Politics
Last Call for 2.12.25 – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida
Last Call – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.
We do it every year, and we’re sorry for it, but we forgot to wish our friend, former Sen. Jeff Brandes, a happy birthday in this morning’s edition of Sunburn. We’ll try to not forget next year!
First Shot
The Senate has moved a step closer to passing a new bill that is a compromise between Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature over who gets the power to oversee the state’s immigration efforts.
The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a bill (SB 2C) sponsored by Sen. Joe Gruters that would establish a board to oversee Florida’s immigration efforts and increase penalties for crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.
Democrats spoke fiercely against another provision in the measure that would eliminate in-state tuition rates for the 6,500 undocumented immigrants currently attending Florida’s public colleges and universities.
Last month, the Legislature passed the TRUMP Act naming Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson as the state’s immigration enforcement chief, taking that power from DeSantis.
Lawmakers and DeSantis clashed over who should be the leader working with the federal government to stop illegal immigration. The Governor vowed to veto the bill.
The Legislature went back into Special Session this week for the third time, with Gruters’ bill proposing that no single official would have the role. Instead, DeSantis, Simpson, the Attorney General, the Chief Financial Officer and handpicked county Sheriffs and Police Chiefs would share those responsibilities and be required to make decisions unanimously as a council.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Democrats raised concerns that undocumented students known as Dreamers could see tuition tripled or quadrupled to out-of-state rates, potentially forcing them to drop out of school.
Read more on Florida Politics.
Evening Reads
—”How Mexico’s leader is writing the playbook for handling Donald Trump” via Santiago Pérez, José de Córdoba and Vipal Monga of The Wall Street Journal
—”Republicans love Trump’s spending cuts. Just not in their states.” via Maya C. Miller and Catie Edmondson of The New York Times
—”Trump’s shocking purge of public health data, explained” via Dylan Scott of Vox
—”The government waste DOGE should be cutting” via Stephen Macekura of The Atlantic
—”How RFK Jr., once a long shot, arrived at the precipice of Trump’s Cabinet” via Dan Diamond of The Washington Post
—”Ron DeSantis was able to fly migrants anywhere in the country. Now he’ll need permission.” via Ana Ceballos of the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times
—”Florida’s supercharged voucher program sends millions to wealthy families, pricy private schools” via Annie Martin, Leslie Postal and Scott Travis of the Orlando Sentinel/South Florida Sun-Sentinel
—”Are mass deportations Christian? Florida leaders contemplate the question.” via Kirby Wilson of the Tampa Bay Times
—“Scientists detect a mysterious messenger from the cosmos” via Carolyn Y. Johnson of The Washington Post
—”How the Village People went from ‘Y.M.C.A.’ to MAGA” via David Browne of Rolling Stone
Quote of the Day
“The President is tired of the drip, drip, drip; he wants people out.”
— Secretary of State Marco Rubio, telling Hamas to speed up hostage releases.
Put it on the Tab
Look to your left, then look to your right. If you see one of these people at your happy hour haunt, flag down the bartender and put one of these on your tab. Recipes included, just in case the Cocktail Codex fell into the well.
The Governor is working up a thirst protecting petroleum-powered vessels. Help him cool down with something frozen — preferably prepared in a TailGator 2.25 HP gas-powered blender.
DeSantis says his COVID-era policies are to thank after another record year for tourism, but we’re still recommending an Orange Crush for the VISIT FLORIDA team.
Florida TaxWatch gets a Make It Count for reminding policymakers that it’s never too early to prep for the Census.
Breakthrough Insights
Tune In
Noles trying to move up ACC standings
Florida State will try to improve its standing in the Atlantic Coast Conference when it plays Wake Forest tonight (7 p.m. ET, ESPNU).
The Seminoles (14-9, 5-7 ACC) sit in ninth place in the ACC standings after snapping a four-game losing streak last week in a 67-60 victory over Notre Dame. Jamir Watkins led FSU with 21 points while Malique Ewin added 18 points and 10 rebounds in the victory.
With eight games remaining in the regular season, Florida State must finish strong to avoid playing on the first day of the ACC tournament. Teams seeded 10 through 15 would have a much longer road to winning the conference tournament and earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, likely the only chance for the Noles to play in March Madness.
Wake Forest (18-6, 10-3) is tied for fourth in the conference standings, thanks to a three-game winning streak. The game is important for the Demon Deacons, as the top four seeds in the conference receive first—and second-round byes in the postseason tournament.
Tonight’s game is the only scheduled meeting between the Seminoles and Demon Deacons this season.
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Last Call is published by Peter Schorsch, assembled and edited by Phil Ammann and Drew Wilson, with contributions from the staff of Florida Politics.
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For a decade, as a member of the Florida State Senate, I fought against overregulation.
After the passage of the REINS-style state law overhauling our state’s regulatory environment, I worked tirelessly to help usher in some of the major changes that have made our state a better place to live, work, and raise a family.
Now, as President Donald Trump begins his second term, I am proud to see a focus on overregulation take hold in Washington, D.C.
Shortly after the inauguration, Trump signed one of his most important executive orders: a regulatory freeze that halted further rulemaking pending an executive branch review. This was a key step in his deregulation agenda.
Included in the President’s regulatory freeze was a pause on any rulemaking currently underway at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This pause was especially necessary, because as other agencies had slowed down rulemaking at the end of the Joe Biden era, the CFPB sped up.
Originally formed in 2011, the CFPB has too often strayed from its stated mission of protecting consumers. Under the last administration, it served as a partisan rule-maker that functioned exclusively to help the Democrats. It opted to regulate by enforcement and exceeded its statutory authority, putting consumers and small businesses in harm’s way.
As the Biden administration prepared to leave office, the CFPB ignored the changing of the guard in pursuit of a left-wing agenda that was little more than an assault on small businesses and consumers.
Thankfully, Trump recognized the threat that former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra posed to the administration and fired him. Now, with new leadership in charge, it’s important that the lame-duck, partisan rulemaking be reviewed and repealed if necessary.
Under the last administration, the CFPB changed the rules of the game when it came to regulating financial institutions. Instead of establishing clear guidelines everyone could follow, the CFPB made rules on the spot and expected companies to comply. The agency adopted a dangerous precedent of regulation by enforcement, punishing institutions for not abiding by rules that the CFPB made up on the spot.
The CFPB’s overreach has created regulatory uncertainty for the institutions it oversees, including banks. The consequences of this uncertainty have trickled down to consumers and small businesses who have paid the ultimate price for overregulation. When financial institutions do not have clear rules of the road, they cannot operate as freely as they would like. Access to capital becomes more difficult than necessary and costs increase.
While most federal agencies slowed down once Trump won in November, the CFPB sped up and attempted to cement its partisan agenda. As the Trump administration was preparing to take over, the CFPB ushered through new regulations on credit card late fees, medical debt, and payment app oversight. All of these issues are outside of its jurisdiction. The rules were nothing more than partisan power grabs in the waning days of the Biden term.
Effective regulation requires clarity, consistency, and most importantly, accountability. The Biden CFPB failed on all fronts. The agency has acted as judge, juror, and executioner on a myriad of cases and hurt the very consumers and small business owners they swore to protect.
The American people deserve better. The last-minute rulemaking and agency actions need to be put under a microscope. In many cases, these partisan rules need to be repealed before they do any further harm.
Change is needed now to correct the misdeeds of the last several years.
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Former Senator Jeff Brandes is the founder and president of the Florida Policy Project.
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Florida is the leader in a terrible statistic: More children under the age of 5 die from drowning in the Sunshine State than any other place in the country, according to the Department of Children and Families.
Two Orlando Democrats are pushing legislation to add more pool regulations they hope will save lives.
Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith and Rep. Johanna López filed legislation (SB 604, HB 93) that would require, starting Oct. 1, all residences with swimming pools being sold or having ownership transferred to pass a final inspection to make sure the older pools meet the same safety standards for newly constructed pools.
“We must put an end to the epidemic of preventable child drownings that continue to happen in this state,” Smith said in a statement. “Our proposed pool safety requirements are great tools for drowning prevention, and it is critical we ensure they apply to the sale and transfer of all residential homes, regardless of construction year.”
Under their bill, title companies, inspectors and mortgage underwriters will be required to report any home that fails to meet safety and drowning prevention standards, the lawmakers said.
Current Florida law requires pools to have at least one safety measure in place which includes either a safety pool cover, an exit alarm on the home’s doors or windows leading to the pool or a swimming pool alarm.
López co-sponsored a similar bill last year with Rep. Rita Harris that died in the Regulatory Reform and Economic Development Subcommittee.
“Too many families in Florida have suffered the unimaginable loss of a child due to accidental drowning — an entirely preventable tragedy,” López said. “By refiling HB 93 alongside Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, we are taking a critical step toward strengthening residential pool safety laws, ensuring that every pool has at least one life-saving safety feature.”
Their identical bills were endorsed by Brent Moore, Executive Director of Children’s Safety Village of Central Florida, a nonprofit focused on protecting kids.
“With Florida again leading the nation in unintentional drowning of children under 18 we emphasize the need for heightened safety standards,” Moore said in a statement. “We believe these updated standards reduce drownings, and all homes should have these protections.”
The Legislature’s Regular Session convenes March 4.
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It’s time for Florida to start looking to the skies to escape bumper-to-bumper highway traffic, according to Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) Secretary Jared Perdue.
Perdue this month said he’s interested in having the state seek development of helipad-like sites called vertiports to facilitate the operation of electrical mini-planes to shuttle travelers to and from nearby destinations.
The mini-planes, called eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft, have been in various stages of development — and in various talks for Florida projects — for years.
U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez met with a German builder called Lilium GmbH when he was Miami-Dade Mayor in 2018 to pursue the option locally. The County Commission later directed his successor, Daniella Levine Cava, to further study developing an “Urban Air Mobility System” in Miami-Dade, with the potential of bringing services to South Florida by as early as 2026.
Purdue’s onboard too, and he envisions “thousands of (eVTOLs) flying back and forth on the I-4 corridor.” He expects the tech will soon be significantly more efficient, affordable and in broader use.
“You can think about movies that you’ve seen that are science fiction,” he told members of the House Economic Infrastructure Subcommittee last week. “I think you’re going to see rapid development over just a few-year time span.”
The concept of flying cars, taxis, buses and freight vehicles is hardly new, as anyone who has watched “The Fifth Element,” “The Jetsons” or read any number of comic books can attest.
Ride-share company Uber has pumped millions into a flying car project. Amazon’s drone delivery system, Prime Air, launched in 2022. Walgreens and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, launched a drone delivery service called Wing the year before.
More such initiatives were or have been in the works across myriad urban areas worldwide, from Miami to Los Angeles to London to Japan and many places in between.
In January, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) updated its design guidelines for vertiport facilities, partly grouping them with heliports. The move came about three months after the agency issued its final rule for the qualifications and training that instructors and pilots must have to fly aircraft in the “powered-lift” category — meaning they have characteristics of both airplanes and helicopters — to which eVTOLs belong.
It marked a milestone in aviation, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker noted in October; powered-lift vehicles are the first new category of aircraft in nearly 80 years.
“This historic rule will pave the way for accommodating wide-scale Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations in the future,” he said.
Florida lawmakers last year approved legislation to help fund vertiport developments through a new grant program under the Florida Department of Commerce. They could soon consider a next step through twin bills (SB 266, HB 199) by Stuart Republican Sen. Gayle Harrell and Miami Republican Rep. Juan Porras that would exempt eVTOL sales, leases or transfers from the state sales tax.
Neither measure has received a hearing yet.
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