The Florida Roundup - State immigration enforcement costs top $500M, Hope Florida halted, and more

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

This week on The Florida Roundup, we first spoke with Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reporter Lawrence Mower about how much money the state has spent on immigration enforcement efforts (00:00). Then, we were joined by Rep. Alex Andrade about a report that the DOJ will not take up a criminal investigation into the Hope Florida Charity (08:54). ‘Your Florida’ reporter Douglas Soule also joined us for an update on citizen-led constitutional amendments (33:26). Plus, we were joined by master gardener Nickie Munroe for advice on how to protect Florida fruit and fauna when there’s a cold snap (20:42). And later, we shared news stories from across the state including a legislative brief (37:34) and a delayed space exploration (41:04).

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. It is terrific to have you with us this week. So, the Florida freeze. This feels like a hurricane, to tell you the truth. It feels just like we're prepping for a hurricane, but I would say we're even putting in more work than a hurricane.

Mom brought a lot of plants inside to protect them. Doing this is going to make a huge difference in how much fruit I get the next season and whether or not the trees even survived the night. Anything below 25 is just I wouldn't chance it. I would cover them. Some of the trees we were able to cover. We weren't able to cover everything. But it's looking a little rough in here. It's looking a little rough. Yeah, just a few of the Florida backyard gardeners who documented their work and worries on social media over the past week as temperatures drop below freezing. across almost the entire panhandle in peninsula.

You had to be out in the keys not to be freezing. At least the wind chills dropped as the temperatures moved below that certain mark. Now, a little later on the program, we're going to take a break from all the news of the week and get some dirt under our fingernails on our hands. We're going to be talking about this cold snap and your garden. Did you break out the blankets? How about the heaters? A coordinator for the University of Florida's Master Gardner Program will be here in a few minutes.

So get your questions lined up now. how could this cold snap impact spring blossoms up north? What about keeping your plants and your fruit trees warm? 305-995-1800. Live phone calls on this Friday, 305-995-1800. You can send us a quick email as well. We are monitoring the inbox live. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org.

Radio at the Florida Roundup.org is the email address. We will be digging into that topic here in just a few moments. but first, $573 million. $573 million. That's how much the state has spent on Operation Vigilant Century, the name of the state's immigration enforcement effort. This makes immigration enforcement number four on the list of emergencies the state has spent money on over the past few years.

Every other emergency on that list is a natural disaster like hurricanes or floods. Lawrence Maurer is a reporter for the Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times, covering state government, and he's with us back again here on the, round up. Lawrence, where does this $573 million spent on immigration enforcement come from? Well, thanks for having me. It comes from a fund, a fund created by the legislature back in 2022 that basically allows the governor to spend money and emergencies without getting the legislature's approval. It's called an emergency preparedness and response fund. And basically,

the legislature just dumps money into it and the governor can just spend it. as opposed to how what they used to do, which is the governor would spend money and then come back to the legislature and ask for money to pay for that. So what was this money spent on? Do we have any sense of itemization of this $573 million? Yeah, like you mentioned, I mean, the vast majority of the money was spent on responding to storms and hurricanes. However, they did spend money, you know, tens of millions of dollars. responding to Israel, flying people out of Israel and providing aid to Israel after the Hamas attack there. They also spent $44 million on Haiti, flying people out of Haiti.

And also there's a bunch of spending on particular items. I mean, they spent $6 million on radios, portable radios. I mean, some of the itemized spending here includes helicopter engines, trailers, high-tech cameras. cameras, you know, et cetera. So those are assets that can stick around after an emergency, certainly. What do we know about specifics

spent on the detention centers that were set up here in Florida, alligator alcatraz and the detention depot? Well, we don't know. Frankly, the state won't hasn't, you know, exactly said. It is included in this

$573 million you know, under Operation vigilant century. But how that money is divided up, I mean, it's not spelled out. I mean, this, this, this, all this information comes from a new state report that the lawmakers last year said, you know what, we need a better insight into this, you know, how this, how this, how the state has been spending this money in this fund. And, you know, it just gives top line numbers. It doesn't give details at all on, you know, what exactly, you know, the money's being spent on. Florida state leaders have said they expect the federal government to reimburse the state,

for the money that it has been spending on immigration enforcement. Has Florida been reimbursed? No, not a penny. And the emergency management director yesterday said something pretty odd. You know, last year, the state sought $608 million grant from the federal government. And the feds in December, after some back and forth with Florida, said, okay, we approve it. That was from FEMA. Well, within the last week,

FEMA rights wrote to Florida and said, hey, you know that money is being held up by the Department of Justice, by Trump's DOJ. Why nobody seems to know, but right now we haven't received any. So that's the $608 million that the state of Florida has requested reimbursement for. On Thursday, just yesterday, the Department of Emergency Management Director, Kevin Guthrie, was in a Senate committee hearing. noting that the state is also waiting for a different $250 million reimbursement. We have made a request of the Department of Homeland Security in writing requesting that Secretary Nome reimburse us approximately $250 million for activities through Operation Vigilance century and other situations that the federal government reimburse us for those.

That has been under consideration for, give or take eight months. we're waiting to hear back on that. So still no dollars there either. Combined, is it appropriate, first of all, to combine these two requests for reimbursements, $600,000, $250 million total in requested reimbursements? Is that accurate? That seems to be accurate. I mean, we're not getting a lot of details, frankly, from Guthrie's department.

But, yeah, it seems like these were two separate requests. And so the first request held up by the Department of Justice. Is that a normal process for emergency reimbursement money from the federal government to a state government to be routed through the Department of Justice? It's a great question. And the answer basically is no. And FEMA, you know, wouldn't say, wouldn't tell the state, you know, what it was about. But FEMA did tell Florida that, you know, they disagreed with what the DOJ was doing. So as we started this conversation, we're speaking with Lawrence,

with the Miami Herald Tampa Bay Times, state government reporter. This money spent on immigration enforcement in Florida, now somewhere between, what, $573 million, maybe upwards of $850 million. The money comes, as you mentioned,

Lawrence, from this emergency fund that the state legislature set up that can be spent on declared emergencies. This declared emergency is something that Governor Ron DeSantis declared in January of 2023 that illegal immigration in Florida constituted an emergency. The emergency declaration lasts 60 days. So the governor has extended this immigration emergency declaration 20 times by my count. The most recent was two weeks ago. Lawrence, do we know if this

declaration is necessary to be active for Florida to receive reimbursement from the federal government? That's not known. In fact, you know, some of this, you know, probably doesn't need to be, you know, under a declared emergency, but we don't exactly know. I mean, you know, other states have billed the federal government as well. I mean, Texas, I've seen Texas is waiting on like, they've asked for or something like $11 billion, you know, for their border activities and stuff. And it sounds like they're still waiting on that. So I don't think you need a declared state of emergency for this. Still lots of questions, Lawrence. We appreciate you sharing your reporting with us here on the roundup.

Great to hear from you. Hey, thanks for having me. Lawrence Mower, state government reporter for the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times. Now, still to come here on our program, we're going to take a break from the big headlines this week, and we'll be talking about how to save your garden from the cold temperatures. So we do want to know how you are preparing your palm trees and peppers. 305-995-800 is our phone number. 305-955-1800. You can send us a quick email, radio at the Florida Roundup.org,

because a master gardener will be joining us for your questions in about 10 minutes or so. So hold on. This week, a conservative online publication in Florida said the Department of Justice ended its look into the Hope Florida Foundation. That's a nonprofit organization that was started by Governor Ron DeSantis's wife, Casey. The report did not have any named sources, and the Department of Justice did not comment. Now, the federal investigation began last year. It focused on $10 million paid to the state from a Medicaid legal settlement. The money wound up with the political action committee that was headed by James Uthmire.

Today, Uthmire is the state attorney general. Back then, he was the governor's chief of staff. The political action committee that he headed up spent millions to defeat amendments that would have added abortion protections and recreational marijuana to the state constitution. So back in April here on the program, we spoke with Florida House Republican Alexandrade from Pensacola. This is a misuse of Medicaid dollars, a misuse of taxpayer dollars. I believe it's money laundering and wire fraud. The representative joins us once again from the panhandle.

Welcome back, Representative. Thanks for your time again. Good afternoon. What do you know about the Department of Justice investigation? Nothing. Like I said, last year, I concluded my investigation on the legislative side. Once I was, you know, positive that a crime had occurred and theft of Medicaid funds had occurred. I turned the same file over to the state attorney's office in Tallahassee into,

the FBI. And I haven't heard much of anything since, and I don't think I would. Were you interviewed by the FBI or Department of Justice investigators? I spoke with the FBI, yes, about the file. But again, I mean, I would never expect to hear anything official from the DOJ, the FBI, one way or the other. So it's odd to me that there's a, a single anonymous source in Washington, D.C., apparently, that this outlet's relying upon.

Yeah, let's explore this a little bit here, because this is an anonymous single-source report that the Department of Justice has ended this inquiry into the Hope Florida Foundation and the $10 million. If that is true, what would be your reaction to that, Representative? Nothing. Whether or not these folks get prosecuted or anyone faces justice for this theft, it's not a to me. There's a grand jury, obviously, at the state attorney at the state level in Leon County. But again, whether or not anyone ever gets prosecuted, that's obviously not up to me. Right. I developed the facts. The facts remain.

James Uthmeyer, when he was the governor's chief of staff, he misappropriated, misdirected, misused, stole $10 million from Florida's Medicaid program, and he laundered it to his pack. All I care about is the truth. So whatever, you know, know, results happen, happen, you know, related to any kind of, you know, law enforcement activity. People get frustrated by, you know, our justice system every day. How many Republicans are right now talking about how much of an injustice is that no one on the Epstein client list has been prosecuted. I think depending upon prosecution or the lack thereof is your metric for truth, rather than just looking at the facts, will do you a disservice. When you and I spoke in April, you were very clear about who you thought committed a crime, and you went through that here just now.

But I want to go back to April and what you told us then. You believe that a crime was committed by the current Attorney General of the state of Florida. Yes. While he was chief of staff of the governor of the state of Florida. Yes. So you still believe that today. Is that accurate representative? Not to sound like a broken record, but yes.

Well, I just want to get that on the record. here since a few months have transpired since we last spoke with you in April. And have you gathered any more facts to support your accusation? Yes, over the summer after the legislative session, I finally managed after, you know, several, you know, threats to sue over public records. I finally got access to additional public records that showed there was a meeting at the governor's office with on September 10th of 2024. ACA is the agency for health care

here in Florida. Yes. And it was that agency that settled with a team on the $67 million settlement. I finally got all copies at the drafts of the settlement agreement, but it was this meeting on September 10th at the governor's office that led to

the very next day, this hope Florida idea being added to the settlement. So we finally were able to see from the timeline of all the documents. They met with James Uthmeyer and others at the governor's office on September 10th. This agency did. And then the very next day, they were revising the drafts of the settlement with

Centine and sending 10 million into the Hope Florida Foundation. So it was that, a couple with, you know, all the copies of the draft settlement agreement that just kind of further bolstered what happened. You know, there was a lots of references and promises made to Centine. that this money would be used for Medicaid purpose, and then a complete lack of anyone actually trying to use it for a Medicaid purpose. And it seems that everybody understood it was going to be used by James Buth-Myers-Pack. The governor was asked about the story that was reported through anonymous, one anonymous source this week about the Department of Justice dropping its inquiry.

This was the governor's reaction. I think we said at the beginning it was a political op. It was a hoax. And now that we're at this point, clearly that was true. He said it was Rino Republicans. Rhino is an acronym. Republicans are a name only behind it. He didn't mention your name, but I think everybody can assume that's who he was referring to. How do you respond to the chief executive of the state of Florida? It's been a year, and he still hasn't explained why $10 million that was met for a Medicaid program ended up in his chief of staffs. pack. Anytime someone engages in ad hominem or name calling, instead of addressing the basic facts, I kind of take it as a badge of honor. I mean, it means they can't address the actual argument.

I would challenge anybody. Like, raise your hand if you think it's appropriate for $10 million meant for your Medicaid program to be used by the highest bureaucrat official in the state's PAC. No one would raise their hand. Let me ask you about more reaction here that's come in from the governor's administration. The spokesperson for the governor referred to you directly in a statement, quote, ever since amendments three and four failed, those were the abortion rights amendment and the recreational marijuana amendment. Representative Andrade has filed legislation on behalf of big marijuana corporations and his law firm is defending Planned Parenthood against the people of Florida. The governor's spokesperson concluded, nobody should take this guy seriously.

And then the attorney general, James Uthmire, who you have said, again, you think committed a crime here. On Monday, he called for you, representative, to be stripped of your chairmanship of the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee. This is what he said. No state official in leadership, much less a Republican, should be aligned in representing Planned Parenthood. That's awful.

So I hope the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives will address this. I know my office is certainly not going to be cooperating with that subcommittee so long as you have somebody like that involved. So have you been asked to step down as chair of this budget subcommittee? No, but I am relieved to hear that James Euthmire says he's going to avoid the health care budget this year. The last time he meddled with it, $10 million went missing.

And the law firm that you practice at is the attorney of record for a lawsuit that the state of Florida filed against Planned Parenthood. Are you involved in that case? No, not at all. I don't think Planned Parenthood would very much like me representing them, giving my voting record and, you know, how outspoken I have been. as being pro-life. But James Zuthmeyer's never been one to let the facts, you know, interfere with a good narrative. You mentioned the state grand jury is still investigating this.

This is a grand jury in Leon County. We know grand juries are secret. It's been investigating the Hope Florida Foundation and this financial transaction. I'm guessing I know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway, Representative. Have you been contacted by the grand jury or the attorney in Leon County?

Well, I mean, I gave testimony in October to the grand jury, right? But that's all I can say about it. That's been the extent of my involvement is, you know, as a witness back in October. Representative Alexandrade represents parts of the panhandle with us here on the Florida Rondo. Representative, thanks so much for your time today. We appreciate it. Thank you. We are going to talk about flowers and the freeze here.

You got the blankets out again. We got another dip in the temperatures. coming up this weekend. Have you brought the orchids in again? Mine were in the one of the bathrooms over this last week. I may have to bring them in here as the temperatures are going to drop again in Florida. So we've got a master gardener on the line who's going to answer your gardening questions to help really save the backyard garden from these temperatures. 305-995-1800. Get your calls in now. 305-9-9-8-800. I'm Tom Hudson. You are listening to the Florida Ronda from your Florida Public Radio Station.

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. Next week on our program, the state's report on local government spending is out. The effort is supposed to focus on finding what it calls overspending, waste, fraud, and abuse. Critics have said it's misleading and incomplete. So what do you know about how your tax dollars are spent in?

in your community. Let us know by sending us a quick email. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org is the address. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. We'll talk about the state's Doge efforts and local government spending next week on this program. And late this month, we will be live in Orlando. We'll be broadcasting a live Florida Roundup

in front of an audience February 27th from Central Florida Public Media. We'll have some special guests. We'll have live music and lunch. Yeah, we'd love to see you there. It's live in person. February 27th at Central Florida Public Media in Orlando. It is free, but space is limited, so we would like you to register.

You can go to CFPublic.org slash Florida Roundup Live. CFPublic.org slash Florida Roundup Live. February 27th, live at Central Florida Public Media in Orlando, we will see you there. Today now, the cold snap. We were greeted with freeze warnings, cold warnings, even extreme cold warnings, across the state this past week and last weekend. More than a half dozen new record lows were set south of Lake Okeechobee alone. There were some reports of snow flurries in the panhandle,

and there were definitely wind chills in South Florida. 18 degree feels like temperature is what my weather app read when I woke up Saturday morning last week. At 18 degrees in Miami, 18 degrees Fahrenheit. That is falling iguana weather. Lots of falling iguanas. The sheer numbers of them was surprising, even knowing that it was getting as cold as it was going to. I'm still kind of like borderline shocked with how many we found and got. That's Blake Wilkins.

He's owner of Red Line iguana removal. His team caught around 3,000 green iguanas in just a couple of days in South Florida. And it wasn't just the Florida fauna freezing, so did our flora. It was covered the orchids with a blanket kind of weather, right? So how do you revive that cold mango tree? What about the avocados? How are you going to save your two? bulbs, what are your hopes for spring vegetables in the garden?

305-995-1800 is our phone number 305-995-1800. Nikki Monroe is with us, environmental horticultural agent for Indian River County and a coordinator for the University of Florida Master Gardener Program. Nikki, welcome to the program. Thanks for your time. Thank you for having me. How harmful has this cold weather been for yard plants in Florida? Oh, this freeze has been very harmful.

we have seen a lot, a lot of traffic on our Master Gardener and Environmental Horticulture page on social media with people asking questions about whether or not the devastation is going to remain this way. Yeah, that's a lot of the calls that we have. Let's just get right to it here with Nikki Monroe. In Port St. Lucie, Sebastian has been very patient. Sebastian, you're on the radio. Go ahead. Yes, good afternoon.

Yeah. You know, you guys are adjusting my question, or sort of. I have a noni tree. I have a sour sap tree. I have a mango tree. I have an api tree. And they all look like they got really, and a banana tree, too. It looks like the banana tree might come back, but I'm not sure.

Well, let me just say that these trees are pretty much juveniles, I would say. and my mango tree is about maybe six and a half to seven feet tall. Okay. But it looks like the leaves are really dry. You know, I had covered them. Yeah. Yeah. So, Nikki, how about for Sebastian and his fruit trees, that juvenile mango tree, for instance?

Hi, Sebastian. I have everything that you just listed except for Noni, right? And I am telling you that, like, when you got up and saw your plants on Sunday morning, you said maybe, maybe they have a chance. And then Monday morning, it was like, and by Tuesday and Wednesday, you were like, oh, no. I would like to give you my best tips. These are the things that I'm doing right now. Hopefully all is not lost. I want to encourage you to only remove the parts of the plants that are mused.

Mushy and wet. Okay? So go and look at your plants. At least your mango tree seems to be of a size that you can truly, like, manage right now. So go and look at that and only remove the leaves and any parts of it that are mushy and wet. If it is dry and brown, even if it's ugly, we're going to work with ugly these days, okay? We're going to work with ugly. What does the mushy and wet represent?

What does that mean? that is tissue that is still actively breaking down, and it can spread that damage into healthy plant tissue. So you want to remove that. Got it. Okay. Right. So how do you get rid of it? You're going to prune it.

But before you prune, what I want you to do is give your plant a deep drink of water so that those roots can soak up some of that water and send that water into areas that it is most needed. Trust your plants to know where to allocate it. Sebastian mentioned he had a banana tree. Gary in Port St. Lucy also has some banana trees that you're worried about. Go ahead, Gary, you're on the radio. Hey, Vicki, hey, Tom. Yeah, I have a bunch of banana trees, and they turn, all turned totally brown,

and the leaves are all hanging or all completely brown. Even the shoots, the fresh shoots coming out, they're brown too. And so I'm wondering, are they gone or should I take them out, or is there any chance that some of them might come back? Yeah. What do you think, Nikki? There is a chance that some of them might come back. back, give them a moment or two, give them a few weeks at least to be able to reacclimate themselves.

So all of my plants are living in a deep cover of mulch. So I've got at least three inches of mulch insulating that root system. And your banana suckers actually have what is called a quorum. So as long as that quorum is still alive deep into the tissues of the banana sucker, they should make it through. They're just going to look really terrible for a while. And don't let that banana leaf fool you. The tips of the leaves will be dry, dry, dry, but where it attaches onto the main stem is going to be mushy and spongy. You need to get as much of that off as possible. So how do you prune that without losing the leaf? You're not going to not lose the leaf. Gotcha. Okay. But the way that the banana stem,

the banana trunk is, it is several layers, right? It looks like filo dough. It's several layers to it. So that should help to keep itself. You mentioned mulch. We've heard that a couple of times. Chuck emailed. I used a lot of mulch on my plants to avoid cold damage.

This has numerous advantages. In addition to protecting the root system from the cold, it also reduces the amount of water they require. Moisture also helps the plants avoid cold weather damage. Is there a risk, though, Nikki, of keeping that mulch too moist for too long? Absolutely. So when we put up our information sheet on watering and timing and recovery after the freeze,

we had to explain to people that you only water as needed because even though the people up north will laugh at us, this is truly winter for us. Right? And the reason why our plants are reacting so poorly is that. because they tend to have a more tropical range and a tropical temperature desire. So overwatering is a very, very possible issue that people are going to have to.

You're going to walk the fine line between just giving it a good deep drink when it needs it and overwatering. So you don't want to overwater. Because we're also in the dry season here in Florida as well. Yes. So, you know, some of these low pressure systems have brought some rain, at least to South Florida, where I live here, Nikki, which has been nice to see. But we are still in that dry season. Nicky Minro is with us, environmental horticultural expert and agent for Indian River County, coordinator for the University of Florida Master Gardner Program.

We're talking about the Florida Freeze and your backyard plants, 305-995-1800. Tom has been listening in on the first coast. Go ahead, Tom, you're on the radio. I have a plumeria plant that I've been trying to grow. for 20 years, and the past few years it's gone very well. It's grown very well. However, this last frost has really did damage. I don't have any leaves left on it, and the mushy part is quite large. Plant stands about eight feet tall. That said, how do I save it? What do I do to bring it back? And it has no leaves on it whatsoever. All right. Nikki, how can we help Tom out there?

I want you to still cut back all of the mushy parts. I know I understand because my white plum area is also looking very unfortunate. Because you don't want all of that to still be attached to living tissue. And you don't want a fungus problem. You don't want a bacteria problem. You need to give your plant the biggest fighting chance. Now, especially with Plumeria, try not to overwater it. You want to make sure that you give it a good layer of mulch all the way around to insulate the roots so that if the roots are saved and you have some parts of the body left, we're going to cross their fingers and hope for the best.

Jerome in Jacksonville on line five. We'll go to you next. Thank you, Jerome, for calling. You're on the radio. Thank you for taking my call. My call is about sweet potatoes. I plan it slips around October, November. And with the freeze, it killed all the above-ground vines,

and I want to know are the tubers underground still good and growing? Yeah, good question. What do you think here, Nikki? Is he still have a good crop there underground? You might not have a good crop there underground, but you said tubers underground. So if you have tuber left underground, sweet potato is something that wants to live.

It really wants to live so badly that when you pulled up all, of the sweet potatoes for one of your harvest, any little bit of it left will sit there and be like, oh, look, we're still here and we're quite cozy and comfortable. They will make you more. Okay. They're survivors, hopefully here. They are. All right.

Lance in Winter Park has a bit of a different strategy for mango trees. Lance, go ahead. You're on the radio. Thanks for calling. Yeah, thank you for taking my call. I've been growing mangoes here in Winter Park for about 22 years. And what I can tell you is that from the first, from the first of the first of the first of the first of, time that I've planted in 2004 until now, there has been nothing that was quite this cold.

Even the successive freezes that we encountered in 2010 in January was not as damaging as this single night that occurred Saturday night, Sunday morning, this past weekend. I recorded a low about 24 and a half degrees, and I'm kind of in the central business district with the urban heat island effect, which was totally eliminated and negated due to the fact that this was an advective freeze, a highly wind-druined freeze. Yeah. Yeah. How do those mango trees look?

Well, they don't look very good. Yeah. I put some light bulbs in them and did the best that I could because they're just too big to cover up with anything to protect them. What I would suggest if you have a mango tree is don't do anything probably for about two or three months. until you see where the new growth comes out because you don't want to trim if you don't know exactly where the living and the dead part of the branches are. Yeah, Lance, I appreciate that input there from Winter Park. Best of luck with those trees.

Nikki, how long should somebody wait maybe to trim something up? Hi, Lance and everybody with the plants that have dry damage. So, yes, you are correct. the wind was pushing the heat out and pushing the cold in through your plants. It was a great idea to put those bulbs onto the trunks of your plants in order to help to keep the most important generators of your plant alive. We try to encourage people to leave anything that is brown that is dry and papery feeling. Let that remain on your plant because we have plenty more cold weather to come.

Hopefully no more freezes. Yeah. Well, in some places, this weekend, it's going to get down to about 32 degrees as far south as Okala. So we want to be worried about that, perhaps. Nikki Minro, environmental horticultural agent for Indian River County and coordinator for the University of Florida Master Gardener Program. Nikki, Pung Satani Phil saw his shadow. Six more weeks of winter is what the groundhog is saying for all of us. So perhaps we'll have you back. Nikki, thanks so much for spending some time with us here on the Rondo.

Thank you for having me. I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to The Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. Don't expect any citizen-led constitutional amendments to show up on your ballot this November. The Florida Department of State said all 22 proposed amendments that were initiated by petitions failed to meet requirements. Those include proposals that would expand Medicaid coverage and put recreational marijuana legalization on the fall ballot for voters. This does not impact ongoing legislative efforts that would put on the fall ballot measures from the state legislature, such as Governor DeSantis has pushed to reduce or eliminate some local property taxes. Now, the House Minority Leader in Tallahassee, Fendrick Strissell, says restrictions created by an election's law,

approved by lawmakers, and the governor last year, made it too expensive and difficult. The people of Florida deserve to have their say, and now they won't. It's wrong, plain and simple. It's anti-democratic, and unfortunately exactly what we predicted when we were debating this bill last year. Douglas Saul is reporter with Your Florida, a reporting project with our partner station, USF. Douglas joins us from Tallahassee. So what does this new law require for citizen-led petitions, Douglas? That new law added red tape to the process, including by tightening deadlines, increasing fines for technical violations. It also said signatures can't be collected by non-citizens.

Maybe most notably, the law says once you collect more than 25 signatures for a measure, from people outside your family, at least, you have to register with the state or you could be charged with the felony. Pretty soon after this was enacted, some citizen initiative campaign started pivoting their focus to 2028 instead of 26 because of the challenges created. Not the recreational marijuana campaign, though. They held out hope. Yeah, but I want to ask you about that because there is a legal fight over the question of this recreational marijuana amendment. What's the central question over its petition signatures? Yeah. So for a proposed constitutional amendment to make the ballot, It needs to get nearly 900,000 signatures, which is no easy thing to do, by the way, especially considering those new restrictions.

Smart and Safe Florida, the campaign for recreational marijuana got a lot more than that. But the state moved throughout a big batch of their collected signatures. That includes around 200,000 signatures that were rejected late last year for the stated reason that the petition forms did include the full text of the amendment. The campaign fought against it but lost that battle in court. but it's still fighting a different fight about how other signatures were thrown out. Once the state, say, broke the rules by coming from inactive voters or from signatures collected by non-citizens. It essentially says the state is going too far.

And the campaign also says the 2025 law went too far and restricting the process. So while that's all happening, the state Supreme Court, which ultimately decides what gets on the ballot or not for citizen-led petitions, issued an opinion this week about this recreational marijuana question. What was the opinion? So some context first. Even once they get enough signatures, ballot measures have to be reviewed by the state Supreme Court, see if the language sticks to a single subject and isn't misleading. The hearing for the weed measure was supposed to happen this week, but as you mentioned, the Supreme Court canceled it. The opinion didn't really explain why it just said it was granting the state attorney general's request to do so. Now, A.G. James Othmeyer said in that request that the marijuana amendment didn't reach the signature threshold by the deadline, which was only days ago. Yeah, beginning of the month, I think it was. Douglas Sol reporting for your Florida reporting project in Tallahassee

with our partner station WUSF. Douglas always a pleasure. Thanks so much. We'll talk next week. Looking forward to it. The legislative session continues to grind on and Douglas will continue to carry some of the coverage here for us. If you have questions about what's happening in Florida, what your legislators are up to,

you can always email us radio at the Florida Roundup.org. You're listening to the Florida Rondup from your Florida Public Radio Station. 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. It is great to have you along with us this week. Affordability is, of course, the big issue this election year and for Florida lawmakers, as they consider several measures aimed to increase the supply of homes and apartments. A proposal to boost affordable housing through garage apartments and other so-called accessory dwelling units or ADUs on single-family

homelots has passed the Florida Senate. It happened on Wednesday. Here's Republican Don Gates from the Panhandle. ADUs can increase workforce housing because ADUs cost less to build, they cost less to rent and are often located in areas where workers need to live to be close to their jobs. Affordability may be a main topic in Tallahassee, but do not expect anything new on property insurance. This week, Senate President Ben Albreton said changes from a few years ago still need more time to work. No, I wouldn't expect any kind of major property insurance changes this year. And here's the reason why. But it's a major tort reform a couple of years ago that ended the practice, or at least heavily suppressed, the practice of frivolous lawsuits in Florida.

Now, in September, the conservative think tank in Tallahassee, the James Madison Institute, polled Floridians finding 44% said property insurance was causing them stress. That was much higher than those who said property taxes were causing them stress. Republican lawmakers and Governor Andesantis have said reducing or eliminating some local property taxes is a big priority for them this year. This week, the State Health Department announced it was writing three new rules for its AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which is nicknamed ADAP. The agency said it was updating definitions. eligibility requirements and documentation, but it did not include any specific information. Now, this notice was published after the agency was sued by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

The state health agency made changes to the ADAP program that were supposed to take effect next month, and the Health Care Foundation sued, claiming that the Health Department did not follow proper procedures in making those changes, impacting who's eligible for financial assistance to help pay for AIDS and HIV medicine. Now, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation held a candlelight vigil and town hall in Fort Lauderdale Monday night this week to respond to the possible cuts. Carlton Gillespie with our partner station WLRN was there. Around 50 to 60 people protested in front of the Florida Department of Health Building in Broward County before marching more than a mile to Sunshine Cathedral. That's where attendees voiced their concerns about the proposed state funding cuts during a town hall. The changes could kick more than 16,000 Floridians off of coverage.

Bill Russell is a registered nurse. I've seen thousands of people die from this disease. The magic of science has created meds that can prevent the transmission of this disease. People will die without these meds. It could also remove Bik Tarvey, a once daily pill with minimal side effects from coverage. That would impact Tori Samuel. She's been HIV positive for 23 years and has been taking Bik Tarvey for the last eight. A 30-day supply with no insurance can run between $5,000 to $6,000 a month.

And even if you're working well to do something, who can really throw that amount of money out on just the 30-day supply of medicine? The cuts were scheduled to go into effect on March 1st, but after the AIDS Health Care Foundation sued, the state announced it will now go through its formal rules-making process before finalizing cuts to ADAP. It's unclear what effect this will have on the program. I'm Carlton Gillespie in Broward County.

Florida Space News now, the Artemis 2 mission, destined to go around the moon with astronauts, will instead stay on the ground on Cape Canaveral just a little bit longer. The mission had been expected to lift off as soon as Sunday. Now it's pushed back until next month. Brendan Byrne with Central Florida Public Media has details. After a practice run of launch day, teams ran into a number of issues, including a hydrogen fuel leak, a problem with the spacecraft's hatch and communication dropouts. NASA's delaying an attempt to launch the Artemis 2 mission this month, as crews worked to fix

the issues. Here's launch director Charlie Blackwell Thompson. So all in all, a very successful day for us on many fronts and then on a couple of others, we've got some work. We've got to go do. The team will need to conduct another rehearsal before giving the go to launch the crew. The next launch window now opens on March 6th. The crew of four is made up of three U.S. astronauts and one from Canada. They've been released from quarantine and will remain in Houston, Texas. I'm Brendan Byrne in Orlando. Brendan will be with us later on this month when we take this program live to Yeah, we're going to be broadcasting live in Orlando, February 27th, from Central Florida Public Media. We're going to be talking about how the space industry has changed here in Florida with SpaceX and other private companies providing the rockets.

And we just confirmed that the Orange County Superintendent of Schools will be with us, too. That school district has lost twice as many students as it expected and could close more than a half dozen schools. So we'll talk about all that, plus live music for you and lunch. Yeah, lunch. We'd love to see you there too. It's live in-person Florida Roundup February 27th in Orlando at Central Florida Public Media. You can't argue about the price, folks. It is free. Space is limited, though, so be sure to register at cfpublic.org slash Florida Roundup Live. CFPublic.org slash Florida Roundup Live.

I'm Tom Hudson, and you are listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. This week, hundreds of thousands of Florida residents were faithful. facing a deadline to leave the state, leave the country. They're Haitians who have been able to stay legally in the United States with temporary protected status. The Trump administration canceled it as of Tuesday, but on Monday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. stepped in and blocked the cancellation for now. Here's Tim Padgett with our partner station WLRN in Miami. U.S. District Court Judge Anna Reyes said the Homeland Security Department's TPS termination process for Haitians violated the law and likely involved racial discrimination.

But Haitian TPS holders like Maris Baltasar know President Donald Trump will appeal Reyes's ruling. I'm just waiting to see what's going to happen because he's unpredictable. Very unpredictable. We don't know. Baltasar is a former Haitian journalist who's now a certified nursing assistant in Boynton Beach. If she were deported back to Haiti, she'd have nowhere to live. The other place I could have gone. The house was burned down by the gang members.

Balthasar is talking about the powerful armed gangs that now rule most of Haiti and recently torched her relatives home in Porta Prince. The gang violence has left a million and a half people homeless in Haiti, yet the Trump administration claims it's safe to deport Haitians back there. Baltasar is one of many Haitian TPS holders who provide home health care for elderly patients. She owns a taxpaying business. She helps run a non-profit for women in crisis. TPS holders contribute up to $35 billion to the U.S. economy each year. Yet the Trump administration claims that extending TPS for Haitians like Baltasar, whose teenage daughter was born in the U.S., is not in the national interest.

For 15 years, I've been contributing like it was my own country. And as a good citizen, I would like to have the opportunity to watch my daughter, a graduate. I am anxious and scared. Congress created TPS 35 years ago. It allows migrants from countries torn by natural disaster or political violence to stay in the U.S. for 18-month periods or longer if those countries remain unsafe to return to, as legal experts say, is the case regarding Haiti. Chicago attorney Jeff Pipoli represents Haitians in the case Judge Reyes ruled on. The president and his administration were resolved to end TPS for Haiti, come hell or high water. But all this evidence of how unsafe it is in Haiti is so overwhelming that to conclude the opposite suggests that the process that you use to reach this conclusion is broken and contrary to the TPS statute. In Miami over the weekend, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem argued that TPS has too often morphed from a temporary protective program for migrants to a quasi-permanent one.

Under the Biden administration, we saw it abused and not utilized how law dictates. President Trump is restoring that. But Judge Reyes also said it was likely the Trump administration's efforts to NTPS, not just for Haitians, but Venezuelans and other black and Latino groups, reflects a hostility to non-white immigrants. Steve Forrester is the Miami-based immigration policy coordinator for the nonprofit Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. Trump has given many, many indications of this anti-black, anti-Non-white ideology.

The Trump administration denies the racism charge. I'm Tim Padgett in Miami. And finally on the roundup this week, we will click open our email inbox here just a little bit. Last week we talked about Yigbee, yes, and God's backyard, state law encouraging local governments to pass zoning rules, allowing apartment buildings to be built on vacant land owned by religious groups like churches and temples. Well, Susan emailed, I'm a city planner and my specialty is affordable housing. Sadly, the legislature has no respect for and does not understand how cities and

County's work. Susan writes, if the legislature asked local government officials together they could come up with meaningful solutions to affordable housing and reducing property taxes. Instead, they're bankrupting local governments and removing the rights of homeowners to be involved in planning and zoning. Tigger sent us this note, G'day. My mother-in-law moved into an apartment that Trinity Catholic Church owns. She has been a member of the church for over 55 years and no longer wanted to own a home, being single and 90 years old. Tigger says the church offers a church her the apartment, which is right across the street, where she still volunteers at the church for Alzheimer's meetings and many other church-related events. I think the religious provision of

affordable housing would reinforce low-income parishioners and congregates to attend and volunteer. Good on you, Tigger. We hope the best for you and your mother-in-law. And then Chris from the Panhandle in Panama City wrote, hello, my conk family was forced to sell our home and leave Key West in the 1990s. Too expensive, Chris writes. This development option would be huge in Key West, where even gravesites are hard to come by for a fair price. Chris, we're glad you stuck with the Florida Rondup from Key West all the way up to Panama City. You can send us a note. Our email is radio at the Florida Roundup.org.

That is our program today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Denise Royal. WLRN's vice president of radio is Peter Merritt. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith. Engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson, Harvey Pissard, and Ernesto J. Our theme music is provided by Miami Jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at Aaron Leibos.com. Don't forget if you're in the Orlando area and the Central Florida area and the I-4 corridor area, come see us live. February 27th at Central Florida Public Media. We'll be broadcasting live from Orlando. Free lunch, too. Just be sure to register at cfpublic.org slash Florida Round up live. Thanks for calling, listening, emailing, and supporting public radio in your slice of Florida. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.

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