The Florida Roundup - Political boundaries, campus free speech and weekly news briefing

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke about how congressional redistricting impacts voter representation and bipartisanship with the Center Aisle Coalition (00:00). Then, we spoke about the legality of mid-decade redistricting with PolitiFact’s Samantha Putterman (19:30). Plus, we spoke about the tension between free speech on campus and safety with UF’s Jane Bambauer (26:00). And later, news from the week including an update on the state’s special sessions and budget negotiations (38:44), wildfires (40:20), and a new cursive requirement for Florida students (46:58).

Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being with us here. Governor Rondesantis has invited a fellow elected official to come visit Florida. He offered to put him up in the governor's mansion in Tallahassee, even offered to take him fishing. It really wasn't an invitation as much as a dare. There's nothing that could be better for Republicans in Florida than to see Jeffries, Hakeem Jeffries,

everywhere around this state. Voters will not like what they see. They will not want that type of ideology. And so the door is open. The invitations out there. I don't think there would be anything better for the Republican Party of Florida, but to have Jeffries there. Hakeem Jeffries is the minority leader of the United States House of Representatives. He is the Democratic leader in the House.

The governor's invitation, or dare, this week came after Jeffreys said Democrats were going to target several Republican members of Florida's Capitol Hill delegation. We are all in in Florida, and it's Republicans who are putting a target on the backs of their own members politically. Florida is just the latest and could be the last state to consider moving political boundaries for congressional districts in this year-long blow-for-blow state-by-state brinksmanship, fight over control of the U.S. House of Representatives. It all started when Texas redrew its congressional districts with Republican state lawmakers there, hoping to shape political areas so the GOP could pick up seats in Congress, California, North Carolina, Ohio, and as recently as this week, Virginia, all moving parameters with the goal of helping one party or another. Florida lawmakers are due to debate redistricting in a special session beginning next week in Tallahassee. Fences may make good neighbors

as the cliche goes. So what happens when our political boundaries move to favor partisanship? 305-995-1800 is our phone number across the state. Same number for everybody here in Florida. Red, blue, green, doesn't matter what the color of your political partisanship is 305-995-1800. Carlos Cobello and Stephanie Murphy are back with this. They are co-chairs of the Center Isle Coalition. They both served as members of Florida's congressional delegation. Carlos was a Republican member of Congress. Stephanie was a Democratic member of Congress. To each of you, welcome back to the Florida round of. Great to have you back. Stephanie, let me start. Do you support this redistricting effort in Florida?

I do not, primarily because when you see politicians, whether they're Republican or Democrat, try to redistrict for political gain, what they're doing is creating a disadvantage and disenfranchise. franchising voters. And I think at a time when people are losing faith quickly in their government, that's the last thing that we actually need. And moreover, in Florida, it is unconstitutional. You know, it's very clear we have laws that say that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. We are going to put that constitutional question to our news partner, Politifact, in about 20 minutes or so. So stick around for that. Carlos, how about for you? Do you support? this redistricting effort that the governor and Republican lawmakers are going to be undertaking next week?

Hey, Tom, it's good to be back with you and with my friend and former colleague, Stephanie Murphy. I oppose all of the extraordinary redistricting efforts. I think they're all toxic. I think they are all efforts to further polarize and divide the country. And they are, you know, if not a technical violation of the rules. Of course, the courts will decide that in each state, but they are certainly a violation of the spirit of our democracy, the way it's intended to work. We know the rule. We redraw these districts every 10 years unless there's a court ruling that indicates otherwise. and for state legislators to essentially signal that they will redraw districts whenever they feel like it or whenever they think it's convenient, number one is just in bad faith. And number two, it's really confusing.

People already have a tough time trying to figure out what district they live in and which candidates they have to pay attention to. and this will only make it more difficult. Yeah, Carlos, I appreciate the clarity on all redistricting, your opposition to all redistricting. Stephanie, how about for you? What are your thoughts on the redistricting efforts outside of Florida? I'm against all of the redistricting as well. Yeah, it really takes away fair representation,

and it tries to am, what the outcome is, is that it amplifies the voices of the, extremes. And the reality is that it doesn't reflect where the majority of Americans are. And I think you end up getting government that is less responsive to the majority of Americans' needs when you create systems in which the extremes have the loudest voices in Congress. Expound upon that a little bit more, Stephanie, about the governance consequences that you foresee of this kind of brinksmanship? Well, you know, if you are elected from a deep blue seat or you're elected from a deep red seat, the safest thing for you to do when you roll onto the House floor or the

Senate floor is to vote your party line. You don't have to take thoughtful votes the way that Carlos and I did when we were in Congress where we really consider how the issue impacts our constituents. And we, we often took votes that were not party line, but they were in favor of where our constituents were. I always argue that members that come from more divided districts, evenly split districts, like the ones that Carlos and I represented, they were more thoughtful members. They can show up and they have to think about the impact. I'll never forget being a freshman in Congress and having been well-being. prepped rolling onto the House for ready to cast my vote on the set of issues and having a more

senior member from a dark like a partisan district asked me what are we voting on i was like you don't need to know because you can look and see where your party's voting interesting carlos i remember years ago when i first started to cover one of your congressional campaigns you're describing politics as the art of what's possible what happens to that art with this redistricting Well, the more we erase these districts that are actually representative of the country, of where the country is, it means that the realm of what's possible becomes a lot smaller. And it becomes even more difficult to find compromises to craft policies that most Americans can appreciate and that will benefit their quality of life. will see more so-called reconciliation efforts or one-party legislative initiatives in Congress, and people will feel excluded.

So, again, this is a power grab, any state where it's done, no matter which party's doing it, it's going to be perceived as a power grab. To be fair, the first shot of this war was fired by Republicans, by the president, demanding that Republican states do this. Democrats have decided to respond in kind. You kind of understand that because you can't just disarm unilaterally. But at the end of the day, Tom, for all of these reasons, everyone loses. Yeah, Carlos Cabello, former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Florida,

Stephanie Murphy, former Democratic member from the Orlando area with us. They are partners and co-chairs on the Center Isle Coalition. We are talking about the redistricting effort and kind of what comes next after all of this political and partisan brinksmanship that's happening Florida next week with lawmakers looking at redistricting maps. Let's hear from Kathy in Sarasota who's been listening. Kathy, you're on the radio. Go ahead. Hello. Yes, I want it to stop everywhere because look at what happened in Virginia.

Now there's only one district, only one, that is either a Republican and 10 are Democrats. So it's all upside. So it doesn't matter what state this is happening in. It looks like it's not fair to anybody, really. And Democrats especially have to start voting with their constituents. They can't just stick to party lines. I heard so much talk about that. And yes, they are correct.

Because, I mean, a 2080 issue, like voter ID, the whole country thinks they should have IDs. So why are these Democrats so against it? What is the problem? Yeah. You know, the reasons they bring up are not valid. And, you know, if anybody is that stupid that they can't go down and just apply for a new birth certificate. And I did. It takes 10 minutes.

So, Kathy, you're referencing, right, the SAVE Act, which is a federal legislative effort, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives, mostly along party lines, has failed in the Senate to reach enough space. It is an effort to have to provide proof of citizenship upon registration. And some of the criticism is the cost of that proof, either a passport or a birth certificate, for instance. But, Kathy, we appreciate hearing your voice there from Sarasota. Let's go across the peninsula. Terry's listening in Melbourne. Go ahead, Terry. It is your turn.

Yes. Well, I would just like to point out that I think all of us voters certainly understand what's happened here. Trump is the one that initiated this re-cherrymandering. taken up by the state of Texas without even consulting with its people and implemented there. In my way of thinking, the Democrats were left with no choice except to try to match the efforts of the Republicans, or else they were going to get wiped out by what the Republicans were doing. Everybody knows this gerrymandering is bad news. It needs to be eliminated by law in every state.

But we have an unusual set of conditions here where we have an auto-crow. that would like to take over this democracy, and we need some wins on the part of Democrats to control the guy. All right, Terry, we appreciate that voice there from Melbourne. We also have a unique constitutional amendment in Florida, the Fair Districts Act, which Stephanie, I think you were referring to earlier in terms of the constitutionality of what Florida lawmakers may consider next week, and we'll talk about that coming up in just a few moments with PolitiFact. We got an email, Carlos and Stephanie, from a listener Haven, with some interesting ideas I want to to put in front of the two of you here. Haven writes, I'm against gerrymandering of any kind,

and then offers what Haven calls valid solutions to fix this problem. So the first one here that Haven offers is increase the size of the U.S. House of Representatives. 435 representatives is too few Haven rights for a population over 300 million. Stephanie, what do you think about increasing the size of the House? Having worked in the House, I think the it's unruly at 445. And each member basically represents about 750,000 constituents. I actually think we might look at the Senate and see if there are ways to make the Senate a little more reflective. The House really is tied closely to their constituents.

Their elections are every two years. So, you know, they're very closely tied to where constituents. are. And if you remove gerrymandering, then they are more responsive to their constituents and have to not just cater to the base, but to everyone. But maybe we should take a look at the Senate. What kind of ideas might you have, Stephanie, for the Senate, given that it is two per state, regardless of population? I know. And so I think that that's... No gerrymandering in the Senate, right? It's just the state boundaries. Yeah. But, But, you know, there are Puerto Ricans who have been looking for equal representation.

That might be a place, the District of Columbia. You know, these are places with the District of Columbia over a million and Puerto Rico, three million. And, you know, Puerto Ricans fight and die on behalf of this country and alarm services. Maybe they should have a voice in the U.S. Senate. I see what you're saying, right. Add maybe four seats. from those two areas which do not have Senate representation because they are not considered states,

the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico. Carlos, how about another idea here from Haven who writes, adopt a more promotional representative system. So it's not just winner take all, maybe proportional. Yeah, I mean, look, there's a lot we could do to reform the structure of our elections, the structure of the House. Those are solutions that would,

take a lot of time and effort. You'd probably have to amend the Constitution. I mean, if I had it in my way, House members would have four-year terms, and every two years we would put half the House to election. I think I would certainly give members better perspective, more time to get to know people, get to know the institution, become familiar with policy, build relationships. Maybe less time to raise money. Exactly. That could lead to better outcomes. But look, at the end of the day, the best solution is for people to do the right thing and for voters to vote for candidates who will do the right thing. And that's harder in a way, but at least it's something that could be changed immediately as opposed to the structure of our government.

which would require a lot of national consensus. Robin is listening in and has been patient in St. Augustine. Go ahead, Robin. Thanks for being here. Yes, they already redid the maps in 2022. That's supposed to be good until 2032, and this is more of the same, giving their Republican voters,

more of a more count. I don't think it's right. They have the Florida Constitution that says it shouldn't be done. Yeah. Robin, stick around with us because we're going to try to answer as best we can, the facts behind that constitutional question coming up with our news partner, Politifact. Lloyd in Miami, you've been patient. We want to hear from you real quick. Go ahead, Lloyd. Good morning. I'm reminded of the quote from John Huntsman, Sr. Winners never cheat and cheaters never win. If a particular party has a policy position that they strongly believe, they need to trust that the constituents will get behind that.

If your party is not leading it and if you don't have your folks elected, it's probably your policies. And if that's the case, what you're doing by doing the redistricting is cheating. And we teach children at a very young age that cheating is never okay. And if I were a member of the Democratic Party of which I am but a politician, I would be hammering home the message. Why are they cheating if their policies are believed by the American? good people. Lloyd, we appreciate you putting voice to that in Miami. Thanks. Great to hear from you.

Carlos Cabela, Stephanie Murphy, Republican and Democrat here with us, former members of the Florida congressional delegation. You guys are with the Center Isle Coalition. Do you think membership is going to grow after this 2026 election in the coalition? Carlos? Well, we can only hope. And look, elections are tough to predict. If if there is a blue wave, as many predict, and as the polls indicate today, although much can change, that means that a lot of Democrats would have won in Republican districts or in very competitive districts. And yes, those would all be candidates for the Center Isle Coalition. And, you know, same goes for Republicans that survive or Republicans that,

maybe suffer to scare this time around. Look, we need every incentive possible for people to have dialogue, for members of Congress to collaborate, to work together. And sometimes a tough night really is good for political parties. They have both experienced some tough elections. Make some political recalibration, definitely. Carlos Cabello with the Center Ile Coalition and his co-chair Stephanie Murphy, Carlos and Stephanie, thank you so much for your time. Great to catch up with you. We really appreciate it.

Thank you, Tom. We got plenty more to come here on the Florida Roundup, including this politic factor on the constitutional question of redistricting. Carol wrote us, The moving of boundaries when it's a matter of convenience is more proof that we, the people, are pawns. Politicians, she writes, worry about their job and lifestyle and not are all about their constituents' lives.

It's become very evident that our country is corrupt. She writes, it's the hunger game. America is now a paper tiger and greed is the cause. You can send us your thoughts, radio at the Florida Roundup.org. More to come. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians.

Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. We are glad you're along with us. The Census Bureau counts every person in America, every 10 years. Political districts are then drawn based upon that population count. Lines are moved. Congressional districts can be added or subtracted, and then you go out and cast your ballots. But what's happening this year is certainly unusual. States are changing their political boundaries in the middle of the decade without a new population count.

President Donald Trump has pushed Republican states to redraw political boundaries determining congressional districts in hopes of gaining a larger Republican majority in the U.S. House. Florida lawmakers meet next week to consider those changes. as we've mentioned. Florida Democratic leaders have called the effort unconstitutional. Well, let's put this to the fact check. Sam Putterman is back with us, Florida government reporter with our news partner, Politifact. Hello, Sam. Welcome back. Hey, thanks for having me. Republican Democratic Representative Rishon Young was the most explicit in this, calling this redistricting effort illegal, saying, quote, it is against the Constitution to redraw maps in favor of a party. All right, what are the relevant facts here? Yeah, so midday

decade redistricting, right, which is what DeSantis is trying to do here, that timing, although rare, that isn't illegal under Florida law. But if the redistricting is done to intentionally benefit one political party, as he's kind of mentioning here, it is. This is, I think, referencing the fair district's constitutional amendment, this is a state constitutional amendment that voters approved, what was it? 2010. Okay, 2010, fair enough, 16 years ago. Wow, yeah, time moves. Okay, so what does that fair district's constitutional amendment require for, political boundaries. Right. So it prohibits establishing congressional or state legislative districts with

the intent, which is important, the intent of favoring or disfavoring one political party or an incumbent over another. Intent is doing a lot of work in that sentence, isn't it? Right. Yeah. So if the legislature does indeed adopt new districts next week, it will have to be able to demonstrate that it did so for reasons other than increasing the number of Republican seats in the House or offsetting other states, you know, states creation of new Democratic seats like they've done in Virginia and California. Okay. So in that regard, I suppose we could look back on on previous statements that the governor has made regarding his desires for this redistricting consideration. He's pointed to at least a couple of reasons by my count. One that he's mentioned in months past as he thinks that the 2020 census

undercounted Floridians. In other words, they're more people. people here. He's talked about people moving to Florida even after 2020. I'm not sure how that really counts, though, because then you're moving the line about when the count happens. Right. And then he's also pointed to a coming Supreme Court decision that's expected sometime before late June on a voting rights case in Louisiana that challenges a provision in the Voting Rights Act from the 60s that allows for majority minority congressional districts. So the purpose of the redistricting, how does that play in here? Yeah, so the purpose of it, you know, if he's able, if DeSantis and other, you know, Florida Republicans are able to kind of frame this as, you know, the VRA is going to come down. The Supreme Court is going to say. The VRA, the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act. Right. It's going to come down. And they're going to say, right? It's going to say this right. It's going to say this publicly. That it has nothing to do with any kind of Republican control, that it doesn't have to do with. with other states that the intent is really innocent, right?

And it's just because he's trying to, you know, make it match up. I see. With the current population. But again, it very much will see like how that could play out in court. But intent is very hard to prove just on the other side of it or any, you know, would be challengers. Yeah, the chronology here is interesting, right? Because the Supreme Court ruling in this Louisiana case has not been handed down. Has not been.

And it will be the final word on it. We don't know what it's going to be. So, I mean, one could imagine perhaps there's like a triggering mechanism that Florida lawmakers make for their redistricting should this ruling go this way then this thing happens. I mean, is that possible? I think it I think it could be possible. We've heard some different Republicans kind of like conjecturing like talking about that saying that they might be able to do something. But a lot of a lot of different politicians from either side are kind of kind of throwing a little bit of cold

water on that just for what you said about the fact that that decision has not come down yet. So it's very difficult to know where it will fall. And it just seems like DeSantis is up against the clock here with the obviously the election coming up in November and needs to do something on it sooner rather than later. Well, even the August primary, right? It pushes up that. And so what kind of timeline is there for the political boundaries to be settled in order for voters to know which ballot they're going to have and frankly for the candidates to know

which district they're running there. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. I'm not sure if there's a hard date legally for when they must be settled. but as a practical matter, right, as you just said, the map has to be settled with some period of time before at least the deadline, the filing deadline for congressional races. And that's June 12th. So, you know, it is possible that that deadline can be moved,

but most likely it needs to, it pretty much needs to be in place in some form before that time. So, you know, the people who are running nowhere, what district are running in, the right ballots can get to people, but still it is incredibly close against the clock. Getting tight here, certainly. And it begins with the redistricting,

special session next week. Sam Putterman sorting through the fact checks with our news partner PolitiFact. Thanks so much, Sam. Great to hear from you. Thanks for having me. If you've got a PolitiFact, you want to send us. Just throw us an email, radio at the Florida roundup.org. And while you've got your inbox open, if you are a registered voter or plan to be by the August primary here in Florida, we want to hear from you. And it doesn't matter what party or non-party you're going to register with, Republican, Democrat, NPA, Key West to Pensacola. We want to know, what's motivating your vote. What matters to you? Is it housing costs? Is it redistricting? Is it transportation, education? We want to hear from voter voices, and we're collecting your names and

contact information. So just email us, radio at the florida roundup.org. Radio at the florida roundup.org. Speech and consequences now. There are a few new cases on Florida college campuses focused on what students can say and what repercussions they may face. The University of Florida faces a federal lawsuit for shutting down a Republican student group over anti-Semitic comments. The group says UF is violating its First Amendment rights.

The president of Florida International University is being sued by four students facing misconduct charges from the school. The students were involved in a WhatsApp group chat that included racist slurs, comments about violence, against black people and other references to violence against a professor. Their lawyer says the comments were humorous and, quote, hyperbolic in nature. And this week, a separate FIU student was arrested after she wrote in a group chat asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to, quote,

drop some bonbons on an arena on campus. Police say she sent another message claiming there was going to be a bomb threat in the arena. She later called the messages a dumb joke. Her lawyer says the First Amendment is, quote, front and center in that case. 305-9-5-1800 is our phone number 305-995-18-00. Jane Bombauer is with us, a law professor at the University of Florida specializing in the First Amendment. Jane, welcome the program. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Thanks for having me. Each of these cases, of course, is different. Each of them have the right to jurisprudence here, but where is generally the line between free speech and illegal threats of violence? Yeah, so these cases might be. involve the line between what's known in constitutional law as a true threat, as opposed to

fully protected speech. So if somebody is threatening violence against someone else, that might actually be unprotected speech and would allow the university or the state to take some sort of action against the person who makes a threat. But the trouble is that the definition of true threat is quite narrow. The person who's making the threat has to actually be communicating a serious, expression of intent to commit the act of violence, and they have to be aware of the fact that they are, that, you know, a listener is going to understand it to be a threat. Same with, and another thing that comes up is incitement, the idea that, you know, if you're, if through your speech, you might be sort of suggesting that other people take some sort of

unlawful act, that too is unprotected, but in order to, you know, as an unprotected form of incitement, the university would have to make sure that what they're doing is targeting somebody who intentionally wanted to provoke an imminent lawful act. And so that imminence and that intent requirement keep that type of speech, that type of unprotected speech quite narrow.

quite narrow. So outside of that, you know, the United States is famous for having very broad speech protections, and the universities, especially public universities, therefore have to tolerate quite a bit of a harsh, caustic speech. But of course, there are some limits in the context of a university. And so, yeah, let's explore some of those, right? Because the universities also have a student code of conduct, which is, of course, different than a constitutional right to free speech, anything short of issuing a true threat or calling for or inciting imminent lawless action, the two kind of exclusions that you just spelled out there, Jane. So what about the student code of conduct on campus and how those intersect or interact with the First Amendment?

Yeah, so the student code of conduct, I mean, first of all, a lot of the parts of the student code involve actual conduct as opposed to pure speech. And so, of course, that's sort of different from what we're talking about. But to the extent that those codes define certain types of expression that negatively affect the environment and the sense of security that other students might feel, they nevertheless can't, you know, they're not going to be enforceable if they run into constitutional problems. And there have been plenty of cases. And there have been plenty of where courts have found no problem just rejecting the university's code of conduct if it winds up allowing for disciplinary action against students who are engaged in speech that doesn't greatly, greatly, you know, sort of affect and disrupt the rest of the university. So a student code of conduct could not have a lower threshold of speech allowance than the Constitution.

Is that accurate? That's right. But to be clear, the Constitution, you know, even when we're talking about protected speech, when we're talking about stuff that might be hateful, but it's not, you know, fall short of a truth threat. The Constitution still, though, would allow universities in the course of just managing their own affairs to do something. So I don't want to give you the impression that it's a complete free speech, free for all, everywhere on campus. That's not quite right. But if press and if there's litigation, a court's going to

want to make sure that if a university took disciplinary action against a student based on something that they said, the university needs to show that that student's speech actually caused a material disruption. So it actually caused changes in the behavior of other students. It actually caused fear. and, you know, there needs to be more than just offense. Some, some demonstrable effect of the expression. Correct. Yes. At the very least. And then, you know, some cases will be hard because courts also don't want to allow for a heckler's veto. So if everyone, if everyone is really just offended by the speech, but what they say is,

oh, now I don't feel safe or something. That might not be enough. But the 11th Circuit, which is the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals that Florida is part of, they've already found in a case involving the University of Florida that the university can expel a student who has showed it, you know, demonstrated a pattern of increasingly kind of hostile speech and maybe some conduct as well, but that actually caused material disrupting. It caused people to not come to class if he was there. It caused a staff member to want to change their job. Jane Bombauer is our guest.

I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Ronda from your Florida Public Radio Station. We're talking about speech and consequences and some free speech cases in the news here on college campuses in Florida over the past really just a matter of a few weeks. Does it matter, Jane, where the speech occurred, if it's on a WhatsApp chat, for instance, is the cases? and a couple of these Florida International University cases? Yeah, well, it matters, but it's not decisive. So off-campus speech, a court, and especially off-campus speech that's just in direct messages

and so not even publicly visible, I think that type of speech, a court would be more skeptical of a university's claim that it's causing this kind of substantial disruption to campus. although in a case like the one currently happening at FIU where these once private chats are now leaked, of course, then it becomes public. Yeah, Counsel, let me just dig in a little bit deeper here. I mean, they're WhatsApp chats, right? They were private now. They've been public.

In some cases, there were hundreds of students involved in these chats, dozens at least. You know, if one of those students is actually physically on a campus, does then a student code of conduct? come into play, does then the university have some ability to get involved, even if it's in this private messaging platform? I think it would still have to clear that material disruption test for the same reason that if a student was just on campus but talking to other students, you know, that too, where the code of conduct would presumably apply if, if ultimately the code of conduct is being used to enforce pure speech, pure expression, not in the middle of class, you know, so we're not talking about someone standing up in the middle of class

and using racial epithets or something. Just in an area that's otherwise basically public, a code of conduct would have to only penalize speech if it really had a meaningful impact on others. These cases, of course, are happening here in Florida in an environment where the state has not been shy about criticizing and investigating the speech of folks, including public school teachers, as well as students,

students, college students. We had the campus protests at UF against Israel, boy, either last year or two years ago. I don't recall exactly when it was. And then, of course, some of the tasteless comments that were on social media posted by folks after the assassination of conservative Charlie Kirk. So what I'm wondering is in that kind of environment, what do you make of the ecosystem that this is happening in and these most recent cases now coming to light? Yeah. Well, so I think the fact that the fact that the first amendment in the federal constitution is going to wind up being a check on the state lawmakers is useful here because, you know, I get that the Florida legislators and the governor

are, you know, see themselves as doing some sort of corrective action. They think of, you know, they think universities had sort of slid into kind of advocacy and they're trying to, you know, I think they think of themselves as doing noble work. But nevertheless, they might be wrong. And the First Amendment is going to make sure that enforcement of any rules, even rules related to peer conduct, have to be done in a viewpoint neutral way. How concerned are you about the chilling effect? And I'm sorry to only give you just a few seconds to answer this, Professor,

but the time is marching ahead. But what about the chilling impact? The chilling impact of, yeah, yeah. So this full set of state sort of lawmaker interventions, I think, it has had a chilling effect. Now, maybe the legislators might think like that good. That's exactly the point. We're trying to correct something here. But what we wouldn't want, I think, is for the university to be a kind of football, political football that's ping ponging between extreme positions and sort of extreme advocacy when it's supposed to be, you know, a place where...

Jane, I got to run. Sorry to interrupt. It's the Florida Roundup on Florida Public Radio. Yep. Well, that was fun. Thank you. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. We are thankful to have you along this week with us. So how many special legislative sessions does it take before they are no longer special and just extra? As we talked about earlier on this program, Florida lawmakers will gather in Tallahassee next week for a special session to tackle three issues, congressional redistricting, artificial intelligence, and vaccine mandates. Another one is coming up soon for the state budget, and Governor Andesantis continues to promise a special session on property taxes. Some of the issues may be combined, so that may reduce the number of additional law writing sessions before the next fiscal year begins in July.

Now, Governor DeSantis first talked about his desire to reduce or eliminate some local property taxes more than a year ago. He's pledged to call an extra legislative session for lawmakers to consider a plan that would be destined for the November ballot. But he has not released any specific plan himself, instead leaving it up to lawmakers. The House passed a bill this spring that would phase out all non-school property taxes on primary homes, but the Senate did not take it up. House Speaker Daniel Perez told a South Florida TV station last weekend, he and the other lawmakers have been waiting for the governor. For the last 18 months or so, he's been saying to the public and on Fox News and on anyone that's willing to listen that he's going to abolish property taxes. I'm still waiting for a proposal that has anything to do with property taxes.

Despite driving the issue for Republicans this week, the governor laid it at the feet of legislators. I don't think that they can go back to the voters without having put something on the ballot. In Ocala, I'm Joe Burns. Governor DeSantis says there are different ways to cut homeowner taxes. He wants something, quote, historic. There will be a special session to do the property tax. And my sense would be we'll get there probably on the first try. But if not, there will be more of those sessions.

Ultimately, the governor has no say in a proposed amendment. It needs 60% of both the House and the Senate and then 60% approval from voters. Local governments say those property taxes are needed. They pay for essential services. In Ocala, I'm Joe Burns. Now, there appeared to be a breakthrough this week on the only required action that lawmakers actually have to do each year, which is pass a budget. House and Senate leaders announced Thursday they had an agreement to spend $52 billion

in the year beginning in July. Now, the $52 billion amount is the amount of state revenue generated through state sales taxes, income taxes from corporations and other fees. The deal, though, is not a done deal. It covers the general revenue allocation, and it's about 3% more than this year. Lawmakers will return to Tallahassee in mid-May to hold committee hearings on the spending plan and then are expected to head back and vote on the final deal the week after Memorial Day. Almost 100 wildfires have burned over 15,000 acres in Florida in just the past week, and there are dozens more ablaze as well, according to dashboard from the FFS, the Florida Forest Service. There's a fire in the Everglades that's

burned almost 10,000 acres. Another one north of Palatka in north central Florida is nearing 4,000 acres. Here's Sophia Dinka with our partner station WFT in Gainesville. Fires from Putnam County and Clay County have merged into one, burning over 4,000 acres. According to FFS data, Alachua County has the most active fires with seven. Ludi Bond, a wildfire mitigation specialist from the Division of Forestry says the fight is far from over. People ask me, well, one of these fires are going to be put out? They're not. They're going to last for weeks. I'm not even going to say days. They're going to last for weeks. Bond also says firefighting agencies are pooling resources from around the state to tackle North Central Florida's fires. She also says the Florida National Guard

will arrive to help and that people should have a game plan in case they need to evacuate. I'm Sophia Dinka in Gainesville. And I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. The wildlife threat and reality of the fires is a result of really dry conditions throughout the state. Reporter Steve Newborn, though, spent some time recently in a soggy area, a half million acres called the Green Swamp. It's a preserved area in the fastest growing part of the state. It's day one. We've walked about five miles from the put-in site off of Rockridge Road in northern Pole County.

We're taking a trail that parallels with the Koochee River. We haven't seen another soul here, and the only sound you hear is the wind through the trees. When you look at a satellite map, this is a giant green space hemmed in on two sides by the spreading grayness of Tampa and Orlando. But the green swamp may be a misnomer. Sure, it's wet in the summer and is the source of the Hillsboro, with Lakuchi, Peace, and Oklahoma rivers. But this is the driest part of the year, and water in most places is nowhere to be found. After settling into a campsite on the Florida Trail, we break out an emergency water filter to boil the very brown water we collected from the bottom of a dry lake. It tasted a little gritty as we hunkered down for the night.

It's about eating the morning on our second day. The sunlight is peeking through the top of the trees. The green swamp is called the hydrological high point of Florida. It's basically a water tower for a good chunk of the state. That's why so many rivers start here. It's an important enough place that this area was preserved years ago. A good chunk of it after Hurricane Donna swept through in 1960 and flooded much of Tampa.

And they preserved areas along the Hillsborough River and upstream along the Wethucci. Tampa has not been flooded since. In the 1970s, this was designated an area of critical state concern, which gives it a little more protection from development. Mark Folkerson is an engineer with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which oversees much of the area. I can only imagine if it wasn't protected back in those days and if it had become condos and Walmarts and subdivisions.

Thankfully, there was some foresight back in those early years to do that. It could have turned out very different. In the 1850s, he says an ambitious plan was hatched to dig a canal from the St. John's River to Tampa Bay along where Interstate 4 is now. Another canal would have connected it to a chain of lakes to the north in Lake County. That never happened, but loggers soon came, cutting down centuries-old cypress trees at an abandoned logging camp called Compresco. Given enough time, the swamp recovered. I'm just so thankful that nothing was ever destroyed through that green swamp area.

We're able to preserve it and allow it to function naturally. More than 30 endangered or threatened species live here. It's become one of the most important points in the Florida wildlife. corridor. There have been some interesting sightings as well. One is Florida's version of the Yeti, the swamp ape. It probably didn't have good hygiene, so Fulkerson has another name for it. Skunk ape is the big foot term for Florida. We have had groups from like Discovery Channel go in and look for skunk ape. We've never seen one yet. But another kind of sighting turned out to be very real, the wild man of the green swamp. In 1975, a Taiwanese merchant's

sail or escaped Tampa General Hospital. He somehow made his way to the swamp where he lived off the land, who to May was arrested eight months later after the Sumter County Sheriff saw a wisp of smoke from his campfire. Fulkerson says the wild man had an interesting diet. There's interactions of people seeing them and maybe taking a chicken or something like that, but I was asked a wild man, you know, how did you survive out there? And he said, well, I ate the little piggies. And they said, little piggies, you know, like the wild hogs. And they said, no, no, no. So it turned out to be he lived off armadillos. They called them the little piggies. The heavens opened up on our last day. The cracked, thirsty grounds sopped it up.

So we didn't see too many animals, just a lot of birds, owls, sandal cranes. Didn't see any coyotes, bears, or even the swamp ape. But what we did see was a beautiful slice of old Florida in the rain. I'm Steve Newborn in the green swamp. From the green swamp to the Florida Keys now, former one of the Florida Keys now, former. A female sea turtle arrived at the turtle hospital in Marathon in the Middle Keys. Yes, Florida has a turtle hospital. Now, doctors there were not sure if the turtle was going to survive. She was in rough shape.

In addition to having the horrific fibropopaloma tumors on her body and her eyes, she was entangled in fishing line to the point that she almost lost the flipper due to lack of circulation and had ingested a lot of fishing line. That's Betty Zirkelbach. She's the manager of the Turtle Hospital. They named the turtle Natella. And this week, on Earth Day, no less, the turtle, now known as Natella,

returned to the ocean with more than 200 of her new friends cheering her on. Steve Vanderbond from Sarasota was there. I got a newborn and a nephew able to watch it. They'd never even seen a sea turtle before, so that was really cool to explain to them why they're letting it back. And yeah, it was just a cool moment. And now finally on the roundup this week, you know, I was a pretty good student in elementary.

a good student in elementary school. After all, my parents were teachers, and they knew all the teachers, so I didn't cause too much trouble. I did my homework. I received decent grades, reading, math, science, writing, cursive writing? Not so much. Those cursive writing lessons did not stick. Miss Reese, my third grade teacher, did her best, but my cursive today is terrible. This is how my cursive writing sounds if it had a sound. But there's a lot of value in putting penise pencil to paper in connecting the letters, literally. Curse of writing will be back in Florida for third, fourth, and fifth graders. The hands-on writing was dropped back in 2010 and brought back as a rule four years later. Now it's the law. The governor used cursive writing and signed a bill

into law requiring Florida students to learn and practice the flowing strokes, the proper loops, and the slightly slanted appearance. You know, as I think about it, my father-in-law, high school wrestler, had some of the most beautiful cursive writing I'd ever seen, strong and arched, each letter elegantly leading to the next. Palmer method, anyone? Athlete or artist, geek or slacker, let's all sharpen those pencils again. And that is our program for today.

It is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Denise Royal. WLRN's vice president of radio is Peter Merritt. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith. Engineering help each. and every week from Doug Peterson, Harvey Bissard, and Ernesto J. Our theme music is provided by Miami Jazz guitarist Aaron Libos at Aaron Leibos.com. We are looking for Florida voters if you're registered to vote here in the Sunshine State

and would like to lend your voice on issues like affordability, housing, education, transportation. Just send us an email, radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Thanks for emailing, calling, listening, and thanks. supporting public radio here in the Sunshine State. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's one trillion dollar asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org.