida, rain and heat notwithstanding, one of the stories that really stood out to me this week were findings that Florida wildlife continues to come back.

So the things we may enjoy seeing, like sea turtles, sandhill cranes, and other kind of birds that are unique to Florida.

We're seeing more of them and something that I think is universally positive, especially in thinking about what makes Florida Florida.

- Well, in our in our news cycle of so many negatives, this is definitely a positive for, for all of us.

Earlier in the show, we talked about Amendment 3, and we mentioned the article that you just had published in The Conversation.

Can you tell us a little bit about the importance of that?

It's an international organization and the overview of your article.

- Yes.

So the piece came out this morning in The Conversation, which, as you mentioned, is an outfit that is particularly interested in having pieces that break down complicated issues in a way that is neutral to really help people understand the nuts and bolts of things, which may be complicated when you're not familiar with them.

So within this article, what I look to do is to explain what amendment three is, what it does, and then also walk people through the particulars of what it means for different groups.

So what does this mean for homeowners?

What are the possible implications for businesses?

And also what are the potential ramifications for essential services.

So trying to explain to people not how they should think about the amendment, but rather give people information so that they understand what amendment three would do and maybe where some of the narrative or the really loud discussions are not really picking up some of the important pieces that people might want to know.

- It's quite a resource for voters who are approaching this very complicated issue, for sure.

Thank you for doing that.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Michael, what's your big story?

- I just did a story about Charlie Crist in the St.

Pete mayor's race.

And you know, we all know the story about Charlie Crist.

He's he left the Republicans, but they really left him.

And, you know, for 16 years he's been reviled by Republicans as he's, you know, chosen the Democrats as his party.

And, um, the surprise that I found going through his campaign finances is all the Republican support that he's now getting.

So there's almost like a switch that was flipped and Republicans are like, okay, it's safe again, to, to support Charlie Crist.

So it's like, what's going on?

- The Democrat Darrell Rouson.

He endorsed him.

Some folks were surprised by that.

You said that you were not.

Why?

- Well, Darrell is a you know, he's a Democrat who has negotiated for years with Republicans in Tallahassee.

He's always had close ties with Charlie Walt and I didn't find that surprising at all.

- Okay.

Well, thank you so much for your time and for coming in.

We really appreciate your perspectives on all these really important and complicated stories.

Thank you.

That's all the time that we have for today.

Thank you again to our panelist, Abigail Hall, Christina Diamond, Travis Horn and Michael Van Sickler.

We know that you've got plenty of choices for your news and information, and we thank you for choosing us.

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