- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Coming up next, a federal appellate court says Florida's Stop Woke Act violates the First Amendment.

The legislature approves the law to move homeless people from public spaces to camps.

Less than half the money collected under the short-lived Hillsborough Transportation Tax will be used for transportation.

And the two month legislative session ends with the passage of a nearly $118 billion budget.

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

(dramatic music) Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Tom Lee is a former Florida Senate President and a Republican.

Maya Brown is a political consultant, and a democrat.

Jeff Brandes is a former State Senator, the President of the Florida Policy Project, and a Republican.

And Patrick Manteiga, the editor and publisher of La Gaceta Newspaper, and the Democrat.

What a panel.

Great to see you all.

Thank you for coming.

- thank you for having us.

- Well, federal Appellate Court dealt a blow to the DeSantis administration this week by finding that one of the Republican Governor's signature laws, the Individual Freedom Act, also known as the Stop Woke Act, infringes on the free speech rights of employers.

The law was intended to prevent teachings or mandatory workplace activities that suggest that a person is privileged or oppressed based on their race, color, sex, or national origin.

A judge with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, appointed by former President Trump, wrote the decision saying in part, "The ideas targeted in Florida's Individual Freedom Act are embraced in some communities and despised in others.

By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive and by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints, the greatest First Amendment sin."

The challenge to the Stop Woke Act was brought by two Bay area employers, honeyfund.com, an online wedding registry website in Clearwater argued that the law would prevent it from holding an employee seminar about women's advancement in business and institutional racism.

And Primo, a franchise of Ben&Jerry's Ice Cream, with stores in Clearwater and Tampa argued that it would be prevented from teaching employees about systemic racism, oppression, and intersectionality.

Governor DeSantis' office issued a statement criticizing the court decision, saying, "Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th circuit held that companies have a right to indoctrinate their employees with racist and discriminatory ideologies.

The state of Florida should have every right to protect Floridians from racially hostile workplaces.

We are reviewing all options on appeal going forward."

So Maya, there are many aspects to the Stop Woke Act.

This is just one part of it, and there's a lot of other laws that address what the governor wants to do with wokeism.

With the Appellate Court being a conservative court there in Atlanta, what do you make of this decision?

Does this put other aspects of stop woke in peril?

- Absolutely.

You know, it's been really interesting to see laws like this come out of the legislature, especially when a lot of folks, especially Democrats, argued that it was unconstitutional at its inception.

The fact that the governor's administration is continuing to pursue this, I think, is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

And it's more about his ego and pride maybe than actually arguing its legality.

- Jeff, what do you make of this decision by the court and does it put other aspects of stop woke in peril?

- I absolutely think it puts other aspects in peril, and I think they probably made the right decision.

I think it'll largely be upheld by the US Supreme Court if it actually gets there.

I think ultimately, look, people have the right to free speech, and yet the legislature consistently tries to attack that issue, whether that be in books or in word.

Ultimately, the court has said, you have the right to free speech, period.

And that's where, I think, they've drawn a good line.

- Do you think woke is, as the governor described it, is a problem?

- Do I think it's a problem?

I think... Look, people get to live their life in America and have their own perspectives.

I'm not gonna agree with a lot of people's perspective.

I'm not sure that me not agreeing with them is a problem.

- Yeah.

Spoken like a true libertarian.

Patrick, what do you make of this appellate court decision?

And do you agree with Maya?

I mean, should the governor continue to defend these laws in the courts?

- Of course, he shouldn't.

We should worry about the things that are important to this state.

We should worry about insurance for homeowners.

We should worry about good schools, and these distractions are just been part of his overall leadership as governor, and it's bad.

And I also remember a Republican party that didn't want to get in the middle of business.

They didn't wanna regulate business.

And yet all of a sudden here they wanna start to regulate business, not let them do things.

It's just really odd.

It's an odd fit for the Republican party.

Normally, they don't want to get involved in how business conducts itself.

- Tom, this was the brand that the governor took out of state to places like Iowa and New Hampshire and said, "Florida is the place where woke comes to die."

And he was campaigning his for president on that issue.

What does it do to his future aspirations, if this was the main thing about how he wanted to run for higher office?

- Well, I think the governor knows who he's messaging to, and the people that believe in this legislation are gonna continue to believe it and appreciate that he's fighting for it.

And, frankly, his future probably runs through a Republican primary in the future.

And so I don't think it hurts him.

The courts have held that government can regulate conduct, but they can't regulate speech.

And the government's lawyers tried to conflate those two things.

The court wasn't buying it.

And, frankly, when all is said and done, the court just ruled that even if the government is right about the ideas it espouses, it can't put its thumb on the scale.

And that's the importance of an independent and objective court system in this performative politics era in which we live today.

- Okay.

Well, the Florida legislature has approved a bill banning camping and sleeping in public areas statewide.

The governor has indicated he will sign the bill into law.

The bill aims to prevent Florida's homeless population from sleeping in parks, on sidewalks, under bridges and other locations.

It authorizes local governments to set up camps for the unhoused, providing security, restrooms, running water, and that would bar the use of drugs or alcohol in the camps.

The camps must also not affect nearby property values.

Supporters say the bill will help eliminate the problem of homeless people living on public property and in the parks.

They also argue it will be easier to provide local services to the homeless if they're in one location.

Critics say the measure does little to address the underlying causes of homelessness, and they also fear the law will put stress on local government budgets and staff.

Patrick, we have 30,000 people on any given day who are homeless unhoused here in Florida.

Is this the solution?

- This just adds to the problem.

We don't need any more regulation of what you can't do with them.

We need to really figure out what we can do.

And so I'm in a part of town, our office, where I deal with seven or eight homeless people on our property throughout the day.

We've had people defecating on our property.

We've had people set up camps on vacant property next to us.

When you say you can't camp in the park, that doesn't make the person go.

It just means he's not gonna go to some private piece of property and hang out there.

And so, in some cases, having them on some public property is actually the best thing that you can do in a bad situation.

Perhaps there's water they can get there, electricity to charge their phones and things like that.

So this adds a set of regulation that just means it ties government's hands even more.

There's no solutions here.

And it's kind of horrible that this is how we even want to talk about homelessness.

- So one of the questions I have is, will these people be arrested if they're caught sleeping outside in a public place?

Does that mean that they go to jail if they refuse to go to the camp?

- Well, in Tampa, sometimes we arrest, sometimes we take 'em to Tampa Hope, which means they check you in there, and if you break the rules, you get put outside the gate and then you up on my property three blocks away.

So, like I said, it provides no solution, no clarity to any of the situation.

- Tom, the Tampa Bay Times had a story this week about the camp that was created in Pinellas County, and some of the people inside the camp said this was a better alternative than sleeping outdoors, where they might be attacked or have their stuff robbed from them.

What do you make of this as a solution?

Does it help reduce homelessness here in Florida?

- No.

But it may shine a light.

I think the legislation was well intentioned and I think it could ultimately shine a light on this problem and lead to some more innovative solutions, perhaps some funding down the road.

What it really does is creates a cause of action for citizens to sue the government in the event that they ignore the problem.

And I'm not a big fan of more litigation frankly, but like I say, this may highlight the issue, elevate it and lead to some solutions down the road.

- Jeff, you look at policy solutions as part of your job, part of your new job.

So what is the solution to homelessness?

What does your- - Well, it's a complicated issue that involve... Because a predominant portion of your homeless population have mental health issues and utilizing drugs as kind of a backdoor medication for their own mental health problems.

And so what I think this bill is, you know, I think may, whatever the intention was, the outcome is going to be that the cities, they're now gonna have to set up camps, but we are gonna have plenty of people get kicked out of those camps and they have no place to go.

The jails start filling up.

Their state has not provided the cities and counties money.

So this is really an unfunded mandate in many ways to these cities and counties that they're gonna have to deal with this now.

And nobody kind of said, well, what happens next?

And followed the natural progression of that question.

I think when you get to the end of that, you realize people are still gonna be living on the streets.

Even the city's not gonna be able to do that.

Either that, or the jails are gonna be full, and you're gonna be hearing from the sheriffs that they need to expand their jails.

- Well, at that point, Maya, about unfunded mandate, police have to do more under this.

The cities have to come up with a way to fund the camps.

You've gotta staff the camps.

Who pays for all this?

- That's a great question, and I think in addition to the unfunded mandate piece, what blows my mind is when we talk about the Republican party who are in the super majority in both chambers, who love limited government, are now again, giving another example of them pushing back on home rule.

And so how can counties and cities who best know their communities and know how that they need to handle this problem, how are we providing them and giving them ample support to make these decisions?

And I think that this is a huge problem.

I think that we are going to see this to the point that Senator Brandes made earlier that this is going to be a problem of criminalization, it's gonna be overcrowding in our jails and we also need to do something about this.

I don't think this is a way to get it done.

- Rob, I just wanna add something.

I don't think this leads to more camps that are regulated.

I think what it leads to is this government fencing off more public places so they don't get sued.

So you're gonna look at fencing underneath the interstate so FDOT doesn't get sued.

You're gonna be looking at fences around parks so they can lock it up at night and make sure nobody goes in there and hangs out.

And so I don't think it creates a situation where we're gonna do anything positive.

I think you're just gonna see government trying cover itself by making sure nobody's staying on a public site in the middle of the night.

And that just means we're gonna have more security and more fencing.

- I think the half-life of this experiment that's gonna last two years and then they're gonna undo it or quietly undo it, because they're just not going to put the resources necessary to make this a real policy.

- And DCF, right, is a huge partner in this who already has a ton of pressure and not enough resources to do the job and the function that they're already responsible to do.

And the idea that this bill is saying that DCF is now going to be able to come into these camps and provide services goes back to the unfunded mandate piece.

- We have so much agreement here, you guys should be in Tallahassee altogether.

- If local governments conclude this is an unfunded mandate, you may see more litigation before this is over.

- Oh yeah.

Alright.

Well the Tampa Bay Times reports that less than half of the money collected under the now voided Hillsborough County Transportation sales tax will be spent on transportation projects under the new state budget.

The money which was first collected in 2019 has been untouched since 2021 when the Florida Supreme Court struck down the tax as illegal.

Under the plan approved by the legislature, about 256 million of the $589 million collected would be spent on road resurfacing projects across Hillsborough County.

About 171 million would pay for legal fees from the lawsuit that challenged the legality of the tax and the rest would be distributed to individuals and others who apply by the end of the year for a tax refund.

Okay, so Tom, I think I got a part of that wrong, but let me ask you first, is this the right solution to all that money collected for the Hillsborough Transportation tax?

And will the lawyers really get as much as I said in that setup piece?

- No, look, is it the right solution?

It is a solution.

And when you subject yourself to the infinite wisdom of the legislature, you're gonna get a compromise.

And both parties disagreed on how this money should be spent.

Ultimately, there was a refund process demanded by the plaintiffs.

I think that's inefficient and was going to be regressive.

But as part of getting the lawyers paid and getting this issue resolved, putting this long national nightmare, so to speak, behind us, it's important for the county going back to the ballot and the CIT and what have you to have this issue resolved.

This has been going on for five years.

The public will get all the money back, except the legal fees.

They will get all the money back.

Some of it'll come in the form of transportation improvement.

Some of it'll come in a form of a refund process and some of it'll come in a reduction of the sales tax in our community for a period of time.

- What would you expect the legal fees to be?

I mean, out of this pile of cash, 600 million or so, almost 600 million.

Just a ballpark.

- Well, the refund process is gonna complicate matters, 'cause that's gonna take, require a lot of administration to make sure that all these applications for refund are not fraudulent and what have you.

I think up until that point, we're probably looking at something in the neighborhood of 1%.

- Okay.

Alright.

Patrick, what do you think of this solution?

I mean, it is been years since the courts came up with their decision saying that this was an illegal tax in Hillsborough County.

People have been clamoring for the money to be refunded.

What do you think about this way to refund it?

- Well, I'm glad it's over.

I think everybody's glad it's over.

I don't think anybody likes this solution at all.

It's splitting the baby in ways that I don't think anybody really wanted.

It doesn't make anybody happy.

But once again, I think everybody's happy it's over with.

You know, I did see in some of the reports though, that some said that this was a Hillsborough delegation's solution that they consulted.

This was not a Hillsborough County solution.

This was made a solution in the top chambers of the legislature.

Nobody in Hillsborough wanted what they wanted here.

Maybe the plaintiffs wanted some of this, but on the other side, the public had really, its representatives were not involved in making this decision.

- Maya, what do you think of the court's decision?

- I mean, I think that this is kind of a slap in the face to the voters.

57% of Hillsborough County voters voted for a solution to transportation.

Look, I just had to get one of my tires replaced last week because of a pothole.

So yes, this was a multimodal plan.

We know that folks out in East County want roads.

We also know that folks in the city want transit.

And I think that this is not an encompassing solution.

And yet again, the legislature, we passed stuff as voters and they provide an implementation bill or implementation solution that doesn't necessarily speak to the will of the voters.

- Jeff, how about you?

I mean the court essentially said it's up to the Hillsborough County Commission, not the language of this referendum, to decide how the money is spent.

And I think that's the reason the court rejected the transportation taxes.

- Look, I think everybody at this table and everybody in the legislature is glad this issue's done and that the quicker we get this done and move on and get this money spent and we'll get better roads in Tampa Bay.

- Tom, I did not save my receipts.

I live in Hillsborough County.

I did not save my receipts while this transportation tax was being collected.

- These refunds are gonna go to mostly people who have businesses and spend a lot of money in the sales tax during that period of time or generate a lot of money in sales tax during time, you know, builders and what have you that spend a lot of money on products and can hit a button on their computer and print out all of the documentation.

People that have to go search for their American Express or Visa receipts are probably not gonna apply that.

It just a cost/benefit.

It just doesn't make sense.

- Okay.

Well, as the legislature ended its session on Friday, it approved a $117.5 billion state budget.

The plan contains 3 billion more in spending than the governor's original budget request.

It has a 3% raise for all employees with additional pay increases for Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agents, Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services employees and state prison officers.

Per student spending in K through 12 public education will grow by $240 per student to just under $9,000.

That's $83 more per student than the governor wanted.

The legislature was also more generous than DeSantis with its funding of higher education with 2.4 billion for state colleges, 6.8 billion for state universities, and 243 million for historically Black colleges, all told several billion over the governor's request.

Jeff, nobody's had time to comb through the entire budget yet.

But do you think that this budget addresses the major problems that we have here in the state of Florida?

- I think this is a budget that sustains, I don't think it solves any of the major problems that we have in the state of Florida.

There's nothing here that's gonna solve the insurance crisis, the housing affordability crisis.

They did put a hundred million dollars towards prisons.

But they have a report from KPMG that says you need to spend $2 billion on your prison system immediately.

- What do they need to spend the money on?

When it comes to prisons?

- Oh, when it comes to prisons, sure.

Look, their facilities are 30, 40, 50 years old.

They're falling apart.

They need immediate needs on electrical systems, security systems.

85% of Florida's prisons are not air conditioned.

Just the basics of the prison system have been ignored.

- I've heard for years prison guards are underpaid here in Florida.

- Absolutely they're underpaid, and that's why we have- - Will a 3% increase help at all?

- It does help a little bit, but I mean, inflation's gonna largely eat that up.

I mean the challenge is you have facilities in Florida with a 72% vacancy rate at that prison for corrections officers.

Many have 60% vacancy rates.

So you have real problems.

Overall We lose about a third of our corrections officers on an annual basis.

So we're just constantly bringing in new corrections officers.

- Maya, there was a bill to increase base pay for teachers across Florida from the current 47,000 to about 65,000 that was on (indistinct) bill from Orlando.

She's a democrat.

Didn't go anywhere in the legislature.

But with teacher shortages out there and the problems that Jeff mentioned in prisons and homeowners insurance, et cetera, did this budget do anything to solve our problems?

- I don't think so.

Right to the point that we also have a huge teacher shortage, like you mentioned.

It is for the party that talks about they care about public safety and our kids, this budget does not demonstrate that those are their priorities because of these shortages that we see.

I think that we need something that is actually going to put money back in people's pockets, right?

Making sure that folks are able to pay their bills, have some relief when it comes to property insurance and rent.

And this budget didn't do it.

I am glad as an adjunct professor though, that there's money going into higher ed, but I think that that is just a first step that we need to do there.

- Were you surprised that all that money, because a lot of money is going into higher ed?

- I was surprised.

I was surprised.

Especially when there's sociology is being taken outta classrooms that we can't teach it anymore in higher ed.

So it's very interesting how the legislature picks and chooses their priorities.

So Tom, would you agree with Jeff that it doesn't really advance this, but it kind of keeps us where we're at.

How would you describe what you know about the budget so far?

- Yeah, I think they've done some things in healthcare, I think, that are good public policy, and housing's been a priority for the Senate president.

But I do think it's largely a continuation budget.

And where I think the most of the challenges facing this state are gonna come through the Medicaid program, its share of the federal spending for CMS on low income healthcare and education.

And we've just got to do more in public education for traditional public schools.

They're being left behind.

Legislature spends 80% of its time talking about the 20% of the kids that are in charter schools and private schools.

And there's not enough focus on the children that are being left behind a public education system and making sure that that $9,000 they're paying in the FEFP to fund public schools rises to a level that's being received by some of these charter schools and private schools who are doing a lot of private fundraising and requiring parental involvement and that sort of thing.

So it's not an apples to oranges comparison.

It's gonna be the challenge over time.

- What do you think the right level of spending, what should that $9,000 be?

If 9,000 not the right number, what's the right number?

- Well, I'm not qualified to answer that, honestly.

I could throw a number at you, but I'm not qualified to answer that.

I just know that the system has a lot of legacy issues that these new fancy charter schools and private schools don't have.

They don't have the fundraising ability.

They can't compel parents to participate in high-end charitable events, like I've had to participate in Tallahassee when my daughter was there, and so they just don't have the same tools in their toolkit that some of these schools have.

And I'm just saying that the comparisons between charters, privates and the traditional public schools just isn't a fair comparison until we get the numbers up where they have the resources.

- And Patrick, what'd you thinking about the budget?

- It really was a budget without a theme.

We really didn't spend money to try and focus money on trying to solve anything.

We still fall behind in transportation, we still fall behind in education, we still fall behind everywhere.

And so there was just not a whole lot of leadership here either from the governor or for the speaker or the president and saying, you know, "This is what we're gonna try and accomplish.

Let's throw a lot of money at something this year to try and move forward on it."

And so, like I said, I think it maintains everything.

Nobody got too hurt but nobody else got too rewarded either.

- All right.

Well, before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to, and Tom Lee, let's start with you.

Your other big story.

- Well, I was gonna mention a local issue but I think Maya's gonna do that.

So, let me pivot and just say I think this is the week, I believe, that marks the beginning of the presidential election.

Both primaries are over now.

There's no competition.

The president gave a State of the Union speech last night and threw down the gauntlet, and I think it's game on here.

Whether Florida's remains a swing state is questionable, at this moment for sure, but it's game on now and President Biden nor former President Trump are gonna go quietly into the night.

Alright, Maya Brown, your other big story.

- Thank you, Senator Lee.

Appreciate that deference there.

So Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners after 30 years are set to renew the community investment tax.

And right now that half sent tax, they're considering no longer funding Hillsborough County Public School District, which of course is gonna have a huge impact when it comes to building new schools.

They just announced that they were going to rebuild Just Elementary and another school.

And especially with our growth, we have to make sure that the school district has the resources to make sure we have places for kids to go.

- All right.

Jeff Brandes, another big story.

- I think the big story is how little they've done to actually solve the problems in the Florida prison system.

The Florida prison system is woefully underfunded, not only for corrections officers, but also facilities.

They have a report that says, listen, you need to spend between about $12 billion over the next 20 years to modernize this facilities and the state prison system.

And I think the legislature really has to step up over the next couple years as the system's only gonna get worse.

Everybody wants public safety, right?

But what we have right now is a department of warehousing, not a department of corrections.

And I think we need to turn it back into something that focuses on correcting.

85% of people are gonna get outta prison, and unfortunately the vast majority of prison people that are incarcerated today get no services or very little services while they're incarcerated.

And when they're underguarded and you're understaffed, then you can't provide additional resources.

- And you're saying that we don't do enough to rehabilitate these people, steer 'em away?

- We're doing virtual nothing to rehabilitate them other than, the Florida solution for rehabilitation is let them get older, but there is no other solution that they're really engaged in right now.

- Alright, Patrick, you on the big story?

- Well, it's about growth.

Growth causes us to have to make changes and things like that.

And so I was talking to the Hillsborough County fire chief, and in the past they've taken people to the hospital they want to go to, now they're gonna take it to the closest hospital 'cause they just can't afford to have units down for any more amount of time because they don't have enough units.

And so, as we continue to grow at the rate we are, we're just not putting the resources into the things we need to.

And so it creates changes like that.

- [Rob] And that intersects with the CIT tax that Biden was talking about.

- Absolutely.

- Boy, I wish you guys could be on every week.

Thank you for a great show.

- Thank you.

- Thanks to Tom Lee, Maya Brown, Jeff Brandes, and Patrick Manteiga.

And thank you for watching.

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