INFLUENCE Magazine - Summer 2022

On the

Hunt The Florida GOP & Anthony Pedicini aim to win in ’22.

+

22 Races To Watch Fentrice Driskell Takes Over Post-Session Winners Ron Book: What I’ve learned

ANDERSON BAUTISTA BOEHMER BRADSHAW BRAYNON BROWNING TALENT WINS GAMES. CASTRO COHEN CONE DELOACH DIAZ

DUDLEY FEARINGTON GILMORE GRIMSLEY HAGAN HOGAN TEAMWORK WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS. HOLLIS KELLY MCFADDIN MCKEEL MEJIA

MITCHELL RIDLEY ROCK SHEPP SMITH STEVENS PROUD TO BE THE #1 TEAM IN FLORIDA. THRASHER VANHOOSE

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PUBLISHER’S | NOTE

@PeterSchorschFL

Less me.

More winning.

I

’m never sure what I am going to write in this space until the very last minute. I need to see the whole book — we call the magazine a book — before I arrive at a theme for this column.

Flipping through this edition’s pages, the theme is obvious: There’s less me. And the stories? They’re all about how to win campaigns. The concepts are intertwined.

There’s less me because, at the time of publication, I weigh 90 pounds less than I did at the start of the year.

A lot of people ask how I’ve accomplished this and my response is straightforward: one day at a time.

Each day, I radically changed my diet (bye, bye carbs) and exercised — a lot.

There are a lot of other actions I took, like relying on an Apple Watch, using spices instead of sauces — but this magazine ain’t Men’s Health, so I’ll spare you the details of my regimen.

That said, the arc of my journey to better health feels like it travels at about the same pace as a winning political campaign. Challenging, if not discouraging at first. Then day-to-day victories that keep you in the fight. Some days are one step forward, two steps back. Other days you feel like you hit a wall.

But, then, all at once, your body or your campaign gets into the groove.

And all of the hard work you’ve been doing for months begins to pay off. In fact, the momentum of it all can even begin to carry you!

So this edition of INFLUENCE, which straddles the always interesting period

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INFLUENCE Summer 2022

Michelle, Ella Joyce, and Peter Schorsch. London. June, 2022.

of the end of the Legislative Session and the beginning of the campaign season, is about some of the folks in the Process, like Rep. Fentrice Driskell or master field coordinator Kevin Sweeny, who know that success does not happen overnight.

Success comes little-by-little, step-by-step, and then all at once.

One day at a time. That’s how you lose 90 pounds. That’s how you win campaigns.

Peter Schorsch Publisher

Peter@FloridaPolitics.com

PUBLISHER

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

EDITOR-AT-LARGE

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

CONTRIBUTORS Renzo Downey A.G. Gancarski Ryan Nicol Scott Powers Drew Wilson

Peter Schorsch

Phil Ammann

Ryan Nicol

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DIGITAL AUDIENCE IN FLORIDA POLITICS

Christy Jennings

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ART Bill Day Jordan Gibson

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FOR MORE INFO VISIT: https://choosesds.com/fla-pol/ INFLUENCE Magazine is published quarterly by Florida Politics, LLC, a subsidiary of Extensive Enterprises Media, LLC. 204 37th Avenue North, St. Petersburg, Florida 33704. INFLUENCE Magazine and Extensive Enterprises Media are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photography or artwork. Editorial contributions are welcomed and encouraged, but will not be returned.

INFLUENCE Magazine reserves the right to publish any letters to the editor. Copyright July 2022, Extensive Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

Summer 2022

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235 Catalonia Avenue, Coral Gables, FL 33134

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What our contributors are reading this Summer...

Renzo Downey

Rosanne Dunkelberger

Anne Geggis

Ryan Nicol

I discovered my father’s Kurt Vonnegut collection recently.

With his permission, I pilfered a few to start my home library here in Florida. I started with “Slaughterhouse-Five,” and now I’m picking through “Cat’s Cradle.” However, I took a break to read something that isn’t twice my age and listened to the audiobook of Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Bomber Mafia.” It’s a different direction for Gladwell, a deeper dive into a singular, historical topic — the pioneers of a revolutionary school of thought in aerial warfare.

But it’s familiar, featuring Gladwell’s soothing voice and his witty turns of phrase. I’m also doomscrolling Twitter.

I’ve just finished reading “The Women in Black” by Madeleine St John for my book club. Set in Sidney, Australia, it follows the stories of four women who work in the Ladies Dress Department of Goode’s Department Store during the 1959 Christmas season. No high drama, no deep thinking, but a pitchperfect rendition of the time and place. The title refers to the black dresses the saleswomen are required to wear when working.

I am reading Uzma Aslam Khan’s “The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali,” set in a British penal colony during WWII. I find it difficult to resist historical fiction and this one invites the reader into a young Indian girl’s viewpoint during days of upheaval. Still waiting to find out what her father did to get the family sent here and whether it will be better if warring Japan captures the island where the prison is located.

I’m planning to reconnect with some classics like “Crime and Punishment” and “The Fountainhead.” But I’m also hoping to finally get around to reading Arthur Brooks’ newest, “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.”

In 2019, I saw Brooks speak — preach, really — about how to combat the increasing levels of contempt each side of the political aisle feels for the other. That event opened me to his other writings, and I’m looking forward to consuming and contemplating his latest insights.

“... how to combat the increasing le vels of contempt each side of the political aisle feels for the other. That e vent opened me to his other writings, and I’m looking forward to consuming and contemplating his latest insights.”

— Ryan Nicol talking about author, Arthur Brooks.

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“That fearless

someone feels

I

like

considered a

coward

struggling against an instinct to sit out conflict. It’s a little celeb gossipy,

but

considering

what

landed him in headlines recently, this proved surprisingly insightful.”

— Jacob Ogles talking about author, Will Smith.

Jacob Ogles

Scott Powers

I read Will Smith’s “Will” memoir, which feels more controversial than when I picked it up. I’ve long felt inspired by Smith’s approach to success and failure; his videos gave me confidence to make significant life decisions through the years. Unlike a traditional autobiography, Smith’s latest organizes episodes of his life in ways that inform his personality and motivations.

It’s fascinating to learn about his insecurities — that someone I considered fearless feels like a coward struggling against an instinct to sit out conflict.

It’s a little celeb gossipy, but considering what landed him in headlines recently, this proved surprisingly insightful.

This summer I am reading best-selling and lesser-selling suspense novels such as Lisa Jewell’s “The Family Upstairs,” Robin Yocum’s “A Brilliant Death,” and Ellery Lloyd’s “The Club,” along with short stories from a variety of anthologies including “The Ultimate Short Story Bundle” and the collected works of John Barth, Richard Brautigan and Nikolai Gogol. Occasionally I’m diving into a recommended political book like Tim Miller’s “Why We Did It.”

Gray Rohrer

Jesse Scheckner

NONFICTION: Peter the Great, his Life and World;

by Robert K. Massie. The Gates of Europe, a History of Ukraine; by Serhii Plokhy.

A Complete History of the Negro Leagues, 1884 to 1955;

by Mark Ribowsky. FICTION: Mosquitoes; by William Faulkner. The Name of the Rose; by Umberto Eco; Your House Will Pay; by Steph Cha.

This summer, I’m reading, or have read, “High Notes”

by Gay Talese, “The Insecure Mind of Sergei Kraev” by Eric Silberstein, “Moonwalking With Einstein” by Joshua Foer, “Hate Inc.” by Matt Taibbi, “Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies” by John Langan, and “Hummingbird Salamander” by Tallahassee author Jeff VanderMeer.

Wes Wolfe

Alex Workman

I’m reading the Caleb Carr novel “The Alienist,” because the 1890s dark crime tale is a good way to get your head out of the many day-to-day worries and concerns.

This summer, I am reading Patrick Lencioni’s “The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable ... About Restoring Sanity To The Most Important Organization In Your Life.” Being a present husband and father is one of the most important things to me, and it has been life-changing for us to develop a plan for our family in the same manner that we dream/plan/cast vision for our business (and it’s made our business better too)!

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SUMMER 2022

features

118 MARRIED TO THE WIN Love him or hate him, no one can argue that Anthony Pedicini’s oppo research and campaigns aren’t effective.

And he’s not apologizing for taking the low road to pull out a win.

135 Look Down Ballot

While the Governor’s race is fun to handicap, there’s plenty of excitement in the down-ballot races. Our reporters have picked 22 races — from congressional seats to school boards — that are making waves in the 2022 Primary and General elections.

148 Mill Votes

Florida governments are asking voters a taxing question on Primary and General ballots: Will you pay more for teachers and schools?

90 Session Winners

We profile dozen people, organizations and causes that emerged victorious from this year’s Sessions.

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INFLUENCE Summer 2022

130 Fentrice Driskell

The elevation was unexpected, but the House Democrats’ new leader is stepping up to the plate to get legislation passed and elect more like-minded members.

154 What He’s Learned

Ron Book shares what has led him to become one of Florida’s most high-profile and successful lobbyists, and what a battle with cancer is teaching him now.

126 In the Field

While big data and social media have their place in campaigns, Kevin Sweeny extols the value of the hot, sweaty work of door knocking.

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84

departments

17 88 Budget Bonanza With federal COVID-19 funds, a robust economic recovery, and the Governor’s aggressive veto pen, Florida is sitting pretty on a pile of cash in the 2022-23 budget.

But will the fiscal good times last?

106 Politicos Getting Social

26 26 There’s a New Chef Downtown Chef Eric Fritsche promises to keep member favorites while adding a continental flair to the menu at Tallahassee’s storied Governors Club.

Legislative aides weigh in on how social media fits into their bosses’ lives in the annual CATECOMM survey.

110 Hitting the Microtarget Tallahassee’s Moore agency shares (just a few) secrets for making sure your message is getting to the right people at the right time.

114 ‘Influence with Integrity’

32 Smile for the Camera

Celebrating its 20th year, Jacksonville’s The Fiorentino Group has found success in growing “organically.”

INFLUENCE photographers have been snapping away at Session events, fundraisers and other celebrations.

On the Move

84 Champagne is Her Canvas

Political Aficionado’s Guide

13

Briefings from the Rotunda

53

Angie Herron, aka Mama Chalks, creates giftable original works of art on wine and liquor bottles.

Fourth Floor Files

69

Insider Takes

76

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owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge owledge

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INFLUENCE WITH INTEGRITY Twenty years have flown by thanks to great clients and a fantastic team. I’m looking forward to the future and building on the past.

Marty Fiorentino FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT

Jacksonville • Tallahassee TFGFLA.com 904.358.2757 • 850.222.1959

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Aficionado’s Guide to ...

the Political GOOD READS

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FILM

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TELEVISION

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TECH

Confessions of a Never Trumper

Y

ou “messiahs,” you “demonizers,” you “LOL nothing matters Republicans,” you “tribalist trolls,” and all the rest of you who may have rationalized work you should have known was morally wrong: Tim Miller has called you out.

A former lead spokesman for Jeb Bush’s presidential run, a key author of the Repub-

lican National Committee’s now infamous 2012 soul-searching “autopsy,” and once one of the Republican Party’s most sought-after, sharp-shooting political assassins, Miller has turned his sights on former colleagues, former mentors and former friends.

In his new book, “Why We Did it,” published June 28 by Harper, Miller offers insider insights about people he had respected, worked with, and emulated at the highest levels of Republican election politics who did something that appalled him: They signed on to work for Donald Trump.

In 250 pages, Miller expresses his point of view with full force and no apology. From his perspective, his fellow Republican political professionals who went to work for Trump cynically knew they were promoting lies and outrages, even to the point of endangering lives and America’s democracy. He names names in his circle, big figures like Reince Priebus, Ari Fleischer and Steve Bannon, and people known mostly on the inside, like Alex Skatell, Caroline Wren and Alyssa Farah. He spills blood. There’s more than a little self-effacing humor. There’s a bit of self-loathing.

“I just write about what I want, what I feel is true, that I believe,” Miller said in an interview with INFLUENCE. “And I am not doing some five-dimensional chess thing to try to help a particular candidate. I am just observing what is happening in politics and

Once a Republican operative, author Tim Miller profiles those in Trump’s orbit and examines their motivations. trying to be radically honest about my own actions. And people can judge whether they agree or disagree with that.”

More broadly, Miller searches for a moral compass in an elections power game he describes as already losing any sense of right versus wrong, true versus false, or leadership versus pandering. Trump, Miller contends,

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A self-described politics nerd, Miller worked on Jeb Bush’s ill-fated run for President (previous page) in 2016 where he rubbed elbows with the family matriarch, the late Barbara Bush.

supercharged those reckless trends, and Trump and the forces behind the Jan. 6 Capitol siege became the ultimate outcome of those trends.

Miller’s rhetorical declaration “why we did it” — the title and theme of his book — is not exactly a reference to himself. He certainly practiced the darker arts of politics as much as anyone, well enough that for a while he became what he described as the RNC’s designated “hatchet man” toward then-President Barack Obama. Yet he became a Never-Trumper long before Trump was elected. He writes about how physically and emotionally sick he felt watching Trump win and then consolidate the Republican Party under his persona.

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INFLUENCE Summer 2022

Looking back now, Miller defines a dozen or so character categories for the operatives, consultants, fundraisers, strategists, wonks, communicators, foot soldiers, party leaders and politicians of his world who joined Trump’s world. None of his assessments are pretty or forgiving.

There are the messiahs (and a subcategory of junior messiahs) who felt it was their duty to save the country from inside the Trump administration, assuming positions to push back on Trump’s darkest impulses.

There are the demonizers, who believed anyone attacking liberals’ and Democrats’ worst instincts toward faith, social change and free markets was a champion to be backed, regardless of anything. There are

the LOL nothing matters Republicans, cynical to the point of fatalistic, no longer believing that either means or ends can matter in America anymore. There are others, including the tribalist trolls, the strivers, the little mixes, the Peter Principle disprovers, the nerd revengers, the inert team players, the compartmentalizers, and the cartel cashers.

Miller had been involved in Republican politics since he was 16. It was all he’d ever done. He’s always believed in free market principles and other tenents of the GOP. Still does. But eventually, with the darkening of politics and his role as a party gunslinger with tactics he thought were “varying degrees of slimy” and objectives he thought were “not good for society,” he concluded, “it was not good for my soul; it was not good for my mental health.”

At first, Miller found himself still working in the group he describes as the “compartmentalizers,” continuing to consult private clients who did work for Trump, without getting directly involved himself.

Eventually, he couldn’t even bring himself to work with people who worked with people who worked with Trump.

“I began to stare at my own work through a different light. Not the PR kingpin and badass dark artist engaged in shrewd subterfuge. But the putz who was being used by some of the forces that contributed to the latest wave of white nationalism in America and the election of a truly evil man,” Miller writes. “I was favor-trading with people who were causing real-world harm so I could get a pat on the head from some client who wanted self-serving scuttlebutt fed to the rubes.”

He got out of consulting and campaigning altogether. What’s he doing now? He’s writing. Is he done with politics?

“Never say never. I have friends in politics. If someone asks me to do a favor, you know, I could yield to my passions at some point. But I’m not planning on it,” he said.

“I think that’s an important part of the switch to writing. One advantage I have over other people writing about politics is I’m not angling for a future job. In fact, I don’t think I’m really hirable.”

One Man’s Personal and International Journey to Reversing Baldness

I

NFLUENCE caught up with author Chris Schroder, who just published a funny and well-received book on his 50-year struggle with male pattern baldness that led him to Istanbul to replant it, leading to numerous unexpected discoveries. It’s getting all 5-star reviews on Amazon and from national book critics.

INFLUENCE: This book is quite funny with some touching moments about your life and hair. Men aren’t usually this emotionally transparent about their vanity.

Why did you write this memoir?

CS: It started off as a possible magazine article about why I replanted my hair after 30 years of being bald for friends who kept asking why and how I did it. Once I started writing, all the funny anecdotes about my struggle with hair just fell onto the page and it grew into a small book.

INFLUENCE: Many men are balding. Do you think they all were as self-conscious as you were?

CS: I certainly hope not, but I fear many are still. The amazing thing is there are finally easy and affordable cures, using your own hair. I didn’t believe it, but my barber kept telling me about the amazing doctors in Istanbul, Turkey, who were the best in the world at hair transplant surgery. Plus they’re the cheapest. What did I have to lose? Some men tell me they don’t think about their baldness, but many confide they secretly are unhappy about balding and shared my insecurity.

INFLUENCE: You wrote you replanted your hair for business reasons, because your prospective clients were younger women. Has it impacted your business since?

CS: After I was ready to take my new self on the road, a thing called COVID came along and my frenetic travel schedule came to a halt. That year at home led to a personal reflection and inspection and that, as you read, led to other unexpected health discoveries that may have saved my life. The funny thing is, after seven years of chasing clients, our newest clients instead called me and we’re expanding our digital publishing network without me having to travel. The best example is here in Florida

where we’ve launched our weekly newsletters in Tampa Bay, South Florida and the Panhandle in less than a year — all featuring exactly 100 words on local politics, sports and news. Readers love this short form and Extensive Enterprises Media’s outstanding writers across the state are able to showcase their knowledge and skill to great reader acclaim.

INFLUENCE: So back to the hair thing, it was a wasted exercise given the change in your business?

CS: Not exactly. The radical change in my appearance, for a mere $7,000 including flights, meals, hotel, tourism and surgery, was the best investment I’ve ever made. I expected people to tell me I looked better with hair and they do. The amazing thing is they tell me, as my barber predicted, that I look 20 years younger.

INFLUENCE: Do you feel 20 years younger?

CS: It sounds crazy, but now that I’m in my mid-60s, I feel more like the “me” I envisioned than I have for decades. It seems superficial, but having my hair back gives me more confidence, energy and personal happiness. I have released my self-consciousness about my bald head and now just can worry about other things like losing a few pounds like everybody else.

When I look in the mirror now, I see the guy I thought I’d see when I grew older. I didn’t

know that other guy. I’m aware I was naturally meant to be bald, but after a lot of thought and research, I realized I could have a lot of fun reversing it. I’m hoping my story will help other men — and women — realize there is a safe, affordable alternative to staying bald. And you can have some fun in the process.

INFLUENCE: Did the surgery hurt?

CS: I never felt a thing. I try to take my readers through the entire process.

Istanbul is an amazing city and the surgery was actually fun. I wish I’d done it a decade ago.

INFLUENCE: In your book, you touch on two marriages, several jobs, dating and grandchildren. What does all that have to do with hair replacement?

CS: I’m a writer. A painter sees a portrait. A photographer sees an image.

I started looking at my own story and realized I had dozens of funny stories I could stitch to one theme about losing and not having my hair and then getting it back. And in the process, I could take my readers on a fairly unique journey in a short form.

It’s longer than an INFLUENCE article or a 100-word newsletter, but everyone who’s started it in the past two months has said they read it in one sitting. Couldn’t put it down. And laughed and teared up on the journey.

They call or text or post a 5-star review and say they feel they’ve been on the journey with me. What more could a writer ask? I think I’ve found my voice … and my hair.

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Fearlessly Moving You Forward | beckerlawyers.com

the Political

Aficionado’s Guide to ...

FILM

A TALE OF TWO FILMS Documentaries highlight how Florida balances the natural world with human needs

BY DAPHNE TAYLOR STREET

From The Florida Wildlife Corridor. Photos: Carlton Ward Jr.

O

ver the past year or so, two Florida-based films have emerged that raise pointed questions regarding politics and policy and how well we balance the needs of industry and conservation.

The first of these films is National Geographic’s 2021 “Saving the Florida Wildlife Corridor.” It tells the story of the Florida Wildlife Corridor, 18 million acres — a network of public preserves and private working lands — stretching from the Panhandle to the Everglades.

The video is available on You Tube at: youtube.com/ watch?v=K9-7WEPyZ4o

Likewise, Florida’s artesian springs are a precious resource for Floridians and industry alike. Oscar Corral, who directed and produced the 2021 Emmy-winning film “Fellowship of the Springs” wrote, “Florida’s artesian springs are one of the natural wonders of our nation. As unique as the geysers of Yellowstone and as mesmerizing as Vernal Falls in Yosemite.”

You can rent the documentary from Amazon Prime Video at: amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09YTZS97C/ref=atv_ dp_share_r_em_91205f58aa884

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The Florida Wildlife Corridor

National Geographic’s “Saving the Florida Wildlife Corridor,” is a short film that takes a snapshot of people who live and work within the corridor and rely on its strength and sustained health.

It paints a beautiful and urgent picture of landscapes, resources and wildlife within the state that require a balanced ecosystem to be maintained. That balance includes urban development, green spaces and clean water — the elements needed for our state to thrive.

Over the past year, much has been done in Florida legislation to commit to this urgent need.

Florida enacted landmark conservation legislation known as the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act and secured $400 million in funding to help protect the state’s vast network of natural areas comprised of forests, swamps, fields, pastures, timberlands and even the edges of suburbs.

One of the most notable aspects of this bill’s passing was that it received unanimous bipartisan support. In today’s political climate, that alone is a massive accomplishment. This is a testament to the deep understanding Floridians have about the sacred web that holds together Florida’s rapid growth and its green infrastructure to support the entire state.

While most are wholly enthusiastic of the Act, critics voiced concerns that if funding isn’t sustained, the impact will be, at least in part, temporary. This film serves as a persistent reminder of why it matters.

From The Florida Wildlife Corridor.

Photos: Carlton Ward Jr.

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Florida’s Artesian Springs

Residents and tourists alike flock to Florida’s springs to play throughout the year, on the land and in the water. These cold, freshwater springs are fed by Florida’s underground limestone aquifer and emerge into natural pools flowing into rivers, keeping everything around them alive. Large pods of manatees, alligators, fish, birds and many other species call these areas home.

Local industries rely on water from the springs, too, especially farming and mining. These are important uses of this water source we want to support and sustain, but if the springs go away, it will have a devastating effect on these industries.

The sustainability of these springs is under threat. What historically was an abundance of crystal-clear waters is now lacking.

“Many springs that were formerly blue, now have a greenish tint. Algae has replaced native plant communities. Flows are declining in numerous springs. Some have stopped flowing altogether,” reported Robert Knight, director of the Florida Springs Institute and author of “Silenced Springs, Moving from Tragedy to Hope.”

The pressing problem here is divided into two parts. First, flow levels are declining due to industry over-sourcing and other manmade interference. Secondly, a rise in nitrate pollution caused mostly by runoff from commercial land results in significant and unhealthy algae blooms.

In his film, Corral said, “we delve into the essence of these natural pools — educating viewers about what the springs are and how they function. We explore how nature and industry can co-exist and thrive to benefit all of Florida.”

From Florida Artesian Springs Last year, the film won an Emmy award in the Politics/Government category, and it has been instrumental in sparking a movement to designate a new national park in North Florida for the springs. This movement is ongoing and, if successful, would make an enormous impact on protecting the springs for future generations.

Corral captured interviews from a wide

array of people for the film to investigate government and policy issues including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Thomas Greenhalgh, then a scientist with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

The filmmaker’s focus remains on solutions. He and many supporters believe establishing a national park designation will go a long way in preserving Florida’s springs.

Summer 2022 INFLUENCE

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the Political

Aficionado’s Guide to ...

TV

Mike Vasilinda’s Not-Quite Exit Interview

PHOTO: The Workmans

W

hen Mike Vasilinda announced he was stepping down after nearly 50 years covering Tallahassee, many reported the veteran TV journalist was retiring.

But if you ask him how retirement is treating him, he’s quick to correct the record.

He’s only “semi-retired.”

“I’m really not done,” Vasilinda said.

Vasilinda still comes into the office two or three times a week at Mike Vasilinda Productions.

Moreover, he’s dreaming up plans for his next venture.

Vasilinda and his wife, former Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, have a few concepts for the future that are solidifying, but they don’t plan to make a decision until January. One possibility is to stay in the media with long-form projects, and Vasilinda said there’s a good possibility he’ll write a book.

While he’s not yet “retired,” Vasilinda certainly has taken a step back. In his newfound time, he has taken a pair of trips with his grandson. He took him to Tallahassee and St. Augustine, with intentions to visit Pensacola to round out the tour of Florida’s historical capital cities. Vasilinda also took his grandson to Florida State Prison, where he has covered four executions.

The tours model a concept that could appear in the next stage of his career.

“I’m giving him an education in the importance of Florida, and one of the things we’ve been doing is taking all the backroads of Florida instead of the interstate, and that may play into something we’ll do in the future,” Vasilinda said.

“The backroads of Florida maybe is one thing we’re looking at, something like that,” he continued. “It’s a unique and really interesting state. I mean, I’m seeing stuff I haven’t seen (despite the fact) that I’ve been here 50 years.”

Vasilinda had initially been preparing Jake Stofan to take over Capitol News Service after the rising reporter spent years as his protégé. But when Stofan told Vasilinda he was taking a job with Action News Jax to move in with his fiancee, Vasilinda had to tell his clients he would be shutting down Capitol News Service.

For all the talks of the end of Capitol News Service, there’s an avenue for reopening the bureau.

“I’ve been working with someone in an out-of-town market who’s familiar with the politics to try and pick it back up, and I’m trying to help him. We’ll see if it happens,” Vasilinda said. “I kind of took it over from someone that didn’t want it anymore

either, so it’s kind of a full turn.

I’m happy with that.”

As for the book, Vasilinda has a few ideas of where to begin the first chapter.

“I’m really torn because it moves back and forth,” Vasilinda said. “The one that keeps coming back to me, though, is Ted Bundy walking into the execution chamber.”

Another possibility would be starting with one of his first interviews in the Capitol. He was standing in the hallway between the House Office Building and the pre-1978 Capitol building when he spotted Elaine Bloom, then a freshman Representative from Miami-Dade County.

“I was as nervous as I could be,” Vasilinda said. “I had my little radio recorder hanging off my shoulder and my Electro-Voice 635. … I asked my question, as nervous as I could be, and as soon as I put the microphone in her face, I saw her lips start to quiver. I said, well, she’s nervous, why should I be? I don’t think I ever got nervous after that, other than maybe asking the President a question or something when they’ve been through town.”

In his time reporting on Florida politics, Vasilinda credits himself with covering 49 Regular Sessions and 10 Governors in his 48-year career, which began before the latest Governor was born.

Some say he’s been in the Capitol longer than anyone else. His plans for the future could even extend that record. For Vasilinda, the key is to skip the grind of daily deadlines.

His name is still on the documents for Capitol News Service, the outlet he operated nearly his entire career. The business could become the vehicle for his next venture.

“I might be on the face of something, and I haven’t really ruled out coming back up for my 50th Session — just to make 50 — to do some sort of work here,” he said. “I just don’t know yet.”

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Disney at Center of Streaming Universe Old favorites and original content like The Mandalorian make Disney+ an important part of the entertainment behemoth

BY GABRIELLE RUSSON

I

The mysterious Mandalorian, played by Pedro Pascal in Lucasfilm’s The Mandalorian, and The Child continue their adventures throughout the universe in the popular series’ second season. Photos: 2020 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

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n the height of the pandemic, the lines disappeared at Disney World as the parks shut down for months at a time, the first extended closure ever in its history. The movie theaters were dark too. No one was watching the new Disney movie. Disney’s stock plummeted.

The year 2020 seemed like a bleak time and a pending financial crisis for the Walt Disney Company, an entertainment corporation that had always banked on in-person experiences whether you went on a Disney cruise, hugged Mickey in front of Cinderella Castle or went to opening night of the new Pixar film.

But what emerged from the pandemic was Disney’s unexpected innovation that has changed the company’s focus and its future. While everyone was stuck at home during government shutdowns and social distancing, millions tuned into Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+. The service became an instant hit.

Flash forward to 2022. Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Chapek predicted this spring that Disney+ will reach 230 million to 260 million subscribers around the world by the fiscal 2024 year. Disney is pouring billions of dollars into the streaming service, which has left such an impact that it’s even changed pop culture — Baby Yoda, anyone? With such big investments into original content, Disney has said it expects the popular streaming service that launched in November 2019 to become profitable by its fiscal 2024 year.

Leading the charge for Disney+ is Chapek, who first took over the company in February 2020. Last month, Disney’s board of directors announced Chapek is getting a three-year contract renewal. During that extended tenure, Chapek will undoubtedly continue to push Disney+ and invest heavily into new content.

“We announced at our last Investor Day that we expect our total content expense to be between $8 and $9 billion in fiscal 2024, and we will now be increasing that investment further,” Chapek said last year.

Disney+ has also emerged as renewed inspiration for the company to pull for its theme parks.

In May, Disney Imagineer Scott Trowbridge, who brought the Star Wars-themed lands to life at Disneyland and Disney World, announced

new characters based on Disney+ shows are coming to the California park.

Starting May 28, guests at Disneyland can see bounty hunter Boba Fett and his mercenary sidekick Fennec Shand roam the land. The pair got their spotlight on Disney+’s “The Book of Boba Fett.” And the even more popular Mandalorian and Grogu, otherwise known as Baby Yoda, are coming to Disneyland at “a later date” Trowbridge said.

“Since Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened in 2019, Star Wars storytelling has experienced a galactic expansion to include many new characters and stories across a wide range of settings. Now, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is likewise expanding the stories guests can encounter when visiting,” Trowbridge wrote in a parks blog post.

Disney fans had one question to Trowbridge’s news: When does Disney World get these characters?

So far, Disney has not said if or when Florida will get Baby Yoda and the gang at Hollywood Studios’ Galaxy’s Edge.

For a conglomerate like Disney, Disney+ fits right into the company where merchandising, theme park rides and shows can all feed into each other. The character you see on your TV could soon exist in real-life at the theme park and appear on T-shirts you can buy.

Disney+ features beloved children’s films from the Disney catalog, but some of the original programming, like the Star Warsthemed shows, can be darker and edgier.

Disney+ isn’t only for kids. In fact, over half of subscribers are adults who don’t have any children, Chapek has said, admitting that statistic surprised him.

Disney plans to release more information on upcoming releases on Sept. 8 on what it dubs “Disney+ Day” leading up to the D23 fan Expo. Disney has “over 500 local original titles in various stages of development and production,” Chapek said in May. The new content is going to drive new subscriptions and Disney+ is coming to new markets in Europe and Africa, Chapek added.

What ends up on Disney+ hasn’t been without controversy.

Actress Scarlett Johansson, star of the Marvel movie “Black Widow,” sued Disney last year for breach of contract after Disney debuted her movie in theaters and on Disney+ simultaneously. Johansson argued her box office earnings were sacrificed for Dis-

Disney+ subscribers played a “is the baby Yoda, or isn’t it?” during the first season of The Mandalorian.

ney’s desire to nurse its streaming service.

“Why would Disney forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in box office receipts by releasing the Picture in theatres at a time when it knew the theatrical market was ‘weak,’ rather than waiting a few months for that market to recover?” her lawsuit filed in California said. “On information and belief, the decision to do so was made at least in part because Disney saw the opportunity to promote its flagship subscription service using the Picture and Ms. Johansson, thereby attracting new paying monthly subscribers, retaining existing ones, and establishing Disney+ as a must-have service in an increasingly competitive marketplace.”

Disney responded with a statement that said Johansson was paid $20 million for the film and called her lawsuit “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the

horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Disney’s statement didn’t go over well in Hollywood.

In the end, Disney and Johansson settled quickly but not before Disney had a tidal wave of negative headlines for its handling of the situation.

For Disney, it’s a new era as the company dances with the pandemic and people’s willingness to sit in a crowded theater, as well as how the streaming service fits into the entertainment world. All of it is uncharted territory.

Chapek knows he’s playing the long game with Disney+, as the streaming service enters its toddler years and turns 3 years old this fall.

Like Chapek said last year, “We’re in the first inning of the first game of a long season.”

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the Political

Aficionado’s Guide to ...

TECH

Workout While You Work

G

ive props to our fearless leader, Peter Schorsch, whose weight these days is dropping as precipitously as the Consumer Confidence Index — for a total of 90 pounds lost. His journey has been almost as well documented on social media as his Disney Cruises, and he gives much of the credit to his treadmill desk.

Schorsch’s diet-and-exercise regimen has inspired Emmett Reed, executive director of the Florida Health Care Association, to slide a treadmill under his desk seven months ago and get to walking too. With a “paleo-type” diet and his desk walking, Reed has lost 40 pounds. Caught after a morning trek in the North Carolina Highlands, he admitted “I couldn’t have hiked if I hadn’t done the walking this year.”

Here are a few suggestions for the office-bound — at home or at the workplace — for getting fit as you work.

Vari pioneered the standing desk and its latest iterations are electric, moving the entire desk up or down depending on if you’re sitting or standing.

The desks get five-star reviews and come in a variety of desk top wood finishes and sizes capable of handling multiple monitors. Vari.com. $695-$895.

You might also want to add a cushiony mat to make standing more comfortable. $60-70.

Most under-desk treadmills are made for walking, but the RHYTHM FUN’s 2-in-1 Folding Treadmill can handle running too. I has a special workout app and remote controller. Amazon us-

Association executive Emmett Reed credits desk walking and paleo eating for adding to his enjoyment of a summer vacation in the mountains.

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ers have given it a 4.5-star rating. You’ll need to get your metric on, the unit only displays kilometers. amazon.com $699 When it comes to workouts, there’s nothing more efficient than rowing.

This low-impact workout exercises 86% of your body’s muscles. Rowers come in all sorts of styles and price points, but nothing beats the swoosh swoosh of a rower that uses water for resistance.

The CITYROW Max Rower has a built-in touchscreen with high-fidelity speakers for a fully immersive workout. Pair your Apple Watch to sync every workout and display your stats in realtime to track your progress. cityrow.com List price, $2,195 plus subscription. Get it on Amazon for $1,495.

Sometimes, you just want to get out of the house, but time is precious and you want to get the most bang for your workout. Several studios from Orlando to South Florida are offering EMS — electromagnetic stimulation — that, with the help of a special electrode-studded suit, can turn a 20-minute training session into three hours

worth of workout. The E-Fit line has developed a system used in a studio setting with a personal trainer that can exercise 10 muscle groups: biceps, triceps, lower back, upper back, pectoral, abs, gluteus, calves, quadriceps and hamstrings. e-fit.com Have hours in front of the screens given you the dreaded, “stress neck?”

The folks at Copper Fit have a pair of products designed to prevent and cure what ails you as you sit — or stand — in front of your screens.

Whether you are taking business calls from your couch, or spending endless hours at your desk in the office, posture is a constant struggle. Correct your posture and put a stop to your slouch with Copper Fit Posture Support.

This quick and easy corrector promotes healthy posture by reminding you to adjust your neck, shoulder, and back position for proper alignment. $19.99 The Copper fit Deep Tissue Massage Gun provides the ultimate deep kneading massage therapy to help relax and relieve muscle tightness and soreness.

Variable power allows you to choose the level of your penetrating massage designed to provide targeted pain and all-around muscle relief. $49.99 There’s a website devoted to getting healthy while working (workwhilewalking.com) and you can sign up for their Office Fitness Club. You’ll get a monthly newsletter with product reviews — including standing desks, treadmill desks, desktop converters, ergonomic accessories and cable management—as well as tip and tricks accumulated from years of using and reviewing active workstation gear.

Multitasking in the office can include fitness along with work. Products that can help include Electronic Muscle Stimulation from E-Fit (top left) and products from Copper Fit (top right) to help improve posture and massage out stress. Photos courtesy of E-Fit and Copper Fit.

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FOOD

g n i z i n Moder the

s r o n r Gove … and its Menu b u l C

Seeks to Balance Tradition with New Cuisine

By Rochelle Koff | Photography by The Workmans

C

hef Eric Fritsche brings decades of culinary experiences and adventures to his new role as top toque at the Governors Club, a storied local institution just steps from the Capitol.

Fritsche, who is in charge of all culinary operations at the club, has the task of modernizing its menu while honoring history and tradition, not an easy feat.

“We have to find a delicate balance of change versus no change,” Fritsche said. “You have to understand what the food history was here and what members like.”

Culinary updates are part of a broader effort to bring a more modern look to the Governors Club, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary. It’s long been a destination for powerful politicians and other movers and shakers — but the club also has become more family-oriented, attracting younger members.

The landmark building features a dining room, ballroom, parlor, lodging, balcony, meeting spaces, a room affectionately known as “the Library,” plus a lounge that is targeted for a makeover.

The interiors of the club have been upgraded in two phases that totaled approximately $2.5 million, said Barry Shields, the club’s general manager.

“We also are estimating that the cost of renovating the Lounge, which is planned for the summer of 2023, will add another $1.5 million,” said Shields. “So in the end, the GC will have a $4 million makeover.”

He calls his new chef a part of the club’s rejuvenation.

“Eric is bringing a fresher vibe to the club,” said Shields.

“After 40 years in the business, I’ve learned to always be on

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the lookout for talent that will help elevate the club and its offerings. This concept is especially true with chefs.

“The Governors Club is a formidable challenge for any executive chef,” Shields said. “We have huge fluctuations in volume throughout the year as well as almost 1,000 members with appropriately high expectations when it comes to the food that is being offered.

“Bottom line, being the executive chef at the Governors Club is a demanding job and we are excited to have someone of Chef Eric’s caliber working with us,” he said.

Fritsche understands the dynamics of cooking at a private club. His culinary expertise includes experience as the executive chef at St. John’s Golf and Country Club in St. Augustine, the Amelia Island Club, Epping Forest Yacht Club in Jacksonville, the River & Post Restaurant and Rooftop Lounge in Jacksonville, as well as serving as the executive sous chef at the Riviera Country Club in Miami.

One difference at the Governors Club: “Most country clubs have golf and tennis,” Fritsche said. “The Governors Club is strictly dining.”

At the Tallahassee landmark, the 60-year-old chef has kept many member favorites while creating a “Chef Recommendations” page with a lineup of new dishes.

“We reprint part of the menu every week,” Fritsche said, noting that 25% of the menu will feature new items.

“Some dishes are very popular and there’s no reason to mess with those. Others are not so popular so we can filter those out. It takes time. We’re not going to rush in and change the world overnight.”

While respecting the classic dishes members have loved for decades, Chef Eric Fritsche is adding a continental flair and artisanal ingredients to the Governors Club menu.

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FOOD

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“I love being a chef, it’s what I’ve done my whole life.”

The club menu features items like Estuary Ranched Oysters, Gulf Coast Cioppino, a daily fish special and vegetarian fare such as tempura cauliflower. Fritsche is aiming to use more local products and he’s already created the dishes Ziti with (local) Play of Sunlight Exotic Mushrooms and pistachio crusted jumbo scallops with Bradley’s sausage succotash.

“I love to work with fresh fish,” Fritsche said. “We want good, fresh vegetables, more artisanal items, more from-scratch and market inspired.”

To offer more homemade desserts, he’s turned to Maria Streety, executive pastry chef and owner of Tallahassee’s Artistic Confections on Thomasville Road.

Streety was formerly executive pastry chef at the Governors Club and the University Center Club before opening her bakery, known for its creative custom cakes, wedding cakes, cookies and cupcakes.

Her dishes on the Governors Club dessert menu include Raspberry Mousse Tower, Lavender Lemon Panna Cotta and fruit and mango tarts. Fritsche and his team are making their own ice cream and bread pudding, and are serving tableside flambé du jour for two.

Fritsche’s lineup reflects his love of French cooking. He and his wife, Donna, also a chef, operated their own restaurant, Pastiche Restaurant and Catering in Jacksonville, with a spotlight on their Francophile favorites.

“We spent time in France, living with French families,” Fritsche said. “We had our restaurant for 10 years and we were heavily influenced by that experience.

“French cooking makes sense to me,” he said. “That’s where it all begins. It’s hard to beat French technique and flavors — and good, solid Italian cuisine.”

The couple later went to the Bahamas, working at a private, high-end club called Cat Key Yacht Club, seven miles south of Bimini.

“We were there for four magical years,” Fritsche said.

Wherever he is, one factor is constant.

“I love being a chef,” Fritsche said. “It’s what I’ve done my whole life.

“I love everything about it. Since I was very young, age 15, I’ve been working in kitchens. I love working with food. I love the intensity of the kitchen environment, the hustle bustle. You’re on your feet all day long, very active, very involved.”

He started his career as a kid looking for a job to make some money.

Anatomy of an Entree: Chef Fritsche assembles the ingredients that will become an elegant plate for discerning members — Alaskan halibut, shellfish minestrone and a side of crispy polenta.

“I wanted to buy a Volkswagen and my dad said, ‘You want a car, go to work.’ I had a buddy whose dad owned an Italian restaurant and I went there as a pot washer,” he said.

At 21, he became a chef at the restaurant. Fritsche took time off to attend Johnson and Wales University, first at a branch in Norfolk, Virginia, and then he went to the main campus in Providence, Rhode Island, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in food service management aside from his associate of occupational studies degree in culinary arts.

“Since 21, I’ve been managing kitchens in some form or fashion,” Fritsche said.

Ask the chef about the influences on his culinary career and he doesn’t recall being inspired by a family member. There wasn’t a wizened granny making jam or baking cakes, at least not enough to launch his lifetime career path.

“You read about chefs’ grandmothers putting up preserved foods or their grandfathers hunting or fishing but no, I was the odd duck. But I’ve been in the world of cooking for 45 years.”

Fritsche tips his chef’s chapeau to Donna, his wife of 25 years, as the top influence and love of his life.

“We share a great love of food, food culture and food travel,” he said. “We met in the kitchen where she became my sous chef in a high-end private club and her passion for farming, crystal-clear tastes and just love for food in general has been a great inspiration for me since we met.

“So, we have a great love affair with each other as well as a love for food which is such an important part of our lives. That has been an inspiration to me,” Fritsche said. “That love has enabled us to travel and work in some pretty incredible places including France and the Bahamas, but no more so than the French-influenced restaurant we created and built for 10 years in Jacksonville. She completed me culinarily.”

He and Donna bought a house south of Tallahassee at Shell Point Beach about four years ago as an investment property.

She works for a special education school farm and equestrian center in Jacksonville but will be joining him soon.

“We fell in love with the area so much,” Fritsche said. “The next natural thing was to try to find a good challenge on the employment side.”

Fritsche said he “hit a wall” during COVID-19 and took time off. “I bopped around and took time to rest my brain and do oddball things. It was a great time to do that.”

Meeting Shields helped confirm the Governors Club was the right, next move.

“We connected the first time I met with him,” Fritsche said.

“It makes all the difference in the world. Barry cut his teeth here as a waiter. The place is in his DNA. He’s a good guy, good manager, knows food and knows people.”

Shields started working at the Governors Club as a busboy while he was a student at Florida State University, shortly after it opened in 1982. He moved up the ranks in Tallahassee before leaving to work at other clubs, then returned to the Governors Club in 2014.

He called Fritsche a “perfect fit” for the club.

And the chef is confident the Governors Club melds perfectly with this next phase of life and work.

“It’s good to be able to take the time and find something I could do for the remainder of my career,” Fritsche said. “I feel the Governors Club is that place.”

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KEEPING FLORIDA’S HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY ON TOP PROTECT • EDUCATE • PROMOTE

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Arthur Brooks in the square

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PHOTOS: The Workmans

Arthur Brooks — a one-man beacon of inspiration toward both happiness and radical decency in politics — came to speak as a part of the 15th season of the Village Square’s “Dinner at the Square" series (the first one back since the pandemic began). The former AEI President, bestselling author, Atlantic columnist and Harvard professor is devoting the most recent chapter of his career to discovering how to live our best lives with his most recent book, “From Strength 32

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to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.”

The dinner was put on by the Village Square, Midtown Reader and Florida TaxWatch.

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1. A few of Arthur Brooks’ books. 2. The opening reception before dinner. 3. Arthur Brooks signing books. 4. Arthur Brooks with Village Square Founder and President Liz Joyner and former Leon County Commissioner Bryan Desloge. 5.

Arthur Brooks speaking to a full house. 6. Liz Joyner welcoming the group. 7. TaxWatch President and CEO Dominic Calabro giving remarks as one of the event sponsors. 8. Arthur Brooks during his presentation.

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State of the Taxpayer Florida TaxWatch’s annual State of the Taxpayer Dinner — traditionally held the Wednesday evening after the Tuesday start of Legislative Session — has long served as a forum for the state’s elected officials to speak directly to the interests of hardworking taxpayers and their families. This year's event, held January 12 at the AC Hotel at Cascades Park, included Cabinet members, past and present legislators and other members of the political community.

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PHOTOS: The Workmans

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1. Guests pose for photos at the State of the Taxpayer event. 2. On3PR’s Aly Coleman getting ready for the event. 3. Marva Johnson, TaxWatch Board Secretary, welcomes guests. 4. Rep. Stan McClain delivers remarks. 5. Sen. Pat Neal delivering remarks at the State of the Taxpayer event. 6. Rep. Randy Fine has something to say at the State of the Taxpayer event. 7. TaxWatch President & CEO Dominic Calabro, TaxWatch Board Chairman Sen. George LeMieux and Rep. Randy Fine. 8. TaxWatch President & CEO Dominic Calabro, Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried and Sen. LeMieux. 9. Calabro, Sen. Lauren Book and International Swimming Hall of Fame Chairman Bill Kent. Book was honored with the Leadership Award from the ISHOF for her efforts in helping Every Child A Swimmer legislation pass. 10. Calabro, Rep. McClain, and Sen. LeMieux. 11. Fried taking photos with guests at the event.

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Miami Dade Chamber Starting in 2020, the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce instituted the Chamber Legislative Champion Award to honor a member of the Florida Legislature who has made a significant positive impact on Miami’s business community. This year, Rep. Demi Busatta Cabrera was honored for her work as the House

2 sponsor for SB 1954 — Statewide Flooding and Sea Level Rise Resilience, which was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Rhett and Ivette O’Doski hosted the small award ceremony on Jan. 18.

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PHOTOS: The Workmans

1. Rhett O’Doski (McGuireWoods Consulting), Ivette O’Doski (Ivette O'Doski Consulting), GMCC Board Chair Rick Beasley, Rep. Demi Busatta Cabrera, GMCC President Alfred Sanchez, Alex Dominguez (AT&T), and GMCC VP of Government Affairs Spencer Pylant. 2.

Kevin Marino Cabrera (Mercury Public Affairs) talking with Becker Senior Government Relations Consultant José Fuentes. 3. Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce Board Chair Rick Beasley, Sanchez, Dominguez, Rep. Cabrera, and Pylant. 4. Pylant talking with McGuireWoods Consulting Senior VP and Director of State Government Relations Rhett O’Doski. 5. GMCC's Beasley welcomes the group with President Sanchez.

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WE ARE INFORMED BY THE PAST WITH OUR EYES ON YOUR FUTURE.

Summer 2022

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Red Dog, Blue Dog Celebrity bartending, Tallahassee style! The 7th Annual Red Dog Blue Dog Celebrity Bartending Benefit brought the crowds out on Jan. 25 at Township. This year’s lineup included Sens.

Aaron Bean, Jason Brodeur and Joe Gruters, along with Rep. Demi Busatta Cabrera for Team Red and Sens.

Shevrin Jones, Jason Pizzo, and Lauren Book plus Reps.

Mike Grieco and Michele Rayner, repping Team Blue.

More than $35,000 raised was equally split by the Leon County Humane Society, Last Hope Rescue and Tallahassee’s Animal Shelter Foundation.

PHOTOS: The Workmans

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1. Team Red versus Team Blue (spoiler alert, Team Red won). 2. It was a packed house at Township. 3. Rep. Michele Rayner pouring drinks. 4. Rep. Demi Busatta Cabrera pumping up the crowd. 5. Team Red deliberating on strategy. 6. Rep. Mike Grieco taking orders.

7. Fellow legislators came to support and cheer on their fellow members. 8. Sen. Loranne Ausley ordering from Team Blue. 9. Team Blue gained Sen. Lauren Book. 10. Various tactics including bullhorn messages were used to encourage people to donate.

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Suits For Session The 7th Annual Suits For Session took place on February 23 at the 2nd floor rotunda, as well as outside Tallahassee’s City Hall. Volunteer Florida and Simply Healthcare teamed up to collect gently used professional attire to give away to job seekers in Florida. This year, they collected over 3,800 pounds of clothing and accessories to donate.

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1. Legislators, including Sen. Loranne Ausley, dropped off items throughout the day at the Capitol.

2. Corey Simon, Volunteer Florida CEO, stood for a snapshot with the Simply Healthcare team, which included volunteers, President of Simply Healthcare Plans Medicaid Holly Prince, and Senior Director of Florida Government Relations for Anthem, Inc. Stephanie Smith. 3. Volunteer Florida Executive Assistant Aly Simons helped provide information and direct people to the right spot for their donations.

4. State departments also joined in, including some from the plaza level, like FDACS Executive Assistant Janelle Johnson. 5. Various agencies, including Director Barbara Palmer from the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, brought in a few suits.

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BATTLE TESTED. TRUSTED.

UNMATCHED.

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Alzheimer's Lighting The Historic Capitol turned purple in honor of Alzheimers awareness. Alzheimer’s advocates and legislators gathered for a press conference to talk about those in our state struggling with Alzheimer’s and what is being done to make advances in research and the programs and actions people are taking to help raise awareness.

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1. Alzheimer’s Association Regional Leader Angela McAuley opening the press conference, talking about the 580,000 Floridians living with Alzheimer's. 2. Rep. Michelle Salzman on the steps of the Historic Capitol discussing her Alzheimer’s legislation. 3. Michele Hall spoke about living with Alzheimer's. 4. Rep. Scott Plakon presenting the Suzanne B. Plakon Humanitarian Award. 5. Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez speaking at the press conference. 6. The Historic Capitol before the lighting ... 7. ... And after, shining with purple lights and the END ALZ message on the steps.

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Stanley Cup

PHOTOS: The Workmans

On Feb. 15 and 16, the Tampa Bay Lighting brought the Stanley Cup to Tallahassee for a grand tour of the Capitol. It stopped by the House and Senate, where members took photos with the cup on the chamber floors and behind the scenes in the members’ lounge. The Stanley Cup then made its way into the Governor’s Office before an evening reception on the balcony at Eve on Adams, looking over the Capitol at sunset.

This was the second year in a row the Stanley Cup came to town, with the Tampa Bay Lightning bringing home back-to-back championship titles.

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1. Lord Stanley in the (Florida) House. 2. The Stanley Cup was front-and-center on the floor of the Florida House Chamber. 3. Mario Della-Savia welcomed Speaker Chris Sprowls, Shannon Sprowls and Sprowls’ mom, Marie, to join him with the Cup. 4. Speaker Sprowls reading the names on the Cup. 5. The cup was escorted by Della-Savia and Howie Borrow, who are associated with the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Here, they are joined by RSA President/CEO Ron Pierce and Lobbyist Kaitlyn Bailey Owen. 6. Rep. Blaise Ingolia was very excited to have the Cup in town, repping his home team. 7. Della-Savia was there to make sure the Cup was safe and secure, even from Rep. Ingolia. 8. Rep. Jackie Toledo was there to cheer on her home team.

9. Rep. Blaise Ingolia is huge hockey fan. He wore his jersey on the floor of the House before Session began.

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STEM Day Brought in by the Orlando Science Center, science, technology, engineering and math overtook the Capitol for STEM Day on January 25. From drones, to robots, to all things science, demonstrations were on display for people to experience what these organizations are passionate about.

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PHOTOS: The Workmans

1. Orlando Science Center demonstrated their drone experience to accompany information about their after-school program (through their partnership with the Office of Naval Research) utilizing real-world mission scenarios to learn about principles of flight and aviation related careers. 2. Jesse Zito with Orlando Science Center demonstrates a digital microscope. 3. The Capitol Rotunda decorated with a banner for STEM Day. 4. FIRST Robotics Competition Teams, FIRST Tech Challenge Teams and FIRST LEGO League Challenge & Explore teams engaged legislators during STEM Day sharing their passion for STEM with legislators. 5. Orlando Science Center provided opportunities to fly virtual jets to show what they do in their afterschool program utilizing real-world mission scenarios (in partnership with the Office of Naval Research, TEQGames and the Naval Air Warfare Center).

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Craig Waters Retirement Celebrations Openness works. That’s the biggest lesson Craig Waters learned in his 35 years at the Supreme Court. Craig was a monumental part of creating a communications office for the Court and the state’s judicial system. It was a crucial part of the transparency and response to the 2000 election dispute, and it set the framework for bringing the court system into the 21st century. Now, Craig is retiring and those who have surrounded him over the last few decades came together at Goodwood Museum & Gardens to honor his legacy and celebrate his accomplishments.

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1. Friends, colleagues and members of the community gathered to honor Craig Waters at his retirement reception.

2. Waters speaking with Justice John Couriel. 3. Retirement Festivities Host and former Florida’s Long Term Care Ombudsman Jim Crochet greets guests. 4. Retired Justice Major Harding (left) and current Justice Jorge Labarga (right) talking at their table. 5. Crochet introduces those sharing about Craig’s career. 6. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lucy Morgan gave remarks during the reception. She and Craig worked together for years in various capacities. 7. Paul Flemming, Craig’s successor as Public Information Officer at the Court, listening in to the reception. 8. Waters being honored during the reception. 9. Justice Couriel (middle) speaking with former Justice Harding (left) and Justice Labarga (right). 10. People from throughout Craig’s 35 years came to celebrate, including current Supreme Court Justices Couriel and Labarga, and reporter Gary Fineout. 11. Waters hugging former Justice Harding. 12. The Supreme Court Library was filled with colleagues past and present, honoring Waters' time at the Supreme Court. 13. Chief Justice Charles Canady speaking about Waters’ impact on the Supreme Court.

14. Waters posing for a photograph after being honored with the Pete Weitzel “Friend of the First Amendment” Award. 15. Waters addressing the group with his replacement, Supreme Court PIO Flemming.

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MIAMI-DADE Days

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If you couldn’t hear Miami in the house, you sure could smell it. Dade Days took over the capitol courtyard with a giant paella and a lot of cafe cubano, all served with some South Florida flair. Miami-Dade Legislators, Commissioners and other area representatives came together to show how Miami does Capitol Days.

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1. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins serving paella.

2. The lines were long and the crowds were big, but it was worth it to indulge in the paella and cuban coffee. 3. Plates of paella lined the tables as legislators, staff and other capitol visitors came through. 4. MIAMI was spelled out in large 3D letters for people to enjoy a photo op. 5. Rep. Christopher Benjamin dishing up plates of paella. 6. Miami-Dade County Commissioner and Miami-Dade County Commission Chairman serving paella.

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PHOTO: The Workmans

Briefings from the Rotunda

Ballard Partners adds Liberia to its international government client list

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allard Partners in June inked another deal to represent a foreign government.

The new client is Liberia, which has agreed to pay the firm $900,000 to represent it in Washington for the next year.

According to lobbying disclosures, the contract will see Ballard Partners engage in “advising, counseling, and assisting” the Liberian government “in communication with U.S. government officials, U.S. business entities, and non-governmental audiences” to enhance U.S. relations with the coastal West African nation.

The contract names Liberia’s Ministry of Finance and Development Planning as the government agency represented, with Finance Minister Samuel Tweah listed as the firm’s di-

rect contact in the Liberian government. Ballard Partners founder Brian Ballard is listed as the primary lobbyist on disclosure filings.

Tweah became Finance Minister in 2017 and previously worked as a senior adviser at the African Development Bank and as the chief economist for the National Millennium Compact Development Project of Liberia, where he played a key role in developing Liberia’s present compact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation of the United States.

Liberia’s contract with Ballard Partners was finalized June 24. The move came three months after Ballard signed a separate $900,000 deal to represent the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the goal of enhancing that nation’s economic ties to the U.S.

Additionally, the firm in January entered into a one-year contract to represent the Guatemalan government. That contract was also for $900,000 and will see the firm provide the Central American nation with legislative updates and handle its public relations efforts in the U.S. Taiwan reportedly covered the cost of the contract, as Guatemala is one of the poorest nations in Central America and one of the few that still recognizes Taiwan, rather than the People’s Republic of China, as the legitimate government of China.

Ballard Partners has been one of the largest lobbying firms in the Sunshine State for years and has quickly become one of the largest in Washington since it expanded its operation after former President Donald Trump was elected in 2016.

Its rise in Washington has served as a springboard into the world of international lobbying. In addition to representing foreign governments on Capitol Hill, the firm in 2020 opened its first international office in Tel Aviv, Israel.

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PHOTO: The Workmans

Briefings from the Rotunda

Gene McGee merger expands Sunrise Consulting to Citrus County

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obbying firm Sunrise Consulting Group has built its reputation representing clients in Pasco and Hernando counties. In January, when the firm brought Gene McGee on as a partner, they became one of the top firms in Citrus County too.

McGee has been in the government relations business for more than 30 years.

He spent the past several years running his own lobbying firm, GMA Inc. Many people who gain success working as their own boss have a hard time giving up the freedom that brings. But sometimes, it’s a win-win.

That was the case for McGee, who saw Sunrise Consulting Group as a natural fit. Firm President and CEO Shawn Foster felt the same.

The two men had known each other for 20 years. In the early 2000s, Foster was working as legislative aide to then-Sen. Mike Fasano. Since Fasano’s district included part of Citrus County, McGee came around often and he made a pretty good impression on Foster.

“Gene was, and is, one of the nicest people I met in the process. I remember him treating everyone with respect and being very genuine. I liked him immediately and we have been friends since then,” Foster told INFLUENCE. Despite their friendship, the idea of working together at the same firm

didn’t materialize until, well, they started working together.

“It was behavioral health issues that actually sparked the conversation that brought us together,” Foster recalled.

McGee, representing Lifestream and the Citrus County Commission, was working to get a Baker Act facility built in the county. One of Foster’s clients, Hernando County, wanted to partner up, so they got to talking.

“I shared with Gene my early background of working in a behavioral health facility and a degree in psychology. The ease of our collaboration and the fun of working together on the project led to the question by Gene: ‘Would I consider working together and merging our firms?’”

Foster was immediately interested, and the more they considered the idea, the better it seemed.

Foster is deeply involved in Pasco and Hernando. The firm, of course, represents many clients in the area. But outside of work, Foster holds seats on boards for many community organizations. He and his wife also volunteer for, or otherwise support, about two dozen charitable events per year in their area.

McGee is essentially his analogue in Citrus County.

He has been involved in volunteering for mental health substance abuse and

child welfare issues for years and chaired the Transition Team for the Department of Children and Families when Charlie Crist was Governor. He was recently named the Rick Quinn Distinguished Citizen of the Year at the Citrus County Chamber’s Annual Pillar Awards.

In fact, it was McGee’s desire to be even more hands-on in his community that led him to first pitch the idea of teaming up.

“Gene explained that his goal was to try and retire from lobbying in a fiveyear time frame to devote more time to his family and not-for-profit volunteer activities in Citrus County,” Foster said.

“I have been evaluating ways to grow my firm and this seemed like a perfect way to accomplish both goals.”

Once the decision was made, it was smooth sailing — it helps that McGee had scoured his and SCG’s client roster for potential conflicts before he ever brought up the idea of joining firms.

“It really came together very quickly, smoothly and without stumbling blocks,” Foster said. And both firms’ clients are thrilled to have some extra firepower in the Capitol.”

“Our relationship, which was good before, has continued to grow,” Foster added. “Like a lot of good things in life, it happens when it happens and you know when it’s right.”

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BFR RSA Consulting taps Edward Briggs as VP

Politics is a relationship business. Let us connect you with the people that can make a difference to you and your campaign.

ASHLEY P. ROSS, OWNER 850.980.0421 ROSSCONSULT.NET

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dward Briggs can add “Vice President” to his list of accomplishments.

RSA Consulting recently announced it was promoting Briggs to Vice President of Government and Community Affairs. The promotion, firm officials said, recognizes the integral role Briggs plays at the Tampa Bay-based firm.

“Edward embodies the team spirit that defines RSA, and over the years I’ve watched him grow into a leader that is well-respected and an expert in his field,” said Ron Pierce, President and CEO of RSA Consulting. “He is an integral part of our team, and we are so excited to see what he will accomplish in this new position.”

A veteran government affairs professional, Briggs joined the firm in 2013 when it consisted of just Pierce and Chief Operating Officer Natalie King. He played a key role in the firm’s growth and has become a prominent player in education policy, particularly within the charter school space. Briggs also works extensively in the construction and workforce development areas.

“This new title is a recognition of the hard work and growth Edward has demonstrated over the past nine years with our team. The esteem that Edward has achieved amongst his peers, our clients, and with Legislators and staff has been outstanding and has proven a strong reflection on our brand.” King said.

“We are very grateful that Edward continues to pick our team and for the success that his efforts have allowed us to achieve.”

Before joining RSA, Briggs served as the grassroots coordinator for Sen. Tom Lee’s campaign and as his legislative aide during his transition to Tallahassee. He previously worked for the Republican Party of Florida in Senate campaigns.

A graduate of Florida State University, Briggs received the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Distinguished Merit Award in 2018 and recognized by Florida Politics in 2015 as a 30 under 30 Rising Star.

Briefings from the Rotunda

LISA MCCLASKEY

HEIDI RICHARDS

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VERONICA PIZZORNI

LSN Partners staffs up, adds three in South Florida

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SN Partners is growing, kicking off 2022 with three new team members in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

The full-service consulting firm announced it has hired Heidi Richards, Lisa McClaskey and Veronica Pizzorni.

The three women bring decades of experience to the already deep bench at LSN Partners.

“We are very proud to welcome Heidi, Lisa and Veronica to the LSN Family,” said Alex Heckler, founder and managing partner of the firm. “We strive to continuously exceed clients’ expectations and employ individuals who represent our values and will be respected advisors to clients.”

Before joining LSN, Richards served as the Chief of Staff to Broward County Commissioner Dale Hol-

ness. In that position, she provided strategic advice and operational oversight; created and coordinated international economic development and affordable housing policy; and served as the liaison between her office and Commissioners, county administration and the business community.

Richards, who will be based out of the Fort Lauderdale office, received a Bachelor’s of Arts from Temple University, a master’s in public administration and policy from Metropolitan College of New York, and a doctorate from Nova Southeastern University.

McClaskey, who received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida State University, comes to LSN after a stint as the director of economic and political affairs for the Consulate General of Israel in Miami.

In this role, she coordinated municipal, county, state and federal leadership opportunities to engage with Israeli companies. She previously served in the advance department for two presidential campaigns, interned in the Governor’s Office and worked in the development department at the Miami Art Museum, now known as the Perez Museum of Art. Pizzorni most recently worked as the manager of operations for Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. The University of Florida graduate also served as the deputy campaign manager for Levine Cava’s campaign, and has worked on several other high-profile campaigns.

McClaskey and Pizzorni will both work out of the firm’s Miami Beach office.

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Public Relations Strategic Communications Crisis Management

Mercury taps Womack as Director in Florida office

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EDIE OUSLEY President

www.YellowFinchStrategies.com

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ichael Womack is joining the Mercury family.

The global, bipartisan public strategy firm recently announced it has tapped Womack to serve as a Director in its Florida office. Ashley Walker, a partner at the firm, called Womack “an excellent addition to our Mercury family.”

“We’re seeing major changes across the Tampa Bay region and across our state,” Walker said in a statement. “Michael is well equipped to take on these challenges and support the success of our clients in Florida and beyond.”

Womack joins Mercury after a stint as the communications manager at Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization. In this role, Womack headed up digital strategy, media relations and was a major contributor to legislative fights against the transgender youth sports ban and a measure dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by critics, which garnered international attention.

A 2017 graduate from the University of Tampa, Womack contributed to several political campaigns in the Tampa Bay area and worked in marketing with a focus on

social media strategy. He got his start in politics as a volunteer for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. As a member of Equality Florida’s PAC team, he continued his work on behalf of President Joe Biden, Rep. Jennifer Webb and Mayors Jane Castor and Rick Kriseman.

Womack currently serves as the President of the Hillsborough County Young Democrats, is a member of the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Community Council and a graduate of the New Leaders Council Tampa Bay. He served as an elected delegate at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. In 2021, he was named a Rising Star in Florida Politics by INFLUENCE Magazine.

“I’m excited about taking this next step and joining the fantastic team of professionals at Mercury,” Womack said.

Mercury is a high-stakes, bipartisan public strategy firm that provides a comprehensive suite of services, including federal government relations, international affairs, digital influence, public opinion research, media strategy and a bipartisan grassroots network in all 50 states.

Briefings from the Rotunda

DREW HEFFLEY

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ZACH COLLETTI

The future looks ‘bright’ for Enwright Rimes with two new hires

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fter a successful 2020 election cycle, full-service political consulting shop Enwright Rimes Consulting is ramping up for 2022 with a pair of key hires.

“In politics, success relies on sharp minds and proven talent that can deliver results during the demanding months of campaign season,” co-founder Jim Rimes said. “Drew Heffley and Zach Colletti are extraordinary additions to our team who will help us be even more effective for the campaigns we serve.”

Heffley has been hired as the firm’s Director of Strategy. A familiar face in Florida politics who was named one of INFLUENCE’s 30 under 30 rising stars in 2019, Heffley has built a reputation as a data geek with strong experience in advanced

microtargeting, voter contact and grassroots organization.

He most recently worked as the coordinator for the Florida Medical Association’s political operations. In his new position, he will help clients make laser-targeted and effective voter contacts — from direct mail to digital and everything in between.

Colletti first cut his teeth in the campaign world working as field staff for Adam Putnam’s 2018 gubernatorial run. From there, he worked for the National Federation of Independent Business, where he assisted their small business advocacy efforts.

In the 2020 cycle, Colletti worked at Supernova Digital as a Digital Project Manager for several campaigns. Most recently, he served as a legislative aide to Sen. Jeff Brandes.

In his new role as Director of Operations for Enwright Rimes, Colletti will ensure campaign plans are seamlessly implemented and executed so candidates can focus on talking to voters.

“Zach and Drew represent a bright future for our firm,” firm co-founder Randy Enwright said. “I’m proud of the reputation we’ve built with nearly 30 years of experience helping conservatives all over the country win elections, and our new hires will only add on to that legacy.”

Alongside the hires, Enwright Rimes has promoted Zach Monahan from Digital Director to Creative Director. He recently added Logan Bragdon to the team as a full-time social media Content Creator.

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Briefings from the Rotunda

AARP Florida promotes Zayne Smith, taps Karen Murillo as advocacy manager

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ARP Florida is growing its state advocacy team.

The organization recently announced Zayne Smith is being promoted to serve as the group’s director of advocacy. AARP also announced Karen Murillo is being tapped to serve as the advocacy manager in AARPs Florida’s Tallahassee office.

“Floridians 50+ are facing some of the most critical challenges in life, including affording retirement, finding quality care, access to affordable housing, caregiving, remaining independent as they age and much more,” said Jeff Johnson, AARP Florida state director. “The experience that Zayne and Karen bring to the table will ensure AARP Florida is well-positioned to advocate for Floridians who are facing these challenges and beyond.”

An experienced policy advocate, Smith joined AARP Florida in 2014 as the associate state director of advocacy. During her time at AARP Florida, she has represented the organization on the Working Interdisciplinary Network of Guardianship Stakeholders, Guardianship Improvement Task Force, Professional Fiduciary Council of Florida, Department of Elder Affairs Florida State Plan on Aging Advisory Group, National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition and the Florida Don’t Text & Drive Coalition.

In her new role, Smith will oversee a team of five staff throughout the state and is charged with directing AARP advocacy efforts and strategy

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on a wide range of issues.

Smith earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of West Alabama and her law degree from Thomas Goode Jones School of Law. “Zayne has spent more than 15 years in government affairs and more than half that time with AARP fighting for older adults,” Johnson said.

“Her vast experience is a testament to her dedication to our mission of fiercely defending the 50-plus and empowering them to choose how they live as they age.”

Murillo is a former assistant statewide prosecutor and senior protection team coordinator for the Florida Attorney General’s Office. At the Attorney General’s Office, Murillo

spearheaded efforts to investigate and prosecute crimes against seniors, developed a senior crimes training program for law enforcement and prosecution, and augmented the state’s community engagement and outreach for seniors.

Murillo received her undergraduate degree from the University of Central Florida and her law degree from the University of Miami School of Law. “Karen’s efforts to expand protections for Florida seniors and prosecute crimes targeting vulnerable individuals has proven her devotion to serving older adults,” said Johnson.

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Briefings from the Rotunda

Continental Strategies lands former Speaker Richard Corcoran, veteran lobbyist Jimmy Card

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t’s only been a few months since Continental Strategy opened shop, but it’s already making splash hires.

The firm was co-founded by former Ambassador Carlos Trujillo and lawyers John Arrastia Jr., Anne Corcoran and Jesus M. Suarez in March. The founders launched with the stated ambition of becoming a go-to firm for legal, political and business clients in Florida, Washington and Latin America.

Six weeks later, Continental Strategy made its first power play by bringing on Richard Corcoran shortly after he left his position as Education Commissioner.

Corcoran, a lawyer and former House Speaker, held the post from the start of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ term and has been among the most prominent and impactful of the Governor’s top lieutenants. According to Corcoran, his congenial relationship with Trujillo made it a no-brainer to accept the new job as an equity partner at the firm.

“Carlos and I have been friends for a long time. We soon realized after serving in Florida House together that we had similar beliefs and work ethic. I look forward to this opportunity and continuing to promote our values throughout the state of Florida and beyond,” Corcoran said.

A month later, Continental Strategy landed a veteran lobbyist in Jimmy Card,

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JIMMY CARD who will serve as managing partner of the firm’s Tallahassee office.

Card brings more than 20 years of political and policy experience to the firm.

His resume includes copious experience in health care policy and appropriations, public affairs as well as strategic consulting.

Before joining Continental Strategies, he was an associate at Larry J. Overton and Associates and director of govern-

ment relations for HMO Preferred Medical Plan in Coral Gables. He has also served as legislative staff in both the state House and Senate.

“Continental Strategy is a natural fit for the next step in my career. I look forward to leveraging my experience in the industry to serve our clients and I am eager to expand Continental Strategy’s portfolio and influence in Florida,” Card said.

Briefings from the Rotunda

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Swonson McAlister joins Corcoran Partners

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orcoran Partners is expanding its bench, announcing that Bethany Swonson McAlister recently joined the firm as a senior consultant.

“We are excited and honored to have Bethany join the Corcoran Partners team,” said Mike Corcoran, the CEO and founding partner of Corcoran Partners. “Her experiences have equipped her with the knowledge and ability to navigate countless areas of policy and bring people and entities together to form successful partnerships.”

Prior to joining Corcoran Partners, McAlister spent about four years at the Florida Department of Education. She joined the state Education Department in 2018 as the Executive Director of the Florida Education Foundation. She spent about a year in that role before becoming the Deputy Chief of Staff in 2019. She was named Chief of Staff in 2021.

“I appreciate Bethany and her time at

RESULTS WORTH WAGGING ABOUT!

the Florida Department of Education, her advocacy for important policy issues and her staunch support for ensuring that Flor-

ida’s education system continues to be the driving force that provides well-rounded citizens that give back to the State of Florida,” said former Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran. “She is a fierce advocate and focused leader that has made it clear she will not stop working until all aspirations to empower families and create conditions that support improved community outcomes are reached.”

McAlister has secured multiyear grants spearheading civic literacy education opportunities across Florida, successfully advocated for Florida’s students and education, hosted renowned national events and executed a statewide U.S. Senate debate.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in public relations from Florida State University and a master’s degree from the University of Tampa. She currently resides in Tallahassee with her husband, Lee, and dog, Ellie.

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BFR

Briefings from the Rotunda

Kinley Morgan named VP at Pinnacle Media

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inley Morgan is taking her talents to Pinnacle Media.

The head of the communications and marketing firm announced recently she has tapped Morgan as the firm’s Vice President of Communications. In a statement, Jenn Meale Poggie, the firm’s CEO and President, said she was “thrilled to bring Kinley on as vice president of communications.”

“Kinley’s energy, work ethic, and strong communications experience in both the legislative and executive branches of state government will enable us to continue delivering successful outcomes for our clients.”

A veteran political staffer, Morgan most recently served as Press Secretary for the Florida Senate Majority Office.

She previously served as a legislative assistant to Sen. Keith Perry and as a spokeswoman for former Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.

Morgan is a graduate of Florida State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in applied American politics and policy.

Founded in 2021, Pinnacle Media is a Tallahassee-based communications and marketing firm that serves clients statewide, nationwide and internationally. Poggie, the firm’s founder, has two decades of communications experience, most recently as a senior account manager at Sachs Media, one of the state’s top public relations firms.

Poggie has held communications positions at several government agencies, including Leon County Schools and the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, where she served as communications director.

“Jenn is one of the most respected and effective communicators in the field, and I am extremely excited to join the Pinnacle Media team,” Morgan said. “I look forward to working together to elevate the voices of our clients to ensure they reach their goals.”

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$1,000,000 RANGE: 1. Ballard Partners 2. The Southern Group 3. Capital City Consulting 4. Ronald L. Book 5. GrayRobinson 6. Greenberg Traurig 7. Metz Husband & Daughton 8. Rubin Turnbull & Associates

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$500,000 – $999,999 RANGE: 9. Corcoran Partners

14. Johnson & Blanton

10. Smith Bryan & Myers

15. Mayernick Group

11. The Advocacy Group at Cardenas Partners

16. Rutledge Ecenia

12. Floridian Partners 13. Becker & Poliakoff

17. Ramba Consulting Group 18. Johnston & Stewart Government Strategies

$250,000 – $500,000 RANGE: 19. PooleMcKinley

23. Dean Mead

20. Anfield Consulting

24. Converge Government Affairs of Florida

21. The Vogel Group 22. The Fiorentino Group

25. McGuireWoods Consulting and Shumaker Advisors Florida Summer Winter 2022

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FOURTH FLOOR>FILES

Fighting the good fight In 25 words or less, explain what you do. Our firm sits at the intersection where legislation meets real world scenarios. We help smooth out the conflicts in that process.

If you could have another lobbyist’s client list, it would be … Ours are perfect. I love our clients! They challenge us constantly and we deliver every chance we get.

Without using the words Democrat, independent or Republican, conservative or liberal, describe your political persuasion. “The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.”— The Law

by Frederick Bastiat.

What is the professional accomplishment of which you are most proud? My time with Mayor Yioset De La Cruz, Speaker Richard Corcoran and Speaker José Oliva will forever be professional accomplishments. Being a part of those administrations meant you were fighting the good fight.

Your three favorite charities are … Wounded Warrior Project, Taco Bell Foundation and Ronald McDonald House.

What are you most looking forward to during the 2023 Legislative Session? Floridians are mostly unaware of the sacrifices our elected officials make to serve. I look forward to seeing our new presiding officers lead their chambers and watch as our state continues on this amazing trajectory.

PHOTO: Mark Wallheiser Photography

William Rodriguez

Lobbyists are often accused of wearing Gucci loafers; do you own a pair of Gucci loafers? If not, why not? I don’t own a pair. Not my style.

Who is your favorite Florida Capitol Press Corps reporter and why? The Florida Press Corp is full of talented and dedicated professionals with difficult jobs. It’s hard to pick.

What swear word do you use most often? I try to keep expletives to a minimum. I’d like to think I don’t use any enough to single one out.

What is your most treasured possession? My time.

The best hotel in Florida is …

Fontainebleau Miami Beach.

You’ve just learned that you will be hosting a morning talk show about Florida politics. Who are the first four guests you’d invite to appear? Gov. Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey Desantis, Adrian Lukis and James Uthmeier.

Favorite movie? Lincoln.

When you pig out, what do you eat?

Krispy Kreme.

If you could have dinner with a historical figure no longer living, who would it be?

Marcus Aurelius.

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FOURTH FLOOR>FILES

Navigating tricky waters

In 25 words or less, explain what you do. I help clients navigate the tricky waters of local, state and federal government, by working hard, staying educated and building genuine and meaningful relationships.

Without using the words Democrat, Independent or Republican, conservative or liberal, describe your political persuasion. Government should serve the people. Not the other way around.

If you have one, what is your motto? “Find a way or make a way.”

During your career, have you had a favorite pro bono client? I worked as a legislative aide for six years and a few of my favorite nonprofits to work with were Feeding South Florida, Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center, and Lotus House.

Three favorite charities. Revive Foundation, Susan G. Komen Foundation, and The Fishing Project (a nonprofit organization started by my family to honor the life of my grandmother who died in 2021. She lived her life believing that it was always more important to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish).

Any last-day-of-Session traditions? I don’t have a last day of Session tradition, I have a week after Session tradition where I turn off my phone and stay home for seven days and seven nights and I only talk to people when necessary.

What are you most looking forward to during the 2023 Legislative Session?

I’m looking forward to working with my amazing new teammates at Converge Public Strategies.

If you could have another lobbyist’s client list, it would be… To be honest, I try not to focus on what others are doing. But if I had to pick a person, it would be Ron Book, mostly because I just admire how hard he works.

Lobbyists are often accused of wearing Gucci loafers; do you own a pair of Gucci loafers? If not, why not? Yikes, I hate to admit it but yes, I do own a pair of Gucci loafers.

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Who is your favorite Florida Capitol Press Corps reporter and why? I don’t have a favorite, but as a former journalist I do respect all of them and the hard work they put in translating to the everyday person the ins and outs of the Legislature.

Other than FloridaPolitics.com, your reading list includes… Because I’m a news junkie, this list is pretty intensive. Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times, New York Times, CNN.com, FoxNews.com, MSNBC.com, SunSentinel.com, TCPalm.com, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.

What swear word do you use most often? To the chagrin of my Granny, I am famous for dropping the f-bomb from time to time.

What is your most treasured possession? My Bible.

The best hotel in Florida is… Aqualina Resort in Sunny Isle, and if you’re looking for an amazing small boutique hotel try the Hutchinson Shore Resort & Spa in Jensen Beach.

You’ve just learned that you will be hosting a morning talk show about Florida politics. Who are the first four guests you’d invite to appear? Casey DeSantis, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, Darrick McGhee and Susie Wiles.

Favorite movie. Love Jones and The Godfather: Part II. When you pig out, what do you eat? I’ve never met a taco that I didn’t like!

If you could have dinner with a historical figure no longer living, who would it be?

Harriet Tubman.

Katia Saint Fleur PHOTO: The Workmans

Significant other? Children? Grand kids?

I haven’t been blessed yet with my own little ones, but I am the recipient of the Auntie of the Decade Award.

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University of Miami University of South Florida

FOURTH FLOOR>FILES

Important, and also nice Significant other? Children? Grand kids?

Married to Jason. We have two kids: Lilia, who is 11 years old, and Davis, who is 9.

We also have a sweet cockapoo, Summer.

In 25 words or less, explain what you do. I am an interpreter of complex issues with the objective of building meaningful and relevant connections between my clients and policymakers.

Without using the words Democrat, Independent or Republican, conservative or liberal, describe your political persuasion. I believe in integrity, accountability and compassion.

If you have one, what is your motto? It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.

Three favorite charities. The American Heart Association is a very worthy organization and I play an active role in raising money for my kids’ public school, but we otherwise give anonymously.

Any last-day-of-Session traditions?

I work on a lot of hot-button projects, which means they are usually voted on during the final hours. So, you can usually find me anxiously pacing the office or the 4th floor, and then celebrating on the Ballard patio with colleagues when the hankie drops.

What are you most looking forward to during the 2023 Legislative Session. I am looking forward to working with the amazing group of women stepping into new leadership roles this year.

If you could have another lobbyist’s client list, it would be… There is no better client list than Ballard Partners’.

Professional accomplishment of which you are most proud? Being named Managing Partner of the Ballard Partners Tallahassee office this year, hands down.

Lobbyists are often accused of wearing Gucci loafers; do you own a pair of Gucci loafers? If not, why not? I do not. I choose my footwear based on how long I can last on my feet on the 4th floor.

Who is your favorite Florida Capitol Press Corps reporter and why? Whoever gives positive ink to my clients.

Other than Florida Politics.com, your reading list includes… POLITICO, WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg, Washington Post, and in my off time I listen to a lot of books on Audible. I have also really enjoyed re-reading the Harry Potter series with my kids.

What swear word do you use most often?

My Pop would tell me, “that language isn’t ladylike.” I call bull****.

What is your most treasured possession? My grandmother’s diamond cocktail ring. She wore it every single day, even when she was casual. It’s a reminder that we shouldn’t save the fancy stuff for special occasions.

The best hotel in Florida is… The Moorings Village in Islamorada. Nowhere closer to paradise.

You’ve just learned that you will be hosting a morning talk show about Florida politics. Who are the first four guests you’d invite to appear? Gov. Ron DeSantis, Former Gov. Jeb Bush, President-designate Kathleen Passidomo, Speaker-designate Paul Renner.

Favorite movie. Top Gun

PHOTO: The Workmans

Abby Vail

When you pig out, what do you eat?

Fried Florida seafood and any dessert from Wright’s Gourmet in South Tampa, where I grew up — especially the Seventh Wonder Bars.

If you could have dinner with a historical figure no longer living, who would it be?

Margaret Thatcher.

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L I B E RT Y PA RT N E R S Tallahassee, LLC

Jennifer J. Green, CAE, DPL President

Timothy “Tim” Parson, DPL Vice President

Katie Taff

Director of Grants Management

Adam W. Potts, DPL

Director of Governmental Affairs

@LibertyPartners

@LibertyPartnersTLH

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Governmental Affairs Manager

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{insider TAKES}

Constitutional demands

By Rob Bradley

“I

t is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue With each confirmation spectacle — from “It is a highof abortion to the people’s elected representatives. … tech lynching” to “I like beer” — the politicization of the This is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand.”

Court grew to the point that it is now complete. Nominees And with those words written by Justice Samuel Alito are poked and prodded like they are running for Governor. in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the poThey are forced to either give non-answers or engage in inlitical world our country and state has known for 50 years tellectual gymnastics that are insulting to the listener and changed forever. demeaning to the nominee.

Roe v. Wade has been overturned.

At least now, the charade has been revealed. Roe was a When Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated by legislative decision dressed up in a robe. Every Justice since President George W. Bush and took over the court in has been treated like a quasi-legislator by the press and the 2005, he was the ultimate institutionalist. public. Now, inevitably, the Justices are barely Roberts openly spoke of creating a collegial indistinguishable from the legislators thembody where consensus would be desired rathselves, with staff leaks and allegations that they “This is what er than split decisions. Roberts was uniquely failed to live up to their “campaign promises” concerned with the public’s view of the Court, the Constitution made during confirmation hearings. and he aimed to withdraw the Court from the Hopefully, with the issue of abortion reand the rule of turned to the legislative branch, the Court can public consciousness in an attempt to “depoliticize” its reputation amongst Americans. begin the long process of healing itself. In the law demand.”

His efforts failed spectacularly. meantime, we will see a major transformation In a stunning breach of protocol, a draft of of our political space in America. the majority abortion opinion was leaked to the press two The first question for most federal and state candidates months before it was released. Predictably, the leak was going forward will be: “Will you vote to ban abortion, and followed by reporting on how Roberts and other justices if so, will there be any exceptions?” Sure, candidates will intended to vote. The Court had been reduced to a garden dance around the issue and figure out clever ways to give variety collection of political appointees acting like your non-answers. But there will eventually be a vote count, local zoning board in advance of a tough vote. like we just saw in the Dobbs decision.

All of this was inevitable the day Roe was decided.

Roe was the original sin. Fifty years later, the day of Roberts was naive to think otherwise. reckoning has arrived.

After 1973, the Supreme Court appointment process became a simple vote counting exercise for conservatives Former Sen. Rob Bradley is the managing partner of Bradley, Garand liberals on the abortion issue. Control of the White rison & Komando, P.A., a law firm in Orange Park, Florida. He curHouse and the Senate determined which side was winning rently serves as Chairman of the Governing Board of the St. Johns the political chess match.

River Water Management District.

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{insider TAKES}

The Democrats’ Hispanic problem isn’t “misinformation” — it’s themselves

By Giancarlo Sopo

T

he most consequential development in American poliIt is true Democrats gained ground among Cuban Amertics is the ongoing realignment among Hispanic voters icans between 2008-16, but former President Donald Trump abandoning the Democratic Party across the country — winning about two-thirds of them in 2020 was hardly an from the Rio Grande Valley to Dominican precincts in the anomaly. It was consistent with past Republican perforBronx. The Sunshine State is no exception. mances among a historically conservative voting bloc. AcFrom 2016-20, Democrats saw their margins in cording to FIU’s polling, the Cuban shift was propelled by Miami-Dade County erode by 23 points; lost two convoters under 40, not the older exiles who constitute Radio gressional seats in South Florida; and suffered losses in Mambí’s primary audience.

Puerto Rican neighborhoods.

The Democrats’ preoccupation with Spanish radio To explain their losses, prominent Democrats have exposes additional logical shortcomings. How did they concocted a fashionable explanation. As an nearly win the Cuban vote in 2012 when MSNBC contributor put it, the GOP’s gains Mambí’s ratings were higher? How is Cuban “Latinx community” in Florida’s “Latinx community” are being radio converting Colombians and Puerto Ri“fueled by a MASSIVE misinformation camare being “fueled cans — or Mexicans in Texas, for that matter paign led by the right” emanating from Span— into Republicans? ish AM radio stations, WhatsApp and ads my It is nonsense, but at this stage Democrats by a MASSIVE colleagues and I produced in 2020. will deflect and blame WhatsApp. However, misinformation Never mind that “Latinx” sounds like a an October 2020 Morning Consult poll found male enhancement drug and the condescendno statistically significant differences in the campaign led ing implications of Congressman Darren Soto voting intentions between Hispanics on saying that “Spanish speaking communities WhatsApp and those not on the platform. by the right” are particularly vulnerable” to misinformaThe “misinformed Hispanics” conspiration. The charge is patently ludicrous. cy theory is absurd, but it shields Democrats Call it what it is: a Democrat conspiracy theory. from accountability for incompetence, such as Joe Biden’s Deceiving thousands of voters across several media campaign waiting six weeks before the 2020 election to markets requires coordination by multiple parties (a launch its Hispanic outreach effort at an Orlando event re“conspiracy”). The notion that such an effort is driving membered for his infamously cringe “Despacito” moment.

Hispanics to vote for Republicans is, at best, an unprovI understand why Democrats do not like Republicans en assumption (a “theory”). pointing out that Biden never renounced Colombian leftIdentifying the new Hispanic Republicans who Demist Gustavo Petro’s endorsement; their boycott of a beloved ocrats say would otherwise support them if not for rightHispanic food brand; and a DNC Chairman declaring a wing misinformation helps us understand this conspiracy socialist “represents the future of our party,” but those theory’s most glaring problems. things actually happened.

Election data shows the rightward shift among FlorWho needs “misinformation” with opponents like that? ida Hispanics between 2016-20 netted Republicans at least 200,000 votes. The chief drivers of the shift were Giancarlo Sopo is the founder of Visto Media and led national Hispanic young Cubans, Colombian Americans and Boricuas advertising for President Trump’s 2020 campaign. You can follow him on around Orlando.

Twitter at @GiancarloSopo.

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{insider TAKES}

Bipartisan majority of Florida voters support state climate action

By Dawn Shirreffs

T

he seas are rising, and the political ground has shifted in Florida, a state famous for its complicated politics. The once vast partisan split on climate change has vanished, with 63% of Florida voters wanting to see policymakers tackle climate change head-on in the next Session, according to a poll by Fabrizio Lee & Associates.

Polling now shows climate change is a decisive issue that will most likely remain important for both the GOP and the ever-important NPA voters in Florida.

Specifically, the data show Republicans favor legislative actions to help make Florida greener by advancing solar, reducing dependence on natural gas and developing a statewide clean energy independence plan.

This is the first time Florida voters named climate change as a top four most important issue. While rising cost of goods/inflation, honesty in government, and immigration/border security remained top of mind, it was notable that 64% of Independents — who will make up 25% of voters in 2022 — want to see the Legislature take action in the next Session. Surprisingly, there is no statistical difference between voters who live near Florida’s 8,436 miles of shoreline and inland voters on the subject, suggesting that voters are worried about more than just sea level rising.

Popular policy proposals include: • 81% of Floridians believe the state needs to develop a plan for energy independence, a number that includes 72% of Republicans — and 76% of Floridians, including 58% of Republi-

cans, support a statewide clean energy plan.

• 76% of Floridians support putting solar panels on state-owned or financed buildings.

• 71% of Floridians, including most Republicans, support the policy goal of expanding solar options for homeowners.

• 70% support allowing nonprofit organizations, local municipalities, businesses and schools to finance their own small scale solar projects through power purchase agreements with the local utilities.

• 63% support requiring the state government to purchase electric vehicles.

The debate is over. Florida voters have made clear they want state policymakers to lead on climate change now. Majorities of Republicans and independents are united in support of policy proposals that help Florida tackle climate change. Only time will tell if Florida policymakers are listening.

These results aren’t surprising, with Florida’s gas prices averaging from $4.50 to $4.94, and residents dealing with 90+ degree temperatures across the state.

This upcoming Session will be the perfect time for Florida lawmakers to advance policies that increase solar, lower carbon emissions and strengthen ties with Florida’s independent voters.

Dawn Shirreffs is the Florida director of the Environmental Defense Fund. Dawn works to bring nature-based solutions to the toughest climate challenges that Florida faces.

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We’re proud of our long-time client relationships and our reputation for achieving results while maintaining the highest ethical and professional standards.

Get to know us at RubinTurnbull.com.

Tallahassee

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mama chalk ’s

ART on the

BOTTLE

By Rosanne Dunkelberger

Photography by The Workmans

B

y day Angie Herron works in her home office doing marketing and branding for the nonprofit, The Foundation for Excellence in Education, aka ExcelinEd. But after the Zoom calls are over and her young boys are tucked in for the night, Herron morphs into Mama Chalks, a creative juggernaut who has become the talk of The Process with her personalized, hand-painted libation bottles.

The name Mama Chalks comes from a different creative outlet Herron started after her now-4-year-old M.J. was born (Her second born, Luke, is almost 2). Once he was in bed, she would chalk paint calligraphy sign boards for weddings (e.g., “Choose a seat, not a side”) and other social events. Before that, she had a side hustle making statement necklaces out of oyster shells.

Her newest endeavor was born when she decorated a bottle of champagne for a girlfriend’s birthday.

“Everybody squealed and said, ‘We love it!,’” she shared.

Once she started showing off the finished projects on her Mama Chalks Facebook and Instagram pages, orders began to come her way.

One of her greatest cheerleaders is her husband, Mark Herron, State Engagement Manager at Strategos Group.

“He’s always so supportive,” she said, except perhaps “in the beginning when I was first doing it for friends and I was getting paint all over the bed.”

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“i

found that

…

my customers are

bougie kind of people, so they

want to show off the label. i can say that because i’m bougie.”

Several of her clients are involved in The Process. Her largest order came from Republican consultancy Capital Resources — 20 bottles with a painting of the Historic Capitol on the front and the company logo on the back — that took her almost a month to complete.

After a slew of orders throughout Session and to celebrate Sine Die, Herron says she’s completed 163 bottles, with orders on deck for 50 more.

Rep. Alex Andrade ordered a bottle for his wife featuring the beach ball water tower in his Pensacola hometown and the Blue Angels, as well as a bottle for himself sporting portraits of his dogs. Others include Rep. Amber Mariano, Rep. Josie Tomkow, former Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, and lobbyists Sam Sexton, Allison Sitte and Joanna Bonfanti.

The true-blue Florida State University alum said she’ll (figuratively) hold her nose while painting five bottles with a Florida Gator theme. Some lucky staffers are getting bottles painted with the Capitol at sunset, “which is going to be pretty,” she said. “I like mixing colors.”

While she has painted wine bottles, other champagne bottles and painted a tie-dye design on a huge bottle of Grey Goose vodka, Herron’s libation of choice is Veuve Clicquot, which she fell in love with during a bachelorette party, “because, OK, it’s delicious.”

A Veuve creation goes for $100, otherwise it’s a $50 charge when you BYOB. She has painted bottles for weddings, birthdays and holidays with motifs ranging from beach houses to monograms to florals to Great Danes. Most of the time, her creations are given as gifts.

“I’m always a little jealous that I’m not there to see the reveal,” she said.

The artist enjoys creating different designs for each customer — even those dreaded Gator bottles.

“I think I’m going to have to make the bottle blue because the label is orange or maybe I do a different color so that it contrasts the blue and orange,” she ruminated. “Or do I do an alligator skin? So many possibilities. I’m gonna have to ask (the client) if she wants every bottle to be the same or if I can get funky with each one.”

Between taping off the labels, priming the bottles, painting and then layering on a topcoat, it takes her three to five hours to complete a bottle, so she averages about one per night.

While soaking off the labels would provide a larger “canvas” for the artwork, her clientele prefers them to remain front and center.

“I found that … my customers are bougie kind of people, so they want to show off the label,” she said. “I can say that because I’m bougie.”

Herron, who describes herself as “a little bit of a Type A” personality, graduated FSU with a degree in graphic design, but also considers herself a “total do-it-yourselfer,” pointing to the desk she made in her office/studio.

“If I see anything that I think I can make myself, I’ll make it. I’ll do it,” she said.

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budget boom The Sunshine State’s Great Recession hangover is giving way to a post-COVID-19 boom — but how long will it last?

By Gray Rohrer

W

hat a difference a decade makes.

Faced with a multibillion dollar budget shortfall in 2011 brought on by the Great Recession, Florida’s GOP-controlled Legislature slashed spending on education, health care and nearly every facet of the budget. State worker salaries were essentially frozen for a decade.

Eleven years later, the partisan makeup of the Legislature is mostly unchanged, but Florida’s fortunes have completely reversed, along with the GOP’s approach to federal spending. In that time, Florida’s budget ballooned from $70 billion to $110 billion, easily outpacing the state’s population growth.

In the span after the Great Recession, Florida also went from a Governor adamantly opposed to using federal spending to plug budget holes, to one that used it for high-ticket agenda items, including supplanting $200 million in revenues to pay for a month-long gas tax moratorium.

“It requires magical thinking to expect Government to create prosperity,” said Rick Scott during his inauguration speech as Governor in 2011. “Government has no resources of its own. Government can only give TO us what it has previously taken FROM us — minus a huge cut for the government middleman.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis has bashed President Joe Biden for approving trillions in spending — although former President Donald Trump and Republicans also approved large federal stimulus packages to deal with COVID-19 before Biden took office in January 2021 — but hasn’t shunned the money

as Scott did. DeSantis ignored the advice of Scott, now a U.S. Senator, to reject the money and give it back to the federal government. But DeSantis has continued to blame Biden for the rampant inflation.

“What we’re doing in the budget is making sure that we’re meeting the obligations and making sure we’re funding key priorities, but also protecting the state against what very well may be a Biden-induced recession,” DeSantis said in June when he signed the budget.

Thanks mainly to federal COVID-19 assistance the last two years and DeSantis’ decision to remove pandemic-related restrictions, Florida’s economy has experienced a robust recovery, and its state finances along with it.

Republican lawmakers who served in the last decade say they made responsible decisions to cut spending, which helped lead to Florida’s turnaround in fiscal fortunes.

“The decisions that we made, the very difficult ones in 2009, 2010, 2011, is what fueled Florida’s prosperity for the next number of years through the late 2010s,” said Rep. Scott Plakon, a Longwood Republican who served in the House from 2009-2012 and from 2014 to now.

Plakon said DeSantis’ moves to reopen the state earlier than other Governors did allowed the state to rebound more vigorously than other states — another difficult decision paying dividends, he said.

Now, despite the sharp downturn induced by COVID-19, the Legislature has a Scrooge McDuck pile of cash — more than

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$20 billion in reserves, which is more than 19 other states’ total budgets — they can dip into for even the most unexpected expenses.

A property insurance crisis spurs a need for a reinsurance fund? Bang, here’s $2 billion. Out of control inflation? Here’s a $1 billion fund for unexpected costs.

Lawmakers mostly followed Gov. DeSantis’ spending suggestions on major items, but DeSantis also thwarted many large spending projects, including the $1 billion inflation fund and many pork barrel projects important to House and Senate leaders, leading to a whopping $3 billion in vetoes.

As Florida’s economy rebounded from the Great Recession, lawmakers got more comfortable spending, even as Republican fiscal hawks in the House often had fierce fights with GOP Senators over how much spending to approve, especially on major issues such as Medicaid expansion and “corporate welfare” agencies such as Enterprise Florida and VISIT FLORIDA. Between the 2010 census and the 2020 census, Florida’s population grew by 2.7 million people, a 14.5% increase. Its budget grew at a faster pace, by 30%, from $70.2 billion in the 2011 fiscal year to $91.8 billion in 2021. It has ballooned even larger since then, to $112 billion for the budget year that started July 1 — a nearly 60% increase in 12 years.

Republican lawmakers, though, haven’t become tax-and-spend liberals. Despite the increase in the overall budget in the last decade, Florida Republicans haven’t spent lavishly compared to other states. In fact, Florida ranked lowest in per capita spending in the 2020 fiscal year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Democrats and critics of the GOP Legislature’s approach note that the cuts and frugal spending has come at a cost.

“On the one hand you can say that they’re being fiscally responsible, but when you look at where we are in terms of spending on K-12 education, higher education, infrastructure, things like that — we rank at the bottom for all of those things,” said Sadaf Knight, CEO of the Florida Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. “When you look at the outcomes that we’ve seen, we lag behind in so many ways and it’s our kids and families and workers and just everyday people who are bearing the brunt of that.”

Federal funding was particularly helpful in bridging the budget

gaps during the height of the COVID-19 crisis. Congress has approved nearly $14.7 billion in COVID-19 stimulus funding directly to the state.

Of that, $5.86 billion was part of the CARES Act passed in 2020 when control of Congress was split and signed by then-President Trump. Much of that went to pay for costs incurred by the state related to the pandemic — personal protective equipment, testing, and COVID-19-related health care payments.

Another $8.8 billion was approved as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, passed

by Democrats in control of Congress in 2021

and signed by President Biden. Not all of the money has been sent to the state, however.

“When they talk about ‘we have the biggest budget in our history’ or ‘we have tons of money in our rainy day fund’ or things like that, it’s in large part because of the

federal recovery fund,” Knight said. “Without that we would’ve seen much more significant impacts to our state budget.”

Plakon backed up DeSantis’ approach to federal spending.

“If the federal government is going to allocate the money that our taxpayers paid I think we should take it as long as there’s not too many strings on it,” Plakon said. “But I find the whole thing kind of untoward; that the federal government is now $30 trillion in debt and they’re borrowing from the Chinese and stealing from our unborn grandchildren — I refer to it as immoral generational theft.”

Flush with cash, lawmakers began addressing problems this year that had been left to fester even as revenues rebounded after the Great Recession.

From 2011 until 2020, state workers received one across the board raise. As wages stagnated, critical agencies such as the Department of Corrections (DOC), Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) and Department of Children and Families struggled to recruit and retain workers as jobs in the private sector began to pay more.

DOC officials said they were competing with Walmart and Amazon for workers. Prisons had to stretch overtime and saw increases in contraband and violent incidents.

FHP saw an exodus of employees for local Sheriffs’ Offices paying double what some 20-year FHP veterans were making. Several school districts continue to suffer from teacher shortages.

For the current fiscal year, lawmakers approved an increase in the state minimum wage from $13 to $15 per hour, beating the requirement in state law to increase the minimum wage for all workers to $15 by four years. All workers are set to receive a 5% pay increase.

Knight applauded those moves but warned that history could repeat itself if, as some economists predict, the country enters another recession next year. Florida is heavily reliant on sales taxes, and while revenues have soared over predictions in the first six months of the year, state economists have cautioned that inflation has boosted those revenues and if consumers cut back spending on nonessentials, Florida’s tourism-heavy economy could suffer.

“If COVID-19 has taught us anything, or even the last recession, it’s how vulnerable our state revenues are to any fluctuation,” Knight said. “We’re really sensitive to not just disruption here in Florida but across the country … so if inflation keeps up people are going to scale back their spending and that’s going to have an impact.”

Republicans, looking at state coffers bursting at the seams, are more sanguine.

DeSantis has said the $20 billion in reserves should allow Florida to weather any recession that could come in 2023. And GOP lawmakers have a handy retort to critics: Compare us to other big states and look at the scoreboard. New York, they note, has fewer people (19.5 million) but its budget is twice as large as Florida’s ($220 billion).

“Certainly we have challenges with the Biden inflationary economy like every other state,” Plakon said. “But bottom line, to sum all of this up is people want to move to Florida. So we must be doing something right with our state budget.”

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WITH SESSION (finally) COMPLETED, A LOOK BACK AT

INTRO COPY

Winning

SESSION

some winners who deserve extra recognition.

By Renzo Downey With a $110 billion budget and nearly 150 bills signed, there was a lot of winning to be had in Tallahassee this Session.

In the capital city lobbying corps, victories come in all shapes and sizes. Some of the usual suspects staked out major wins for themselves, and others earned a tax break or two that will benefit them for years to come.

Despite Florida carrying the bullhorn of freedom

and a bloated purse, the victories didn’t come any easier. Advocates had to navigate the $3.1 billion in line-item vetoes that blew the previous record out of the water. Plus, the Governor also slashed major initiatives that would have scored wins for utilities, divorcees and more.

Here are a dozen winners who deserve extra recognition for delivering on their mission to shape Florida for the better — or at least to their benefit.

Senate President Wilton Simpson and House Speaker Chris Sprowls accomplished a lot in their first year leading the Legislature. With year two coming to a close, the pair doubled down on fatherhood, environmental spending and more.

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SOUTHERN’S DYNAMIC DUO

Together, Sydney Ridley and Nicole Kelly bring decades of experience on both sides of the process to The Southern Group. Photo by Brittany Clark

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efresh. Refresh. Refresh.

The life of an appropriations lobbyist at budget time includes a lot of mouse clicking and checking spreadsheets for updates.

But their real work begins long before Session or even committee work begins.

The Southern Group’s energetic duo of appropriations lobbyists — refreshing in their own right — start their work when others are taking a deep breath.

That’s one of the reasons why Nicole Kelly and Sydney Ridley have led The Southern Group to be named Top Appropriations Lobbyist in Florida for 2022.

Of course, Kelly and Ridley are deferential about their success, often telling colleagues: “We just have really good projects.” Mainly, though, they talk about their amazing roster of creative, cooperative and collaborative clients.

But their success is also about relentless planning, a respect for the process and earning buy-in and credibility from key legislative stakeholders and leadership.

That all happens early. Very early.

Projects are developed well in advance and vetted with leaders from the House and Senate, as well as the Governor’s Office, to get input. Only then do ideas become potential pieces of legislation.

The list of clients and projects served by Kelly and Ridley is long, but a few stand out.

Moffitt Cancer Center has received more than $1 billion over the past two years to construct a state-of-the-art cancer research facility.

But clients of all sizes receive the same intense attention from Kelly and Ridley.

One example is the Kearney Center, a homeless shelter in Tallahassee which provides a path to self-sufficiency for Tallahassee’s homeless population.

The Southern Group made the case for a funding increase as the Kearney Center faced steep budget pressures because of the pandemic. Thanks to the work of Kelly and Ridley and the understanding of legislative leaders, lawmakers granted a request to double prior year funding.

Another example: Easter Seals of Southwest Florida. Other Florida Easter Seals organizations were so impressed with The Southern Group’s successful advocacy for the southwest Florida branch that they formed a coalition, which utilizes the talents of Kelly and Ridley.

The list goes on and on and so does the lobbying grind for Kelly, Ridley and The Southern Group team. If they keep this up, they’ll be getting a “refresh” of this Golden Rotunda award for years to come.

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AFP-FLORIDA

F E AT U R E

D

uring and after Florida’s 2022 Legislative Session, Americans for Prosperity-Florida (AFP-FL) has taken home some major wins. By working the process, conducting extensive grassroots outreach, and sending out mailers with typical AFP fervor, the advocacy group scored a number of policy reforms that it credits with expanding opportunities for more Floridians. Two key wins centered on a couple of issues where greater opportunity is most important to Floridians: both health care and education. AFP-FL advanced a bill that broadens the state’s telehealth capabilities, and another that expands charter schools’ ability to receive authorization outside of a traditional school district.

During the 2022 Special Session on property insurance, AFP-FL pushed for — and secured — several policy changes that would adjust insurance attorney fees, pass much-needed roofing reforms, and make significant adjustments to Citizens Insurance Corporation.

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Additionally, AFP-FL has also been a long time foe of spending public dollars on private sports facilities, and this year their efforts paid off when Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed a $35 million appropriation for a training facility in Pasco County for the Tampa Bay Rays.

AFP-FL commended the Governor for calling “strike three” on the issue — preventing what it says was clear corporate welfare and a gross misuse of Floridians’ hard-earned tax dollars.

Deputy State Director Carrie Patrick, State Director Skylar Zander, Director of Policy Operations Lee Dury and the rest of Americans for Prosperity-Florida take on government spending, and there was a lot of it to take on this Session. Photo by The Workmans

FLORIDA RETAIL

T

he Florida Retail Federation (FRF) scored a win with legislation Gov Ron DeSantis signed to curb “smash and grab” rings.

That measure (SB 1534) stiffens penalties against thieves who steal multiple items from multiple stores in a short period. The legislation became a priority for FRF, which reported that 69% of retailers had seen increased organized crime within the past year. Retailers blamed the increased crime on COVID-19, policing, changes to sentencing guidelines and the growth of online marketplaces.

Evidently, lawmakers listened. The bill passed the Senate unanimously and passed the House 80-36.

Under the measure, theft of 10 or more items from at least two different locations is deemed a third-degree felony if committed within 30 days. Meanwhile, the theft of 20 or more items would be a second-degree felony.

Additionally, stealing more than $750 of merchandise from one or more stores within 30 days would be a third-degree felony, and stealing $3,000 or more would constitute a second-degree felony.

Sen. Jim Boyd and Rep. Chuck Clemons sponsored the legislation.

“This measure will protect Floridians and Florida retailers by curtailing criminal activity in stores and holding thieves accountable for their actions,” FRF President and CEO Scott Shalley said in a news release. “We are grateful for the support of Governor DeSantis for signing SB 1534 into law and for the leadership of Attorney General Ashley Moody, Senator Jim Boyd and Representative Chuck Clemons to crack down on organized retail crime in Florida.”

While organized retail theft is on the rise nationally, Florida businesses can rest a little easier thanks to the Florida Retail Federation and President & CEO Scott Shalley. Photo by The Workmans

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HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

F E AT U R E

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The Florida Holocaust Museum sees 6,300 students visit each year. More than 60,000 children, 650 teachers, and 47,000 individuals access its resources resources annually. Photo by The Workmans

A

$5 million appropriation sponsored by Republican Sen. Jim Boyd of Bradenton and GOP Rep. Linda Chaney of St. Petersburg provided unprecedented funding this year to support the Florida Holocaust Museum. Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Chris Sprowls, a Clearwater Republican, also championed the measure.

This appropriation for the Museum — which has a mission to prevent antisemitism through education and honor the memory of millions of innocent men, women and children who suffered or died in the Holocaust — comes on the heels of an appalling act of antisemitism in 2021 that left the words “The Jews are guilty,” surrounded by swastikas, on its walls. Tragically, this is not an isolated occurrence.

In the past few months alone, Nazi flags have been flown outside Disney

World, swastikas have appeared on grade school walls, university students have been forced to wear swastikas drawn on their bodies during fraternity initiation activities, and flyers alleging that COVID-19 is a Jewish “agenda” have appeared on campuses and in communities from Tampa to Miami.

These incidents underscore the critical importance of education as a bulwark against the tide of antisemitism, Holocaust denial and hatred in all its forms, particularly among the young. That is why this appropriation is so important.

State funding will provide hundreds of thousands of educators, students and visitors each year with access to the Museum’s resources in a safe and secure learning environment. It will also provide the resources needed to house and protect the Museum’s extensive and growing collection of Holocaust artifacts and testimonies for visitors and scholars alike.

And, as we mourn the loss of the generation who bore direct witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust, this funding will leverage and expand the Museum’s investment in Dimensions in Testimony (DIT) interviews which, using AI technology, will ensure that students, families, educators and visitors can forever engage in conversations with survivors in real-time and hear their stories from their own voices.

An additional $750,000 project sponsored by GOP Sen. Ed Hooper of Palm Harbor and Republican Rep. Nick DiCeglie of Largo will support the Museum’s ongoing work of cataloging and preserving original artifacts and testimonies of Holocaust survivors.

These appropriations, along with the Museum’s partnership with the Department of Education on Holocaust education, demonstrates Florida’s deep and abiding commitment to ensuring that the lessons of the Holocaust remain relevant and meaningful for generations to come.

Now that’s an investment all Floridians should be proud of.

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JACKIE TOLEDO

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t can be argued that no state legislator has been more tenacious in efforts to crack down on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) than Rep. Jackie Toledo.

A Republican from Tampa, she sponsored or co-sponsored bills to increase oversight over PBMs and to bolster insured customers’ access to prescription drugs in five of her six years in the House. Often referred to as the pharmaceutical go-betweens, PBMs represent health insurers, HMOs and government purchasers in the selection, purchase and distribution of pharmaceuticals. They also organize and service pharmacy networks.

In 2018, Toledo was a member of the House health care committee that drafted a law banning PBMs from using gag clauses that prevent pharmacists from revealing to their customers the least expensive drugs.

The law also created the Florida Pharmacy Act and provided pharmacists with certain rights that PBMs could not violate.

And the law required PBMs to register with the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR).

But as the costs of prescriptions contin-

ued to rise, Toledo spent the next three Sessions sponsoring or co-sponsoring additional bills to increase state oversight of PBMs. The bills routinely drew opposition from insurers and business interests; 147 lobbyists registered to lobby HB 559 in 2019, a bill she co-sponsored with Rep. Ralph Massullo.

Toledo in 2022 secured passage of HB 357.

That law gives insurance regulators authority to fine PBMs that don’t register with the state $10,000. It also transfers audit provisions in the Florida Pharmacy Act to OIR so they can be enforced.

The House unanimously passed the bill in February. Little did she know at the time that Gov. Ron DeSantis would join her efforts five months later.

DeSantis issued an executive order on July 8 directing state agencies to include provisions in future contracts language that prohibits PBMs from pocketing any funds that are recouped from pharmacy audits, and to require PBMs to report data regarding rebates and payments from drug manufacturers, insurers and pharmacies.

Rep. Jackie Toledo has her eye on pharmacy benefit managers, and so does Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Photo by The Workmans

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KIDS IN NEED

F

lorida legislators are committed to ensuring access to specialized pediatric care. This year’s $85 million appropriation for Florida’s Specialty Hospitals for Children, which include Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, and Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, will help ensure that all children can continue to access critical, specialized pediatric treatment.

One in four Florida children will receive treatment at one of these four nonprofit specialty-licensed, uniquely designated children’s hospitals, which treat children with the most complex and critical illnesses and injuries regardless of socioeconomic status. These are the four hospitals in the state with the highest Medicaid utilization rates (52-74% of patients treated at these hospitals) and their collective Medicaid shortfall exceeds $140 million annually.

Pediatric hospitals like Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital are lined up to receive millions as they provide revolutionary, specialized care. Photo by Allison Lynn Photography

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* Ft. Lauderdale * Tallahassee * Washington, D.C.

SADOWSKI COALITION

L

awmakers granted $362.7 million for affordable housing last Session, the most in 16 years.

That marked a major win for affordable housing advocates at the Sadowski Coalition and an outgoing victory and major achievement by its long-time facilitator, Jaimie Ross, who will retire this year after 31 years at the helm. Over the years of leading the coalition, Ross was successful in bringing together a multitude of diverse voices, interests and organizations to emphasize that housing is a bipartisan issue. Affordable housing advocates owe Ross a debt of gratitude for her years of tireless dedication, and wish her all the best in her retirement at the end of 2022.

For more than a decade, lawmakers had siphoned billions from what the state had intended to go toward affordable housing projects. To make up for sweeping billions of dollars, the Legislature in 2021 created a minimum spending share they must allocate toward affordable housing. State legislative leaders also memorialized in statute where they would no longer “sweep” critical housing dollars for purposes other than housing.

Despite initial concerns that housing advocates wouldn’t get everything they asked for this Legislative Session, House and Senate leadership came together to provide them with the biggest pot of cash in 16 years.

The core affordable housing programs year in and year out are the State Housing Initiatives Partnership program (SHIP) and the State Apartment Incentive Loan program (SAIL). SHIP received $209.5 million while SAIL received $53.3 million.

Florida’s affordable housing dollars come from a pot of cash commonly called the Sadowski trust funds, named for Department of Community Affairs Secretary Bill Sadowski, who died tragically in a plane crash in 1992. That year, lawmakers established the spending source, which is derived from a portion of stamp tax revenue from real estate transactions.

Under Ross’ leadership, Florida has become the national model for affordable housing programs and funding. Since 1992, the Legislature has appropriated more than $5 billion for Florida’s affordable housing programs.

Jaimie Ross has been a leader on affordable housing, both as President & CEO of the Florida Housing Coalition and in her advocacy with the Sadowski Coalition. Photo by The Workmans

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SOLAR ADVOCATES

F E AT U R E

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ooftop solar advocates shined bright during Session One of the biggest David vs. Goliath fights of the Regular 2022 Legislative Session was the battle over the future of rooftop solar. The clash dominated the discussions, lobbying and airwaves with a barrage of finger-pointing from both sides. The “Goliath” — Florida’s giant monopoly utilities — had the Legislature on its side.

In the end, however, “David” prevailed, thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ veto pen.

At issue was a policy called net metering, which lets rooftop solar users send excess power they generate back to the grid in exchange for a credit on their utility bills. The utilities see the extra power generation as competition. Legislation to severely restrict net metering would have smothered Florida’s growing use of solar and decimated the industry behind it, which employs tens of thousands of Floridians.

Political powerhouse Florida Power & Light led the push for the legislation, opposed by pro-solar business groups like the Florida Solar

Energy Industries Association and a range of advocacy groups including Solar United Neighbors, Vote Solar and Florida Conservation Voters.

The issue had an added boost from right-leaning groups like Conservatives for Clean Energy and Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship.

The heart of the issue was whether homeowners and businesses should receive the full value of the energy their solar panels produce, especially in the face of skyrocketing energy costs and recent utility rate hikes. In the end, the Governor recognized the financial burdens already facing families and chose to veto the bill, sending a clear signal that Floridians will continue to have the freedom to use rooftop solar to lower their energy bills.

This unlikely outcome would never have happened if not for a masterful messaging campaign launched even before Session began. Behind the team of pro-solar organizations were lobbyists including Andy Palmer, Crystal Stickle, Bob Hawken, Rhett O’Doski and Sean Stafford, and the communications experts at Sachs Media.

Gov. Ron DeSantis made a popular veto when he nixed legislation that would’ve dimmed the future of rooftop solar. Photo by The Workmans

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SOCCER MIAMI

I

n 2026, the World Cup is heading to North America, with the United States sharing hosting duties alongside Canada and Mexico.

While the nations were chosen long ago, the specific venues for World Cup matches and qualifying events were up for grabs until mid-June, when FIFA finally announced its selections.

Orlando and Miami fought hard to make the list and, thanks in part to action taken during the 2022 Legislative Session, the Magic City made the cut.

The boost came by way of a $650 million tax cut package approved by lawmakers in the latter days of Session. HB 7071 also included some of the more customary tax cuts, such as the back-to-school tax holiday.

But the legislation also provided a sales tax abatement for World Cup tickets that resembles those already in place for NFL, NBA and NHL events.

Miami already had an attractive application thanks to its location and facilities, but some extra financial

incentive certainly didn’t hurt.

As Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Bobby Payne was the ultimate arbiter of what made it into the tax cut package and the reasoning for including the sales tax abatement was sound.

The World Cup is, by far, the most-watched event in the world and the cities that host it get invaluable exposure. The Super Bowl posted its best-ever viewership numbers this year, drawing an audience of about 208 million people worldwide. By comparison, 1.1 billion people watched the 2018 World Cup final between France and Croatia.

And though Miami will get the prestige, all of Florida will benefit — millions of fans from across the globe flock to World Cup host sites, pumping billions into the economy through hotel stays, car rentals, restaurant meals and more.

All that tourism spending means lawmakers will have more money to work with when it comes time to hammer out the 2026-27 budget.

Rep. Bobby Payne has been a powerful member of the House’s budget team. Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried might not be happy with the way the tax breaks broke down.

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Let’s conquer challenges together.

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TAMPA BAY 211

T

hanks to the focused efforts of Sen. Ed Hooper and Rep. Chris Latvala, the Legislature this year funded a new pilot program being launched by 211 Tampa Bay providing outreach to seniors in Pinellas and Hernando counties to make sure they have access to the services they need from local government.

Older adults in these counties have reported difficulty in dealing with public programs and not knowing which services are available or how to access the services they need. More than one in four residents of Hernando and Pinellas counties are over the age of 65. These citizens are among the most vulnerable to isolation and depression, risks exacerbated during health emergencies, hurricanes and other crises.

In 2019, local health surveys in Pinellas County showed 40% of seniors in Pinellas County reported needing help with mental health and over 35% said they were dealing with the loss of a close family member or friend. Mental health was also a top priority in Hernando County, where older residents said it was the most common health challenge and the service most difficult to obtain.

Sponsored by Republican Sen. Hooper of Palm Harbor and Republican Rep. Latvala of Clearwater, the $500,000 appropriation for a Seniors Wellness Support & Crisis Response program will ensure these vulnerable citizens are informed and referred to the appropriate service providers for their social services and mental health needs on a regular basis and in times of crisis.

The organization 211 Tampa Bay Cares is one of 12 certified 211 network providers in Florida that operate as the single point of coordination for information on health and human services, providing free confidential information and referral services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The group is also asked to stand up crisis response locally and at the state level once a disaster occurs, but does not have sufficient funding to manage the surge during emergencies.

Call volumes to 211 Tampa Bay Cares doubled during Hurricane Irma and tripled during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To provide proactive outreach, information, referrals and care coordination, this program will provide a dedicated support project team for Pinellas and Hernando counties to recruit and train volunteers to assist seniors with connections and quarterly wellness checks, distribute informational materials, and organize community outreach, awareness and crisis response efforts for up to 300,000 older adults living in these communities.

In addition to linking this population to community-based services, 211 Tampa Bay Cares will provide system navigation, advocacy and ongoing support, including wellness check-ins up to four times a year through its partnership with Duke Energy, Allstate and other trained volunteers.

Technology upgrades will enable phone prompts in Spanish and access to 211 services for elderly persons with disabilities.

Rep. Chris Latvala is part of the team that helped start proactive outreach to well-seasoned Floridians.

Photo by The Workmans

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TAX-FREE HOLIDAYS

F E AT U R E

F

loridians who need a driver, a drill or some high-discharge batteries to power them will be able to save a few bucks if they can wait until early September, when Florida’s first-ever “Tool Time” sales tax holiday kicks off.

From Sept. 3-9, the state will not collect sales tax on hand tools under $50, power tools under $300, power tool batteries under $150, toolboxes under $75, vehicle tool boxes under $300 and a wide range of other gear such as work gloves, work boots and coveralls.

The Tool Time sales tax holiday will save consumers an estimated $12.4 million, making it one of the smaller holidays included in this year’s tax cut package. The back-to-school holiday, by comparison, is expected to save consumers $100 million, while the hurricane prep holiday savings were estimated at $25 million.

While no DIY’er or new homeowner — there are a lot of those in Florida these days — will complain about saving a few bucks at the register, the holiday is less for them than it is for the skilled professionals fueling the state’s construction industry.

The boom in new residents and businesses means a boom in construction too. That’s why

the Florida Roofing and Sheet Metal Contractors Association (FRSA) and the Associated Builders and Contractors of Florida (ABC) made the sales tax holiday one of their top priorities in the 2022 Legislative Session.

The two trade associations, represented by GrayRobinson shareholder Chris Dawson, extolled the benefits of the Tool Time holiday to Rep. Bobby Payne. As Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Payne decided what does — or doesn’t — make it into the final tax cut package.

ABC and FRSA noted that the cost of tools can be a burden on new workers entering the construction industry.

“For many, they are starting in this type of environment for the first time, and this economic relief will help to ensure they are entering the workforce safely and with the proper equipment for a successful career,” said Carol Bowen, ABC of Florida’s chief lobbyist.

“The support of the Legislature signifies a strong understanding that pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship education offerings are critical to the continued development and growth of Florida’s skilled workers.”

GrayRobinson’s Chris Dawson helped craft Florida’s latest tax-free holiday into a reality.

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A current look into public safety from Florida’s most influential people and national leaders

FSACast A Florida Sheriffs Association Podcast

Subscribe to FSAcast: Also available to listen at: flsheriffs.org/podcasts Summer 2022

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F E AT U R E

HOW TO CATCH LAWMAKERS’ EYES & EARS CATECOMM’s annual Legislative Aide Survey rates social media and other forms of influence 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

complete control

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INFLUENCE Summer 2022

sometimes rarely

I

f you want to get lawmakers’ attention, forget about logging into TikTok and stick to Twitter and Facebook instead.

The 2022 Florida Legislative Aide Survey, conducted by CATECOMM, measured what social media platforms lawmakers use most and what tactics — in-person and online — are most likely to influence their policy positions.

According to staffers, 3 in 10 lawmakers maintain complete control over their social media accounts, with an additional 44% personally getting behind the keyboard or camera “sometimes” and 24% doing so “rarely.” Just 2% of Representatives and Senators never operate their social media accounts.

18% 28%

12% 40%

54%

48%

18% 48% When it comes to platforms, Twitter has the edge with 54% of legislative aides telling CATECOMM it was “very important” to their boss. An additional 28% rated it as “important,” while a combined 18% said the lawmaker they work for viewed it as neutral or “not important.”

Facebook was neck-and-neck. Though fewer legislative aides (48%) said it was “very important,” an additional 40% said it was “important” — 12 points higher than Twitter.

The only other network to cross the 50% threshold was Instagram, which 18% of aides said was “very important” and 34% said was “important.” About a third of lawmakers pay attention to YouTube, while fewer than 10% pay any heed to TikTok or Snapchat.

34%

very important somewhat important not important

The pecking order is a bit different for which services lawmakers rely on to get views from their constituents. In that measure, Facebook was the clear No. 1. According to the survey, 57% of lawmakers view Facebook as “very important” to receiving views from their constituents. Another 33% said Facebook was “important.”

Twitter, by comparison, was viewed as either “important” or “very important” by about 78% of lawmakers. Instagram was No. 3 with a combined score of 45% followed

by YouTube at 30%, TikTok at 6% and Snapchat at 4%.

90% 78%

45% 30% 6%

4%

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F E AT U R E

Does Influence The survey found constituents hold the most sway in influencing lawmakers on issues where they don’t have a firm opinion, with in-person visits being the best method — 47% of aides said dropping by the office would be “very likely” to sway their boss and an additional 35% said it was at least “somewhat likely.” Constituent groups were nearly as effective.

Lobbyists hold some sway too — about 15% of aides said their visits were very likely to make an impact while 62% said they were somewhat likely.

Aides said the least effective way to influence a lawmaker was a form email campaign. Other methods unlikely to resonate include social media comments, newspaper editorials or protests. Advocacy groups are also seen as ineffective. More than half of aides said campaigns by Associated Industries of Florida, Progress Florida or unions wouldn’t impact a lawmaker’s opinion.

The lone exception was the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which 52% said was at least “somewhat likely” to influence lawmakers.

Paid influence methods were a mixed bag, but polling was seen as the most effective. About 1 in 5 aides said public polling was “very likely” to get their boss’s attention and an additional 34% said it was “somewhat likely.” Private polling posted similar numbers.

The least effective method was robo calls to constituents. More than half said that strategy was “not likely” to pan out, while 30% said the reaction would be “neutral.”

35%

15% 62% 52%

47%

In-person

Lobbyists

Florida Chamber of Commerce

likely somewhat likely

Doesn’t Influence

Polling Influence

very likely

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INFLUENCE Summer 2022

Email campaign Social media comments Newspaper editorials Protests Advocacy groups Robo calls

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F E AT U R E

Moore Leadership Team. Upper Row: D’Arcy Toffolo, Fern Senra-James, Audrey Goff, Terrie Ard, Richard Moore, Nanette Schimpf, Jamie Fortune, Nic Breeding.

Bottom Row: Liz Shawen Underwood, Karen Moore, Andrea Blount, Jordan Jacobs.

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A L S T R ATE GI ES DIGIT

OPTIMIZED

TO WIN

By Peter Schorsch

M

oving people to action requires finding the ideal audience and cutting through significant noise to reach them. And when the Legislature is in Session?

It’s even harder.

Imagine being at a rambunctious party. The smartest strategy isn’t always to shout over the loudest people in the room. A better one might be to sidle up to the person with influence for a minute of intelligent conversation — something that will linger in their memory. In marketing, digital platforms are the way to do just that. It’s your message delivered to precisely the right person at precisely the right time.

“We are so far past the days of taking a message and blasting it everywhere, hoping the right audiences see it,” said Liz Underwood, managing director of public affairs at The Moore Agency. “In our world, it’s critical to be nimble, targeted and quick. With digital, we can gather real-time insights and be flexible to shift strategy, targeting and messaging on a dime.”

When reaching legislative audiences, it’s easy to say “geotarget the Capitol.” While geotargeting might net you 1 million impressions, Moore ensures that you get the right 3,000. Digital platforms give us not only precise targeting with our reach but also rapid feedback, so that we can optimize what’s working.

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Moore Public Affairs Team. Fern Senra-James, Nanette Schimpf, Liz Shawen Underwood, Courtney Cox

MOORE By staying on top of new digital opportunities, Moore is continuously innovating how it reaches lawmakers and influencers in their orbit, both inside and outside Tallahassee.

Ranked by O’Dwyer’s as the No. 1 public affairs firm in Florida, Moore isn’t giving away its secret sauce. But the agency will share a few digital keys to reinforcing your base and converting persuadable audiences.

Leverage the data. Whether you want to reach audiences based on their age, interests, geography, or any number of specific details, digital advertising uses targeted data to choose who sees your message.

But tech companies are adjusting settings to keep consumer data private, and digital marketers are having to innovate. With less access to third-party data, interest- and behavior-based targeting — such as targeting people interested in state politics or working in a specific industry — is less reliable.

Now, first-party data has become even more vital, as this set of owned data can help organizations reach the right target audiences. Moore can use first-party data sets of decision makers’ connections to deliver your messages to all the people who

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matter and none of the people who won’t.

Adapt to social media advertising shifts.

In the aftermath of the 2016 Presidential Election, social media companies are self-regulating whether and to what extent they allow political advertising, which extends to more than just political candidates. Issue- and advocacy-based campaigns that are the subject of debate on a local, national or global level may be banned or require specific authorization.

Fortunately, marketers have a wide array of avenues to move messages, from social media and display advertising to direct email and traditional outreach. Programmatic advertising uses sophisticated software to buy digital advertising precisely when the target audience is scrolling through a news article or streaming a TV show. And traditional advertising — from key media outlets and publications to direct mail — helps build awareness about an issue while driving up the frequency needed to get audiences to act.

“Successfully influencing policymakers means pulling multiple levers across paid, owned and earned environments,” added

D’Arcy Toffolo, executive managing director at Moore. “For example, engaging in an influencer strategy on top of advertising efforts will help build the credibility of the message while driving up the frequency we need to move the needle on the issue.”

Gauge the insights and metrics that matter. The digital transformation is allowing marketing professionals to observe audience behavior and glean insights like never before. Through digital data mining, Moore develops a full understanding of what content resonates.

“We look at key insights to determine what messaging is connecting with audiences and driving them to take action and stay engaged on an issue, especially as we know issues and calls to action evolve,” said Justin Spencer, director of data & intelligence at Moore.

“Where are website visitors spending the most time on the page? What’s getting them to click through to sign a petition or contact their legislator? Are they visiting the site more than once to stay updated on the issue?”

Moore measures key metrics like

the number of clicks on a website, the time spent on a web page, the actions taken and the number of days between a user’s first visit to the page and the converting visit. The agency uses the data to optimize both the media and the messages in its advertising.

“Sometimes the goal is reach and impressions,” Underwood said, “and that’s valid to some degree. But what is, ultimately, the action we want taken? It’s not always how many people saw the ad.

It’s did it move people to action?”

Listen to social. Social media is another way to gather real-time data and insights by listening to what audiences are saying. It refers to the process of tracking social media conversations and sentiment around specific topics, keywords, phrases, brands or industries.

“We can identify conversations happening on both sides of an issue, determine which messages are resonating most with our audiences, watch how conversations are shifting online, and gauge how our issue and efforts are being perceived,” said Courtney Cox, senior director at Moore.

Moore uses social listening to gather real-time insights that drive successful actions across the state. For example, they have engaged influential leaders in Miami for interviews and outreach to lawmakers, gathered grassroots advocates in Tampa to join a legislative roundtable and connected reporters across the state with local voices to share the real-life impacts of key issues.

“A lot of it is year-round work to ensure we’re prepared for any policy issues during the quick-turn Session,” Cox said.

“It’s our job to have supporters educated and ready to take action.”

About Moore: Moore is a globally top-ranked integrated communications agency headquartered in Tallahassee with locations in West Palm Beach, Denver and New Orleans. The firm is comprised of a multi disciplinary team of experts, skilled in all major capabilities including branding, advertising, digital marketing, public relations, media relations, public affairs and crisis communications. Representing Fortune 500 companies and small organizations alike, Moore gets results that matter.

LEGISLATIVE, LOBBYING AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS With over 85 years of combined experience representing clients before the Florida Legislative and Executive branches, LLW’s Legislative team zealously advocates for our clients throughout the state, helping them navigate through the governmental and regulatory processes.

For more information, contact Lori E. H. Killinger

850.222.5702 lkillinger@llw-law.com 315 South Calhoun Street, Suite 830, Tallahassee, FL 32301

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See things differently.

Lewis, Longman & Walker, P.A. is a statewide law firm with 33 attorneys and over 25 years of experience practicing in the areas of legislative, lobbying and governmental affairs, pension and bond counsel, environmental, transportation and infrastructure, land use, real estate and litigation. LLW’s team has experience assisting special districts and local governments as general counsel, special counsel and lobbyists. For more detailed information on our qualifications, visit our website at www.llw-law.com.

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PHOTO: The Workmans

Winning the Right

Team TFG includes (left to right), Robert Zerbe, Shannan Dunaway Schuessler, Melissa Langley Braude, Tiffany McKinley Schuder, Mark Pinto, Marty Fiorentino, Joe Mobley, Toni D’Amico, Margo Klosterman, Tammy LeMaster and Davis Bean.

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T

he Fiorentino Group’s client list is enough to make a person blush — a lot of big names for the firm based out of Florida’s Bold City. This year marks the 20th since the start of Marty Fiorentino’s own bold experiment, a story of trains and campaigns, but ultimately about personal relationships.

Just a few years out of college, Fiorentino was working at CSX and, the way he describes it, kind of fell into presidential politics.

“I wasn’t active in college at all,” Fiorentino said. “I ended up being chair of the local (George) Bush campaign — 41. He was running against Bob Dole,

By Wes Wolfe

Way: 20 Years at The Fiorentino Group

he was the VP, and there was this big Newsweek article, ‘The Wimp Factor,’ with Bush on it.”

The odds seemed longer still, locally.

Future U.S. Rep. Tillie Fowler was a Jacksonville City Councilwoman at the time.

She had been college roommates with Elizabeth Dole, and so most local Repub-

licans were with Dole, he said.

“By default, at 26,” Fiorentino said, “I end up being the Bush campaign Chair.”

George H.W. Bush’s victory in the 1988 elections led to a job offer to Fiorentino, and he went to Washington as Chief of Staff in the Federal Railroad Administration. From there, he worked with the

Deputy Secretary of Transportation at the time, Elaine Chao. Later, he went back to CSX as the corporate communications and public affairs vice president.

“I was pretty young in that position, but I had great mentors,” Fiorentino said.

One of those people was late CSX CEO Pete Carpenter.

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“He was very much at a very high level, but also had a lot of integrity,” Fiorentino said. “He was also very active in the community. That allowed me to become more active in the community, because (he found the time and) he’s running a big company.”

Integrity is also one of the words used by one of The Fiorentino Group’s clients.

“I have had the opportunity to work with Marty and (TFG Principal) Joe (Mobley) for over 10 years and have known them both much longer,” said Joe York, President of AT&T Florida and Caribbean.

“The first and most important quality that they both bring to a company like AT&T is high integrity and trust. Not only do companies like mine trust them to represent us always with integrity, but the elected leaders, high-level government leaders and key stakeholders also trust them. Joe and Marty are amazing strategic thinkers and problem solvers.

They do their homework and always understand our, often complex, business issues as if they were insiders to the company themselves.”

Another lesson Fiorentino learned from Carpenter is to bring aboard smart people.

“I also tried to hire people that were young and I thought were going to be successful,” Fiorentino said.

Those hires included the person who would eventually take Fiorentino’s job at CSX after he left.

“One ended up being Rick Scott’s Chief of Staff when he was Governor,” Fiorentino said. “I was just fortunate in that regard, that I was young and tried to hire other young, sharp people.”

It was at the next stop, serving as counsel at Holland & Knight, where Fiorentino got into lobbying.

During that time, the firm proposed bringing him on as partner. Though it was a large, successful firm that had done well by him, Fiorentino felt it was time to cut his own path.

He took with him a few clients he developed and went from there. It was like any other small business starting out though.

“You’ve got one employee, then two, then three,” Fiorentino said. “You try to make payroll every month, try to keep the lights on. Sometimes you take a check, sometimes you hold your check.”

Through his work at CSX, he said he was able to get around the state and meet people, which gave him a foot in the door with people in business who were older and more influential. Those connections paid off once he started his own firm, and now other members of the firm get similar opportunities.

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“I was in my 20s when I started, and he was very gracious in always including me in high-level meetings with executives and people like that,” Mobley said. “So, he passed that on a little bit, which has been great for my career and others in our firm, as well.”

Another theme of the firm’s 20 years is quiet, sustained growth.

“The firm’s always been profitable,” Fiorentino said. “We’ve just grown incrementally rather than upand-down. We’ve had a nice trajectory. We’ve always tried to underpromise and overperform … for our clients. Once people come, they stay. Once clients come, they stay. We’ve been blessed with great clients.”

Mike Santarone of the engineering and mechanical services firm Stellar said his company sought out The Fiorentino Group not for lobbying, but to build their brand in North Florida.

“They have been fantastic,” Santarone said.

“One of the things that I’ve really enjoyed about getting to know them, the firm, is they do a good job of putting like-minded groups together. You might be at a dinner, an event, and they’ll introduce you to multiple different people who have similar business interests or similar activities they want to get done in the community. It’s just been, really, a great relationship to help grow the awareness of our company in the community, help increase our business, but also increase contacts in general.”

For what’s next, folks should expect more of what got The Fiorentino Group to this point, and it wasn’t by trying to be the largest firm around for the sake of size, but growing as needed, with a culture of success and integrity.

“We’ve been successful doing that organically, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do — grow organically,” Fiorentino said.

Part of the firm’s success is not just achieving any given goal, but how it’s done. AT&T’s Joe York said The Fiorentino Group “wins the right way,” which is an emphasis for the firm.

“We kind of want to be the opposite of the perception (of lobbying firms),” Fiorentino said. “So, we came up with ‘Influence with Integrity’ — it’s kind of our tag line. Yes, we are in the business of persuasion and accomplishing things on behalf of our clients, but we want people to know we go about that in the right way, legally, ethically, morally.”

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Nothing’s personal — or off-limits — for GOP consultant Anthony Pedicini

By Jacob Ogles

Photography by The Workmans

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N

othing seemed to be going well in a Central Florida race in 2020 for Anthony Pedicini’s client. Fred Hawkins, an Osceola County Commissioner, had been suspended from office for impersonating a law enforcement officer at a traffic stop.

A plea deal meant the politician wouldn’t get a conviction on his record, but bad publicity seemed to mount by the day for his state House campaign.

Hawkins still managed to win a GOP Primary, but faced a Democrat in November, Barbara Cady, with little public record to contrast. Pedicini was determined to find something — some counter to the barbs tossed Hawkins’ way.

Hawkins recalls the campaign being in a dangerous place. The candidate looked toward a court date the same day as the election and Cady hammered voters with the prospect the Republican may have to be removed from office the day he was sworn in (a fear that never came to fruition).

But Pedicini maintained optimism even when Hawkins struggled to do the same.

“Still not comfortable where my cam-

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paign was just weeks before the election, he started examining my opponent,” Hawkins said. “Social media posts, interviews, reading and watching hours of items.”

“I just went online searching hours of video Barbara Cady had recorded online.

I was there for hours and hours,” Pedicini recalled. “I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner just nonstop watching everything this woman ever posted.”

The consultant grew dazed and bleary eyed when suddenly, about 51 minutes into a forum, he saw her calling policies of Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd “racist.”

“She hated Grady Judd,” Pedicini said, and his interest sparked. Within Polk County, few political figures boast the influence of Sheriff Judd. Even if many liberals dislike his hardline law-and-order reputation, voters in the suburban county love him. Cady’s comments seemed to stem from Judd’s support for President Donald Trump. But that only made things better from a consulting point of view.

“I remember hitting pause and thinking, ‘There’s no way I just heard that,’” he said. “I rewound it and I watched it again.

I called everybody in the office around to make sure they saw it. Then I ripped it, made sure I had a copy of it. I called Fred Hawkins up and told him congratulations.”

“I receive a phone call. I couldn’t recognize the voice on the other end except for seeing his name come up on my phone,” Hawkins recalled. “He had found what he was looking for. After calming down he simply said, ‘You just won the election.’ This was the research he had found on the Cady campaign. The famous video interview.”

With less than two months to go in a primary, mailers from the Republican Party of Florida suddenly barraged voters, saying Cady “called anyone who supports President Trump white trash, racist and stupid.”

Cady labeled the attacks as untrue in the press, but Pedicini could point to the video.

Hawkins recalls the discovery turned the race around. He won the election by a scant 1,160 votes, around 1.1% of the nearly 100,000 votes cast.

TRUST THE PROCESS

The close victory marked one more victory for Pedicini, whose opposition research

has placed his services in demand and made him one of the most feared, hated or begrudgingly admired campaign pros in the state of Florida. As co-founder of Strategic Image Management, or SIMWins, he has worked for clients ranging from former Reps. Tom Rooney, Dennis Ross and Ted Yoho to the Republican Party of Florida, not to mention countless state Senators and Representatives who came into office after difficult Primary or General Election battles.

Pedicini boasts a reputation in particular for piercing oppo discoveries that can turn races on their head. With crisp mail pieces that read like tabloid headlines, he’s developed a knack for painting the most embarrassing gaffes in candidates’ backgrounds as near pathological contempt or incompetence.

A state House candidate in Polk City lost after Pedicini scrutinized her Facebook habits.

That last one was a particular favorite.

He worked for Republican Josie Tomkow’s House campaign in 2018 when she squared off with Jennifer Spath in a Republican Primary during a Special Election. Always

“Look, you are married to the win.

You are married to the loss. It defines who we are, your win-loss ratio.” looking for a weak spot, it drove Pedicini crazy he could find no skeletons in Spath’s closet. Then he found she had liked something on Hillary Clinton’s Facebook Page.

“We just found it by accident. I told our pollster I want a question put in a poll that said Jennifer Spath liked Hillary Clinton on Facebook,” he said. “Everyone told me I was crazy. I said please just put it.

My grandmother thinks if someone likes something on Facebook they are married to it. I promise you, it’s going to poll.”

He was right. Primary voters responded negatively to the question, and mailers went out tarring Spath as a “liberal lawyer” who “actually liked Hillary Clinton on Face-

book and all the ‘I’m with her’ left wing anti-Trump propaganda that came with it.”

Weeks after polling showed the race going Spath’s way, Tomkow beat Spath by 30 percentage points. Critics labeled the attacks as immature and misleading. But a win’s a win, and Pedicini cherishes victory above snobbery. Every win still brings a thrill, every loss an emotional blow.

“Look, you are married to the win. You are married to the loss,” he said. “It defines who we are, your win-loss ratio.”

For Pedicini, he continues to work on the marriages — at least the successful ones. He maintains relationships with officials and lawmakers well beyond Election

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Day, helping state lawmakers to secure committee assignments and leadership positions. That also means he had to counsel powerful people not used to being challenged through the emotionally harrowing experience of running for office.

Hawkins as much as anything recalls Pedicini keeping him calm amid a barrage of slings and arrows. “It took me a while to catch on to his famous phrase ‘Trust the Process.’” Hawkins said. “Once I did, I knew I had the right guy to guide my political career. … In the trenches of campaigning, he is always going to tell you the truth, even what you may not want to hear. That’s what family does and when Anthony is your campaign consultant, you become like family to him. I feel like he is a brother.”

UPSETS AND UPSTARTS

Pedicini’s success comes as little surprise to those who followed his career the longest. Before developing a reputation as a sharp-elbowed campaign trail presence advancing individual candidates, he played a role with nationally recognized anti-tobacco campaigns, serving as student director for the nationally celebrated “Truth” campaign in the late 1990s.

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had run and lost a State House race in 1992 by just 800 votes, and was waging a political comeback in 2000 that was going well until her husband, Dr. James Harrell, suffered a heart attack three weeks before the election. The campaign had been family-run until that point, but with her husband in the hospital and Harrell needing to devote time to him, she needed a professional campaign manager pronto — and she needed one at the peak of season when every veteran in the field already had a full docket of candidates.

That’s when she met Pedicini, a recent Florida State University graduate who had worked small campaigns in Palm Beach County. He was so young he would later have his first legal drink in Harrell’s home.

“I interviewed and he was just this young, dynamic kid,” Harrell said. “He had all kinds of ideas, and just showed energy beyond energy. He knew exactly what I needed and I hired him on the spot after talking for about 15 minutes.”

Pedicini remembers it a little differently.

He suspected Harrell held significant skepticism. “She thought I was too young,” he said. But he made an impression when he spoke to Dr. Harrell, who died about four years ago, who had paid close attention to campaign strategy throughout the race.

Regardless, the campaign was desperate and Pedicini was available. He ended up with the job and moved into the Harrell home for the duration of the race, where he was able to closely work with the family and execute decisions quickly. Harrell won her Primary with 68% of the vote and the General Election with 59%.

As a state Representative, Harrell signed Pedicini on as a staffer in the Florida House, the first time he worked in the Florida Legislature. He would make friends with a range of aides and become involved in Tallahassee politics at a greater level than ever.

He went on to run leadership races for former Senate President Bill Galvano and House Speakers José Oliva and Chris Sprowls. In many ways, those low-profile, high-stakes contests for jobs within the Legislature provide some of his proudest moments.

“When you are running for presiding officer in either chamber, you are running against the most political people from each of their districts. They’ve all won elections,” Pedicini said. “They all know what the game is about. They know what leverage is. As a guy who runs state legislative races, the greatest testament to your career can be that you served the presiding officers in one

“I interviewed and he was just this young, dynamic kid.

He had all kinds of ideas, and just showed energy beyond energy.

He knew exactly what I needed and I hired him on the spot after talking for about 15 minutes.”

– SEN. GAYLE HARRELL

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the chambers and you helped them in accomplishing their goals.”

To speak with Pedicini about the work of the Florida Legislature can reveal a surprising reverence for The Process. Yes, the guy notorious for printing large-type attack mailers with unflattering photos and upsetting characterizations really does care about the work done in Tallahassee.

Indeed, he tears up when he talks about it.

“When I start talking about the Florida House and the Florida Senate, I really love the place,” he said. “It’s a place where anybody can go and make a pretty good difference with a pretty good effort.”

CALL OF THE TRAIL

But the place Pedicini has developed the most notoriety is the campaign trail. There he has fulfilled — and often as not cut short — the political ambitions of dozens of candidates at all levels of government.

There are plenty of people in the game who grouse at the mere mention of his name. A Sarasota City Commissioner once learned of a lien on her condo only after Pedicini dug up the information for a competing campaign. He’s turned strong items on candidates resumes into liabilities; he smeared Rep. Fiona McFarland in 2020 for her work for an international firm that also had contracts in China, as just one example.

Pedicini doesn’t suffer many scruples for the work he’s done, even if it brings him plenty of disdain and grief.

“I don’t know, I get frustrated when you have politicians who just don’t want to admit that what you’re putting out is true,” he said. “If you voted on something and I put on a mailer on behalf of my client that you raised taxes, don’t get all mad that we put it on a flier. I didn’t vote for it. I guess that’s the toughest part, right? When you run a race, you put everything out there on a person. The other team wants everything out there on you as a person.

“If you take things personally, you probably shouldn’t run for office, because none of it is personal. It really is just politics. And if it’s true, it’s fair. If you voted for that tax, it’s fair. If you didn’t pay your child support or you filed for bankruptcy, you probably need to think about not running. If you have a divorce file that’s 30 feet thick, the public sphere is probably not for you.”

And one good thing about working in politics in a swing state, there’s always another high-stakes fight down the road. At least among the consulting class, bad feelings won’t linger for long.

“The most brilliant thing about Florida politics is that after the primaries are done, every consultant works together to beat the Democrats,” he said. “Every one of us.

It’s just how it works. And it’s beautiful.”

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“If you take things personally, you probably shouldn’t run for office, because none of it is personal. It really is just politics. And if it’s true, it’s fair.

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KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK “I PRIDE MYSELF ON GETTING OUT THERE AND KNOCKING DOORS AS OFTEN AS I CAN.”

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KIN’ ON VOTERS’ DOORS

By Rosanne Dunkelberger Photography by The Workmans

W

hen one says campaign field work is in Kevin Sweeny’s DNA, take it quite literally.

With a father who was very active in local St. Augustine politics, the founder and chief strategist of Long Run Strategies has been involved in door knocking and other campaign work since he was in elementary school.

“During a Presidential Election, all those years ago when I was 6 or 7, I actually went door to door and talked to people,” Sweeny recalls. “I think I’ve had an understanding of the importance of talking to people one-on-one.”

While much has been written about the roles of technology, big data and social media recently, old-fashioned campaign techniques are very effective, he claims.

Sweeney cites sources that say personal canvassing can raise turnout between 6% to 9%. And a British Election Study showed a face-to-face meeting at the door by a campaign or candidate yielded a 97% likelihood of the voter casting a ballot for those who contacted them.

The campaign consultant sends field staff to do “deep canvassing.”

“We don’t just talk about the candidates and the issues, we try to find out what issues are important to the voters,” he says. “Then, we can go back at the end of the day, talk about it as a group and then go and talk to the candidate and their consultants about … a race or an issue that’s important to this constituency.”

“Do as I say, not as I do,” is not Sweeny’s style. He’s out there walking the streets and sweating along with field staff and volunteers.

“I pride myself on getting out there and knocking doors as often as I can.

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ing that myself,” he explains. “I want to hear what people are saying at the door, so when I am talking to the candidate or their consultants or leaders in the state, I’m able to tell them what I saw with my own eyes, heard with my own ears and then overlay that with what my staff is telling me that they’re seeing and hearing.”

Sweeny’s wife, Beth Sweeny, has been automatically re-elected after drawing no opposition for her seat on the St. Augustine Beach City Commission. “She’s in but she’ll be out knocking doors just talking to people, I can assure you that,” he says.

KEVIN SWEENY’S SUGGESTIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL DOOR KNOCKING Door-knocking season covers Florida’s hottest, most humid months of the year. Keep your people hydrated and fed.

Candidate door knocking is not necessarily efficient.

“When a voter knows that they have a candidate in front of them, they have the ear of the candidate for five minutes, which turns into 30 minutes with some lasting 45 minutes.”

Assure canvassers having a door slammed in their face is a required rite of passage. “Once you have that first door slammed

on your face after you’ve gone through your spiel, the next door isn’t that bad. And then it moves easy. But until that happens, you know, people are somewhat —I’ll say shy — to knock on doors.”

You’ve got to literally knock on the door.

“I don’t believe in just going up and throwing a piece of campaign literature at someone’s door. That’s not door knocking, that’s lit dropping.

And I just don’t think you accomplished a lot by that.”

While effective, door knocking isn’t sexy. “You’re never gonna get rich. There’s really no way to monetize door knocking, at least on the level that I work on with campaigns. There’s no glory in it.”

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In t h e Foxhole with

Fentrice Driskell Propelled into the job by circumstance, the first Black female House caucus leader battles to turn around Democrats’ flagging legislative sway

PHOTO: The Workmans

By Jacob Ogles and Jesse Scheckner

A

t the end of a lunch at a Tampa Pei Wei, Fentrice Driskell cracks open a fortune cookie and smiles at the message inside: “Success is a journey, not a destination.”

Political developments in the last few months have sent Driskell down many unexpected roads, both figurative and literal. There’s much more drive time on the Tampa state Representative’s schedule than she anticipated a year ago.

A standout in the lawmaker class elected in 2018, Driskell was in line to lead her caucus into the 2024 elections. But circumstances now have

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her taking on arguably the hardest job in Florida politics — as the face of progressive values in the House — a cycle early.

And so, it seems she spends every free moment rolling the interstates from Tallahassee to Orlando to Miami, taking calls and developing master plans between trips for quick-serve Chinese food.

“It’s not breaking news when I tell you Democrats are facing significant headwinds,” Driskell said. “It’s a midterm election, which means turnout tends to be lower. The party with the President in office tends to fare not as well as the party whose President is not in office, (and) we’ve got a Democratic President in the White House who’s facing significant pressures.”

On top of that, Driskell has to hit the ground running. Until late May, it was Tallahassee Rep. Ramon Alexander who was expected to lead House Democrats into this Midterm breach. He’d held the title of Leader-designate for more than a year by then, winning the role after Ben Diamond of St. Petersburg announced a since-aborted congressional bid.

Instead, accusations of sexual harassment from a man who previously worked at Florida A&M University detonated Alexander’s future. He quickly announced he would not seek re-election and stepped aside from the leadership position.

Driskell hasn’t run into much voter anger at Alexander. So far, most staffers and voters with any awareness of the scandal express sympathy for the lawmaker and his family. But this means just seven months before the election, she has to lead her caucus before even finishing her second term.

Fortunately for her and the party, Democrats decided to line leaders up cycles ahead of time. As such, Driskell, the minority party’s policy chair for the 2020-22 term, enjoys familiarity with the House Victory staff who will manage races statewide this fall.

“You never know when something is going to happen, and you don’t want to put yourself in a position where no one can step up to the plate and lead,” said Hollywood Rep. Marie Woodson. “This is why you have a succession plan, where you work on people to make sure they can rise to the next level. And guess what?

Fentrice Driskell was already in leadership and is a competent, exceptional, bright woman who is ready to lead.”

Driskell will apply a conservative approach this cycle, focusing House Victory’s energies on the 42 seats Democrats already control in the 120-seat chamber.

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for Democrats taking on GOP incumbents in districts where, in a neutral year, those incumbents may be vulnerable.

She wants to avoid spreading the party too thin pursuing “fool’s gold” seats – races that on the surface appear promising but would likely just drain Democratic resources.

That’s the short-term plan. In the longer term, Driskell’s strategy for the party moves beyond merely treading proverbial water, according to Democratic consultant Maya Brown, who has worked with Driskell since the 2020 election, including her run for the 2024 leadership.

Brown, who does not work for House Victory, predicted Driskell’s leadership will “provide some stability” for House Democrats and ultimately increase their numbers in the chamber.

“It’s going to set the precedent for how both the electoral and policy sides will run for the next four years,” Brown said. “She’s already started outlining where she sees the caucus moving forward and making sure we don’t just maintain the 42 (seats) but try to grow the caucus so we can have greater victories on the House floor.”

Republicans have held a majority in the Florida House since 1996. That imbalance likely won’t reverse during Driskell’s tenure for myriad reasons, not the least of which is a GOP that consistently outmaneuvered Democrats with messaging.

To pass more legislation, earn greater favor among voters and win a larger share of seats in the Legislature, several Democrats agreed the party needs to eschew clunky and inconsistent slogans in favor of more memorable messaging like “Don’t Say Gay,” a label progressives stamped on a Republican-pushed law limiting discussion of gender and sexual identity in public school classrooms.

Republicans now are far more consistent in that respect, with numerous catchphrases — “Don’t Fauci My Florida,” “Make America Florida” and “groomers,” an insinuative term the GOP used for “Don’t Say Gay” opponents — ready-made for hats and T-shirts.

“We’ve got to go back to the drawing board and try again, see what the messaging is from the other side and what’s really a poignant countermeasure that will resonate with and en-

ergize our base,” said Miami Gardens Rep. Christopher Benjamin. “Could we be more organized? Sure. Can we do better on messaging? Absolutely. These are the things the incoming leadership needs to look at as we move forward in trying to get our priorities some serious consideration.”

“You never know when something is going to happen, and you don’t want to put yourself in a position where no one can step up to the plate and lead.”

Debating in the House or parading during campaign season (opposite page), Rep. Fentrice Driskell is working for her party’s values. In Washington D.C. with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump (top left) and catching a ride on Air Force One (top right).

Rep. Driskell (above) is making Florida history as the first Black woman ever tapped to lead a House caucus. Along with Sen. Lauren Book, it is the firs time women have held leadership positions at the same time in the Legislature.

Democrats in recent months found new purpose to energize thanks to divisive politics enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis and controversial decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, most notably its June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Driskell met with Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington this summer to discuss what the change in abortion politics demands of Democratic lawmakers. DeSantis already signed a 15-week abortion ban, and while one court ruled the measure violates the state constitution’s right to privacy, there’s already talk of Republicans pushing for a full abortion ban while that ruling pends appeal.

“Being there and being able to represent Florida’s perspective, I felt, was very important,” Driskell said. “Our Governor has been in the national spotlight for quite some time now. It’s widely speculated he wants to run for President, so I felt like all eyes are on Florida.”

This year, Driskell made history as the first Black woman ever tapped to lead a caucus in the Florida House. Reflecting on that milestone, she cited the examples set by prior trailblazers like state Sen. Audrey Gibson and former Sen. Arthenia Joyner, one of the first five Black women licensed to practice law in the state.

“I know I stand on strong shoulders,” she said. “It really does mean a lot to me,

with this much on the line, that my caucus has entrusted me to do this work and also break this barrier.”

Driskell started her political career in high school, canvassing on a successful Polk County Commission race for Marlene Duffy Young, the first woman elected Mayor of Winter Haven. Young died after a 2008 car crash, but before then kept in touch with Driskell through college, bestowing lessons still with the lawmaker.

While attending Harvard, Driskell became the first Black student to lead the school’s student government. She earned her law degree from Georgetown University and, after clerking for judges in New York and Florida, joined the law firm Carlton Fields, where she became one of the first Black women to make partner.

“I hope that somewhere in the state, there’s a little girl paying attention to this and that it inspires her someday to know she could run for office too,” Driskell said of her ascension in the House.

Driskell’s leadership, which coincides with that of Senate Democrat Leader Lauren Book, is also historic for being the first time ever that women concurrently hold leadership roles for a major party in both chambers of the Florida Legislature.

According to Book, Driskell will take on the tougher job between the two of them. While the GOP controls both chambers, Republicans hold a bigger percentage of seats in the House.

Driskell is more than equal to the challenge, Book said.

“Leader Driskell is a dynamo — she’s smart, strong and strategic, and there’s no challenge she cannot overcome, (but) it’s a tough job, making sure everyone is rowing the boat the same way and also fundraising, getting people excited and passionate in the House, because you’re facing a supermajority,” Book said. “But I’ve watched her ignite a spark in people to fight for what’s right regardless of what the outcome may look like. Everybody wants to be in a foxhole with her.”

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22 Races

to Watch in

‘22

By Peter Schorsch

N

ever mind the top of the ballot. All across Florida, down-ballot races from congressional contests to School Board battles may be where the real fun is during the August Primary Election and the November General Election.

Just contemplate:

Are Panhandle voters going to exercise their notorious right to defy outsiders’ assumptions again? Might Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book be in re-election trouble?

What’s more self-destructive at the polls: James Bush’s votes, or Ileana García’s mouth? If Alan Grayson and Corrine Brown fight, does it matter if neither wins? Has Anthony Sabatini found his way? Which Republicans still love The Mouse?

Have you heard the one about three serious Republicans and a Democrat with an actual sense of humor who walk into an election? Will Jerry Demings’ dream become his legacy or his liability? How far can Moms for Liberty take it to them? Can Anna Paulina Luna win by terrifying enough Democrats?

What can a Maitland Housewife do?

With those and other tantalizing questions in the air, we’ve ranked the top 22 must-watch, down-ballot races for ’22.

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1Florida’s 2nd Congressional District The most controversial feature of this year’s congressional redistricting was the dismantling of the district Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Lawson has represented since his election in 2016. But that’s not stopping him from running. He’s challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn for the right to represent Tallahassee and Gadsden County in the new 2nd Congressional District.

“I am born and raised in this community, and I have served the people of North Florida in one way or another since 1982,” Lawson said. “This is my home, and we deserve to have a strong voice in Congress. I will continue to be that voice.”

It’s a surprising move in part because Lawson and Dunn have worked together on numerous regional issues. Now, they are Florida’s only congressional Representatives facing each other on the ballot.

Though the district leans red, Panhandle voters have delivered Election Day surprises before. CD 2 under new lines bears a close resemblance to a draw produced by the Florida Legislature in 2012 but tossed by the courts three years later. It’s in that district Lawson once unsuccessfully tried to unseat longtime U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd in a Primary, though Lawson lost.

Boyd would see defeat months later to Republican Steve Southerland. But then, Southerland in 2014 lost to Democrat Gwen Graham, who held the seat until courts tossed the lines out.

The takeaway? Panhandle and Big Bend voters showed a willingness to break party lines in the past when a moderate Democrat appeared on the ballot.

2Senate District 35

For the first time, Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book has an election opponent, and a strong one at that: former Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief, in Senate District 35.

Book is a powerhouse fundraiser, well-respected in her party. But to Sharief, a longtime Democratic resident of western Broward, she’s also a carpetbagger.

To avoid a Primary after the GOP-led Legislature carved her home from her old district this year, Book moved into SD 35, which spans an area Sharief represented for years as a county and municipal official, including as Broward’s first Black female Mayor.

“Minorities matter,” Sharief said, referring to the fact that half of registered Democrats in SD 35 are Black or Brown. “I didn’t decide to run against Lauren Book. She decided to come down and run against me.”

Book, meanwhile, holds a gargantuan cash advantage and has wrapped up almost all of the major endorsements in the race, including support from most of the Senate Democratic Caucus. She’s also brought on a powerhouse staff to assist in the re-election bid.

It’s been a nasty battle. Sharief bashed Book, a victim of sexual assault, for not forcing Republicans to hold a hand vote last Session while nixing exceptions for rape and incest in a new 15-week abortion ban.

Book’s campaign responded by saying Sharief, who left office last year for a failed congressional bid, is on an “ego-driven power trip and not a mission to serve.”

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3House District 29

A new state House map ended up pitting a full 19 sitting House members against one another. But a series of real estate decisions managed to preempt most of the potential intra-chamber violence.

All that remains is the race in House District 29. With DeLand and Deltona now shoved into the same jurisdiction, Republican Reps. Elizabeth Fetterhoff and Webster Barnaby ended up in the Legislature’s only incumbent-on-incumbent match.

Fetterhoff knows how to handle a fight. She won her seat by defeating a Democratic incumbent by a mere 16 votes in 2016. This year, she has rallied support from municipal leaders, including a few Deltona officials who served at City Hall with Barnaby. Top of that list is Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.

But as of June, Barnaby had raised more money and spent less. With the GOP Primary weeks away, extra money in the bank could make a huge difference. The former City Commissioner and County Commission candidate feels he boasts the right amount of name recognition and predicts a “large victory.”

This summer, both pushed hard for the endorsement of the Police Benevolent Association, a voice that could loom large in a Republican Primary. Whoever wins will face Democrat Rick Karl in November, in a district Republican Donald Trump won by 7 percentage points in 2020.

4House District 109

James Bush III hasn’t had an election challenge in years. The retired teacher and three-time state Representative from Miami began his third stint in the House in 2018, when he bested one Primary opponent before coasting into office after no General Election challenger arose.

No one has filed against him since — that is, until Democratic lawyer and entrepreneur Ashley Gantt threw her hat into the ring March 16 and stirred up support from organizations like Ruth’s List Florida, elected officials including U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, Miami Sen. Jason Pizzo, and Democratic strategist Christian Ulvert.

Many believe Bush misplayed his hand last Session. Almost none of his bills succeeded, and he was the only Democratic state lawmaker to vote for new abortion strictures, and for the measure critics dub the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which restricts discussion of gender identity and sexual preference in public schools.

As women’s rights to privacy and bodily autonomy face their starkest challenge in decades, Democrats are scrambling to elect candidates who will work overtime to uphold the rights enforced by Roe v. Wade. That could portend Bush’s ouster.

5Senate District 36 Republican Miami Sen. Ileana García’s 2020 run had an asterisk next to it before she won by fewer than 35 votes.

An election-tampering scheme had been uncovered involving a no-party candidate who never campaigned, with the same last name as then-incumbent Democratic Sen. José Javier Rodríguez.

Two years later, that “ghost” candidate, who captured nearly 6,400 votes, is set to testify against former Sen. Frank Artiles, who allegedly paid him $50,000 to run. No evidence was found of García’s involvement.

García now faces Democratic Miami Beach businesswoman Raquel Pacheco, who filed to run in June after outspoken state Rep. Michael Grieco dropped out of the race, complaining of fundraising woes. Pacheco, who has filed for bankruptcy twice, previously made two unsuccessful runs at local office.

So why is she a threat to García? Because despite passing good legislation this year, García can’t keep her foot out of her mouth. She’s called Barack Obama’s election proof racism in America isn’t a problem, insisted “gay is not a permanent thing,” and said Florida’s new 15-week abortion ban helps human trafficking victims because their captors won’t sell them for sex anymore if they’re pregnant.

Even GOP hardliners have had trouble defending her.

6

Florida’s 10th Congressional District

Could any election promise a higher entertainment quotient than one featuring former Democratic U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown and Alan Grayson?

When U.S. Rep. Val Demings gave up a safe Democratic seat in Florida’s 10th Congressional District, it seemed the wellknown, well-established, well-liked — yet, well, boring — state Sen. Randolph Bracy could take it on name, reputation and usual campaign of community service outreach.

Or perhaps victory could be snatched by someone out-hustling establishment candidates, as happened last fall in Florida’s 20th Congressional District.

Plenty of Democrats volunteered, led

by Gen-Z activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who’s been omnipresent at progressives’ events, drawing tons of money and endorsements. Others include Rev. Terence Gray, a community leader; national civil rights lawyer Natalie Jackson; and Orlando business community figure Khalid Muneer.

Republicans’ hopes rested on Thuy Lowe, Willie Montague, Le Tuan, Peter Weed or Calvin Wimbish.

Then two of Florida’s most bombastic, controversial former Congress members jumped in, just before qualifying deadline, with Grayson claiming legacy to the new CD 10’s areas in eastern Orange County, and Brown to its western half.

The election might still be Bracy’s to lose or Frost’s to win. But Grayson and Brown made sure at least the Democratic Primary won’t be dull.

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7Florida’s 15th Congressional District

Whatever the number on the district, consider Florida’s 15th Congressional District to be the new seat that reapportionment awarded Florida based on the 2020 Census. Covering east Hillsborough, west Polk and south Pasco counties, there’s no incumbent here and a mass of hopefuls.

On the Republican side there are some big names in statewide politics. Secretary of State Laurel Lee resigned her spot in Gov. DeSantis’ administration in order to run. State Sen. Kelli Stargel, fresh off two years as Senate Appropriations Chair, also threw her hat in the ring. Both lagged behind Tampa state Rep. Jackie Toledo. Meanwhile, military veterans Dementries Grimes and Mac McGovern rallied support from civic groups.

The Democratic side runs more lean. Video producer Eddie Geller made a splash with a humorous campaign launch featuring an original jingle, and has led the money race since. Other Democrats include agriculture professional Gavin Brown, Defense contractor Bill VanHorn, and Army veteran Cesar Ramirez. Meanwhile, Alan Cohn, the 2020 Democratic nominee who ran against U.S. Rep. Scott Franklin in a different configuration of the district, was jumping in at the qualification deadline.

The new congressional map ultimately leaves the seat tilting red — barely, though.

8

Florida’s 1st Congressional District

The Republican Congressman nearly all Democrats love to hate and the Democratic whistleblower nearly all Republicans live to loathe may meet in Florida’s 1st Congressional District, in the western Panhandle.

Three-term incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz has done all he can to identify with the most radical and brazen feathers in the MAGA wing, such as U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Meanwhile, he awaits outcomes of congressional ethics probes and a federal law enforcement investigation that reportedly endeavors to flip Gaetz’s old friend, former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, against others in a sex-with-minors scandal.

The highest-profile Democratic challenger, Rebekah Jones, is running on her reputation as the former state Department of Health analyst who accused her superiors under Gov. Ron DeSantis of cooking COVID-19 reports in Florida. She failed, and DeSantis’ team has worked relentlessly to destroy her.

Both have Primary Election challengers. Among the others, Greg Merk and ex-Marine Mark Lombardo want to stop Gaetz in the Republican Primary, and Lombardo pledged $1 million of his own money. Activist lawyer Peggy Schiller wants to derail Jones in the Democratic Primary.

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9

Miami-Dade County Commission District 6

Miami-Dade’s sixth Commission district holds some of the county’s most prized assets.

Among them: Miami International Airport, America’s busiest hub for international cargo and the county’s top economic engine, and the Miami golf course where footballing legend David Beckham and billionaire Jorge Mas are building a $1.3 billion soccer stadium complex.

While the future of those and other valuables within the district aren’t solely beholden to the inclinations of its representative on the 13-member County Commission, that person will likely be their greatest advocate.

Such has been the case since 2001 with Republican District 6 Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, who is only vacating her seat because voters demanded term limits a decade ago.

It’ll be interesting whom they choose to succeed her.

Will it be lobbyist Kevin Cabrera, a former Trump staffer with support from the GOP machine in Tallahassee? Or will Coral Gables City Commissioner Jorge Fors — who has been amassing local endorsers, including Sosa, and nearly matching Cabrera in fundraising — take the prize? Could it be tech entrepreneur Dariel Fernandez, or Miami Springs Councilman Victor Vázquez, the sole Democrat in the technically nonpartisan contest?

Probably not the Democrat.

10Florida’s 7th Congressional District

With Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy retiring, speculation surrounding Florida’s 7th Congressional District focused on whether Democrats could produce another surprise, unknown, impressive moderate like Murphy. That never happened. So speculation turned to how far to the right Republicans might flip the Seminole County-based district.

The Republican Primary Election features a formidable ground game run by state Rep. Anthony Sabatini — so extreme he had almost no allies in the Florida Legislature — and a Washington-fueled top-down campaign from conservative cable talk show firebrand Cory Mills, with his rifle-toting commercials and his promise to make the media cry.

The Republican field is crowded, including more moderate candidates backed by a Central Florida’s Republican establishment worried about tipping too far right. Christian conservative Brady Duke raised tons of money. Businessman Scott Sturgill has been civically active for decades.

Rusty Roberts was former U.S. Rep. John Mica’s right-hand man. Ted Edwards is a former Orange County Commissioner. Erika Benfield is a former Mayor of DeBary.

Meanwhile, Democrats are left with low-profile candidates Tatiana Fernandez, Karen Green, Al Krulick and Allek Pastrana.

So, with Democrats all but punting, the prospect emerges that the usually moderate CD 7 voters might elect one of Florida’s most far-right members of Congress.

11Florida’s 13th Congressional District

The race to succeed U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist in Florida’s 13th Congressional District already appeared hot before Gov. DeSantis’ cartography significantly changed the partisan breakdown, from a district Democrat Joe Biden won by 4 percentage points to one Trump won by 4.

That makes this one the GOP’s to lose in a red year. Anna Paulina Luna, a hard-right candidate who ran a fiery campaign in losing to Crist in 2020, hopes a healthy dose of Democrat-baiting red meat does the trick this year. She’s picked up the support of Club For Growth, Turning Point USA and, of course, Trump.

But prominent lawyer Kevin Hayslett has also rallied support from establishment Republicans, while Amanda Makki, the GOP’s 2018 nominee against Crist, has backing from Emily’s List and a solid fundraising rolodex herself.

The new map largely cleared the Democratic field. Eric Lynn, an Obama administration veteran, will carry the banner for the blue team. And if a candidate too extreme for west Tampa Bay emerges, this could be one to follow all the way to November.

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12

Orange County Sales Tax Referendum

Conventional wisdom says there never is a good time to ask voters to raise the sales tax. A year featuring 8% inflation and gasoline prices rivaling movie popcorn, though, is certainly a bad time.

“If not now, then when?” demanded Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.

He‘s staking much of his legacy and political capital in pushing a penny increase in the Orange County sales tax, raising the rate to 7.5%, to pour $600 million a year into train, bus, road, bike and pedestrian way improvements. He promises generational transportation change — in a county developed through sprawl and regretting it.

For decades, Orange County has had one of the nation’s fastest growing populations.

Throw in 75 million visitors a year, a number also growing fast, and Demings isn’t campaigning so much on how bad traffic is now, but how bad it could be in 10 or 20 years.

He has the same challenges that bedeviled former Mayor Rich Crotty 19 years ago for Orange County’s last transportation tax referendum, which voters rejected.

There are no easy or cheap fixes, especially for east-west traffic; and messaging is generally vague, hampered by the uncertainty incumbent to long-term planning.

13

Florida’s 6th Judicial Circuit State Attorney

Florida’s only State Attorney contest contemplates a turning point for Florida’s 6th Judicial Circuit, serving Pinellas and Pasco counties. It also offers the Sunshine State’s clearest election showdown between traditional tough-on-crime doctrine and criminal justice reform.

The race between JC 6 State Attorney Bruce Bartlett and former Assistant Public Defender Allison Miller also is about old-guard versus outsider, and tradition versus modernization.

Bartlett was appointed to succeed Bernie McCabe, who died at the start of 2021 after serving as the circuit’s State Attorney for 29 years.

Bartlett, a Republican like McCabe, was the clear heir of McCabe’s administration and policies. He served the circuit 40 years, 28 of them as McCabe’s Chief Assistant State Attorney. He prosecuted some of the circuit’s highest-profile cases, particularly death penalty cases. He also established sentence diversion programs.

Miller is the first woman to ever run for this office and the first Democrat to run in decades.

She spent 13 years as a JC 9 Assistant Public Defender, including as Chief of Staff for the Pasco office and as the circuit’s capital case coordinator. She’s a proponent of reform in a circuit she says sends more people to prison than any other. She calls for more diversion programs, bail reform, death penalty reform, decriminalizing marijuana, and prosecuting juveniles as juveniles.

14Florida’s 20th Congressional District

Florida’s bluest district will play battleground for a rematch of one of the closest elections in state history this August, when U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick again takes on former Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness in a Democratic Primary.

Sherfilus-McCormick, a health care CEO, outpaced Holness by just five votes last November to clinch the Democratic nomination in a Special Election to replace late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings.

She brings ample funding to her re-election bid, mostly from her own bank account. As with last year, all but a fraction of the $6.8 million she’s raised is self-given.

Holness, meanwhile, brings more support from elected leaders and more donations from individuals, but he still held less than $1 million through the first quarter of 2022.

That funding disparity, also present in last year’s contest, might not be that big of a factor.

It’s more likely the fight for CD 20, which spans majority Black neighborhoods in Broward and Palm Beach counties, will be more focused this time. Unlike last year’s Special Election, there also won’t be 13 candidates running, and Midterms generally have much higher turnouts than Special Elections.

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Technology

IOT

WEB In 3.0 A World

Insuretech

Machine Learning

Virtual Reality

Blockchain

Innovation

Data Privacy

Artificial Intelligence

Actionable Analytics

Full of Buzz...

BE HEARD. Unicorns

Autonomy Telehealth

Digital Commerce

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Apps

Quantum Computing

Drones

Fintech

Startups

Big Data

15Senate District 10

In greater Orlando, there’s a local term of respect that can sound condescending: “Maitland Housewife.” First applied in the early 1980s to Paula Hawkins, Florida’s first woman U.S. Senator, today the term suggests both Soccer Mom and Amazon Warrior, someone who might be easy to underestimate, but who should never, ever be underestimated.

In Senate District 10, Democrats talk that way about state Rep. Joy Goff-Marcil in her challenge of the seemingly entrenched Republican state Sen. Jason Brodeur.

Brodeur, an affable president of the Seminole County Chamber, has strong business support, robust fundraising prowess, a moderate reputation in a purple district, and plenty of help from Republican leadership. But he also has baggage, with ties to local Republican operatives under criminal indictment for allegedly promoting an illegal independent “ghost” campaign to help him get elected in 2020. Brodeur, however, is not directly being accused of wrongdoing in that scheme.

Goff-Marcil is a real-life Maitland housewife who cut her political teeth in school issues advocacy, then on the Maitland City Council. Wherever she’s run, she’s been far outspent, relied on her soft-spoken, neighborly, front-porch appeal, and won easily.

Just as in 2020, both statewide parties are invested heavily in this race, and the forecast calls for showers of outside money.

16House District 45

Remember when Republicans waged political war against Walt Disney Co., taking Walt Disney World’s special government district hostage, and demanding a rhetorical walk-back that Disney never conceded?

That was so last spring.

For the chance to represent Disney World in the House, Republicans are engaging in one of the highest-stakes battles in the state.

Caroline Amesty, Vennia Francois, Janet Frevola, Bruno Portigliatti and Mike Zhao may be committing many hundreds of thousands of dollars to win the House District 45 Republican Primary Election.

The district covers much more than Disney’s 40 square miles.

It stretches from Winter Garden down the State Road 429 corridor through Windermere into the Four Corners area of Orange and Osceola counties, including ChampionsGate and Celebration.

There’s lots of wealth. But make no mistake: the area is the Disney region. Thousands of properties and businesses depend on Disney World, the nation’s largest single-site employer, and an attraction for dozens of millions of visitors.

There’s a Democrat running too, and the voting base appears to give Democrats a slight advantage. Allie Braswell wrapped up the nomination in qualifying.

Through May, Disney and its multitude of subsidiaries and committees hadn’t donated to anyone in the race.

17 Florida’s 27th Congressional District

The seat that moderate Republican U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen held for three decades in Washington has flipped twice since she left office in 2019. That’s when Democrat Donna Shalala won.

Two years later, Shalala narrowly lost a rematch against Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar, and here we are today.

This year, Salazar — who enjoyed a wildly successful TV journalism career before entering politics — faces outspoken challenges on both sides. To her right is Republican Primary opponent Frank Polo, a Cuban refugee turned community volunteer who derides Salazar and other members of the Miami-Dade GOP delegation as “Republicans in name only.”

More danger stands to her left. The newest entrant, Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo, dropped her gubernatorial bid to focus on CD 27, citing Salazar’s inaction after recent mass shootings as inspiration. Support from the party indicates she’s their choice to run in November.

Then there’s Miami Commissioner Ken Russell, who has been stacking union endorsements while going viral on TikTok with videos slamming opponents and sea polluters.

CD 27 is Florida’s most closely divided district, and this race will produce fireworks one way or another.

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18Palm Beach County Commission District 6

It wouldn’t have been unreasonable for Democratic state Rep. Matt Willhite to have expected something of a hero’s welcome in running to represent District 6 on the Palm Beach County Commission district, the county’s largest.

After three terms in the Statehouse, the Navy vet and active-duty firefighter has a record of delivering for his community despite his party’s paltry share of legislative seats.

Instead, he faces possibly his toughest electoral challenge in primary opponent Michelle Oyola McGovern, a Baptist Health administrator and former longtime staffer of ex-U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. Despite this being McGovern’s first campaign, she leads fundraising and has the blessings of several noteworthy organizations and Democratic officials, including the local Police Benevolent Association and outgoing District 6 Commissioner Melissa McKinlay.

She also convinced a prior supporter of Willhite, former Wellington Mayor Bob Margolis, to back her instead.

Willhite, meanwhile, has welcomed endorsements from numerous firefighter associations and more than 60 elected officials. Recent polling shows he enjoys a decent lead among voters, particularly after they learn about candidates’ backgrounds.

We’ll see how accurate that assessment ends up being. The winner between Willhite, McGovern and fellow Democrat Sylvia Sharp meets Republican real estate agent Sara Baxter in the General.

19House District 69

State Rep. Andrew Learned won his seat in 2020 in one of the closest legislative races in Florida. Now, the Brandon Democrat must defend his seat in a race that could be just as close — and he’s doing it in a year where the environment could prove hostile to Democrats.

Tampa lawyer Danny Alvarez had amassed $116,000 as of May to take Learned on, though the incumbent at that point had close to $310,000 raised to defend his seat.

Redistricting also throws a bit of a wrench into Learned’s plans. The same day Learned won his old district in 2020 with 51% of the vote, Biden won the district by about the same margin, the first time Democrats ran the ballot in the Brandon area in decades. But a new map puts Learned in a newly configured House District 69, where Trump won with 50.2% of the vote to Biden’s 48.5%. The difference may be marginal, but Learned also won’t benefit from the higher turnout in a presidential year.

Still, the incumbent said he welcomes a fight. And it could be worse. The redistricting process initially drew him into the same seat as Republican state Rep. Mike Beltran, who opted instead to run for an open south Hillsborough seat.

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Orange County School Board

Florida’s school board elections are flush with candidates inspired by right-wing “parental rights” groups like Moms for Liberty and ideas championed by Gov. DeSantis — angry about COVID-19 mandates, and fearing that liberals in schools, administrations, and School Boards might be pushing critical race theory and other anathemas to their beliefs.

Two of Orange County’s increasingly rare Republican elected office holders drew challenges from the right, because they supported COVID-19 mandates and objected to book and curriculum bans. Orange County School Board Chair Teresa Jacobs and School Board District 1 Member Angie Gallo face parental rights activists Carl Brewer and Rachel Lynn Kirby, respectively.

Meanwhile, parental rights allies Chad Spence and Alicia Farrant vie for two open seats.

All across Florida, the 2022 School Board elections compose a seat-byseat battle between established public education ideologies and the parental rights movement.

Jacobs is a former two-term Orange County Mayor whose grassroots popularity was so high she got elected School Board Chair in 2018 by 27 points over a high-profile, well-funded Democrat, in a county dominated

by Democrats. Gallo won her seat by 19 points.

They may represent the last stand of public education’s establishment against the Moms for Liberty movement.

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Florida’s 23rd Congressional District

After years of public service at the local and state levels, including as Gov. DeSantis’ hand-picked director of Emergency Management, former state Representative and current Broward Commissioner Jared Moskowitz is running for Congress.

With a significant funding lead and more than 100 endorsements, including one from outgoing Rep. Ted Deutch, Moskowitz is the odds-on favorite to take the heavily Democratic-leaning district.

Still, he faces compelling opposition.

On the Democratic side, there’s Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Ben Sorensen, a decorated Navy Reserve officer. There’s former Anti-Defamation League Regional Director Hava Holzhauer, former U.S. Senate candidate Allen Ellison, and serial entrepreneur Michaelangelo Hamilton, who at 22 is technically too young to serve in Congress.

Five Republicans are competing for the GOP nomination, including financial planner Joe Budd, retired chiropractor Steve Chess and lawyer Jim Pruden, a former manager at IBM who earned a nod from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel when he ran for the district in 2020.

There’s also lawyer Christy McLaughlin, who participated in the Jan. 6 rally in Washington and took on School Boards at the height of the pandemic over mask mandates.

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22House District 77

The new legislative map means Lee County will have an additional House seat with House District 77. As is the case with most of Southwest Florida, the real action takes place in the Republican Primary, where longtime Chamber leader Tiffany Esposito faces off against Fox News personality Ford O’Connell.

Esposito, also a longtime executive director for SWFL Inc., holds the most connections within the Lee County business community. She also signed on with Terry Miller’s TM Consulting, a local campaign shop with a tremendous record in the region. Over the first three months of her campaign, she raised more than $122,000 for the seat.

Meanwhile, O’Connell raised just about $24,000 in May after his late entry, but he still holds a cash advantage after dumping $150,000 into the race through a candidate loan. He also holds serious name recognition, in part for his punditry but also for a 2020 campaign, however short-lived, in Florida’s 19th Congressional District. The “Trump won” crowd has eaten up his touting of the former President on national airwaves.

Both have already faced some scrutiny over residency. Esposito moved into a new San Carlos Park home weeks before filing, and O’Connell still has a homestead filed on a home in Washington, D.C. but has rented an apartment near Florida Gulf Coast University.

As a rough Primary plays inevitably out, Democrat Eric Engelhart of Lehigh Acres lays in wait, but in a district Trump won with 59% of the vote.

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By Anne Geggis

BROTHER, C AN YOU SPARE A MILL? Local tax hikes are on the 2022 ballot, most to support teachers and schools

I

ncreases in the cost of everything might be causing howls of pain throughout the state, but local governments everywhere — especially school districts — are going to be asking taxpayers to kick in more.

Both the Primary and General elections are shaping up as a taxing experience for voters. Many county and school governments are asking voters to extend special taxes that are set to expire, asking for increases in the current rate or asking to levy a new tax altogether.

In Brevard County, for example, for the first time since 2008, voters in November will be asked to approve increasing the school tax rate by $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value, also known as one mill. Under state law, school districts have the right to add up to one mill to their school tax rate, provided voters agree.

That proposed 17% increase in the total Brevard school tax rate is going before an electorate where Republicans hold a substantial advantage over Democrats: 40%-28%. But if experience is any guide, Brevard County voters will likely agree.

Out of the $6.2 billion Florida voters were asked to pony up between 2010 and 2020, reference materials from the Florida School Board Association show just about 80% of the new tax money requested received voter approval.

That high rate of approval for local asks has spawned a legislative effort that takes effect later this year. So it’s going to be last call for certain kinds of tax increase requests.

For now, though, the Brevard County School District can say they don’t ask voters to step up often.

District officials say they are facing a breaking point — keeping experience among teacher ranks is at risk. Twelveyear veterans are earning exactly what first-year teachers are: $46,800. It’s a problem mirrored throughout the state.

A report from the state Department of Education earlier this year found there are currently 4,489 teacher vacancies, an increase of 800 from the year before.

Earlier this year, Brevard County schools reported critical shortages of teachers for math, English, reading and science.

Jennifer Jenkins, a Brevard County School Board member, said her county is losing its experienced teachers, who earn the same salary starting teachers.

“Once they hit that amazing 12-year threshold, they are leaving, they are leaving for other businesses, other industries

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because they are not making enough money,” she added.

They are asking Teacher salaries are a big reason school districts are asking voters to give them more money for the upcoming elections. Among those requests: • Hillsborough County in August will ask voters to increase its school tax rate by $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value to increase teacher pay. That will come in addition to the penny referendum Hillsborough County passed in 2018 to improve capital school projects.

Money from the penny referendum can only be used to improve schools’ facilities and other capital projects. Then, in November, the county government will be asking for voters to approve a 1% sales tax for transportation needs.

• Pasco County will ask for the school millage rate to be increased by 23% — or one mill — in the August Primary for teacher salaries. Then, in November, residents will be asked to extend

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the Penny for Pasco sales tax, which pays for economic development, conservation and public safety vehicles.

• Duval County voters are going to be asked in August to add another $1 to its current school tax rate of $6.80 per $1,000 of taxable property value for the next four years. The money would benefit teacher salaries, arts and athletics, according to the Jacksonville Times-Union. This comes in addition to the half-cent sales tax to improve Jacksonville’s public schools that voters approved to repair and replace public school buildings. It was expected to raise $2 billion over 15 years, until its scheduled expiration.

A popular cause The good news for school districts is that increasing teacher salaries polls very well, according to Steve Vancore, president of Clearview Research, a Tallahassee-based polling and focus group organization.

The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, ranked all the states by teachers’ starting salary and average salary in May. Florida was 16th in the country for teacher starting salaries, which average $44,040. Florida’s average teacher salary ranked 48th, however, for its average at $51,009.

Polls point to a wide awareness of the issue, said Vancore, who has been engaged by districts proposing these increases.

“While different issues are fracturing the community … whether it’s about how we teach history, or whether we could say ‘gay’ in the classroom … the community is becoming divided over those,” Vancore said. “What they are not divided on and they seem to be consolidating around is that teachers deserve to be paid.”

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Sarah Leonardi, a member of the Broward County School Board, says levying the full 1 mill that state law allows districts to add is the only way to compete with surrounding counties in hiring teachers.

In August, Broward County voters will be asked to increase its local option rate to a full mill, increasing from its current half-mill, which currently adds another 50 cents for every $1,000 of assessed value to individual tax bills.

Meanwhile, Palm Beach County is asking voters to extend its discretionary extra mill on its tax rate. And Miami-Dade voters will be asked to increase its 75 cents per $1,000 discretionary school tax to $1 per $1,000.

“The full mill will allow us to be competitive with Palm Beach and Miami-Dade for teacher salaries,” Leonardi said. “Especially now since we have to share with charter schools.”

Florida’ s low-tax status in danger?

State charts show that most of the time, voters haven’t been stingy. Every Florida county, except Citrus County,

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has agreed to levy a local, optional sales tax, for example.

“Most county residents have agreed at some point in the last decade to increase their own sales tax,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. “Usually, it’s tied to a specific initiative, like transportation or parks and recreation.”

Jewett, however, doesn’t see voters taxing themselves so that Florida’s position as a low-tax state is in any kind of danger.

Florida’s tax rate — using a number of measures, according to the Tax Foundation — puts it in the same company as Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming.

Wallethub, meanwhile, compared the proportion of personal income that residents pay to local and state taxes and concluded only New Hampshire, Wyoming, Delaware, Tennessee and Alaska have lighter tax burdens than Florida.

New legislative tool Looking at the broad sweep of Florida’s taxing history, though, Dominic Calabro, President and CEO of Florida TaxWatch, sees plenty of reasons to be concerned.

“State government used to be bigger than all the local governments combined and now that’s not the case,” Calabro said. “Local governments from cities, counties and school districts have gotten larger than the composite of state government.”

Florida TaxWatch found Florida voters have approved $10.8 billion in local taxes and bonds between 2010 and 2021.

Many of the local referendums propelling this spending were passed in Primary Elections and Special Elections.

Calabro expects new legislation Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in late June will change that, however.

After Oct. 1, increases in the discretionary school millage rates and other taxes must be put before voters in a General Election. The reasoning is, given the low Primary Election turnout, referendums might get dragged across the finish line because only the interested parties show up, Calabro said.

Figures from the last Midterm Elections prove him correct. In 2018, 27% of eligible voters showed up for the Primary, compared to the 63% who came to the General.

“The General Election is the best time to make decisions that will affect the pocketbooks and quality of life for decades to come,” Calabro said.

Some of the support voter-approved taxes have enjoyed might also be on the wane too.

In Flagler County, for example, renewing a half-penny school sales tax for another 10 years is going on the November ballot. It’s been used to help the district afford technology, safety upgrades and classroom renovations, as it has for the past 20 years.

This will be the first time that the tax goes before General Election voters in the Republican-leaning county.

In 2002, nearly 70% of Flagler’s Primary voters said “yes” to paying more for schools’ needs. In 2012, when the initiative was on the Primary Ballot, its approval dipped to 64% of Primary voters, according to Flagler Live, an online publication.

Still, Palm Beach County Mayor Robert Weinroth believes Florida’s uniqueness allows its current tax structure to work.

He said he doesn’t foresee any politician instituting a state income tax anytime soon.

“Florida is unique in that it has a tremendous number of tourists coming here each year, so that we’ve been able to use that bed tax and that sales tax as a way to augment our budgets,” Weinroth said.

Calabro said the state should keep being vigilant.

“I think there’s a challenge that we’re bringing in a lot of people from high-tax states, such as New York and California,” he said. “And there’s a tendency that when they come here, they want to bring their bad spending habits.”

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What I’ve Learned

Ron Book

69, Aventura Founder, President and CEO, Ronald L. Book P.A. AS TOLD TO ROSANNE DUNKELBERGER

ON PLANS FOR RETIREMENT:

“None at all. If someone knows me, they know I get as much pleasure out of working as I get out of doing anything in life. I love my job. I love what I do. It’s an adrenaline rush every single day.

My mother taught me, my dad told me, finish what you started and I’ve got so many things that I started that I’m not done with. Twenty-eight years ago I signed on to end homelessness in my community. I’ve been the Chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust for 27 years with a $68 million budget.

There’s my daughter’s foundation work saving children. We’re not done protecting them.

With Alonzo Mourning’s foundation, we’re not done creating the perfect model to mentor children in the inner city and improve graduation rates and improve our percentages sending minority kids to college.

I guess I could cut back and stop doing this or stop doing that, but I’m not done.”

ON HOW HIS ADVOCACY CAREER BEGAN:

“The Mayor lived around the corner from me. I was complaining to my mother that they built this park three or four blocks from our house, but we could never use it because at night there were no lights. And my mother said, ‘I can’t solve that. You go solve it. Get your friends and make some signs and go picket the Mayor and complain to him about it.’ I got my lights at the park and they put lights in every other park in the city as well. I still have the newspaper article from when we did that when I was 13 years old.”

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PHOTO: The Workmans

“I love my job. I love what I do. It’s an adrenaline rush every single day.”

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WHAT I’VE LEARNED

Ron Book with his former law partner Charlie Citrin (left), and the man-who-would-be President, Joe Biden. Photo by Joe Riley.

ON WORK ETHIC:

“I take my business seriously and I take the business of my clients seriously. I tell folks about Legislative Sessions: ‘There’s 60 days. You better get the damn work done in 60 days or you’ve got to spend 305 days making excuses in your community about why you failed, how you didn’t get the work done. Now they have to wait 305 days for you to get another shot at it.’

Fear of failure drives me every day.

It drives you to success. It drives you to work harder. It drives you to drive yourself as hard as you can because it’s about not missing things. It’s about getting it right. It’s about understanding it, it’s about getting it in a place where you know you can accomplish what you set out to accomplish. It is my secret sauce.

People come to see me all the time about wanting to do what I do for a living. And I start out by asking if they’ve ever seen a show on Broadway called ‘Avenue Q.’ (A musical where “Sesame Street-like puppets tackle adult themes and curse — a lot.) I was terribly embarrassed because we took the kids to the show. But the punchline of this is … the theme song is ‘It Sucks to be Me.”

So I tell these folks who all want to be me — be careful what you ask for.

I love what I do, but look, I also tell them, as I tell my own kids, you’ve still got to try to balance your life. I had an inability to balance as well as I wish I had in hindsight. It was not uncommon for me to charter a plane at five o’clock in the afternoon to fly down for the kids to play at 7 o’clock that night and get back to the plane at 9:45 and come straight back to Tallahassee. If it was something for the kids, I managed to get to it.

At the end of the day, I was a 17- or 18-hour-a-day guy.”

MORE ADVICE — HOW TO GET APPROPRIATIONS INTO THE BUDGET, AND MAKE SURE THEY STAY IN:

“We clearly don’t ignore the Governor’s Office.

We try to meet with the budget analysts. We try to meet with the budget directors. We try to meet with everybody that’s in that part of this process and walk them through our projects. Why they’re needed. What’s the return on investment? What’s the

private match? You’re going to understand how that works, how that functions, how that clock ticks.

Go to work in government, learn how the heart ticks, learn how the kidney functions, learn how the kidney and the liver work together.

Learn it. Understand it.

People today, they run a campaign and think they can go and be lobbyists tomorrow. They don’t know the written rules. In both of our offices, there’s a rule book for the House and for the Senate on my desk. My daughter (Sen. Lauren Book) for a year before she got elected, carried the rules book around with her and slept with it under her pillow.

If you do not know the rules for checkers, you cannot win. If you do not know the rules for chess, you cannot win. If you don’t know the rules of the Process, you cannot win. Read the goddamn rules!”

ON R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

“At the end of the day, the political process is intended to evolve. Not necessarily devolve but evolve. I think, as of late, the process has devolved. I think that when

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Ron Book and his former wife, Pat, hosted a kickoff fundraiser for then-Gov. Bob Graham’s run for the U.S. Senate. The little cutie on Adele Graham’s lap is Sen. Lauren Book. Photo by Joe Riley the process gets to where a lawmaker can stand on a soapbox and be of the same party as the presiding officer in his House and he can trash that Speaker and he can trash that Senate President and he can trash the government — whether or not there was a reason to be unhappy with the presiding officers 158

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— the level of disrespect to the institution in my opinion is terribly bad.

I think we have forgotten what debate is like on the floor of the House and the Senate. Back in the day, I remember so well some of those great debates that both conservative and more liberal lawmakers would have on the

floor, those days are gone.

I think there’s a bigger problem and I think it’s term limits. … Maybe term limits are OK, but not at eight and not at 10. Is that number 12? Is it 14? It’s somewhere in there. … To let institutional members go to the sidelines is a terribly bad idea.”

R.E.S.P.E.C.T., PART II

“Look, I’m an old school guy. You won’t see me in the Capitol Monday to Friday in jeans and a T-shirt. You won’t see me in the Capitol without a tie and a suit on. I send people — some are my friends — out of the Capitol without a tie down to the hat rack in my office where I’ve got 25 ties (and tell them), ‘Go put a tie on. This is disrespectful.’

I think back in the days there was a guy named Howard Walton who ran the Senate. Howard would check the attire of Senate staffers. He would check the attire of Senators. He would check the attire of lobbyists. Yeah, he could be a miserable ass a lot of times. But the institution was in this very special place and I really believe that.

And so when people want to talk to me about Jan. 6, let me tell you something.

They can take that (makes an obscene gesture) and shove it up their asses, because the disrespect for the institution of government …. wow. Forget Donald Trump. Those parents of those children — I don’t care how old they were — those parents should have called those kids and put ‘em in a corner and punished them. Shame on them.

Shame on them. Shame.”

THE ADVANTAGES OF A SMALL LOBBYING FIRM:

“We know the uniqueness of our shop.

There won’t be another shop like mine.

They don’t build lobby shops today the way they built them back in the day. Most of the old-timers are all gone. The guys with one-, two-, three-person shops, they’re gone.

When I left government, I joined a medium-sized law firm. We were 82 lawyers and I did that from 1982 to 1987. I woke up one day and decided that big firm atmosphere wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. And I went out on my own. I had no idea what this was gonna be like. I left my clients behind and took four with me. They’re still my oldest clients: Magic City, which was the old Flagler Dog Track and the Havenick family; Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, which is the South Broward Hospital District; and Vitas Healthcare, Corp., which at that time was Hospice Care, Inc., which was Don Gaetz’s company. And then the Miami Dolphins, which I had also kept all along without a break.

I always thought I’d join up somewhere else, but the money and the

independence became so great. … I knew my own business. I didn’t need somebody looking over my shoulder, micromanaging what I did. I knew what I was doing.”

WILL RON DESANTIS BE ELECTED PRESIDENT IN 2024?

“Oh yeah. And I think you’ll have a free-for-all for Governor in ’26. We’ll have a very crowded Republican Primary.”

FINAL THOUGHTS:

“I would simply say that to those who have called and emailed and texted me the last 70 or 80 days: I am deeply grateful and deeply humbled by their friendship, their care, their love. I didn’t understand what a battle this (cancer diagnosis) would be.

Things are out of your control — and I’m a control freak.

I hate holidays. I hated Memorial Day, I hated Juneteenth and I hate the Fourth of July. You know why?

Because they won’t treat me on those holidays. Those days get added onto the back end. I want to get done. I’m a get-done guy.”

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MADISON'S INDEX In 1990, the average cost of financing a congressional campaign was roughly $170K. In 2020, the average cost of financing a congressional campaign was $529K. The average Floridian has seven social media accounts and spends roughly 140 minutes on social media per day.

One Bitcoin will buy you 5,816 mojitos.

The median age of Florida residents is 42 Every hour, $1.2 million in income migrates to Florida from other states.

In 1990 Florida had two congressional districts. Steve Sparkman won with 13,000 votes. Today Florida has 28 congressional districts.

Invasive Burmese pythons were first sighted in the everglades in the late 1990s. Today it’s believed there are between 100,000 and 300,000 pythons in the Everglades.

The highest elevation in Florida is 345 feet – located at Britton Hill. It’s also the lowest high point of any state in the U.S. In 2019, the Florida Department of Citrus spent $250K on the cost of free orange juice.

Florida produces 40 percent of the oranges consumed on the planet.

Disney’s Rock n Roller Coaster launches you from 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds. A Tesla model S does it quicker.

The Florida Keys is made up of 1,700 islands in total.

Gulf County is the only county in the United States located in two time zones.

Wakulla Springs is the largest and deepest freshwater spring in the world.

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