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Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

(upbeat music) - Coming up next, Florida's governor embarks on a tour of early presidential primary states.

His campaign promise is to make America Florida.

Will what he did in Florida be welcomed across the country?

And Hillsborough taxpayers are owed a half billion dollars of wrongfully collected taxes.

What's taking so long to return the money?

All this and more next on "Florida This Week."

(epic music) (epic music continues) (epic music continues) (epic music continues) - Welcome back, Hillsborough taxpayers are owed a lot of money, and the legislature has been slow to come up with a plan to return it.

(logo whooshing) The money, $570 million, was collected as a voter-approved one-cent sales tax to fund country transportation projects, including improving roads, cutting traffic jams, and increasing transit options.

The tax was in place for a little more than two years, from January 2019 until February 2021, when a judge ruled the tax was unconstitutional.

Now, the more than a half billion dollars that were collected is controlled by the State Department of Revenue, and more than two years after the tax was ruled illegal, the money still has not been returned.

How to give the money back is now up to the state legislature, and in the session that just ended, the House and Senate were not able to reach agreement on how to refund the money.

And here to discuss the efforts to get the money back, Bob Rohrlack is the President and CEO of the Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce, and Bob, nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you, thank you for hosting me.

- Why is it taking so long to get this money back?

- Difference of opinions with a large group, and our state legislature has been working through the process, as well as the business community and the citizens here in Hillsborough County, trying to add their voice to the conversation.

So it's been a very loud, crowded conversation.

- So does the Chamber have an idea?

Because there's kinda competing ideas.

One idea is to have a tax holiday, for instance.

There are a bunch of competing ideas.

Does the Chamber have a favorite plan to return the money?

- We do, and we've been very clear we did support the tax when it was found to be unconstitutional.

It's no longer a debate on should it be on the books or not?

It's been deemed not, so that conversation's over.

So now, it's bring the money back to the state that the voters wanted to have in the community.

We strongly support the legislature returning the money and the money going to be used towards shovel-ready road improvements that we desperately need here.

Traffic's getting worse and worse.

We need the funding.

This money won't solve the problem, but it helps towards the problem.

- So you don't agree with sending the money back to the taxpayers?

You wanna send it to the county so they can fund the transportation needs.

- Right, it's really not feasible to do a tax refund.

There's no way to adequately and accurately track that and return that.

A sales tax holiday will not have an impact.

And so let's use the funds for what they were intended, to fix and work towards transportation solutions.

- How dire is the need?

I mean, I see the traffic jams every morning, every afternoon, but how dire is the need in Hillsborough County?

- Well, some will say, "Oh, we have flexible work schedules."

"It's not an issue," but traffic is back with a full force.

We should not think a pandemic is the solution to our traffic issues.

Traffic's only getting worse, and we need to keep in mind it's not the person who can afford a really nice vehicle and be comfortable.

We need to think about that hourly worker who has to get their children to childcare, which is very expensive, and a vehicle that's taking a huge part of their family budget to get to their hourly job that they're only paid when they're at work.

Then, they have to leave and go back and get the children and get home.

It's becoming more and more difficult for families to survive and thrive.

So what can we do as a community to help with that?

Having easier transportation solutions in place would help towards that, and that's who we need to be thinking about.

- You're talking about sending money to the bus system?

Is that?

- The bus system.

Multimodal choices are critically important.

The bus system, the ferry that's being discussed will connect us to across the bay, will connect MacDill employees from South County, which will help alleviate some traffic.

We need a multimodal solution, so how can we work on that?

This money can't be used towards that.

It's just toward road improvements, either repairing roads now, or putting in lights and working on that.

So this money only can be used for that, and we're okay with that.

Let's do it, let's bring the money back.

- I talked with some opponents of the tax, initially, a few years ago, when it was passed, and they said, "Hillsborough County has enough money" "in its general revenue fund that it could steer money" "to the transportation projects that need to be done," "so we don't need to raise taxes" "in order to get the transportation needs met."

What do you say?

- If 10 people looked at the county budget, you probably would have 11 solutions.

Everyone can see something else that could be done with funding.

I'm sure there are ways in the county budget, some funding can be put towards transportation, but not enough to solve all of our problems.

We are decades behind schedule.

We are billions of dollars behind getting to where we can maintain a system.

We've got to be investing to catch up.

It's only going to get worse if we don't.

- Does there need to be a special session of the legislature to return this half billion dollars to Hillsborough County?

- That becomes very expensive.

Special sessions cost, and we wouldn't want them to take some of this funding to fund a special session to bring the balance back.

We were disappointed they didn't come to a decision during session, and we think this should be a first-priority issue when everyone returns next session.

- Do you think Hillsborough voters, Hillsborough taxpayers, are up to speed about this issue?

Do they know that that money is hanging out there and hasn't come back to the county?

- We're trying to tell as many people as we can.

Transportation is an issue that is probably one of the easiest issues to muddy up and get confusing over, to divert into different directions, to create a traffic jam on the issue, so it's very hard to keep folks up to speed on all the different changes, and I think that proved with the tax initially passed overwhelmingly.

When it was struck and we brought it back, it didn't pass 'cause people were confused.

They thought it was an additional tax.

So it's a really easy issue to complicate, and we have to try to keep folks focused on, we've got to have investments in our transportation, or it's only gonna get worse.

We're gonna be like some of the worst parts of the country if we don't work on it now.

- Yeah, the House and Senate had competing bills in the last session.

They couldn't decide how to return the money to Hillsborough County.

Is there a plan?

Is there a legislator who has a plan that you've been advocating?

And who is that legislator, and what's the plan?

- There are a variety of issues that are out there.

We're working with the Hillsborough County delegation, just reinforcing, "Here are the needs."

Here's what we need to do.

Bring this money back."

They've also told us, the delegation that they're working with the Hillsborough County Commission on issues as well, so we're communicating with them, and inviting them to come address Chamber members to talk about the issues and try to get a consensus point.

But there are variety of views on what could and should be done at this point, so we're trying to corral all of those thoughts and come to a consensus.

- Does it make any sense for the public to contact legislators?

- We strongly encourage everyone to always be in touch with their legislature and all their elected officials, voicing their views on what they would like to see.

On this particular issue, yes.

Everyone, you can go online and find the contact information through email or phone call, and let our legislative delegation know we need to be focusing on transportation improvements.

- It's a lotta money.

Thank you.

- It's a lot of money.

- Bob Rohrlack, thanks a lot.

Thanks for coming by WEDU.

- Thank you for hosting me.

(pensive music) (pensive music continues) (pensive music continues) (pensive music continues) - Joining us now in the panel, State Senator Darryl Rouson represents Florida Senate District 16 covering parts of Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties.

And he's a democrat.

State's Senator, Ed Hooper, represents Florida Senate District 21, covering parts of Pinellas and Pasco Counties, and he's a Republican.

And Kimberly Leonard is the policy and politics correspondent with Insider.com.

She's in Miami.

And welcome to all of you.

Nice to see you.

Well, Governor Ron DeSantis opened his official presidential campaign swing this week with stops in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

(logo swooshes) The governor is running second in most national polls, behind former President Trump, in the race for the Republican nomination.

Nevertheless, DeSantis is well ahead of the growing field of other Republicans who want the job.

DeSantis frequently calls his home state "the free state of Florida".

And his campaign message is based largely on his desire, as he describes it, to make America, Florida.

- And I'll tell you, in Florida, we prove that all of this can be done.

We chose facts over fear.

We chose education over indoctrination.

We chose law and order over rioting and disorder.

(crowd cheering) We, in the state of Florida, held the line when freedom hung in the balance.

- His campaign began just weeks after winning huge victories in the Republican controlled legislature.

Among those, the governor signed legislation to ban abortion after six weeks, with few exceptions, Permitless carry of concealed weapons will become the law of the state July 1st.

It will be harder for some public employees, such as teachers, to form and be represented by a union.

The same law does not apply to police, firefighters, or prison guards.

Legislators blocked local Tenant Bill of Rights laws.

35 cities around the state, including St. Petersburg have such laws.

Senate Bill 1604 and House Bill 1305 give the state more power over the Disney World property.

The state will now forbid cities or counties in Florida from putting any new limits on applying lawn fertilizer over the next year.

Senate Bill 1616 will allow Governor DeSantis' administration to conceal records related to the governor's travel and his meetings at the governor's mansion.

There's a new law banning the state's public colleges and universities from spending money on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

And beginning next month, every K through 12 student's parents can receive a voucher for private school, that's worth an average of $8,700 regardless of the family's income.

And that's just the partial list.

So Senator Hooper, is that the kind of agenda, and I left some things off, but is that the kind of agenda you think that's gonna translate well to the broader American public?

- Rob, I think a lot of that agenda does translate, for instance, parents in charge of their child for education decisions, I think that's nationwide, that parents should have some say so of their children's education.

So I think a lot of the governor's agenda will translate very well across America.

Some of it, you know, to be determined, it's early, there's a year and a half left till that final election.

So I think as time goes on, that that will be played out and that focus will become clearer.

- And Senator Rouson, what's your take on whether or not this agenda's gonna do well across the country?

- Well, I think that we've spent a lot of time on cultural issues as opposed to the economic bread and butter issues that people really care about, like homeowners insurance rates, property insurance.

We have Tropical Storm Arlene brewing in the Gulf, and it's reminding us that we told the voters there would be relief through legislation that we passed.

Then we told them that it might take 18 months.

- So the real issues, you're saying that this legislature did not deal with?

- I think so.

- All right.

- Kimberly, what what's your take on that?

I mean, you know, according to your reporting and the polls that are out there, how well does this, everything that the governor accomplished over the last few years, how well does it translate nationally?

- Well, one thing to keep in mind is that the governor right now isn't working to bring over the majority of Americans.

He's looking to bring Republican primary voters over to his side, whether it's to peel them off against Trump or the numerous other people who are running in the primary.

We know that primary voters tend to be much more conservative.

So what appeals to a lot of the folks who will be voting in the primary is gonna be different from a general election.

And we know from leaked audio from a donor weekend that was had last week in Miami, that they're definitely just thinking about the primary right now, and that's their goal.

And essentially, in that audio, it was said that, "Well, we gotta win the primary in order "to get to the general."

So these are the issues that he's gonna be running on, hoping that it will sway folks.

- Senator Hooper, some people have described the governor's agenda as kind of big government conservatism, the opposite of Ronald Reagan, who wanted to shrink government and make it smaller.

But we've seen this governor sign legislation that expands government powers into a lot of areas, you know, and defining how history should be taught, for instance, and other areas.

Would you agree with that term, big government conservatism?

- I think I do agree, Rob, in a lot of aspects of that.

I mean, the world's different now than it was when Ronald Reagan was our president.

And, you know, a lot of people would like to have him back here, but it is different, and we're dealing with just a glance at our southern border and see what chaos is occurring there.

And, you know, everybody there would love to have the American dream, but I'm a big believer that if you're coming to this country, do it in a way that's legal, and then enjoy the American dream.

We can't take millions of people a month into this country and take care of them in a responsible way.

So, yes, it's big government, but there's a lot of big things going on, you know, just the Disney thing, Walt Disney World enjoyed, they enjoyed some benefits that no other corporation has ever had, maybe in the whole country.

And is that fair to the Universal Studios or the Sea Worlds, or any other tourist attraction?

Maybe not.

Maybe this will turn out to be a good thing.

- And Darryl, Senator Rouson, big government conservatism.

It's a change from Ronald Reagan, but Senator Hooper says, "Well, it's a different world".

- Well, some people wish Ronald Reagan were back because he passed some gun control measures when the Black Panthers showed up on the Capitol steps with long rifles.

I think that this message resonates poorly nationally, and it's anti-business.

People will look at it as punishing Disney World for entering the fray of exercising their First Amendment rights.

And I don't think that's good business.

- Kimberly, you wrote this week about what Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, how he might approach this conflict that he has with Governor DeSantis, what was your biggest take away from Iger's book?

- You know, it was fascinating, I actually learned quite a lot.

One of the things that I really took from it was that, throughout his time as CEO, and he was CEO for 15 years before going briefly into retirement, and now coming back, but he worked with a lot of different business folks to convince them to do things that they really didn't wanna do.

You know, when he approached Steve Jobs initially about Disney working with Pixar, for example, the deal was not gonna happen.

It was very, you know, acrimonious, it was not going well.

But over time, he really won him over.

He wanted Jobs to see that he too could be innovative, and that they could really work together.

And, you know, obviously then Disney ended up buying Pixar.

So that really raised a lot of questions for me about the extent to which Disney's CEO has reached out to Governor DeSantis, you know, or has Governor DeSantis declined to speak with him?

Is there anything that Iger can give DeSantis that he wants more than to make Disney a punching bag over the course of this primary election season?

And it's sort of this open question that remains that I think we're all watching.

So it left me wondering, is Iger doing things the way that he's always done them?

Or is he switching things up?

- And Kimberly, another article that you wrote this week for Insider was about the governor's wife being his secret weapon, so to speak, and maybe his path to attracting suburban women.

Do you think the governor can attract suburban women?

Which is a key voting constituent for anybody that's running for president.

- Right, and they don't like the term secret weapon because she has been so upfront and center, you know, it's not really a secret.

They work together very much in lockstep.

So here's what's been going on, she is actually campaigning with him everywhere.

She is standing next to him.

They're doing these fireside chats where she interviews him, and they are definitely doing it to appeal specifically to suburban women, especially suburban moms.

Can they bring that national?

She did do it in Florida, she mobilized 1.1 million moms and grandmas on behalf of her husband, you know, despite all the policies that received a lot of backlash, DeSantis ended up winning women in Florida by nine percentage points against Charlie Crist.

So they were able to do it in Florida.

Now, ever since the midterms, there have been much more strict policies that have been passed.

For example, you know, the six week abortion ban, which a lot of people feel, including the governor's donors, that that will be very unpopular and will hurt him in a general election, and that it'll hurt his chances with suburban women.

But one of the big things that they're, one of the big reasons that they're reaching out to suburban women, you know, other than it being, you know, a smart political strategy, is that that group, that's a group that really turned away from Trump in 2020.

So the big question is, can they work to bring back suburban women who were lost to the GOP?

I mean, we'll see, look, the suburbs have changed a lot, they're a lot more diverse.

Besides the six week abortion ban, I have seen from listening in to focus groups with Republicans that the Disney fight isn't necessarily that popular, although some can be swayed.

it does seem like there's wiggle room for how he talks about it.

You know, and then the Martha's Vineyard stunt, there were mothers and children in that, involved in that.

And that might, you know, rub a lot of families the wrong way.

So yes, there are ways that there is this sort of overture happening, but there are ways that that can be undermined, just the policies that he's signed into law.

- And I want to ask you about something that happened on a conservative podcast this week.

There's some tension between Governor DeSantis and members of the Florida Congressional Delegation.

Here's what Manatee-Sarasota area Congressman Greg Steube said this week to Donald Trump's son, about DeSantis essentially ignoring Steube for several years until DeSantis wanted Steube's endorsement for president.

I wanna get your take on this.

- All of a sudden there was this endorsement for Trump and this endorsement for Trump, and another congressman for Trump.

And suddenly the DeSantis team started going in panic mode and started contacting members like myself.

And I've never heard from any of these people.

Like I had never heard from his campaign guy.

And suddenly, after five years of being in Congress and him being governor, suddenly you're getting this phone call from a guy, and it's like, "Oh, now, after five years," "you suddenly care about talking to me about anything".

- What do you think about that?

- Well, I'm obviously not privy to any of the discussions with the Congressional Delegation and the Trump organization with them reaching out.

And I think most of them went to Mar-a-Lago to personally meet with the president, ex-president.

So I can tell you, just for me personally, I haven't been contacted by the Trump campaign either.

So what happened in Mar-a-Lago is what happened in Mar-a-Lago.

And I know Congressman Steube very well, and- - Does DeSantis reach out to members of the legislature?

Does he invite them in for coffee, or dinner, or drinks, and have a strong relationship with the house and Senate members?

- He's getting better at that.

It wasn't always that way, but this session, there were several occasions where he did, and it was away from the Capitol, away from the governor's mansion at a site that where he wanted, and he worked the room very well to individually, and wanted to know what's important in your district, what are you working on, what can we be helpful with?

So a little different tactic that than what he did earlier, but it was very, very well received.

- Darryl, I gotta ask you about the NAACP issuing a statement last week saying that the governor and state are trying to silence African Americans, and they issued a travel warning, saying, "Please be advised that Florida" "is openly hostile towards African Americans," "people of color, and LGBTQ individuals," "before traveling to Florida," "please understand that the State of Florida devalues" "and marginalizes the contributions of," "and the challenges faced by African Americans" "and other minorities."

But in a sense, doesn't that hurt Florida in the sense that, you know, if liberals, and African Americans, and the LGBTQ people are scared away from Florida, that you're ceding Florida to the Republicans?

- Well, first of all, it's a travel advisory.

It's not a ban, it's not a boycott.

It's not calling for people to stop spending their money here or to stop coming to Disney World.

I'm an NAACPer, I was branch president of the St. Petersburg branch with NAACP for five years.

And I understand the advocacy position of the organization.

And to the extent that people should be aware of policies, people should be aware of the impact of policies on places where they're traveling to are supported.

- Do you think that the governor is openly hostile towards African Americans?

- There's certainly a perception in the community that he's attacking black history, that he's attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And for some people, perception might as well be reality.

- All right, well, before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

And Darryl, let's start with you, another big story of the week, something that we ought to be talking about in addition to what we've talked about so far.

- Well, the tax package has been signed by the governor, and Tropical Storm Arlene should remind us that we should take advantage of this tax, the tax cuts and the tax savings on devices and products that will help us in the event a storm hits our coast.

- Okay, so go out and buy that emergency stuff right away.

- That's right.

- All right.

Senator Hooper.

- Two things, Rob, come to mind.

That are big items this week is there's 28 days left in our fiscal year.

The governor has not received our budget yet, so he's gonna have a short time to go through that and make his, sign his issues, or veto what he doesn't like, that's one.

And secondly, Senator Rouson touched on it earlier, in our chat is, every day our offices gets inundated with calls, people are getting their insurance renewal premiums, they're upset, they're outrageously a hundred percent increase.

After we promised them that we had two special sessions, we dealt with insurance, and that rates were gonna go down, but it was gonna take a moment of time, 18 months.

So we're waiting on that reduction to come about because people are really being harmed with their increase in their property insurance.

- All right, and Kimberly, your other big story.

- Yeah, I mean, I second the property insurance.

It's something I hear about from a lot of folks in Miami, but one of the, we sort of mentioned this earlier with Disney, one of the big developments that happened just last night, the judge who was on the case, Judge Walker, for the Disney lawsuit against Governor DeSantis has recused himself from the case.

Because it turns out a distant relative, and the way he described, it was a relative in the third degree, which can be, you know, great uncle or a great aunt, holds only 30 shares in Disney stock.

And so he's stepping out of the case.

And that was, I mean, that was a judge that Disney definitely would've wanted to hear the case.

He's struck down cases, He's struck down laws by Governor DeSantis before, and now the judge who is taking it up is actually a Trump appointee, someone who worked for Pam Bondi before.

And it'll be fascinating to see how it all unfolds and how exactly he rules, and how the case goes forward.

- Kimberly Leonard, thank you very much.

Senator Hooper, Senator Rouson, thank you too.

- Thank you, Rob.

- Thank you.

- And thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at FTW@wedu.org.

You can view this and past shows online at wedu.org, or on the PBS app.

"Florida This Week" is now available as a podcast.

And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

(epic music) (epic music continues) (epic music continues) (epic music continues) (epic music continues) (epic music continues) - [Announcer] "Florida This week" is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.

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