The Florida Roundup - Florida's kratom industry, DeSantis a distant second in Iowa caucus and federal lawsuits could upend the real estate industry 

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke with a Jacksonville-based owner of a Kava Bar about kratom (01:14) and we looked into the Tampa Bay Times’ multipart investigation into the kratom industry with some of the reporters who contributed to the series (06:19). Then, a conversation with longtime Florida reporter Matt Dixon about his latest book exploring the battle between former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (28:17). And later, we find out how federal lawsuits are challenging the way real estate agents have been paid for decades (37:13). Plus, why some lawmakers consider changing Florida’s official state bird (47:15).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being along with us this week. Maybe you've seen the signs at a gas station. Maybe you've scrolled through an online ad. Maybe you've had it in a drink. Kratom. It's illegal in seven states, but not here in Florida. Last year, a new law went into effect that you have to be at least 21 years old to buy it, but otherwise it's largely unregulated. It's often marketed as an herbal supplement to boost energy, improve your mood, ease anxiety, treat a cough, and help with opioid addiction. A Tampa Bay Times investigation finds more than 580 people have died from kratom-related overdoses in the past decade. So do you use kratom or know

someone who does? What are the dangers? How does it help? How could it be regulated in Florida? Call now 305-995-1800, 305-995-1800, or email us radio at thefloridaroundup.org. What role has Florida's history of pill mills and drug treatment centers played in helping fuel a billion-dollar-plus Kratom industry? Your calls and emails coming up. Producer Bridget O'Brien visited a Kratom bar this week in Jacksonville. It's around 3.30 on a weekday at Cava and Company, a bar in the Jacksonville neighborhood of San Marco. There's already a decent crowd enjoying a rotation of hit indie music from the early

aughts. The album covers that decorate the walls of the lounge, however, show a much wider range of musical genres and generations, much like the people here. There's a pair of men in suits in the corner with their laptops out. At the countertop bar, a woman sits with her baby in lap while chatting with a group of friends. And outside, I find a young couple shooting pool. Happy hour kicks off at five, but you won't find any discounts on boozy beverages. In fact, there's no alcohol allowed. Instead, there's a variety of botanical cocktails, like the Dirty Duval, a Jags-themed blue raspberry lemonade made

with kratom tea. Extracted from the leaves of a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia, kratom is crushed and then smoked, brewed with tea, or placed into gel capsules. When consumed in low doses, kratom can have stimulating effects. It acts as a sedative at high doses. One drink can be very productive and energizing like a coffee or a Red Bull without the shakes or the anxiety along with it. But fast forward to the evening, we have music going, there's bands outside, food truck, and you're playing pool, playing darts, and you have a couple drinks and

a couple shots. You're definitely going to catch a buzz. You're going to be vibing with your friends, maybe singing and dancing along. That's Sianna. My name is Sianna Bomarito, and I am the owner of Kava & Company Mandarin and Kava & Company San Marco. Kava & Company opened its first location in Jacksonville's Mandarin neighborhood in 2018 before expanding to this second location in Jacksonville's Mandarin neighborhood in 2018 before expanding to this second location in San Marco. And a traveling food truck which we hope to bring to festivals here in the state of Florida and shows. As Bomarito explains

it's a good idea to have some food if you're imbibing kratom. It can be bad you know you can get quite nauseous if you haven't had a snack because it is affecting your opioid receptors. And on an empty stomach, you will get a little nauseated. You might throw up, and it is a little scary. But just like alcohol, I mean, if you're going to have a shot or two on an empty stomach, you probably won't feel too great either.

Still, she knows many people who have benefited from Kratom. I've seen all walks of life and then almost walks of death and completely fixed that with Kratom. There's been a surge of interest in Kratom over the past 10 years. People use it for everything from pain relief to stress management. It's a popular with those trying of opioid withdrawal. Cr of places like this bar a convenience stores and sm widely available and prac

There's a growing concern health risks of the herb, particularly in high concentrations. A lot of people are enjoying the aspect of something new, but they are getting a little scared about the intense effects of it or people having bad nausea and effects or just the addiction of kratom. But I think just like anything, you have to treat everything with respect, from sugars to alcohol to smoke holes, coffee, your daily, whatever you do for fun, you have to treat everything with respect, and I agree the same thing with Kratom. As happy hour approached, the crowd picked up, as did the volume of music.

I'm Bridget O'Brien in Jacksonville. As the popularity of Kratom has grown, so have questions about its proper use and safety. There are no required directions on how to use it, how much to take, and how often. As for a more basic question, how do you pronounce it? Well, here's that bar owner in Jacksonville again. Well, potato, potato, kratom or kratom, whatever you feel. I think it just depends what part of the town or country you are in. Regardless, what do you want to know about kratom? What's your experience with it if you have used it or know someone who does? Radio at thefloridaroundup.org is our email. It's a great way to get in touch with us now.

Radio at thefloridaroundup.org or call 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. We will get to those emails and phone calls in a bit. But first, a trio of Tampa Bay Times reporters behind its Kratom investigation. Join us now from our partner station in Tampa, WUSF. Helen Freund is the Tampa Bay Times food and dining critic. Sam Ogozalek is a health reporter for the Times. And Langston Taylor, the data editor.

To the three of you, thank you for joining us. And thank you for shining a light on Kratom here in Florida. Helen, let's start with what the audience should know about the industry here in the Sunshine State. Yeah, and thanks for having us. Well, we started looking into this in March of 2022. And at that point, we were seeing Kratom or Kratom, however you want to pronounce it. We usually say Kratom. Okay, you say Kratom, we'll stick to that. We saw it popping up a lot at Kava bars, and so I started visiting them and talking to people there and talking to owners, and it became pretty clear pretty quickly that while they did also sell Kava, Kratom was sort of attributed for maybe like 70% to 80% of their sales. So we started looking into it and realizing that it was kind of a bigger thing in Florida at that point the dominant narrative was

really that it was impossible to overdose on it it was also widely marketed as safe and there were a lot of people using it that were really claiming a lot of benefits that were saying that it was helping them with their opioid addiction or it was helping them with depression or anxiety but then around the same time we also started speaking to some people who had had adverse effects with it, people that had experienced addiction, but also people that had lost loved ones to overdoses where kratom was listed as one of the things that had caused the overdose. So Sam, let me just invite you in. As the health reporter, what does the health industry say about Kratom?

Well, there's still no proven safe and effective dose. We spoke to lots of scientists who are still racing to better understand the complex pharmacology of the substance. You know, just like it was mentioned earlier in the segment, at low doses, it can act more like a stimulant, at higher doses, more like a sedative, and people are using it for a wide range of ailments, self-treating those conditions. And researchers at universities such as in Gainesville at UF are still working to understand, even before we start talking about primary care physicians and those in ERs, I think there's still a lot of basic science being done to understand what the herb does to the body. Langston, tell us about the data findings of the investigation of the real tragic stories that you uncovered. Sure. So there is other data out there in the world. The CDC collects some data. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement collects some data. Whenever somebody dies, a medical examiner notes that there's kratom in the body. What we wanted to do was find cases where those medical examiners were ruling and giving their opinion that kratom contributed to or caused someone's death. So we

requested those reports for medical examiners all over the state for a decade and logged in information on the people who overdosed, the people's histories with other drugs, other medical issues, and we looked at police records when they came to the scene for some of those deaths. And we found that people are dying in kratom-related overdoses across the state. It's a lot of men.

It's a lot of white men. A lot of people in their 30s and 40s. We found that half of these victims are 35 or younger. So it's a widespread issue. And often kratom contributes to toxicity caused by lots of drugs. So it's often not the only drug in someone's body when they overdose but we did find dozens of cases where it was yeah you found more than 40 cases where it was would describe with a kratom involved overdose why is that description that characterization important so as Sam

noted there's a lot that we still don't know about how kratom interacts with the body. And a lot of that is how it interacts with other substances in the body. There's different ways that your body handles the active ingredient in kratom. And we found that it reacts in ways that, or it may react with drugs as common as caffeine, as serious as fentanyl. And so we describe these as kratom-related overdoses because even though the medical examiner said they contributed to the death, we're accounting for lots of cases where multiple substances in the body could combine to cause that overdose. We're speaking with Langston Taylor there, a data editor for the Tampa Bay Times. Sam Ogozalek is also with us, health reporter for the Times, and Helen Freund, the food and dining critic.

The three of them and others are behind an investigation published by the Tampa Bay Times looking at kratom or kratom. Both pronunciations apparently are acceptable. Do you have experience with this substance? 305-995-1800. Your phone calls and emails at the radio at thefloridaroundup.org will be coming up in a few moments. Helen, where does this come from? How do these retailers, these gas stations, these kava and kratom bars, where do they get the supply? Yeah, well, the vast majority of kratom comes from Southeast Asia and predominantly from

Indonesia. So roughly 90% or so comes from Indonesia. It grows on, it's the leaf that grows on a Southeast Asian tropical tree. The leaves are harvested there, they're crushed, they're dried, and then they are exported to the U.S. And that demand has grown significantly over the past decade. But because there is an import alert issued, that means that any kratom that comes into the country can be subject to seizure. And so it is difficult to quantify how much exactly is making it onto U.S. soil. Yeah, in 2015, the Food and Drug Administration issued this warning of sorts for kratom importers saying that it could stop the substance from coming into the United States. What happened? Yeah, so it was either 2014 or 2015, but at the time, the FDA announced that it can block

or 2015, but at the time the FDA announced that it can block shipments labeled Kratom or metragynous bestiose at the border, and it started doing so. So we found in data from the FDA that it has blocked over a thousand shipments of Kratom. We've also found that shipments labeled Kratom still get through anyway. So this has created a world where shippers don't always know whether their shipment will be allowed into the United States. It's also a world where those in the know have said that Kratom is being imported but mislabeled. We also see cases where sometimes the Kratom that is listed on shipments is labeled not for human consumption. And we don't know whether it is or not, but there's a world where these importers are trying to get past the FDA, which can, but obviously does not always, block that labeled kratom. prepared to answer this. Is there any federal import regulation, testing, quality control that's involved with this substance that's coming into the United States?

No, there's not. And it's not any legal substance under federal law, is that correct? Yeah. So it's not a scheduled substance. It's not in the Controlled Substances Act at the federal level, and it's not statewide here. It's largely unregulated. Yeah. Sarasota County has banned it.

Yeah. I want to ask you, Sam, the regulatory environment for Kratom seems to be now at the state level. There's a handful of states that have banned it. Florida is not one of those. The most recent regulation that Florida lawmakers have approved and the governor signed was to raise the legal buying age to 21 years old. So what's the overall regulatory environment? Sure. Well, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has supported a Kratom ban, but those efforts have collapsed amid opposition from lobbyists and consumers. Kratom makers have had to convince the FDA their products are safe before they can legally sell

them as supplements. At least a handful have tried, but after each review, the FDA has ruled that the products would be too dangerous to be regulated under what is the supplement industry's limited oversight system. And so with federal officials doing little to oversee the IRB, there's been an industry group that has emerged as the predominant force in setting regulations, and that's called the American Kratom Association. And the association has backed legislation in states across the country, including Florida. Yeah. How has it operated with state lawmakers in Tallahassee here? Yeah. So there's two bills pending in the legislature right now. The Senate version or the Senate legislation was heard in a committee this

week and it was approved and it has the backing of the Kratom Association. The bills, the primary focus of the bills touted by the association as Consumer Protection Acts, we found in our investigation that the focus is to preserve the right to buy and sell Kratom rather than institute some key guardrails for businesses and those who take it. For example, we found that most of the bills don't require companies to list on product labels quantity of kratom's main chemical compound that affects strength. Only one version of the only one version we found would require that companies warn consumers about the risk of combining the herb with other substances.

So right now in Tallahassee, the Senate proposal has moved forward through that committee. And it remains to be seen what will happen. The sponsor of the bill is a Republican in Gainesville. He said he plans to broaden the bill that require the products be tested by the state. We reported that this week. And he also said that he plans to meet with the researchers at UF who have studied Kratom. So it remains to be seen as to how the legislation might change this session. Florida has a well-documented history of substance abuse and industry, pill mills, drug treatment centers. Sam, Helen, what do you think that role has played in the kratom industry and the continued growth? You know, it's hard to say exactly, but there obviously is a very fertile marketplace here in Florida for people that have

suffered from opiate addiction in the past, which we know the state has a very well documented history of that. So as a substance that largely is being marketed in many cases to people as something that will help them combat opiate addiction, treat withdrawal symptoms, or just help them feel better without the crutch of an opiate of some kind, we've definitely seen and found and spoke to many people who say that that's the reason you know, just help them feel better without the crutch of an opiate of some kind. We've definitely seen and found and spoke to many people who say that that's the reason that they use Kratom. And Sam, finally, you mentioned Sarasota County has a ban on Kratom. Is that right? Yeah. How firm is that, I guess, one county out of 67 in Florida?

We didn't spend too much time down there reporting. I can say we logged there were deaths there. There were overdose deaths. But obviously, I mean, a huge number of people order Kratom online. It can be found at gas stations and Kavabar, sure, but it's also readily available. We have got lots of phone calls and emails that we're going to get to, but folks, I want to thank you for sharing your reporting with us. Sam Ogazalek, health reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, Helen Freund with the Times, the

Food and Dining Critic, and Langston Taylor, data editor for the Tampa Bay Times. To all three of you, thank you for sharing your investigation with us here on the Florida Roundup. Thank you. Thanks. If you're on the telephone, if you sent us an email, stick with us. We're going to continue the conversation about Kratom in Florida after this. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for listening this week. We're talking about the Kratom industry

in Florida, or Kratom. Both pronunciations are available. It is an industry that continues to grow in the United States. It is a substance that is legal in Florida. Perhaps you've scrolled past a Kratom ad online or have seen it at a gas station or even at a bar. We are taking your phone calls and your emails. William sent us an email saying that he has been using it for about eight years. William writes, I mix three or four tablespoons of kratom in a bottle. I pour it in lemonade, mango juice, pineapple juice, any sweet juice. It only takes a couple of swigs, and then I feel the calming effect. I feel more passive and less aggressive.

I get cut off in traffic, and I don't get mad. I feel more passive and less aggressive. I get cut off in traffic and I don't get mad. I do not abuse it, William writes. I make one drink per day and that's all I need. Sid sent us this note. I'm a 27-year-old female and I've tried Kratom for the first time about four months ago. Although it feels like I've seen bars popping up left and right over the past five years or so, I still somehow did not really know what it was. I wanted to give it a try.

At this point, I didn't really know what it was, and the bartender explained that people use it to relax. I bought a cold refreshment. The smallest amount they offered, about 16 ounces, left the shop sipping my drink. Sid continues in the email, Cut to an hour and a half later, I started feeling strange on my drive home. By the time I got to my apartment,

my head was spinning and I couldn't get my eyes to focus. I began to get sick. I felt so awful that I called poison control. Poison control told me to drink water. I kept drinking water and eventually stopped getting sick. I had a headache for a few hours. Sid writes, the experience was truly awful, and I will definitely never try Kratom again. Let's hear from Jonathan, who has

been listening in from Coral Springs. Oh, Jonathan dropped off. Let's try Rick in Orlando. Rick on line two. Go ahead. Thank you for your patience. Rick, you're on the radio. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I've been using Kratom for about 10 years, and I have a lot of friends that have used it as well. There's a few things in the reporting that I wanted to counter. I feel like it was misinformation. Every single one of those deaths that was recorded had a very high level of other drugs and alcohol that had been ingested. Well, just let me fact check that. Sorry for the interruption, Rick. There was, I think, there was a little, there was about four dozen deaths that the medical examiners found no other substance other than kratom. I've yet to hear that because in 2015, the FDA did an exhaustive study on kratom because they were going to ban it and put it as a Schedule I. And after a year's time, they came out and said not only was there no toxicity to the plant because it's natural, you can overdose from caffeine, you know, too much of anything.

Yeah, any natural ingredient could still have toxicity. Those two things aren't necessarily exclusive. Of course, yeah. But, you know, the FDA did do an exhaustive study and proved that it was not only non-addictive, but real-world experience. I personally know two people that were addicted to opioids from accidents that they had, and Kratom magically got them off of opioids. And I mean,

one of my friends was a mess. But, you know, I'd like to see that report that that's of Kratom only, because... Yeah. We'll try to put a link to it in the show page for the Florida Roundup when we publish that later on today, Rick. Look for that. It's the your perspective from Orlando. Terrific to hear from you. Leanne wrote us this email saying, I'm a 38-year-old woman who's taken Kratom on and off for seven years to assist in pain management. I have an autoimmune disease on top of chronic pain caused by skeletal injuries. I was initially given opioids for pain management when I was 27. I never abused my prescriptions. However, by the time I was 30, I was suicidal from the amount of pain I was still experiencing.

Leanne continues, saying, here I am eight years later managing my pain with Kratom some days. I can honestly say that it saved my life. Less pain without addiction is a win in my book. Let's hear from Christopher, who has been listening in. Christopher, go ahead. You are on the radio. Thanks for your patience. Hello. My name is Christopher Traver. I own the Spooky Lounge out here in Tampa, Florida. We do sell kratom. And the reporting is, I feel it's just, it's very sensationalistic. I mean, in so far as the deaths that you list, you keep saying that, you know, there's 46 or so people that have died with just creative in their body. However, what time period are you talking about?

That's like a 10-year time period. Is that correct? Correct. That was in the 10 years of the records that the Tampa Bay Times investigation. But isn't one of those deaths tragic enough? 100%. But given that, how many people are dying of absolutely everything else? I mean, you're talking— Well, I don't think it's a relative equivalence, right?

I mean, it's not, say, comparing kratom to opioid or fentanyl or carfentanil or any of those kinds of awful deaths. Any of these overdose deaths is tragic. It definitely is. It definitely is. But when you're talking about—let's talk about fentanyl deaths. Any of these overdose deaths is tragic. It definitely is. It definitely is. But when you're talking about, let's talk about fentanyl deaths. How many fentanyl deaths are, I'm just saying, if you're wanting to try and make something illegal that's bringing benefits to so many people, maybe you should actually look at it calmly rather than jump straight to, hey, look, 46 people died and say that this is the cause of that. To say that it's Kratom 100%, I feel it's very irresponsible, given the good that the substance is.

I mean, that's what the medical examiners were saying. That's what the science evidence. But what do you feel about regulating Kratom? I mean, having a recommended dosage, for instance. I think that would be very responsible. I think that's what the American Krat Creative Association was trying to get instituted, is that, yes, we 100% do need some actual regulation would be good. However, coming at it and just like Sarasota did and giving a knee jerk,

oh, my God, somebody has a problem with it, let's make it illegal, that's just ridiculous. That's not doing anybody any good. There are people out here that are actually suffering in the world, and's just ridiculous. That's not doing anybody any good. There are people out here that are actually suffering in the world, and nobody's looking. I mean, how long did it take for anybody to open their eyes to the opiate epidemic, the opioid epidemic? And here we are with something that actually I've personally seen it help people. I've had people come into my space and need help and have nearly immediate soothing of their symptoms. It's astounding that people just want to react rather than understand.

Well, Christopher, I appreciate you taking time out of your day and joining the conversation here. Have a great one. Kayla sent us an email writing, gas stations or smoke shop kratom tends to be lower quality and sourced from unvetted vendors. Kayla writes that people who use kratom tend to get defensive about their use and they fear it being banned. Let's hear from Douglas calling in. Douglas, you are on the radio. Go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my call. I'm a physician in Florida. thanks for taking my call. I'm a physician in Florida. This drug is an opioid. That's how it works in the brain. It stimulates opioid receptors, and it doesn't belong in the marketplace anymore. We don't have hydrocodone. We don't have oxycodone. We don't have fentanyl in the marketplace. We don't have any opioids that are out there unregulated for people to take any way they choose to take it. I have had several patients come into my residential treatment center requiring detoxification, and the only way that I can get them off the drug is to use things like Suboxone, things like methadone that we use for every other opioid.

That's basically what this drug is. Douglas, let me ask you, what kind of medicine do you practice? I'm an addiction medicine professional. I'm a fellowship trained at the University of Florida, board certified by the American Society of Addiction Medicine. I've been doing that for about 30 years now. And I'm an opioid addict myself in recovery, so I know what I'm talking about both sides.

I know it's an addict, and I know it's a professional trained in addiction medicine. Douglas, best of luck. Stay healthy. I appreciate you adding your perspective there, the medical perspective. Have a great one and be sure to drive safely. You are listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Two Florida men and a woman from South Carolina left Iowa this week. That would not be headlines, of course, except for the fact that it was the Iowa caucus. One Florida man visited every corner of the Hawkeye State, and together the three of

them spent tens of millions of dollars hoping to get a push toward their goal, the White House. In many ways, this was a race in Iowa for second place from the beginning. Former President Trump ran away with 51 percent of the votes in the caucus, easily beating Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. I want to congratulate Ron and Nikki for having a good time together. We're all having a good time together. And I think they both actually did very well. I really do. I think they both did very well. We don't even know what the outcome of second place is. A few hours later, we did. Second place turned out to be just over 21 percent to DeSantis. They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us.

They spent almost 50 million dollars attacking us. No one's faced that much all the way just through Iowa. They, the media was against us. They were writing our obituary months ago. That was Monday night. Since then, DeSantis has decided to largely skip next week's primary in New Hampshire and is hoping to grab support from Haley in her home state of South Carolina. Meantime, back home here in Florida, Democrats scored a win in a special state house election in central Florida. This is where we're at in politics here, presidential politics in the Sunshine State. Matt Dixon has been watching over all this for a good long time. He is now with NBC News as the senior national political reporter, and his latest book

is Swamp Monsters, Trump versus DeSantis, the greatest show on earth, or at least in Florida. Matt, welcome back to the program. Nice to have you. Thanks for having me. What's behind the DeSantis decision to focus on South Carolina instead of New Hampshire? It's been pretty well noted that the Republican primary voters in New Hampshire are kind of different than Iowa and South Carolina, sort of perceived as a little more moderate, fewer evangelical type voters. And with Governor DeSantis' focus on, you know, sort of culture war issues, sort of divisive issues and really his ability to go very hard on sort of right wing conservative policies, I think his campaign kind of read the room and decided that, you know,

especially since we have limited resources and limited money, it's probably best that we skip a state whose Republican electorate just doesn't really line up with the message that we're pushing. So speaking of money, that's the fuel for any presidential campaign, especially after spending tens of millions of dollars in Iowa for 20 percent of the vote there, which was what the second place candidate got, DeSantis. What are his donors looking for from their candidate in the, I guess, next week out of New Hampshire and then a few weeks later in South Carolina? Well, to the extent that there are any left, he's had trouble, especially in recent months, raising money, especially directly into his campaign. He's kind of time and time again come back to Florida-based donors, Tallahassee donors and donors throughout the state who kind of need him

more as governor and also aren't generally donors in federal races, but he's gotten them to give to a presidential campaign because they've kind of needed that money. So I think the signal he's really trying to send is one now of any remote sense of viability. He's got to do all right in South Carolina, and he has to hope that Nikki Haley underperforms so they can go out to donors and say, hey, we're not totally dead in the water yet. So that's really the message they need to send right now. How would you describe the governor's strategy of rarely mentioning President Trump and really just beginning to work him into the stump speech in the last few days? Yeah, he started to finally go after him, but it's been months. And I think a lot of people

see it as too late. It's just the general idea. And Nikki Haley's done this to an extent as well, that it's incredibly hard to run against someone if you're not going to run against them. And especially when that's a dominant, especially when it's a dominant front runner. I don't know how to erode someone's lead when you're clearly in second or third place without identifying policy differences or using some of the contrast language that you hear a lot on political campaigns. And for the most part, up until very recently, you're right, we haven't seen a lot of that. Let me remind folks that you are listening to The Florida Roundup

from your Florida Public Radio station. We're speaking with Matt Dixon, Florida journalist, NBC News senior national political reporter. He's with us from our partner station WFSU in Tallahassee. Matt's latest book is Swamp Monsters, Trump versus DeSantis, the greatest show on earth, or at least in Florida. Now in reporting for that book, Matt, you really discovered that the former president and the current governor have not been as close as one would believe, especially given the Trump assist to the first gubernatorial campaign from DeSantis in 2018. nationally and Florida focused on politics. But the one through line throughout the entire book is just sort of the evolution of the relationship. And really, even to put a finer point on that, that it wasn't always what it seemed. Even going back to 2017, shortly after the tweet endorsement, there was sort of some behind the scenes tensions between staffs and advisors and different

campaigns that we really get into in some detail. They did a very good job of projecting a look of political allies for years. But as DeSantis rose in the polls and was going to for sure run for president, as it appeared, that's when things started to spill out publicly as far as their relationship falling apart. The pandemic and DeSantis' response in Florida is really what shot him to national attention, especially in contrast to then President Trump's management on the national scale. But how has this affected what has continued to be the Republican dominance of statewide politics here in Florida? You mean that the relationship between Trump and DeSantis impacting Florida, Florida level Republican politics? Kind of the friction that existed in the latter either the last year of the Trump administration over the pandemic and the different response that was happening federally versus Florida.

Sure. Sure. Well, Governor DeSantis, and I think when he returns, will continue to sort of have a dominant, very powerful stranglehold on the legislature and sort of the whole of Republican politics in Florida. But it has certainly put some lawmakers in interesting decisions when it comes to things like endorsements. There was a fever lobbying fight earlier this year to get members of Florida's congressional delegation to endorse. Most went with Trump at the state level and the legislature. Most went with DeSantis. But we've seen some flip their allegiance from being DeSantis endorsers to Trump endorsers. So I think the clearest difficult situation Republicans at the state level have been put in can be seen through the endorsement lens, because that was a difficult decision for those who really didn't want to anger either politician. Well, let's talk about this from the ballot box lens here, because this week, Orlando Democrat Tom Keene narrowly won against Republican opponent Erika Booth in a special statehouse

election, District 35. It includes parts of Orange and Osceola counties. The seat had been a GOP seat. Florida Democrats, at least state Democrats, really focused some efforts on this special election. What can we take out of the results? I think it's always hard to extrapolate broader conclusions from things like, but what can be said that that seat was held by Republicans, but President Biden won it by about five points. So in theory, it was, was, you know, territory that Democrats should hold, at least as it performed electorally. So I do think from Florida Democrats are notoriously sort of hit rock bottom and,

you know, have have have lost a lot of power in the state. Little victories like that, sort of incremental victories to chip away at the Republican supermajority in Tallahassee, for instance, and both the House and the Senate. Little things like that are the building blocks that the Democrats in Florida, I think, need to start, you know, regaining their footing a bit in the state. So it was certainly, it's hard to pull huge lessons from it, but it was without question a really good win for Democrats here. Just in 20 seconds or so, National Democratic Party standing up, taking notice of that at all? That's yet to be seen. They've largely pulled out of Florida, but it is something they can use to signal to that constellation of national Democratic groups that, hey, Florida's not totally right yet. Matt Dixon covering national politics from his perch in Tallahassee, longtime Florida

journalist. Latest book published just this month, as a matter of fact, here, right? Swamp Monsters, Trump versus DeSantis, the greatest show on earth, or at least in Florida. Matt, great to have you back on the program and congratulations on the book. Fun read. Thanks so much. And I appreciate having me. Sure thing. You got more to come here today. Stick with us. Why the traditional real estate commission is under scrutiny and the high, high stakes here in Florida. That's next on the Florida Roundup. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being with us. We have a story for you now that could impact more people in Florida than any other state. The traditional residential real estate commission is under legal scrutiny across the country. Federal lawsuits are challenging the way real estate agents have been paid for decades, and no state has more at stake

than the Sunshine State. Hi, Karen. How are you? Nice to meet you. Thanks for opening your afternoon for us and opening the home. It was a little overcast, but otherwise a beautiful day in late November when I met Karen Prince. She is the real estate agent selling this home on Buttonwood Shores Drive in Key Largo. This is a one, one and a half upstairs, and it's a two-bedroom with a living area downstairs. It's built in 1959. It is a wooden house. The home has a 29-foot dock with a boat lift and a footbridge with views of Florida Bay, a metal roof, impact windows and doors. Land. They own point three one a bay bottom on this house. They own part of the bay.

They own part of the bay. And there's a mangrove island out here that they own part of. And you heard right. The property even stretches under a part of the bay to a mangrove island this is a spectacular view it is describe what we're looking at here and directly out into florida button would sound florida bay the sellers of the home on Buttonwood Shores Drive are asking $2.7 million. If they get that, the total commission would be about $155,000. That's 5.75%. Now Prince, as the listing agent, would get 3%, 81 grand. The agent bringing in the seller would get the rest.

This is how real estate commissions have worked for decades. An agent selling the house offers a commission to an agent working with the eventual buyer. The commission to the buyer's agent had been, and for some boards of realtors remains, mandatory in order for the property to be listed for sale on a multiple listing service. That's the database that most real estate brokerages use to list a property for sale. But some have been complaining about having the commission of the buyer's agent come out of the selling price. Well, we believe that the commissions are too high in their uniform, which means that they have basically been set by the industry. That's Steve Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America.

Consumers are overpaying for brokerage services. Sellers have been suing over the so-called coupled commission. It wasn't transparent to buyers and sellers how commissions were shared. That's Brian Schmidt. He owns Caldwell Banker Schmidt Real Estate in the Keys and has been selling homes in Monroe County for 40 years. There was no requirement for agents really to share that information. It wasn't hidden purposefully from anyone, but because people didn't understand how

agents got paid, it was pretty much left up to agents to determine how that happened. There are a handful of lawsuits in federal court across the nation, including one that involves some listing services here in Florida. The suits challenge the long-held practice of how real estate commissions work. FIU real estate professor Suzanne Hollander is watching the suits closely. Sellers are pushing back and they're saying, you know, why should I be paying the buyer's commissions? Several real estate brokerages and the industry's main trade organization, the National Association of Realtors, were sued by home sellers in federal court in Kansas City, Missouri. Now, the Missouri jury decided that the National Association of Realtors,

Keller Williams, and Home Services of America conspired by forcing home sellers to use a system that splits payment of a commission between sellers and buyers. The jury ordered the brokerages to pay $1.8 billion in damages. Back in the living room on Buttonwood Shore Drive, brokerage owner Schmidt does not think how agents are paid is at risk with this federal jury decision. I don't think that just as a consequence of this that commissions are going to be subject to significant decreases across the board, that listing agents are only going to be paid 3% and buyers are going to somehow come in and buy properties without paying buyers, brokers. Maybe it helps to consider the difference between one cent and zero. Hardly anything, but that penny may symbolize the beginning of the end of

how most real estate commissions have been arranged. Big real estate brokerages in the industry's trade association are facing potentially billions of dollars in damages for how agent commissions have been structured for decades. These commissions are published on the regional database of homes for sale known as the Multiple Listing Service. Usually it's around 3% for the agent bringing in the buyer. The seller's agent also usually gets about 3%. Together it's called the Cooperative Commission. So for every $1 or 100 pennies,

agents would split up to six cents. The Miami Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service, which is the largest local realtor association in the country, used to require sellers to offer a commission to a buyer's agent of at least one penny, which is as close to zero as you can get, the association wrote in a news release. About a week after a federal jury in Missouri ruled brokerages conspired to inflate commissions, the Miami Group changed its rules to allow agents to enter any amount for a commission, including zero. If an agent working with the buyer is involved in a deal with a cooperative commission of zero, that agent would not get paid the way residential real estate commissions have been structured for years. We requested interviews with the Miami Realtor

Group's chairman and chief legal counsel. They turned down those invitations but sent the association's explanation for the change that was posted on its website in early November. That statement said it made the change, quote, to reinforce agents' ability to engage in transparent negotiations with customers and prospective buyers. Now, the Missouri court case may have been about a thousand miles away from Florida, but the Sunshine State is not immune to these legal challenges. The Florida Association of Realtors and more than a dozen brokers were sued last month, accused of conspiring over agent commissions, the same accusation that was in front of that

federal jury in Missouri. It represents the greatest threat to the price setting of the industry in the last 100 years. That's Steve Brobeck from the Consumer Federation of America. He figures if real estate commissions drop by 2%, it would save homebuyers and sellers $20 billion a year nationwide. The potential savings for homebuyers and sellers is as enormous as the threat to how business is done and how agents are paid, including in Florida, which has more agents than any other state. You are listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. There are about as many full-time real estate agents here in Florida as

there are middle school teachers. There are more people selling real estate full-time than there are plumbers. They also say that more people in Florida have real estate licenses than driver's licenses. I looked it up. It's not true. More people have driver's licenses in the state of Florida. That's Suzanne Hollander, who teaches real estate at FIU. You add part-time agents who sell real estate as a side hustle. There are tens of thousands of people whose paychecks, or at least part of their paychecks, could be impacted by any changes to how real estate commissions are paid. This is a very part-time industry. A very small minority are responsible for most of the sales.

Brobeck says with so many people working part-time or even just once in a while, that has implications for the industry in a market saturated with real estate agents. It means that very few agents can make a living selling real estate. There are just too many agents for too few sales. The average pay statewide for a real estate agent full-time is about $54,000 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now, if you bought or sold a home in Florida, chances are the real estate agent you worked with did not work for you. The public thinks that the realtors on their team, the realtor represents the seller or the realtor represents the buyer. This is Suzanne Hollander again. She teaches real

estate at FIU. And in the state of Florida, we have a default to this idea of what's called transaction broker. That means in most residential real estate deals, the person you may call your agent does not, legally speaking, represent you. They represent the deal, thus a transaction broker. Critics like Steve Robeck with the Consumer Federation of America think the default transactional relationship in Florida supports the argument that transactional agents should be paid less because they have fewer obligations. should be paid less because they have fewer obligations. They cannot, for example, say anything to one party that harms the interest of the other party. They are truly facilitators. Lots of people were attracted to the real estate industry

because of the pay and flexibility. That's why Karen Prince became one in the Keys. She's trying to sell a home on Buttonwood Shores Drive in Key Largo. Thanks for opening. She was raising her two children and needed a career that would allow her to be at home when they needed her. It has been very lucrative for me to stay in the Keys and send my two kids to college. She had sold seven homes in 2023 when she spoke with us in late November. She called it an

average year. This year may be anything but average for the industry, with several lawsuits pending over real estate commissions. If you have a story about paying or getting paid by a real estate commission, email us, radio, at thefloridaroundup.org. Finally on The Roundup, these are politically polarizing times. Immigration, guns, education, and in Florida, even avian issues. immigration, guns, education, and in Florida, even avian issues. Senate Bill 918, to adopt the American flamingo as our state bird. This was a Florida State Senate committee this week. Republican Miami Senator Alexis Collaudi wants to change Florida's official state bird,

a title held by the mockingbird for almost a century. This bill would recognize the American flamingo not only as our emblem to so much of our own residents and to the world, but as our state bird. The flamingo. Its long neck, fancy feathers, balancing on one leg before it takes flight. It symbolizes warmth, the sun, tropical ease. You know, the sunshine state. So what's the issue?

Many of us have proposed different state bird options over the years, and it's going back many years. That's Boca Raton Democrat Senator Tina Polsky. She pointed out the mockingbird is the official bird of four other states. So it's certainly not unique. But the scrub jay, which is the only endemic bird to Florida. There's other competition, too. I need to chime in, being a graduate of University of North Florida. This is Democrat Senator Tracy Davis from Jacksonville. And we celebrate the osprey. Ozzie the osprey is the University of North Florida mascot.

Well, despite the disagreement, there was no foul language during the debate. The bill passed out of the committee. It's been referred to one more committee in Tallahassee to see if it flies. That is the Florida Roundup this week. It is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF Public Media in Tampa. The show is produced by Bridget O'Brien and Grayson Docter. The vice president of radio at WLRN and the program's technical director is Peter Meritz. Engineering help from Doug Peterson, Charles Michaels, and Jackson Hart. Theme music provided by Miami Jazz Guitarist Aaron Leibos at aaronleibos.com. Thanks for calling, listening,

emailing, and supporting public media in your community. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.