Abortion ban change sought, school speech rules expand, electric bills rise and banking fears grow

Note: Last week’s version of Politics and Policy in the Sunshine State was accidentally sent this morning due to a technical hiccup. Here is this week’s newsletter:

It’s Monday, March 13, and as Florida’s governor continues his national book tour, some things are going to to change for people in the “Free State of Florida.”

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

Tighter abortion restrictions: Moments after legislators gaveled open the annual 60-day legislative session last Tuesday, a bill was filed to restrict abortion in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, before some women know they are pregnant. The Senate bill (SB 300), sponsored by Sen. Erin Grall, a Lake Placid Republican, comes despite an ongoing lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, passed last year. Unlike the 15-week ban, the proposal to limit abortions after six weeks allows some exceptions: for victims of rape or incest up until 15 weeks of pregnancy who have documentation of the rape, and to save a woman’s life or avert serious physical damage.

If the measure is passed, and the court says it doesn’t violate the state’s privacy law, here’s a rundown of how the bill would work.

White House critique: The White House quickly criticized DeSantis over his support for the proposed six-week ban, characterizing the Republican governor as a hypocrite in his commitment to personal freedoms.

Higher electric bills: The Florida Public Service Commission last week approved a series of proposals that will lead to millions of utility customers seeing increased electric bills because of hurricane costs and higher-than-expected natural gas prices last year. Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric Co. will start imposing the increases on consumers in April.

More limits on classroom speech: Classroom discussions will continue to face increased state control under a series of bills before lawmakers that would set statewide standards for what kind of language can be used in classrooms regarding gender and sexual orientation. The measures would bar educators and school staff from referring to students with pronouns that differ from those assigned at birth, give the state more control over sexual education instructional materials, and expand the current prohibition on lessons about gender and sexual orientation now in K-3 grades by imposing the ban through middle school.

‘Being robbed’: Said one student about the bill: “By being deprived of agency or a voice in how I am perceived or recognized, my sense of self is stolen from me. Being robbed of self-identification is a way of being robbed of self.”

Gun bill ready for floor vote: Legislation that would allow Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a permit or training is ready to be taken up by the full House and Senate — without a change to allow people to openly carry guns in public. DeSantis is expected to sign the bill, and lawmakers are expected to approve it and have it on his desk soon, despite criticism on the right. Gun rights advocates want lawmakers to allow the public to openly carry guns, something law enforcement does not support. The governor has said he won’t veto the bill just because it may not include “everything I want.”

WHAT THE GOVERNOR IS DOING

Subdued state of state: Proclaiming “you ain’t seen nothing yet,” the governor used his state of the state speech to declare that Florida “defied the experts” and came out ahead of the pack under his leadership. In a 30-minute address that was markedly less political than his recent speeches at fundraisers and book talks, he made no mention of “corporate legacy media,” did not use the word “woke,” and barely mentioned abortion. He did hint at more political skirmishes to come as he puts Florida at the forefront on the battlefield of the culture wars.

DeSantis echoes GOP pitch: In tone and substance, the governor’s speech on Tuesday was very much like the other 19 Republican governors who have already delivered the 2023 assessments of their states. Unlike many others, DeSantis focused more on looking back at his first four years in office than looking ahead at what should come next, and he stopped short of focusing on many bread and butter issues embraced by Republican governors in other states, according to an analysis of their speeches.

Taking rhetoric on the road: DeSantis revived the rhetorical themes he left out of his State of the State speech back on the pre-campaign trail. First, he headed to Alabama, then Iowa and Nevada where he emphasized what he said was his electability. In Davenport and Des Moines, vote-rich cities that are crucial to winning that state’s caucus next year, he appeared with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and declared that the culture war agenda that brought him national attention wasn’t just good policy, it can help Republicans win elections.

Polling with Trump: While DeSantis is viewed as the leading challenger to former President Donald J. Trump, a poll released last week by the Des Moines Register/Mediacom indicated that 20% of Iowa’s Republicans said they didn’t know enough about the Florida governor to have an opinion about him while just 1% said the same about Trump. Still, DeSantis was viewed favorably by 74% of Iowa Republicans — nearly on par with the 80% who view Trump favorably. But a greater share of Iowa Republicans viewed Trump unfavorably: 18% compared with DeSantis’ 6%.

Arrows start to fly: One signal of the governor’s emerging dominance is the attacks he is attracting. Outside his Des Moines event on Friday, a video truck was parked, playing clips broadcasting his conflicting statements on social security. A Washington Post reporter also caught a photo of DeSantis and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds at a rally in Davenport, in which they were given a handmade “snowflake” with the word “Fascist” secretly embedded in it.

DeSantis’ Guantánamo connection: Interviews with over a dozen former Navy officers and personnel, defense attorneys and detainees shed light on the access DeSantis had to cases at the notorious Guantánamo Bay detention facility. The firsthand encounters with detainees at Guantánamo Bay during a tumultuous time in the camp described an ambitious Navy lawyer who later pushed to keep the camp open.

Migrant release policy ended: A federal judge blamed President Joe Biden for being responsible for the country’s border crisis and ordered the administration to vacate and review a policy that has granted parole to tens of thousands of undocumented migrants arriving at the U.S. southern border. Judge Thomas Kent Wetherell II, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, ordered the Department of Homeland Security to revise its procedures.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

Tech bank failure fears: The failure of California’s Silicon Valley Bank could have ripples in Miami, where the financial institution opened a branch in Brickell in 2021 to capitalize on the city’s entrepreneurial streak. The federal government shut down the bank and seized its assets on Friday as the institution experienced a classic bank run. Even before it opened the Miami office, Silicon Valley had over the past few years become an important provider of financing to tech startups in Florida and its demise will make funding more difficult.

State leaves voter program: After years of working to have Florida join the multistate effort to exchange voter-registration data, Secretary of State Cord Byrd last week announced that Florida is ending involvement in the Electronic Registration Information Center, known as ERIC, because of perceived partisanship. Byrd said that the decision to withdraw from the program stemmed from ERIC’s rejection of proposals by a working group to eliminate “potential partisan leanings.”

Behind the school board ‘target list’: Why did DeSantis release a “target list” of school board members across the state whom he hopes to unseat in the 2024 election? Those close to the governor, including Christian Ziegler, chair of the Republican Party of Florida, say the 14 board members on the list have supported what they deem to be critical race theory and who “are woke.”

But others are suggesting that the reason Miami-Dade School Board member Luisa Santos was included on the list was not because of her voting record — which shows she’s both supported and rejected issues championed by conservatives — but instead because she is viewed as the easiest target for a governor trying to further his mark on education in the state.

Touring the dark past: Worried that the governor’s crusade against anything he deems “woke” will lead to the loss of history and any chance at reconciliation for such atrocities, Historian Marvin Dunn is hosting Teach the Truth tours that take students and families to the locations of Florida’s most horrific sites of racial violence.

Examining the record: The NYT took a deep dive into DeSantis’ ouster of Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren last year, using documents that were part of the court record. It concludes the governor’s office “seemed driven by a preconceived political narrative, bent on a predetermined outcome, content with a flimsy investigation and focused on maximizing media attention for Mr. DeSantis.”

Miami real estate nightmare: Townhouses, originally priced from $1.2M to $1.8M, are under contract to buyers who put down as much as $500K as far back as 2018. They were told by the developer the homes would be ready in six months, but they’ve been waiting ever since. The real estate nightmare has left buyers and their families living in limbo, and now worried that the developer is taking advantage of the city’s lack of oversight to manipulate the inspection process.

Woke, the good thing: While pundits and politicians often use the word “woke” with a negative connotation, a majority of Americans think of it as a positive word, according to a USA Today/Ipsos poll published on March 8. Fifty-six percent of survey respondents said the term means “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices,” while 39% said it “involves being overly politically correct and policing others’ words.” A vast majority of Democrats surveyed said “woke” describes someone aware of injustices, while 56% of Republicans said it describes someone who is extremely politically correct. Independents were more evenly divided over the term’s definition.

Can diversity work? How do we, as a society, “do diversity” in a way that’s effective yet fair? This is the question the Miami Herald Editorial Board grappled with on this week’s episode of “Woke Wars, a weekly opinion podcast by the Miami Herald Editorial Board exploring the culture war issues dominating Florida’s Legislature. Listen to new episodes every Thursday on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for reading! The Politics and Policy in the Sunshine State newsletter was curated this week by Tallahassee Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas. We appreciate our readers, and if you have any ideas or suggestions, please drop me a note at meklas@miamiherald.com.

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