Politics
Last Call for 4.2.25 – 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.
First Shot
Florida’s push to remove books from school libraries has made national headlines in recent years, and now Democrats fear a new bill could remove some of the defenses that School Boards have to fight back.
Rep. Doug Bankson’s bill (HB 1539) would prohibit School Boards from considering a book’s serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value when deciding if the material can remain on shelves.
If a parent or a county resident who doesn’t have kids at the school complains, the school must remove the books within five school days.
The state could threaten to withhold state money until school districts obeyed under the Apopka Republican’s bill.
Bankson’s legislation comes as Republicans and conservative advocates expressed outrage about the content appearing in school libraries.
Bankson’s bill was heard and approved by a vote of 13 to 4 in front of the House Education Administration Subcommittee. However, the Senate companion bill (SB 1692) has been temporarily postponed.
“The power of the state to control the conduct of children reaches beyond the scope of its authority over adults,” Senate staff analysis said, discussing recent court rulings on the issue.
But the staff report also added, “Despite the Court’s clear ruling that a state may regulate material harmful to minors, but not obscene for adults, some statutes have been found unconstitutionally overbroad and criminalized constitutionally protected speech.”
Democrats pounced and called Bankson’s and McClain’s bills unconstitutional.
Read more on Florida Politics.
Evening Reads
—”Democrats show a pulse: Six takeaways from Tuesday’s elections” via Reid J. Epstein, Julie Bosman and Emily Cochrane of The New York Times
—”I’ve NEVER seen this in my 34 years in Florida politics!” via Dave Trotter of Voting Trend
—”Elon Musk setback in Wisconsin raises questions about his future role” via Naftali Bendavid and Patrick Marley of The Washington Post
—”Donald Trump and GOP confront Musk quandary after Wisconsin defeat” via John McCormick, Anthony DeBarros and Lindsay Wise of The Wall Street Journal
—”How ‘groceries’ explains Trump’s detachment from working Americans” via Ryan Bort of Rolling Stone
—”The Supreme Court struggles with whether to wound Medicaid to spite Planned Parenthood” via Ian Millhiser of Vox
—”Trump tries to limit GOP defections on tariff vote” via Siobhan Hughes, Gavin Bade and Lindsay Wise of The Wall Street Journal
—“Ron DeSantis says he tried to install Randy Fine at FAU because state lawmakers wanted to get rid of him” via Anthony Man of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
—”How Florida troopers are getting around red tape limiting immigration enforcement” via Ana Ceballos of the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times
—”Critic’s appreciation: Val Kilmer, an unclassifiable heartthrob who always had an edge” via Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter
Quote of the Day
“We put a down payment on our future, and we’re going to make Republicans pay for it in the long run.”
— FDP Chair Nikki Fried, on Democrats’ overperformance in Tuesday’s congressional elections.
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.
Florida Democrats closed the gap in yesterday’s congressional elections, but they spent a lot of money doing it, earning them a Burnt Citrus.
Small-scale beer manufacturers can crack open one of their own brews to celebrate HB 499’s victory in the House State Administration Budget Subcommittee.
Democrats are worried that a new bill could remove some of the defenses that School Boards have to fight book bans. Help them chill out with a Fahrenheit 151.
Breakthrough Insights
Tune In
Heat in final playoff push
With seven games left in the regular season, the Heat travels to Boston to face the Celtics as Miami tries to climb the NBA’s Eastern Conference standings.
Miami (34-41) is ninth in the conference, half a game ahead of the Chicago Bulls, who hold the final postseason spot in the conference. The Heat have clinched a postseason spot, but how the playoff path will look remains to be determined.
Winners of five straight games, the Heat could finish as high as sixth, earning an automatic spot in the playoffs. However, the more likely scenario finds Miami in the four-team play-in tournament. Teams seeded seventh through 10th have the chance to play into the main playoff bracket. The ninth seed hosts the 10th seed in the first stage, while the seventh seed hosts the eighth seed to open the play-in tourney. Two of the four teams will advance.
Boston (56-19) is second in the Eastern Conference standings, four games behind Cleveland. The Celtics have won nine straight games and mathematically have a chance to catch the Cavaliers for the top seed in the playoffs.
Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo have powered Miami’s recent hot streak. Herro averaged 28.4 points per game in the winning streak, while Adebayo added 18.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game over the last five contests.
The Heat returns home on Thursday to face the Memphis Grizzlies, followed by home games against the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers.
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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.
The game is tonight.
Florida Gators (34-4, 17-4 SEC) vs. Auburn Tigers (32-5, 16-4 SEC)
San Antonio; Saturday, 6:09 p.m. EDT
BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Gators -2.5; over/under is 159.5
BOTTOM LINE: No. 4 Auburn and No. 3 Florida meet in the NCAA Tournament Final Four.
The Tigers’ record in SEC play is 16-4, and their record is 16-1 against non-conference opponents. Auburn scores 83.2 points while outscoring opponents by 14.0 points per game.
The Gators’ record in SEC action is 17-4. Florida has a 2-1 record in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
Auburn averages 9.1 made 3-pointers per game, 2.4 more made shots than the 6.7 per game Florida gives up. Florida has shot at a 47.3% rate from the field this season, 6.7 percentage points above the 40.6% shooting opponents of Auburn have averaged.
The teams meet for the second time this season. The Gators won 90-81 in the last matchup on Feb. 8.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Not even 24 hours after his party lost a key Wisconsin race and underperformed in Florida, President Donald Trump followed the playbook that has defined his political career: He doubled down.
Trump’s move on Wednesday to place stiff new tariffs on imports from nearly all U.S. trading partners marks an all-in bet by the Republican that his once-fringe economic vision will pay off for Americans. It was the realization of his four decades of advocacy for a protectionist foreign policy and the belief that free trade was forcing the United States into decline as its economy shifted from manufacturing to services.
The tariff announcement was the latest and perhaps boldest manifestation of Trump’s second-term freedom to lead with his instincts after feeling his first turn in the Oval Office was restrained by aides who did not share his worldview. How it shakes out will be a defining judgment on his presidency.
The early reviews have been worrisome.
Financial markets had their worst week since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign trade partners retaliated and economists warned that the import taxes may boost inflation and potentially send the U.S. into a recession. It’s now Republican lawmakers who are fretting about their party’s future while Democrats feel newly buoyant over what they see as Trump’s overreach.
He has promised that the taxes on imports will bring about a domestic manufacturing renaissance and help fund an extension of his 2017 tax cuts. He insisted on Thursday as the Dow Jones fell by 1,600 points that things were “going very well” and the economy would “boom,” then spent Friday at the golf course as the index plunged 2,200 more points.
In his first term, Trump’s tariff threats brought world leaders to his door to cut deals. This time, his actions so far have led to steep retaliation from China and promises from European allies to push back.
As Trump struggles with the economy, Democrats are beginning to emerge from the cloud of doom that has consumed their party ever since their election drubbing in November.
They scored a decisive victory in Wisconsin’s high-profile state Supreme Court election on Tuesday, even after Elon Musk and his affiliated groups poured more than $20 million into the contest. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker then breathed new life into the Democratic resistance by delivering a record 25-hour-long speech on the Senate floor that centered on a call for his party to find its resolve.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
The state of Florida may enforce a law eliminating general education courses that teach “identity politics” at Florida’s institutions of higher education pending resolution of a lawsuit filed by professors, a federal judge has ruled.
In January, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida filed suit on the professors’ behalf alleging that SB 266, a 2023 law limiting general education course classifications and funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, harmed the professors’ academic ambitions. General education courses are required for students to graduate.
Days after a preliminary injunction hearing in Tallahassee in front of U.S. District Chief Judge Mark Walker, he ruled Wednesday that the professors had not established they would suffer any harm.
“This ruling is disappointing, but also offers a clearer path forward to prove this law is unconstitutional,” said Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida in a news release. “The law is a blatant effort to control the content of higher education, muzzle Florida’s scholars, and erase perspectives the state finds politically inconvenient. We remain committed to fighting alongside faculty, students, and the broader academic community until this undemocratic law is struck down.”
Among the plaintiffs is University of Florida political science professor Sharon Austin, who complains she was denied funding to present at a 2024 conference hosted by Diversity Abroad, which the school had paid for her to present at in 2023. The school specifically cited SB 266 in refusing to pay for her to appear subsequently, the suit alleges.
“As for Plaintiff Austin, her declaration demonstrates that she has already suffered a denial of state funding to attend conferences in 2024. However, to obtain prospective relief, she must demonstrate an unambiguous intention to seek funding to attend conferences at a reasonably foreseeable time in the future. That she has not done,” Walker wrote.
Professors who have had their courses removed from general education requirements, or fear it may happen, say their injury is chilled speech and potential repercussions in post-tenure review.
“To the extent these Plaintiffs claim their classroom speech associated with courses for which they have no stated plans to teach at a reasonably foreseeable time in the future will be chilled, such a hypothetical future chill is both too remote and speculative to amount to a cognizable injury in fact,” Walker wrote.
ACLU will continue
The plaintiffs allege viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment; that the law is over-broad; and that it violates Florida’s Campus Free Expression Act.
State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues said in January that the law has helped address a Gallup poll that found “political agendas” as Americans’ Number One reason they have lost confidence in higher education.
Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said the law helps students who can be “overwhelmed by the number of courses that are out there,” and that students can take whatever classes they wish, “but the easier we can make it for them when it comes to general education and making sure that they’re getting what they need there I think is very important.”
Walker did not rule on merits of the underlying case and the ACLU said it will continue its challenge.
“Plaintiffs’ evidence does not demonstrate that any Plaintiff faces an imminent injury — namely, chilled speech — that is traceable to any Defendant’s enforcement of the general education requirements,” Walker wrote.
“For what it’s worth, Plaintiffs’ existential concerns about the survival of their academic departments and the future viability of their areas of expertise in the state of Florida are certainly understandable. However, these concerns, as described at length in Plaintiffs’ declarations, do not give rise to a concrete, imminent, and non-speculative injury in fact sufficient to permit Plaintiffs to seek a preliminary injunction against Defendants’ enforcement of the general education requirements.”
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Jay Waagmeester reporting. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: [email protected]
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