The Florida Roundup - Congressional redistricting, AI regulation and weekly news briefing

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

This week on The Florida Roundup, we looked at the congressional redistricting efforts in the Florida House with “Your Florida” state government team reporter Douglas Soule (00:00). Then, we talked about Florida’s recent redistricting efforts and legal battles with Patrick Rickert, who teaches Political Science at Rollins College (09:58). And later, we looked at how Florida lawmakers might regulate artificial intelligence with Sonja Schmer-Galunder, Professor in AI and Ethics at the University of Florida (24:00). Plus, we checked in on the latest in the property tax reform debate (37:38) and looked at wildlife news from around the state (39:38).

Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Great to have you along this week. Six states have redrawn lines on a map to create new boundaries of congressional districts. And this week, the Florida House started the process to do the same thing. I'm not naive to the fact that there is much public discourse around mid-decade redistricting. This is Republican Representative Mike Redondo.

He is chairman of the House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting, which met for the first time on Thursday. Let me be very clear. Our work as a committee and as a legislative body is not directed by the work of other states or partisan gamesmanship. President Donald Trump and Governor And DeSantis are pushing to redraw congressional districts to create more Republican seats on Capitol Hill and ultimately help the GOP keep a majority in the U.S. House in next year's election. Evan Power is the chair of the Republican Party of Florida, and he notes the Sunshine State is just the latest state to consider redistricting. It will end in two very partisan draws in red and blue states, I would imagine,

but that's what they're trying to do in California. That's what they've done in Massachusetts. That's what they've done in New York. That's what they've done in Illinois. This redrawing of political boundaries normally happens once a decade after the population census every 10 years. Florida may be the next battleground over congressional redistricting now. So should political boundaries for the U.S. House of Representatives be redrawn here in Florida

several years ahead of schedule? Who should be counted for representation in Congress? Everyone or just U.S. citizens? Call us now 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. Send us a quick email to radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Nancy and Palm Coast wrote us, I am absolutely not in favor of Florida redrawing voting district boundaries ahead of schedule, as other states have.

The country has gone mad, Nancy writes, and Florida is going right along with everyone else. Genesis Robinson was at the Florida Capitol on Tuesday with the group Equal Ground. We will not allow our state to continue to strip away the voting rights of the most marginalized constituents in our state. No. We will not let politicians choose their voters. No. Race plays a central role in this debate. A new map in Texas was challenged in court as racially discriminatory,

but this week the U.S. Supreme Court allowed that Texas map to be used. A separate case from Louisiana centers around whether or not race can be considered when drawing up congressional districts. Florida's own state constitution already bans drawing districts to favor any political party or disfavoring any racial group. It also prohibits boundaries that, quote, diminish racial minority's abilities to elect representatives of their choice. A state Supreme Court ruling in July upheld a new map, though, that eliminated a majority black district in North Florida. All our majority, minority counties will be impacted if this gerrymandering type of redistricting takes place.

Carolyn Thompson lives in Broward County and is with the Advancement Project. That's a nonpartisan civil rights organization. We've been able to have representation for decades now. And the idea that we could lose that representation through partisan gerrymandering is problematic. It's a dilution of our voices and our votes. And so we have to push back. Nancy Batista lives in central Florida in the congressional district with the largest number of Puerto Rican constituents.

I'm the wife of a military veteran and like so many veteran and immigrant families in District 9, we came here for opportunity, stability, and a chance to build a future. But opportunity doesn't mean much when political lines are drawn in a way that silence the very communities who make Central Florida strong. Douglas Sol covers the legislature for the Your Florida Project with our partner station WUSF and joins us now. So, Douglas, what happened this week in Tallahassee with this select committee on redistricting? So as you mentioned, the Florida House Redistricting Committee held its first meeting yesterday. This committee was formed months ago, creating a lot of speculation about redistricting here in Florida.

Then the committee went silent. This first meeting was only an informational one. listening and learning session, but it marks the first step in what could come quite the dramatic journey. Yeah. So listening and learning session, the chairman who is a Republican, we heard from sound from him just a few moments ago, he said that any new map would not be drawn to advantage the GOP. So how did that pledge go over in the hearing room when he made it this week? Around 100 people from across Florida came to the Capitol on Thursday to rally outside and speak at that meeting. The chair didn't allow public comment, though, since it was only an informational

meeting on the redistricting process, but when the chair set a new map, wouldn't be driven bipartisan gamanship. Those people erupted in laughter. They obviously had their doubts. What's the catalyst for this redistricting effort? We've heard about this from Governor DeSantis for months. We've heard about it from Republican House members here. How are supporters in the legislature justifying new political boundaries here in the middle of the decade? Well, the catalyst clearly is President Donald Trump pressing Republican states to add Republican leading congressional seats before the midterms. Democratic states are, of course, also now responding by adding Democratic leading states. There was a lot of litigation over Florida's

current congressional map, which Governor Ron DeSantis strong armed through the legislative process a few years back. I won't go too into the weeds of that litigation, but that map obviously survived the litigation. And the committee chair on Thursday says it raised some redistricting questions that the committee will discuss in a meeting next week. So what's the party split right now on Capitol Hill of the Florida congressional delegation. Some argue the current map is already pretty partisan. It certainly favors Republicans. Florida has 20 Republican U.S. representatives and only eight Democrats. That's a skewed distribution, considering 43 percent of Floridians voted for Harris in 2024. Yeah. And so for those supporters of redistricting here, what are they anticipating

if the boundaries get redrawn before the midterm election in November of next year? Well, supporters of redistricting say different things. Evan Power, the party chair in Florida of the Republicans, thinks that the Republican Party could add three to five Republican leading seats, which would obviously knock out a good chunk of the eight seats Democrats currently hold. And just to be clear, here, Douglas, are we talking about two additional districts from the 28 that are currently carved up in Florida? So we would have, what, then 31 districts?

No, so that's actually a great question. and it can be a cause for confusion for people who are listening in and learning about this. Florida has 28 congressional districts. That's not going to change. Redistricting would be done with 2020 census data, and the 2020 census gave us 28 seats. Okay. In terms of how many seats can be made Republican, obviously we have Evan Power saying up to five. But that has been a controversy in Florida.

DeSantis does think Florida deserves more seats in general, census undercounted Florida. And the governor also points to how Florida. population has grown and changed since the count was done. Yeah, let's talk about the timeline here. We have the November election of 2026. We have the August primary of 2026 here in Florida. We have the state legislative session which wraps up, I think, what, late February, early March. What is the timeline for any legislation? Great question. And that's actually a big question right now. DeSantis said this week that he wants the spring special session after the legislative session. The House redistricting committee chair yesterday said that would be irresponsibly late.

If there's going to be a new map, he says it should be made during the legislative session, which starts in mid-generating, ends in mid-March. We don't really know what the Senate wants. They've been very closed mouth. Senate President bin all written this week said that they're not actively working on any redistricting map. And it still requires both houses to pass legislation in Tallahassee for that to happen. It also requires the governor to be on the same. well absolutely right the executive branch too uh douglas sole watching the state legislature with your florida project with our partner station w usf thank you douglas ania has been listening

in in panama city beach great to have you from the panhandle an i go ahead you're on the radio hi um i'm not as well versed in politics as your guest of course but it feels to me as a more liberal person in florida that the gerrymandering would simply erase what little representation I have now. And if my vote doesn't count, because it's already predetermined by the gerrymandering process that the state will be completely read and be contributing Republican Congress people, why would I even bother to vote? It just seems to go against the grain of absolutely everything I understood about democracy.

Hmm. Anaya, thank you for putting voice to your concerns there in Panama City Beach. This is a long-running challenge and debate, certainly in Florida. In Florida is just the latest state to go through this redistricting conversation or debate. Patrick Rickard is assistant professor of political science at Rollins College. Patrick, thanks for joining us now. First of all, how rare is redistricting five years after a census or five years before they? next census? Well, it's certainly historically unusual. Mid-decade redistricting is not unconstitutional, but it typically only happens after a court has demanded that districts be redrawn because they violate some sort of state or federal law. Absent that, redistricting generally only happens after the decennial census. Is it appropriate or is it even possible to draw new lines without a new census? It is possible. It depends on what population numbers are being used. Typically, we want to use the census numbers because those are our most accurate count of the current population of different

states and the current population of different regions of different states. While the Census Bureau puts out data on state populations and regional populations, those are based off sampling and projections, whereas the census is based off talking to everyone. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about relevant law here, beginning with state law. Here in Florida, as you know, and we were talking about the fair district's constitutional amendment that was added to the state constitution in 2010. It was voter approved.

It bans gerrymandering for part. citizenship and bans drawing districts to diminish minority representation. So what, what has that meant in practice in Florida? In practice, that hasn't amounted to much. The state Supreme Court has never declared that any map that Florida has drawn has favored or disfavored a political party. Recently, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that maps that eliminated some majority black districts did not dilute racial and ethnic groups' ability to pick their own candidate. So while those laws are in place, while the constitutional amendments are in place, in practice the Supreme Court has been shy about enforcing those.

We got a question from a listener, Dan Rogers. Doesn't the Constitution prohibit drawing districts to benefit a political party? Are the Republicans expecting the Florida Supreme Court to green light any maps they may adopt? Well, Patrick, I think that first. question, we kind of already answered. The Constitution does explicitly prohibit drawing districts to benefit a political party, correct? It does. But the Florida legislature will make their case to the Supreme Court that they are doing this out of fairness rather than doing this out of political advantage. However, President Trump has, in a way, hindered those efforts by being

so vocal about the fact that this redistricting effort is for the benefit. profit approximately of the Republicans in the 2026 election. So it might be more difficult for the governor to claim that this is just about drawing fairer districts under that environment. So to Dan's second question, are the Republicans expecting the state Supreme Court just to approve maps that may come out of the legislature? It sounds like maybe the president's own words may be used in the inevitable legal challenge should some new maps be drawn this spring in Florida. Certainly I would expect that to be the case. So that's state law here. Federal law also is in play. No small part because of the July decision by the state Supreme Court that allowed a redrawn congressional district in northern Florida to go forward, essentially saying that the new map, essentially saying that federal law was more important than the state rules here that would protect minority voices. Explain this tension between federal law and state law.

Yeah, so the Constitution gives states the power to draw their own districts, and there are very few guidelines that states have to follow. Basically, there are two. One is that districts have to be approximately equal population. And the second comes from the Voting Rights Act, which says that districts cannot be drawn in ways that dilute minority representatives. So this is the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Section 2, specifically, I think, Patrick, that bans voting laws that would deny voting rights because of race. That's the section in question that's at the heart of a different legal challenge from Louisiana that's in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Governor DeS. and his supporters for redistricting say could open the door to redrawing maps in Florida as well as elsewhere. Yes. And the Supreme Court has taken. down parts of the Voting Rights Act before. This summer, they will take up the question of whether

Section 2 is out of date as well, which would allow for Republicans in especially Louisiana and Alabama to draw districts that would eliminate what are now known as these majority minority districts that are put in place intended for black citizens to be able to elect a candidate of their choosing. So this push and pull between the Fair District's state constitutional amendment and the 1965 federal voting rights clearly in play here in Florida. Patrick, how about other states like Texas and California? How have they handled redistricting rules and are there lessons as Florida is on the cusp of having this very similar debate? Yeah, so because the Constitution leaves it up to the states to decide how districts are going to be drawn, we don't. We don't

have one process. We have a patchwork of 50 different processes that kind of put us in the situation we're in today. One element of that is Republican states are far more likely to have partisan processes for drawing their districts that usually go through the state legislature. Whereas over the past 15 or 20 years, majority Democratic states have chosen to put into place bipartisan or nonpartisan boards to draw their districts with the goal of eliminating gerrymandering. This means that Republican states that want to redraw maps to give their party an advantage are going to have a much easier time than Democratic states who would have to kind of dismantle these boards. Patrick Rickert is with Rollins College in Central Florida. Patrick, thanks so much

for the quick master lesson here. yeah thank you for having me in jacksonville jason has been listening in go ahead jason you are on the radio thank you so much i just want to say that we're spending a lot of time discussing the illegality or the legality of the redistricting and i really wish we'd put a little more focus on why we are here we are replaying the phone call to brad raffensberger find me 11000 votes on a national scale trump was told by his advisors you're going to lose the midterms and he said Well, what can we do? He's acting out of fear. This all started in Texas, where he had the super majority. It is absolutely cheating at its base level. And even some Republicans out there probably would acknowledge that.

His policies are wildly unpopular. And I would love to see a little bit more focus on why we are here as to whether or not is it legal or not. Thank you so much for taking my call. Yeah, Jason and Jacksonville. Thank you for providing voice there on your perspective. Nancy in Port Orange, I think has very similar feelings. She writes us, this is the crux of why redistricting is wrong. Redrawing congressional districts in the middle of the decade on partisan grounds without new census data, defies the will of the people, and undermines the Florida state constitution. Our inbox is always open. Tell us what you think about this redistricting debate, which is clearly underway here in Florida.

Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Coming up, we're going to be talking about artificial intelligence, privacy, and protections. Do you use AI in your everyday work? How do you use it? How do you encounter it? Do you feel safe using it? We're going to be speaking with an AI ethics expert who works here in Florida as the governor

this week announced his own AI Bill of Rights. So how protected are you with artificial intelligence encroaching upon every part of our lives here in Florida, one way, shape, or form. Let us know. The phones are open right now, 305-995-1800. We're full of mistakes in humanity here. We are real IRL on the Florida Roundup. It's next. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's one trillion dollar asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup.

I'm Tom Hudson. Next week on our program, speech and consequences. A University of Florida law student recently won a lawsuit against the school after he was kicked out over anti-Semitic social media posts. And a Florida Atlantic University professor

was reinstated after being out on leave for comments after the Charlie Kirk murder. The limits of the First Amendment have been tested this year in Florida. So where do you find the line between freedom of speech, but not freedom from consequences of that speech. Email us now, Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org.

That'll be next week. Now, speech protection and our cyber lives. Florida is one of the first states to put limits on who can sign up for social media accounts. Sites like Instagram and TikTok are banned from allowing anyone under the age of 14 in Florida to sign up. The law also requires social media. platforms to delete accounts of anyone younger than 14. Parents also can have their kids' accounts close down. And anyone 14 or 15 in Florida can keep or open social media accounts, but only if a parent okays it. A federal appeals court allowed this new state law to go forward after rejecting

a First Amendment challenge earlier this year. Republican Representative Toby Overdorf was confident about the law's constitutionality when we spoke with him back in January. We did an exhaustive research and search on the constitutional rights associated with the parameters of this law, and we absolutely feel that this will stand up, and we would not have put something into law if we felt that this was an area that would not pass the constitutional mustard. The appeals court in November ruled the law does not infringe on free speech rights of teens. The majority opinion held the law is aimed at features, not speech, which is what Republican Representative Tyler Soroy told us as the legislature was devised.

abating the bill in February of 2024. We're not focused on content. You know, I think that that's a very important distinction to make. This bill is not about the content that is on these platforms. This bill is on addictive features. The things that are intentionally designed to produce basically a dopamine hit in our kids. One of my colleagues referred to it as a digital fentanyl. State Attorney General James Uthmeyer said the law.

will be in force now, and he made that statement on social media, underscoring something else that Representative Soroy acknowledged when we spoke with him almost two years ago. Social media is a tool that exists, and it is very prevalent in our society. This legislation is not about whether social media is good or bad, but what we are working to do is to protect our youth from platforms that we now understand,

are harmful. We're seeing soaring suicide rates. We're seeing increased incidence of self-harm. Which leads us to the next frontier of cyber regulation, artificial intelligence. Next week, several Florida House committees will hold hearings to discuss the use

of AI in various industries including by the state government itself. And this week, Governor Ron DeSantis unveiled his AI wish list. Here's Joe Burns with our partner Central Florida Public Media. Governor DeSantis is proposing a wide-ranging AI Bill of Rights in Florida to address the, quote, obvious dangers of artificial

intelligence. You know, it could set off an age of darkness and deceit. You know, some will say that it's going to lead to curing cancer and all that. I hope so. I think that would be great. But human nature is what it is. There's going to be huge temptations to take this in a very bad direction. He says the Bill of Rights would have consumer protections against deep fakes and explicit material, especially involving kids and misuse of personal data. It would have safeguards for children interacting with chatbots. Parents could read their chats and set parameters and companies would have to notify parents

if a child exhibited concerning behaviors. AI relies on huge power-guzzling data centers. DeSantis says the bill would protect communities and utility customers from those impacts. I'm Joe Burns. So how to use AI here in Florida? Are you concerned about the safety of artificial intelligence? Florida bans some children from social media because of what lawmakers say are addictive features.

What about AI? 305-995-1800 is our phone number 305-995-1800, or you can send us a quick email, radio, at the Florida Roundup.org. Jason is in Jacksonville listening, different Jason than what we spoke to just a few moments ago about the different issue. Jason, welcome to the program. You are on the radio. It's great to be here. How do you use AI? I am a home inspector. I occasionally, when I'm finishing a report up, and I need to convey something concisely, I tell chat, GPP, what I'm trying to convey to the client, and they will, then it'll clean it up for me and convey that for me.

So you're ultimately responsible for that report, both morally and perhaps even legally in some cases. Do you review AI's work before sending it in? Oh, absolutely. I go through it, clean it up, make sure it said what I wanted it to. So has that made your work more efficient than, Jason, or not? Oh, absolutely. Okay. At least the writing of the report part. It can't go through a house for me.

It can't take off an electrical panel, but it can help me convey things in a concise manner. Can't climb a ladder on the roof, just not yet, at least, right, Jason? Yeah, okay. Thankfully, no. All right. Three points of contact at all times when you're up there. Thank you, Jason, for letting us know how you. You use AI there as a home inspector in Jacksonville. Let's talk more about this with Sonia Shamir Gunlouder.

She's a professor of AI ethics at the University of Florida. Sonia, thanks for your time. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. On LinkedIn, you called Governor DeSantis' AI Bill of Rights exemplary. Explain. What do you find exemplary about his ideas? Sure.

What is really exemplary about the bill is that he is, framing the Bill of Rights as rights of citizens. And this means that citizens of the state of Florida have a right to be protected by harms that come from a consumer product. We often talk about the rights and obligations of citizens versus the rights and obligations as a consumer. And this is particularly important. And I like the framing because like we as consumers of a product have the right to be

protected from potential harms. by our governments. But what about the role of the marketplace of rewarding those services or companies that provide protections that consumers want versus regulating those protections on the part of a government toward a marketplace? To me, this is not really a question about, like, you know, whether government, what a market forces should, like, dominate the conversation. It is really more about a must.

It's not just a need, right? Like, when we talk about like need in regulation, it's not like we need a cup of coffee. Well, and it's important to make that conceptual distinction because we, you know, the way we must have, you know, the AI, I'd say, is a must because the way we must have food safety standards or a seatbelt that implies that it's not just optional, but the responsibility that we are already behind on.

And I may add also that we shouldn't just talk about regulation, but also really governance, because regulation oftentimes is reactive. When the harm is already done, then the government steps in to tell companies what they can or cannot do. Well, governments is really more about being proactive, about a broader ecosystem, about decision-making, and whether or not we want the technology,

whether or not it should be developed and deployed and also who is to be held accountable. Boy, there's a lot there to unpack, which is fascinating, particularly as state lawmakers here in Florida, the House at least is going to have several hearings next week about artificial intelligence in different industries. How does one begin to think about regulation of, I suppose, something that hasn't even been invented yet when it comes to AI? In other words, kind of guiding artificial intelligence research away from some kind of immoral or unethical or, frankly, perhaps even illegal outcome. Yeah. It's a very difficult question, of course. Very often the argument goes, well, we need to innovate at all costs, right?

And there's also a little bit of an engineering mindset there that, like, we build something and then we put it out into the world and then we see what happens. and if it doesn't go well and we call it back. This has happened in the past and social media is like actually a really good example as to work and learn here from the past because we do see the long-term consequences of a technology and its impact on mental health and, you know, and addictive behavior, especially among younger generations. But it goes a bit beyond that because like AI is much more pervasive and it's going to be much more impactful than social media because it's a bigger,

because it, like, really undermines how we communicate with each other and, like, how we perceive and what we perceive. So, in a way, the good news is that we can learn from social media in the past, but the bad news really is that it's going to be much more impactful, but that, you know, must really act now. So, Sonia, I want to dig into that even further here. Sonia Shemar Gn-Lounder is with us, Professor of Artificial Intelligence Ethics at the University of Florida. So here we are in 2025, social media is plus or minus 20 years old. Sonia, would you kind of agree with that kind of time frame maybe?

Maybe not 15, 20 years old. Yeah. And here we are just now seeing some regulations or efforts around regulating social media, particularly in the state of Florida, by prohibiting the teenagers or children under the age of 14 from having accounts of certain social media platforms. And we're in the very early stages, of course, of artificial intelligence. Apply that 15, 20 years of learning of how social media is impacting our civic life, our cultural life, our legal life, our communications. And from your perspective as a professor of AI ethics, how to apply that then for regulators and lawmakers toward this burgeoning technology?

Yeah. Well, there's many different sub-questions in your questions that might go one after the other. So what we can learn from social media and there's various levels of like what can be regulated and what should be regulated. And the UAI Act, for example, is a good example that divides like various risks and harms into categories of severity going from like really unacceptable risks to like acceptable risks. But what we can learn is really that self-governance doesn't work. The social media companies, like, have been able to rule pretty freely and, like, put a lot of technology out here that we didn't necessarily ask for without getting any public input. And only now after the fact, like, with through various governmental bodies, especially coming out of the European Union, they are now adapting. It's really also interesting to see, like, I don't know if you're familiar with the term the Brussels effect, but Anne Obrato...

I am not, no, that would not, it's not a reference to vegetables, I suspect. I haven't heard that. That's really funny. Thank you for laughing at my bad pun there. Something to come about European regulations is what that is, I'm guessing. Exactly. It's Annou Bradford. It's a law professor at the Columbia University. She has actually written a book called the Brussels. That's the fact where she has shown that like other regulatory bodies, like the TDPR, for example, have had an effect on the whole world, but it has come out of the European Union making, you know, using basically its market power in order to force regulation onto tech companies. The tech companies are that not like producing two different products for two different markets. Right. If there's one that makes more demands, then like it's going to be adopted and becomes a,

the global standard. The UAI Act, I think the hope here is also that, like, if we have one organization that, like, puts more pressure on the companies that then they will then adapt. So, sorry, go ahead. I got to remind folks that you're listening to the Florida Ronde up from your Florida Public Radio Station. We're talking about artificial intelligence and ethics with Sonia Shmer Gunlouder, a professor of AI ethics at the University of Florida.

next week in Tallahassee a number of Florida House of Representative subcommittees are going to be holding hearings about artificial intelligence in various industries including using AI by state government agencies Shauna has been listening in and White Springs and is online too shana thanks so much for your patience here on the radio my pleasure go ahead so I'm a certified AI consultant and I work with individual small and medium-sized businesses to help them adopt AI. And I emphasize the ethics of it. I think that we have seen through every technological innovation from TV to the Internet to now AI that its accessibility has more benefits than the drawback. And I think that we've also learned with each of those iteration, what to look for, and how to get ahead of the game. I think that we think of AI in this huge negative way because our zeitgeist taught us 40 years ago that it was the Terminator when it's actually a tool.

And I'm glad that we are having these conversations at these early adoptive stages. that its benefits as tools can be utilized and emphasized because we are being cognizant of the ethics at these stages. Yeah. Shana, thanks so much for your perspective there. White Springs is an AI consultant. Sonia, let me ask about what specifically when it comes to artificial intelligence is in need of regulation, the models, the large language learning models, the application of AI, privacy

protections, copyright considerations. Like when we talk about regulation, and you heard some there from Sean about applying lessons learned, what is it explicitly that needs kind of attention first on the part of legislators? Yeah, lots of discussions there. And thanks also for the call and thank you for also doing the work of increasing the awareness around the ethics. And we might maybe also talk about what that actually means like AI ethics. But to answer your question as to what should be regulated, that really depends on what I was alluding to before the level of risk that AI can pose. There's absolutely, as your caller has also said, enormous benefits to using AI and AI tools

in various domains where the goal is to, for example, to be more efficient. or have certain cost savings, or even like large pattern recognitions, like in the health domain, climate domain. We've seen this in like projects like alpha-fold, et cetera, that there's absolutely amazing benefits, big and large. But there's also areas where risk is, for example, unacceptable, should be unacceptable, and that are systems that deploy, for example, subliminal or manipulative or deceptive technique,

that might destroy behavior or impair your decision-making. It covers AI-based social scoring or biometric categorization systems that classify people based on socioeconomic status or other characteristics. And with all the data that is available to the companies that they have available, without necessarily any protections, a lot of inferences can be made about you and that can then be used against you. And this has happened, right? So there's a huge domain of risk.

here. And then one that is probably also unacceptable. We hear a lot of like very, very smart people talk about. Just a few seconds, Sonia. Sorry for the interruption here because we're up against the clock. Time marches in one direction, artificial or not. Sonia Shemarigan Lounder, AI ethics professor at the University of Florida. Florida Roundup continues in a moment. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Great to have your company this week. We'll have some Florida wildlife stories in a moment, but first let's get you caught up on the debate over

property taxes. More than a half dozen different proposals have been floated as Governor On DeSantis has made reducing or eliminating some local property taxes a big priority for him next year. Any changes will require amending the state constitution. Now this week, four proposed constitutional amendments aimed at reducing property taxes for homeowners moved forward in the Florida House, despite concerns about how they could hit funding for local services. Republicans have a supermajority in the legislature, and the State Affairs Committee voted along party lines to approve the proposals, including a straight elimination of non-school homestead property taxes. That is projected to cut local government revenue by over $14 billion in the first year it's implemented.

Representative Wyman Duggan says the overall goal is to save taxpayers' money. What we are trying to do is address the property insurance burden that we have heard about. And this is a mechanism to do that. And so this is one of the choices that we are making. Remember, at the end of the day, we're giving the voters the option to decide on this. The measures advanced Tuesday would need approval from one more House committee before they go to the full House for consideration during the 26th, legislative. session. But local governments continue to raise lots of concerns about how they would pay for

some services without local property taxes. Tom Reed is the vice mayor of South Pasadena in Pinellas County. With less revenue, we face daunting choices. We will need to cut or scale back vital services such as road and infrastructure, park upkeep, emergency services, and yes, very likely law enforcement. The proposals okayed by the committee this week would prohibit local governments from cutting police funding. Now, if any proposal eventually makes it to the ballot next year, at least 60% of people who vote would have to vote for it in order for it to be added to the Constitution. All right.

Let's talk about some of Florida's wild places, starting with one of the state's favorite mammals, the manatee. Environmentalists are increasingly worried manatee protections will be eroded if the Trump administration's proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act are approved. Helen Acevedo reports now from our partner station, WLRN, in Miami. The Florida manatee has benefited from federal protections for over five decades that have allowed the species to repopulate and thrive. Now the Trump administration wants to make changes to the Endangered Species Act aimed at curbing, quote, regulatory overreach. If approved, that would mean eliminating the U.S. fish and wildlife services so-called blanket rule, which automatically protects threatened animals and plants.

Instead, the agency would have to draft rules for each individual species. The Trump administration is also pushing for economic impact to be included among criteria for deciding if a habitat is critical to a species' survival. Environmentalists say these changes could reverse decades of progress made to protect manatees and other endangered species, warning that under these rules, they'd have to wait until species are nearly extinct to protect them. More than 1,600 species are protected under the Endangered Species Act. in Miami.

While we're in or on the water here, let's catch up with our colleague Steve Newborn from our partner station WUSF in Tampa. He recently found himself on the water with paddle in hand. It's our second morning. We're about 15 miles south of Zolfo Springs where we put in about halfway

to our destination, Arcadia. Steve was paddling along the Peace River. That starts about 10 miles from Legoland in Winterhaven before eventually emptying into the Gulf. There are still some wild, old Florida-type places along the Peace River, even as it also bears the scars of a century and a half of exploitation. Five of us paddled about 40 miles of the peace

just ahead of the first cold front of the year. It was three days and nights of quiet bliss, one dead boar and a long window into Florida's past. We've seen several kingfishers, great white eagrots, and even a rosyth spoon bill, the pinkish wings, glistening in the sun, is something to see. The piece winds 106 miles from the green swamp in Polk County to Charlotte Harbor on the Gulf.

It was a doorway for conquistadors, the center of the state's phosphate industry, and now quenches the thirst of nearly a million people in four counties. The miracle is that it still retains so much of its, historic nature in so many places. Cantor Brown Jr. is an historian who grew up in Fort Mead just a few miles north of where we put in. He found the river of his youth so fascinating that he wrote a book, Florida's Peace River Frontier. We have what passes for recorded history for 5,000 years. Going back to 3,000 BC, it was a center for chert mining, which was Florida's substitute for Flint.

It just has historically been a semi-tropical paradise in it way. The Industrial Revolution eventually came to this part of paradise in a big way. In the 1880s, pebbles of phosphate rock were discovered here. That set off a frenzy of mining because it's the key ingredient in the production of fertilizer. There are now 27 phosphate mines in Florida covering nearly a half a billion acres, And most of them are in this area known as Bone Valley. It's the nation's largest deposit of phosphate, and with it comes the dangers of mining.

The water here is just a beautiful caramel brown glowing in the sunlight. The color of this water wasn't always so clear. In 1971, a dike gave way at a holding pond for a phosphate mine way upstream, and killed an estimated million to... 2 million fish. They said the color of the water was the color of chocolate milk. Brown says the phosphate spills transformed the river. The earliest pioneers all talked about the clear water, the springs that line the river up and down, the beautiful tropical birds that were everywhere, the fish that were so easily pot,

and of course those phosphate spills pretty much did away with all that. Another mine has been proposed for De Soto County near Arcadia. It would straddle Horse Creek, a tributary of the piece that is considered one of the purest waterways in Florida. Opponents say it could threaten the quality of drinking water that is siphoned downstream. Phosphate was not the only thing early settlers found here. It's called Bone Valley because prehistoric fossils and huge fossilized shark teeth are found in the river. We're down near Arcadia. We found a nice bend in the river with some sand,

and my friend Noel Childress found half of a shark's tooth in 15 minutes digging in the sediment at our campground. Brown told the story of a group of men who set out to explore the remote river back in 1860. They were scouting it and anticipation of it being developed with the Army Corps of Engineers planning to dredge its sandy bottom into a navigable channel. But he said the river changed their minds,

and that drudging didn't happen. It transformed them. They went from talking about the technical possibilities of exploitation to just being awed by the beauty of it. And I think the river itself helped to divert their attention.

Just as we were awed by the beauty of a river that has flowed through the pages of Florida history, with its next chapter yet to be written. I'm Steve Newborn in Tampa. And I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Rundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. From on the water to in the air, tis the season for the National Audubon Society's annual Christmas bird count.

And no, no, no, no, we're not talking about snowbirds here. Environment editor Jenny Stoledevich has the details. If you know that sound, the story is for you. Audubon's annual Christmas bird count gets underway later this month, whether you're a backyard birder counting avian visitors at your feeder or an avid birder with a life list, now is your chance to contribute to one of the longest, most continuous scientific data sets in history. The count was started more than a century ago

as a way to get burders in the field amid annual migrations. Over the years, the three-week bird count has helped reveal countless secrets. Last year, counters documented good news. Vagrant Flamingos swept ashore by Hurricane Adelia during the summer had managed to survive months later. And bad news, only a few whooping cranes were spotted despite efforts to revive the population. So unpack your binoculars and get your pencils.

I'm Jenny Stolettovich in Miami. The count runs from December 14th to January 5th. Now, as we say hello to migrating birds this time of year, we bid adios to hurricane season. The goodbye this year was almost as quiet as the season itself for Florida, except, of course, in the Concre Public. The red and black hurricane warning flags in Key West went up in flames last weekend as the season officially came to an end.

And in a Key's appropriate gesture, the flags were soaked in rum. Watching the flags burn this year is, you know, for us, it is a sigh of relief. This is Paul Menta, Speaker of the House for the Conk Republic, and the ceremonial Administrator of Rum. What a title. Administrator of Rum. Finally, here, Miami was trending this year, even more than Orlando. Get this.

Google released what were some of the most popular search trends this year, and Miami was number 10 on the list of top 10 travel destinations. It doesn't mean that Orlando wasn't searched. It just means that we didn't see that. big of an increase. And then for Miami, we did. Claire Heron is with Google. And while Florida won't host the Super Bowl next year, lots of Floridians were Googling the halftime musical artist. Miami loves Bad Bunny. So it seems like people are loving his music. Now, by the way, if you have never Googled Bad Bunny, I'll let you know it is not a misbehaving

rabbit. That is our program for today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Denise Royal. WLRN's vice president of radio is Peter Merz. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith, engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson, Harvey Brassard, and Ernesto J. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist, Aaron Leibos, at Aaron Leibos.com. Thanks for calling, listening, emailing, and supporting public media in your slice of Florida. I'm Tom Hudson.

Have a terrific weekend. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org.