The Florida Roundup - DEP worker dismissed over leaked parks plan, political polling, swing voters, fact-checks and a weekly briefing.

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke with the Tampa Bay Times environmental reporter who broke the story about FL DEP’s controversial state park plans (01:25). Then, we asked two polling experts for advice on how to interpret opinion polls going into the 2024 election (07:24) and then heard from two former Florida congress members about how to appeal to the swing voter (15:45). And later, we got the latest fact-checks from Sam Putterman with our partner PolitiFact (31:05). Finally, a roundup of stories related to workers unions (37:22) and an update on the Atlantic Hurricane Season from meteorologist Megan Borowski (44:11).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being along with us. The election season is in its last two months. Vote-by-mail ballots will be in the mail very soon. Advertising certainly is ramping up. You're starting to see it on TV. You're definitely seeing it online. And the rhetoric is heating up as well. And so are opinion polls. Have you checked your email inbox lately? How about your text messages? This is a state opinion with a survey for Thomas Hudson. Please take our community survey.

This is a text I received last week. You click on the link and you get questions like, how likely is it that you'll be voting? And how excited are you to vote for your preferred candidate for president? It also asks about local elections and what my political party voter registration is. Hello. We value your opinion on Florida's current events. Please share your input here. I received this one just a couple of weeks ago in late August. So have you participated in a political poll?

What do these kinds of surveys really tell us about voters? And how can you judge the reliability of them? Call now 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. Send us a quick email. Our inbox is open. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org.

Your phone calls and emails coming up in just a few minutes. First, a leak, the outrage, the retraction, and then a firing. This is what happened regarding the state's Department of Environmental Protection proposals to bring golf, frisbee golf, and lots of pickleball courts to a handful of state parks across Florida. This story burst out just a little bit more than a couple of weeks ago. Last week, Governor Ron DeSantis said the state was going back to the drawing board. Then the state agency stopped it altogether. This week, we learned the whistleblower has been fired. Tampa Bay Times environment and climate reporter Max Chesnis has broken this story from the get-go and joins us now.

Max, remind us what this proposal was all about. Yeah, thank you for having me today, Tom. And as a reminder for the listeners, this was a sweeping initiative that was announced to place new developments in nine of Florida's state parks, including golf courses, two 350-room hotels, pickleball courts, cabins, and more across nine parks, including down there in Miami as well as up to the Panhandle. Yeah. So who is this whistleblower? Yeah, his name is James Gaddis. He's 41 years old. He was hired in 2022 as a cartographer for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Before that, though, he was still a state agency employee. He worked for ACA, or the Agency for Healthcare Administration. And when he moved over to DEP in 2022, he began work on building out maps and conceptual land use documents for the agency. In the letter that he received from the state firing him, the state cites conduct unbecoming of a public employee, including what the letter says, quote, is the employee shall conduct themselves in a manner that will not bring discredit or embarrassment to the state. What were the grounds for his dismissal from his job?

Yeah, well, the state in his termination letter, which Gaddis shared with me, and then the state actually followed up and sent me the letter to confirm his firing. They do cite the sharing of at least one document that he drafted, and the state was able to back to his own work computer. But it was a memo essentially that outlined several initiatives the state was going to take, including rushed meetings for the week of August 27th. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection wanted to schedule all of these meetings across the state from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. And in his leaked memo, Gaddis essentially predicts that this is going to happen.

And then several days after that memo went out, sure enough, the Department of Environmental Protection did schedule those meetings. That kind of pace, is that a normal pace for this kind of policymaking? Well, from all of the experts that we've spoken to, both current and former parks employees, including the former head of the park system itself, Eric Draper, have all told us that this is a very unusual process. And Eric Draper actually went as far as to say that the state might have been skirting the law here in terms of giving the public ample notice for these park plans. Just from the formation of these plans to when they were released publicly was a little over a week, and that is just, it's unusual for a proposal of this sweeping, large-scale nature

to be introduced in such a quick way. All right, Max, the cliche question, which is who knew it and when did they know it in terms of this kind of pace for these proposals? Where are you in your investigation? What can you share with us about kind of the chain of custody about these decisions? Yeah, it's a great question. And we know based on our reporting, we were able to obtain a copy of Governor DeSantis' schedule for April the 10th of this year. And that schedule shows that he sat down with a non-profit member from Folds of Honor, which is a veterans non-profit group. And we know based on some of our reporting that this group has previously pitched state senators as well as Martin county commissioners on building a golf course

at jonathan dickinson state park over on the east coast and during a press conference last week i asked the governor why uh what what they talked about during this meeting and he confirmed to us that the that group did pitch him on a golf course at jd state park so we know that the governor was privy to the plans based on that aprilth meeting. And Gattis, the whistleblower, did tell me when we talked earlier this week that DeSantis' deputy chief of staff, Cody Farrell, was acting as the liaison between the governor's release records, public records, and also called on the state's inspector general to investigate all of this. How likely would either of those happen? Yeah, that's also a great question. I mean, we have seen this increasing pressure campaign from both state lawmakers and from congressmembers now urging the governor's office to release those records.

We've also put in our own record requests. Given the state's history with turning around those records, we're not banking on getting those records anytime soon. However, if there were to be an Inspector General report or investigation, some of those records may be probably loose. Now, we did ask the Florida Department of Environmental Protection yesterday, their Inspector general, Candy Fuller, whether or not she intended to launch an investigation, and we have not heard back from her. Max Chesnis covers the environment and climate for the Tampa Bay Times. Max, thanks so much for sharing your reporting with us. Great work. Stay on top of it for us, will you? Will do. Thanks for having me.

Politics and polling now here on The Roundup. There's no shortage of opinion surveys trying to tell us what you think about the election, what issues are important to you. Do you plan on voting and how excited are you to vote in this election? And of course, who will you vote for? Since becoming the party's nominee just a month ago, Vice President Harris has measurably increased Latino support and her candidacy seems to be resonating with greater numbers in our community. That's Janet Morgia. She's the CEO of Latino civil rights organization, Nunados U.S. It's one of the latest organizations out with a political poll just this week. So have you taken part in political polling? How do polls reflect or reject your opinions? 305-995-1800.

305-995-1800. You can shoot us a quick email as well. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Kay in Gainesville wrote us, writing, I believe polls used to be more reliable. Now more people purposely lie and connive to cause havoc in all parts of life because it's, quote, fun, including talking to polls.

Yeah, if you've been involved in a poll, how truthful are you? Well, a couple of guys who know polls and Floridians very, very well are Kevin Wagner and Mike Bender. Mike is the faculty director of the Political Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida. Kevin is the co-director of the Polcom Lab at Florida Atlantic University. Kevin and Mike, thanks so much for joining us here on the Florida Roundup. Kevin, let me begin with you. What's the value of

political polling for the general public? It's a snapshot of public opinion taken during a particular time to give a sense of what people are thinking, what they're feeling, what they value, which for a democracy is kind of important, right, to know how the people are engaging and considering the issues that they're confronted with. Mike, your lab conducted its own survey of Florida voters back in July, finding that the former president, Donald Trump, had a seven-point lead here in the Sunshine State. What's the value of that state data for voters here in Florida well before Election Day? Well, listen, I don't want to stand up here and devalue the work that we do, but I think in some ways the horse race polling that gets the most of the attention is probably the least valuable for

democracy. And like Kevin was talking about, the issues that people care about, everyday, regular Americans or Floridians that don't have lobbyists. This is how we, as regular citizens, can say, hey, this issue is important to us. Here's our preference on this particular policy. Those sorts of things are really where the value is at. The presidential race is likely to come down to just a handful of states, thanks to the Electoral College. And so given that, what's the value of national polls around a popular vote or even polls in a decidedly Republican or Democratic state like Florida ahead of Election Day? Well, I think they're all leading into clues about where the electorate's going to go writ large. But it's not just a president that's on the ballot, right? There's Senate seats on the ballot

in these states. There's House races. There's State House and State Senate seats and all the roles that are at stake if more people of one party show up than of the other, or maybe if there's coattails from a presidential candidate or not, as we've seen maybe from Donald Trump's side of the aisle. Those are things that people want to know about. People can plan for. People don't have a sense about what's happening. Kevin, I want to ask you about the scale of polling. The most recent FAU poll finds that the vice president, Kamala Harris, leading the former president, Donald Trump, by 4%. finds that the vice president, Kamala Harris, leading the former president, Donald Trump,

by 4%. This was a poll of fewer than 1,000 registered voters. There are more than 160 million registered voters in the United States. So how does this pool of 1,000 voters reflect on the opinions of the country? Yeah, that's always an interesting question. Part of it is the value of sampling and how you do your sampling and how you do probability sampling. Contrary to popular opinion, it's not how big your sample is, it's how you collect it and whether or not that sample is ultimately representative of the larger population. Are you giving everyone in your population an equal chance of being selected? And if you're using a probability sample, you can make inferences based upon that probability sample to the general population.

Polling is a snapshot of a moment. you can make inferences based upon that probability sample to the general population. Polling is a snapshot of a moment. Unless you think moments never change or the whole world is static, it's not a prediction. And I think that's where we really get into some problems. Just because something is in a particular snapshot doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. And so when we just use polling to predict, then people get angry at polling. Well, you predicted four months ago that this was going to happen. Well, no, things do change a little bit. There's a conflation involved of conflating a poll to a prediction, right, Michael? It's also true that not all polls are created equally. And there are folks out there that are doing this on the cheap that aren't using the best methodologies that get filtered in and kind of give folks a

bad name that are doing it right. But that being said, we can do a pretty good job at getting the numbers right if we know what our samples look like. The problem is, and nobody is good at this, who is actually going to show up in November is really tricky. People can tell us they're going to vote. Many of them are lying because of social desirability bias. And then things happen, right? All kinds of things can happen between now and election day that leads you not to being able to vote. And those are things that can really shift elections. And we really saw that here in Florida in 2022, when Democrats just didn't show up in historic proportions that led to DeSantis and Republicans overperforming so much. Mike, how are likely voters determined in polls and surveys? Is it self-policing? Do I get

to decide if I'm a likely voter if I'm in your poll? If you're doing a traditional random digit dial where the only thing you know is the person picked up the phone and said hello, yeah, you're really relying on that person for what they say they're going to do. If you're coming off of a list, a voter file list, or a list is provided by a company of registered voters that has vote history attached to it, you as the researcher can attach some probability of likelihood of turning out to vote along with what that person tells you. If they tell you they're not going to vote, there's a really good chance they're not going to vote. Even if they say they're probably going to vote, it's probably 50-50 that they might

show up or not. So you can attach different weights to it. So it depends on where you're getting your sample information from, how much prior behavior you can include in your estimations. Kevin, are there differences in polling about a person versus a policy, such as the amendment questions here in Florida, including those around abortion and recreational marijuana? It's actually a more prescient question than you might think, at least initially, because so much of what we do now is through partisan lenses. And so much of how we perceive the world is through partisan lenses, so much so that how we perceive the world is through partisan lenses.

So much so that we're seeing an alignment of policies and people. If somebody on your side likes it, then all of a sudden you like it too. And so we see a lot more of that. With that said, there are some areas where we see some exceptions to that growing sort of partisan lens universe. And one of them might well be some of these amendments, especially on abortion or reproductive rights, where you've seen in some states, especially Republican-leaning states, a fair amount of support for something that the party doesn't necessarily back. And so in this particular case, you're seeing some separation. But the larger pattern that

we've observed now for the last several election cycles is a growing unity of ideas and people. Dare I ask a couple of academic pollsters what the margin of victory may be with the popular vote for president in the United States this November? I'm not sure, but it's my expectation just based on having done this for a while and how firm opinions tend to be held, especially in the United States today, that it's going to be close. Kevin Wagner, the co-director of the Polcom Lab at Florida Atlantic University. Mike Bender is the faculty director of the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida. Kevin and Mike, thanks so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks for having us. A jackpot for political pollsters and politicians is the swing voter, a NPA voter, the politically independent, the undecideds who may very well may decide the outcome of this presidential election

and other close races here in Florida, such as the abortion and recreational marijuana amendments. Carlos Corbello was a Republican in Congress representing South Florida. Stephanie Murphy was a Democrat in Congress representing the Orlando area. Both are now part of Center Isle, a bipartisan nonprofit group advocating for political cooperation. And both of them are with us today. Stephanie, let me start with you. There are not many voters in this election cycle who have not already made up their minds here in September. How difficult is it to find and confirm an undecided voter?

Well, while there might not be very many people who haven't made up their mind, the ones that still haven't made up their mind are the most valuable voters right now for a lot of these campaigns. And so they're really trying to reach out to them and you see both campaigns aggressively going after trying to woo these voters because they will be the voters that decide the outcome of this election and so I you know I think you can there are methodologies for identifying some of these swing voters independent voters based on their registration or just general voter sentiment. Carlos, what makes an undecided voter? What's behind their own indecisiveness when it comes to this election cycle?

Well, it's a diverse group. But I mean, the important thing is it's not just an undecided voter, but also a likely voter, because sometimes a lot of undecided voters are people who are not planning on voting anyway. But through polling, you can put in place a screening that also matches voter history. And these are people, in the case of the polling we conducted, who are very likely to vote, but who are disenchanted with both parties who feel excluded in the American political system. They feel that the candidates and Congress and our institutions really aren't listening to people like them. So as Stephanie said, I mean, these are the

voters who are going to decide this election. When you look at the polling, most of the numbers fall within the margin of error. These are the voters that both campaigns should almost exclusively be focused on, especially in their messaging here these last couple months. And we're going to hear more about the results of your polling of swing voters and how campaigns may or may not be going after those undecideds here in the last two months. It's the same phone number for Republicans, Democrats, or NPAs across Florida. It is 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800.

It's a great opportunity to talk about your indecisiveness, if you are truly undecided, or why you've already made up your mind. If you've participated in polls, are they reflecting your own opinions? 305-995-1800. Joy writes us, made up your mind. If you've participated in polls, are they reflecting your own opinions? 305-995-1800. Joy writes us, I've been a registered voter since 1992 and have never been polled. I'd like to please share how I can be part of it. There's someone raising her hand who wants to be polled and wants to be surveyed. Well, here's the phone number again, 305-995-1800. Carlos, Stephanie, stick with us. We're going to continue our conversation about polling, politics, and the swing voter here on the Florida Roundup.

Stay tuned. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Next week on our program, Florida has almost a quarter of a million electric vehicles on the road. Now that's second only to California. It's a distant second to be sure, but we are number two in the country for EVs. We're not number two in the nation for charging ports, though. We're number three, and Texas is quickly gaining on us, even though it has fewer electric vehicles. So with demand for electric vehicles increasing, so is the need for these charging stations.

The state has tens of millions of dollars from the federal government earmarked toward the goal of putting in fast charging stations every 50 miles on interstate highways across the peninsula and panhandle. What's your experience with charging stations if you drive an EV? Have you thought about buying one, but maybe you've gotten charging anxiety? Maybe you've seen these stations at a shopping mall or a grocery store taking up what was a parking space. Email us radio at thefloridaroundup.org, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. We may use your story next week. Today, it's politics and polling. Mark emailed us saying, I've had two recent experiences in which I was asked to take a poll, and as the questions rolled out, they suddenly started asking questions along the lines of, would it affect your vote if you knew that, insert candidate name, voted against, insert political topic? It was not a poll, but a veiled hit job, Mark writes, against a political candidate.

So suffice to say, I have a hard time trusting any poll or effort to interview me. Jason has been patient to holding on line one from Stuart. Go ahead, Jason, you're on the radio. Yeah, hi, thank you. Thank you for your coverage and your effort to be objective with your news. Very appreciated. And so, yeah, I had a similar experience as the gentleman you just mentioned. You know, I try to avoid the noise and, you know, not waste my time with anything colored or biased. But I surprised myself and did participate in answering the questions that you mentioned earlier about candidates. But I was able to figure out that, yeah, this was not an objective poll

that would maybe be valuable to those of us interested in where the state's leaning and where we might get involved. But because of because of certain questions, I would eventually realize, all right, that this is kind of a waste of my time, not knowing what they would do with it. Yeah. Jason, I appreciate you sharing that experience. Uh, there's a lot of, of political advocating that's masking his polling or even political fundraising that can mask his polling. Carlos Corbello, former Republican representative from South Florida, uh, Stephanie Murphy, former Democratic congresswoman from Central Florida, are still with us. Both of them are part of Center Isle, a group that's advocating for political cooperation. Stephanie, interesting comments there from some Floridians talking about their experiencing

with polling. You were able to reach into some swing voters nationwide. And we talked about those undecideds. Do they tend to have strong political sensibilities and are in search of a candidate? Or are they still kind of deciding their own political philosophies? Yeah, you know, Senator Aisle did a poll of 2000 voters across the country with about 600 swing voters. And the thing that they resoundingly believe is that neither party listens to people like them. They're they're just generally feel ignored by politicians and they're unable to really identify the main themes of either party other than that there's just a blanket distrust of both parties. But beyond that, they do share a lot of common agreement on

policies, where they believe that, you know, prices are getting worse in the US and that we need to address our border and that they want to see us address climate change. So despite being alienated by the political parties, they do have a lot of shared interest in policies that address livability and the economy here in this country. Carlos, what evidence do you see that candidates or parties are making appeals to those swing voters that may not be easily categorized with their philosophies on certain policies around climate change or around inflation or job growth or immigration?

Yeah, we've seen some pretty sharp pivots here by both candidates as we get closer to election day. Most notably, I think Donald Trump on abortion. He's kind of trying to have it both ways after for a long time boasting about having gotten Roe v. Wade overturned. Now he's trying to hit some softer notes on the issue. And that's cost him, I think, across the political spectrum. And Vice President Harris has certainly shifted on issues like fracking, which are directly related to climate change. And, of course, her tax policy proposal is a lot more moderate and centrist than one would expect, given the record. I think what Stephanie and I, one of the points we're trying to make is that both parties should be more genuine and sincere and committed to this center space,

as opposed to just doing these sharp pivots as general elections come closer and closer. We really haven't seen a presidential candidate or political party, for that matter, command a broad national coalition the way, for example, Ronald Reagan did between 1981 and 1989. If one of the two parties or both start competing more for those middle of the road voters, they might actually be able to do that and the country might be better off. It was an Electoral College victory by President Reagan of, I think, more than 300 Electoral College votes, a true landslide back then. We haven't seen one of those since then. Genuine, sincere, and committed to this middle part, Carlos. Those are the words you'd use to describe. Stephanie,

I suppose the political math here is this. Is this group looking for a genuine, sincere, and committed candidate for some of this moderation. Is that group large enough to change governing, in other words, by voting? I think they are definitely looking for somebody who's willing to not just chase their vote in an election year, but also to govern from the middle, to govern for the benefit of the vast majority of Americans, as opposed to just the extremes of either party. And so there's a hunger for that out there. And these voters can make a difference. And we know that they did in the last two presidential cycles. I mean, the races were won by 40,000 votes in one year and 70,000 votes in another year and just a handful of swing states. So and beyond those swing states,

though, I think there are voters and citizens across this country that are looking for leaders who are willing to govern from the middle. And if you look at the referendums that Florida has had over the last few cycles, there has been broad support for policy issues, whether it's minimum wage increases or voting rights restoration for felons, or, you know, there's an opportunity in this cycle on abortion and recreational marijuana, where you're going to see these proposals get two-thirds of the vote. And that's a number that, you know, I don't know that there's been a politician in Florida of late that has been able to secure two thirds of

support from Florida. Governing from the middle. But Carlos, the reality is in the last several election cycles, candidates, particularly national candidates or candidates who are at the federal level, but increasingly even in the state and local level campaign from the wings and fundraise from the wings. That's right. I mean, we cannot overstate how powerful primaries have become in our country. Most members of Congress worry exclusively about their primary elections. They do not have to even think about their general elections because those are foregone conclusions. So obviously what we're calling for here is for party leaders, for people in elected office to do the right thing from our perspective, which is to be more inclusive

and more reasonable in their approach to governments. But in addition to that, I do believe, and since leaving office, I've been very active in efforts to reform our election system, to open up primaries, to give some of these voters that we're talking about a greater say in our democracy by allowing them to participate in partisan primaries, even if they're not registered in one of the two major parties. We have to call on leaders to change their attitude, their approach, their style of governance. But at the same time, we have to work on elections reform, so that we build an electoral system that is more representative of the average American. Carlos Cabello, former Republican congressman from South Florida, Stephanie Murphy, a former Democrat congresswoman from Central Florida, both with us now. They're with

Center Aisle. Luke has been listening to the conversation, folks, from St. Petersburg. Go ahead, Luke. Thanks for your patience. You're on the radio now. Hey, thanks, guys. Really relevant conversation both representatives are having. I'm a registered Republican. I don't think I've voted for a Republican since Mitt Romney moved down here from the Northeast. But really the only issues that I really care about are the economy. I own a small business, and I can't make a profit, and I can't hire people.

I can't give them health insurance. And yeah, I think the really good point that Stephanie said about the honestness of a politician, stop middle of the road flip-flopping, guys. Figure something out, stick with it. You're going to be winning in the long run if you just stick with the issues that you care about. Maybe I should run for politics. These guys are all just flip floppers. But anyway, thank you very much. We will vote for you. We will vote for you. Luke and St. Pete. It's going to be a new party. It's called the Dem Reps. Best of the Democrats, best of the Republicans. Anyway, guys, have a good one. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Luke, for holding on and adding the conversation. Stephanie, go ahead. For Luke, you know, Center Aisle is focused on pro-growth economic policies. And, you know, we're trying to give legislators the information about where the voter sentiment is on all of these issues so that they can meet the needs of people like Luke, who is, you know, just trying to run a business, contribute to the economy and take care of his workers, because we need a greater focus on that. I think there's a real opportunity to heal the divisiveness that exists in our politics if we do equip legislators to be more responsive to where the vast majority of people are. Stephanie Murphy, former Democratic representative from the Orlando area, Carlos Corbello, former Republican representing parts of South Florida. They are now part of Center Isle, looking for common sense moderation in politics and political cooperation. An open invitation for you folks to come back. We'd love to have you back on the show in the weeks ahead, all right? Thanks so much. Take advantage

of that. Thanks to each of you for joining us. I'm Tom Hudson, and you are listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. As election day nears and voting begins here on the program, we're going to begin examining some political claims each week with our partner PolitiFact. Now, if you have a claim you want us to check out, something you heard maybe on a television ad or saw in a digital ad in your news feed, email us radio at thefloridaroundup.org, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. We will tackle some of those in the weeks ahead. Sam Putterman is with us, a reporter at PolitiFact. All right, Sam, let's tackle the political ad that came out this week from the Harris

presidential campaign. This ad is one minute long. It focuses exclusively on Project 2025. That's the presidential transition plan from the Conservative Heritage Foundation. Now, this ad claims that Project 2025 is, quote, a blueprint to make Donald Trump the most powerful president ever. And then it makes this claim. Eliminating the Department of Education and defunding K through 12 schools. All right. So very clear, very declarative, Sam.

Does Project 2025 call for getting rid of the Federal Department of Education? Yes, so Project 2025 does recommend eliminating the Department of Education, and that would phase out some, if not all, federal aid to public K-12 schools. Past presidential candidates have called for the elimination of the department. That's not necessarily new. Ronald Reagan ran on that in 1980 and then did not follow through with it. So I suppose why is this gathering some attention now from a conservative think tank? Right.

So as you said, multiple presidents have called for this. Trump also supports abolishing the department, and he has for years pledged to close it along with other Republicans, you know, since it's gained status in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter. I just think that Project 2025 has been a big focus of the Harris campaign, and they're just kind of shedding light on some of these proposals that people might not know about. Well, it certainly was a big prop during the Democratic National Committee convention in Chicago just a few weeks ago. On this topic, Donald Trump spoke about this issue of the Department of Education with Elon Musk on Ask on X about a month ago. I want to close up Department of Education, move education back to the states. So what would it mean, Sam, if the federal government no longer funded public K-12 education? If the former president is reelected and follows through with this promise to defund the Department of Education?

Right. So it wouldn't zero out budgets in most school districts. You know, public schools, with some exceptions, receive the majority of their funding from local and state governments. Before the pandemic, the federal government provided around 8% to 10% of K-12 funding. COVID-19 relief pushed that share to about 14% in recent years, but that's expiring. So while this wouldn't completely bankrupt schools, education policy experts did say that some states and districts receive a much greater share of federal funds, and they would experience more steep losses from the proposal. What was the eventual politifact ruling on this claim from this Harris ad? Yeah, so they said to fund K through 12 schools. It is an interpretation on how you would, you know, consider what fund means. We did find it to be half true. It does

eliminate some funding depending on the district and the school more than others, but it doesn't eliminate all of the funding. The next claim comes from Florida Senator Rick Scott. He's, of course, running for reelection this fall. In late August, he posted this video on X. It's from an appearance on the conservative cable channel Newsmax. I'm running to be the Republican leader. Here's an example yesterday. I don't know one Republican that thinks illegals should vote.

And the existing Republican leader says, oh, we don't want to have a vote on that. No, I want to have a vote on that. Now it is already against the law for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. The senator there is talking about his desire to be the Republican leader of the United States Senate. He's also running for reelection here in Florida. Senator Scott Sam has made this claim in social media, writing the quote, this month alone, more than 16,000 non-citizens have been removed from the voter rolls in three states. So PolitiFact us on that, Sam.

Yes. So we rated this claim half true. Three Republican-led states, Alabama, Texas, and Virginia, have taken steps to remove or flag thousands of ineligible people on their voter rolls. But some include action since at least 2021. So not in the last month, as Scott said. And these people include non-citizens, but also potential non-citizens. So there are some unknowns about the people affected and some weren't removed, but instead moved from active to an active status. And they may be able, some of them may be able to become naturalized citizens and would be eligible to vote if they update their information. But,

basically, as you mentioned, Congress banned non-citizen voting in federal elections in 1996. And we have found that non-citizens rarely cast ballots. And if they do, they face stiff penalties. And there are some local municipalities that have talked about non-citizens being able to vote. But in terms of federal elections, it is against the law and has been for a good number of years. Our last political fact this week comes from Governor Ron DeSantis. He is obviously not running for reelection. He is in office. comes from Governor Ron DeSantis. He is obviously not running for re-election. He is in office.

But when he said the proposals to add stuff like Frisbee, golf hotels and pickleball courts to some state parks was going back to the drawing board last week, he added this. A lot of that stuff was just half-baked and it was not ready for prime time when it was and it was intentionally leaked out to a left-wing group to try to create a narrative. The PolitiFact ruling on this claim, Sam? So this one's mostly false. The initiative was leaked a few days before it was made public, but it was far from an undeveloped idea. You know, there were publicly shared plans, documents, maps, and scheduled public meetings across the state. So on August 19th, you know, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, they published their news release about the initiative. And on August 20th,

they published plans for the changes on its public website. And that's the same day that the Tampa Bay Times broke that story. So basically, DeSantis is trying to distance himself here. But the governor's office initially supported the proposals. And it is important to note that the FDEP is overseen by the office. The governor appoints its secretary. And statewide initiatives like this are typically vetted and approved by the governor's office before being shared. Sam Putterman with our news partner, PolitiFact. Sam, we'll be back next week, PolitiFacting more political claims. Thank you. You can email us radio at thefloridaroundup.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being here. Labor Day was this week, and we've got several stories now about Florida union workers.

The Sunshine State is not a big state for organized labor. Only one out of every 20 workers belonged to a union last year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now, among big states, only Texas has a smaller proportion of union workers. It's different, though, when looking at public sector jobs like teachers, police, and local government workers. About one in five of those jobs in Florida are union jobs. Many of those public sector union workers have had to vote whether or not to recertify their unions thanks to a relatively new Florida state law. Police and fire unions are exempt from this law, but not teachers and others.

Dozens of public sector unions have been shuttered by the state thanks to that law. Danny Rivero starts our reporting from our partner station WLRN in Miami. More than 63,000 public sector workers have lost their labor unions after Senate Bill 256 went into effect last year. That law requires every public sector union to have at least 60% of members paying dues to be recognized by the state.

That, while the law made it more difficult for workers to pay dues. Municipal workers in small towns on the panhandle have lost their unions. The same with adjunct professors at Broward College and Miami-Dade College, and other colleges and universities. Airport employees in Orlando have lost their union. professors at Broward College and Miami-Dade College and other colleges and universities. Airport employees in Orlando have lost their union. In total, 54 collective bargaining units have been legally dissolved in Florida since the law went into effect. Last year, the federal government estimated that 6.1% of Florida workers were represented by a union. That number will likely fall. I'm Danny Rivero in Miami.

I'm Tom Flanagan. Around 50 union supporters and local elected officials showed up for a panel discussion. It was hosted by Jordan Scott, president of the Big Bend chapter, Northwest Florida Federation of Labor. Most of us work for the public sector. They've already decertified four public sector unions in the Big Bend area. And that means that these people went to work one day and they had a collective bargaining agreement that protected their rights to work and now they don't have that collective bargaining agreement or anything that protects their rights at work. Panelist Scott Mazur, Leon Classroom Teachers President, said the growing movement to fund private and for-profit charter school vouchers is threatening public education. The idea that we have an unlevel

playing field is so truthful. We represent that every kid gets it, but they don't want that. They want to create a market that people can make money off of. Last year, the U.S. Labor Department estimated union membership nationally at just 10 percent of the workforce. That was Tom Flanagan reporting from our partner station WFSU in Tallahassee. Now firefighters there have been negotiating with the city over a new labor agreement. The Tallahassee city manager called a recent meeting productive. The two sides may be able to finalize a deal as soon as this coming Monday. It's a much different tone than earlier sessions when the talks wound up with a state arbiter. And it comes after a local primary

election where the stalled talks with the firefighters union was an issue. Margie Manziel is with our partner WFSU in Tallahassee. Some say the lack of a raise for the firefighters moved many voters. During the primary cycle, yard signs saying, I stand with the firefighters popped up in yards, alongside roads, and in front of local businesses. The fight over a contract for the firefighters has grown deeply political in recent years, a situation that other local unions, such as the police officers, haven't faced. And when asked whether the firefighter issue is political, most of the candidates this cycle replied, yes, yes it is. Thousands of AT&T workers are on strike across the southeast U.S., including about 1,400 line workers in South Florida.

At issue here is a dispute over a new labor contract. Johnny Modese is the president of the Communication Workers of America South Florida Chapter. That's the union representing these workers. He's been on the picket line for about two weeks. Here he is on Labor Day. We don't know how much longer we can hold out, but these tactics that AT&T are implementing are just to stall and delay the process and hopefully on their part try to break our will. And I can tell you, our will is stronger than ever. We need all of us to get together and understand that if the prices don't go down, wages must come up, and that has been our struggle.

That's right. AT&T says it has offered to boost wages a total of almost 18% over five years, including a 5% pay hike when a deal is ratified. Inflation is a key issue for voters this election year. The cost of medicine has been one of those drivers for people taking prescription drugs. Two weeks ago, Medicare released its first negotiated price list for medicines. For years, Medicare was not able to negotiate drug prices. This first set includes blood thinner Eloquus, Inbril for arthritis, and some drugs for type 2 diabetes like Jardiance and Genuvia. The new negotiated drug prices don't take effect until

2026. In the meantime, the second largest school district in the state is suing drug makers, alleging the companies have conspired to inflate the prices of insulin. Joe Martinez is one of the lawyers representing Broward County Public Schools in his lawsuit. By our estimations, for every single insulin-dependent diabetic that the school board covers, you're paying in excess of $5,000 to $6,000 per user, which is money that the board could use for a myriad of reasons. user, which is money that the board could use for a myriad of reasons. A study from AARP, a nonprofit advocating for people 50 years old and older, finds more than 200,000 Floridians on Medicare will benefit from a separate cap on out-of-pocket prescription drug prices. This $2,000 a year limit goes into place

next year. Here's Joe Byrne from our partner, Central Florida Public Media. AARP Florida State Director Jeff Johnson says the average savings for those 200,000 Florida seniors is $1,500 a year. He says the out-of-pocket cap is a potential game changer for them. Trying to figure out how to pay for prescription drugs is such a linchpin because it is so expensive. And it's something that every month when you go to your pharmacist, you have kind of thrown in your face of how much you're spending for what is in many cases a life-saving prescription. The study estimates that nationwide, 3 million Medicare recipients will benefit from the out-of-pocket cap next year. In Ocala, I'm Joe Burns. And I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio

Station. The peak of hurricane season is next week. And while there are a few X's on the National Hurricane Center's map of the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico, there are no active storms right now. And there have been only five named storms so far. Going back 30 years, there's an average of four to five storms in just one month. And that month is right now, September. Megan Borowski is with us, meteorologist with the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. Megan, how unusual is it for the season to be as quiet as it's been so far? We've had just a couple of weeks of being quiet.

It seems like it's been very, very quiet. And that's because all the forecasts called for a very, very above average season in terms of storm formation and prevalence in the Atlantic Basin. But we did have Hurricane Ernesto during the middle to end of August. So, I mean, in terms of comparing to the above average forecast, it seems like it's been quiet. But we're just a little bit behind track for an average season so far. So that forecast was for that above average season. 17 to 25 named storms was the forecast before we entered the season. Can we declare that prediction wrong? Well, we still have half of hurricane season ahead of us, right?

And we still have the peak of hurricane season coming. I say it's a little too soon to call it a bust, but I do think we're going to be reviewing this season quite significantly. Researchers are going to be really looking into why we had a lull over the past few weeks. Yeah, the ingredients that were thought to fuel this busy season a few months ago, the hot ocean temperatures. And, you know, when I look at those surface sea temps, they're still hot. It's still very warm.

And La Nina, less wind shear in the Atlantic Ocean. So we still have the hot temperatures. What about the wind shear? Yeah, so there's a lot going on. And really, the jury is still out as to why we've had several weeks of nothing occurring in the Atlantic. We still have very high ocean heat content, very high sea surface temperatures. We are transitioning to La Nina. There's a couple of theories out there, you know, that range anywhere from we have something called the ITCZ, the intertropical convergence zone that has shifted just a little bit too far north, perhaps. That's one theory out there. There's another discussion out there that upper level temperatures in the atmosphere are warm, and that actually can help to squelch thunderstorm activity. So there's that as well.

And also upper level wind shear, you know, has been elevated as well. So there's a lot of theories bubbling, bubbling around out there. And how about the dust off the Sahara Desert? That usually is something that we see here in Florida on the peninsula in, you know, more June, July. But is that playing a role here as we get into the midseason? I wouldn't say that that is a big factor here. We discussed whether or not to even have this conversation, Megan, today, to be perfectly frank, right? And I fall on the side of science, not superstition. So we said, we're going to talk with Megan about this. Absolutely. And, you know, I think one of

the things to stress is we still have half of the season ahead of us. There's still a lot of conditions that are conducive for development. So by no means should anybody across the state let their guard down, because as soon as you do that, that's when you're putting your family at risk. How many does it take, Megan? How many storms? Just one. Just one. Just one. Megan Borowski, meteorologist with the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. And finally, on the roundup, just as we greet the climatological peak of storm season, land the roundup just as we greet the climatological peak of storm season another season begins here the nfl yeah and week one is a florida affair in the afc conference along the atlantic coast the jacksonville jaguars travel down i-95 to play the miami dolphins

sunday afternoon before the jags left hometown band Yellowcard set up in the locker room. The Jags may have musicians in their locker room. The Dolphins have a few owning the locker room. Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Mark Anthony, and Fergie each own a small piece of the team. That'll do it for the Florida Roundup this week. It is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF in Tampa

by Bridget O'Brien and Grayson Docter. WLRN's Vice President of Radio and the Technical Director is Peter Mertz. Engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson, Charles Michaels, and Jackson Hart. Richard Ives answers our phones. Our theme music is provided by Miami Jazz Guitarist Aaron Leibos at aaronleibos.com. Now, if you missed any of today's program, you can download it and catch up on past programs at wlrn.org slash podcasts or find us on the NPR One app. Thanks for calling, emailing, listening, and supporting public radio in your community.

I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.