The Florida Roundup - State tax debate, one year into Florida’s 6-week abortion ban, new ballot initiative law and weekly news briefing

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke with Rep. Vicki Lopez, who is the co-chair of a new House select committee that will consider proposals aimed at reducing property taxes (00:00). Then, we spoke with an abortion provider in North Florida about the impact of Florida’s 6-week ban (19:22). Plus, we asked the Tampa Bay Times’ Romy Ellenbogen about a new law that will make it more difficult for citizens to get constitutional amendments on the ballot (28:05). And later, we bring you the news of the week, including a breakdown of Florida’s foreign trade zones (37:16), an update on presidential searches at UF and FIU (44:36), and an investigation into a deadly bear attack in Southwest Florida (47:32).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being with us this week. We are headed, if not already, in a property tax revolt. Is there a rebellion over property taxes? Well, that's how State Republican Senator Blaze in Goglia described the debate over property taxes this week. This is a debate that's been championed and led by Governor Ron DeSantis, who is sitting right next to Ngoaglia in Tampa on Wednesday. We need to have a Florida first tax policy here and that means standing up for our own people before we're standing up for the tourists and the foreigners. The governor is referring to a competing Republican plan to cut state sales taxes by three-quarters of

one percent. DeSantis has threatened to veto that tax cut and instead wants lawmakers to approve a rebate on property taxes this year while pushing for a constitutional amendment to get rid of property taxes altogether next year. Homeowners, do you get your money's worth in what you pay in property taxes? Where would the money for local schools, police and roads come from if not from property taxes? Which tax would you like to cut? Property taxes or sales taxes? Call us now. 305-995-1800. Our inbox is open as well. Send us a quick note. You can email radio at the

There is enough money for themselves. They're going tax relief is so important of Hernando in Citrus Co property tax relief. I do not see the wisdom in giving tax relief to Canadians, Brazilians and tourists when we can give it to our neighbors, our friends and our family. A week ago the Florida House put together a special committee charged with coming up with ideas to reduce property taxes. There are more than two dozen

people on the panel. The governor does not think it's a serious effort. You don't convene a 37 person committee if you're trying to get something done. You convene a 37 person committee if you're trying to smother it in the crib. Co-chair of that committee is with us now Republican Representative Vicki Lopez of Miami. Welcome back to the program, Representative. Nice to see you again. Thank you, Tom. It's great to be here. Any response to the governor's last statement there to see you again. Thank you, Tom. It's great to be here. Any response to the governor's last statement there that the size of this committee and the inclusion of Democrats is, in his words, an effort to smother property taxes in the

crib? I would absolutely respectfully disagree with the governor. This is the work of the House of Representatives. We spend time studying issues because we think they're important. Sometimes they're complex and complicated, and we always end up with a solution. You know, the same could be said about the work that we did with the condos. He thought that we should pass a law during special session. Thankfully, we took the time that we took during session to really come up with a proposal

that made sense, and it struck the delicate balance that we took during session to really come up with a proposal that made sense. And it struck the delicate balance that we were looking for between public safety and building safety and also the financial impact. So the way that the House is structured, this particular committee is exactly that. We are charged with listening to all ideas and to listening to all stakeholders. Do property taxes in Florida need to be reduced? I don't disagree with that either. I do believe that there is, and with respect to what the governor was saying, that we shouldn't

be giving a sales tax reduction. I believe that we can probably do a little bit of both. You voted for the sales tax reduction though, correct? I did. I did indeed. I did indeed. Right. Which do you prefer? I think I would like both of them.

For me, I think it's a little bit of reduction of sales tax and a little bit of reduction of property taxes. So a little bit of reduction of property taxes, not an elimination as the governor has been talking about for months. All ideas are on the table. I would say this, we've actually even invited the governor to give us his proposal. We've never seen a proposal on the reduction or the elimination of property taxes, but we would all, I believe, benefit from listening to all kinds of different ideas from the elimination to the reduction.

And what type of property owners would you want to be captured by any changes in property taxes, either reduction or elimination? I think everyone. Commercial owners. Commercial owners as well. Yes. I mean, look, businesses are important to the economy, and they also are being taxed in the same fashion as our homeowners are. And we have to remember that that's also trickling down to our renters. Any increase in housing costs is always sent down to the renters. So every single Floridian will be impacted by the work that we are doing. In fact, we've had some comments about folks who are renters and worried about not necessarily being able to participate in a local property or the local property tax reduction, if not an elimination. But

would you expect some kind of requirement the property owners of a condominium or apartment building pass that savings along? So being a really strong property rights advocate, I don't know that I would be mandating anything onto property owners, but we do know how the market works. And if there's any savings at all, the market will adjust itself and it will in fact benefit renters. Christy, in Jacksonville sent us this note, I feel frustrated that politicians never seem to consider that reducing the tax for homeowners never ends up benefiting people who rent.

Corporate landlords of apartment communities get the tax break but doesn't get passed to us through rent decreases. How should Kristen kind of approach this property tax debate if she's a renter in Jacksonville? I think that they should be very participatory in the process. As we hopefully will go around the state, we want to hear not only from homeowners, we want to hear from everyone who will be impacted by the work that we're doing. And so renters should absolutely make sure their voices are being heard. And comments like this one need to be put forth before the committee. And I think that that will sort of skew some sort of the perspective that we have around how this trickles down. Yeah. Are all property taxes on the table for your committee?

No, we're talking about non-school taxes. We are not in any way approaching, at least not for now, the charge has not been to look at reducing any of the school taxes which actually pay for our public schools. So I know on my property tax bill in Miami-Dade County, roughly 50%, about half of my property taxes go to the traditional public school district here in Miami-Dade County. So that's probably a percentage that may be average, maybe not, I don't know, but those taxes are not going to be touched by what's going to come out of the committee. No, currently that is not. Now, there's been a lot of discussion around whether or not we should be looking at that. So, you know, currently we're not.

What do you think you should be looking at? School taxes? Well, here's the question. If we were to remove those taxes, the state would then be on the hook for providing all of those, the funds that they would need in order to keep our school districts running. So I think at this juncture, we're not looking at it, but you never know what's going to happen because we've said all ideas are on the table. So that may be an idea that starts to resonate with people and we'd have to seriously consider it. You're going to hear a lot of ideas from some listeners here. We've got a full call bank here. Vicki Lopez is with us, a Republican representative from Miami-Dade County and

co-chair of the Special House Committee looking at property taxes. David has been patient in Sarasota. Great to hear from you, David. You're on the radio. Yeah. So I just wanted to state my opinion on this. In my opinion on this, state budget is required to be balanced. There's no free money. You can't discount taxes and not get it somewhere else. What will happen will be the most wealthy people who are paying the most taxes will benefit, and then the load will be transferred to the poor and the rest of us who won't benefit. So I don't see it as anything other than a transfer of the tax load from the wealthy to the poor.

Representative, I'm sure you've heard about this regressive nature, right? Certainly sales taxes and property taxes, both of those hit those on the lower income scale harder than those who are on the higher income scale. How do you respond to David's concerns? I don't disagree with David. He's right. We have to balance the budget somehow, but I do think there's another factor that I want to... To be fair, property taxes are not going into the state budget that you're responsible for balancing. Correct. are not going into the state budget that you're responsible for balancing compared to where the taxes in Sarasota County that David, if he's a homeowner, it's going into the Sarasota County

budget. Correct. We are required constitutionally to have a balanced budget annually. I don't know what's happening in Sarasota County, but I think for David, I would argue that David will have to decide what kind of community he wants to live in. So if we reduce property taxes, that will have to bear then the discussion around, do we then reduce these services that people in Sarasota County actually receive? And look, that should all be on the table as well. A lot of people think that local governments may be spending money in ways in which they don't agree with. And I think the conversation around potentially reducing the revenue stream may actually then start to spark conversations around what services do we believe our local government should

be providing. Well, do you think Floridians are in the offing for fewer government services if they approve of reducing property taxes? Well, I think affordability is the number one issue in Florida today, right? So I think taxpayers have to ask themselves, do I want to pay for all the things that I get? Because look, in Miami-Dade County, for instance, we have a lot of cultural stuff that we fund, we fund social services.

So the question then becomes, what do you want from what you're willing to pay? And I think that's going to be a question that's really going to fall on the voters that have to vote on a referendum to do anything with property taxes. I know we've heard from callers in the past when this topic comes up from folks who don't feel compelled to have to pay for services that they don't personally utilize. Schools is a big one, of course, especially for those folks who retired and who have maybe retired to Florida or on a fixed income. But there's plenty of other user fees, right, that go into a county or municipal budget that folks may not necessarily partake in. There's a lot of police security that's necessarily

in my neighborhood, for instance, but for other neighborhoods. So how do you find that balance? And where's that communication for Floridians as they're looking at just that property tax bill and who wouldn't like to spend less? Well, and I think the one thing that we hear from everyone is do not defund police and do not defund the fire. And I think at some point someone's going to have to start asking themselves, the libertarian approach to government is I want government to provide those things that I cannot provide for myself. And you're right about user fees.

I'm already hearing people saying, look, I don't even go to that park. And should we have neighborhood parks versus regional parks? And what should transportation look like? Should we toll some of the major? So you don't take, let's say, US 1. There'd be a toll on US 1. So you would have to take neighborhood streets as opposed to, so there's so many... You can already hear the neighborhood reaction to that. Imagine the major state highways across the state, federal highway, other state highways

that come with a toll and perhaps pushing that traffic out into the neighborhoods. Andrew's been listening, his patient, Fort Lauderdale representative. Go ahead, Andrew, thanks for calling. Hi folks, my wife and I have worked hard and paid off our home but we spend $2,500 a month between taxes and insurance for our two-bedroom condo. I can live with the fact that we have property taxes and educated population is good for society as a whole even though we don't have kids in public school. Work on fixing the insurance problem instead of fixing property taxes which best hits society as a whole. Andrew,

thanks for lending your voice to the conversation. Representative, we got an email similar to Andrew. Mr. Hall sent us this note writing, I'm a homeowner and property taxpayer and I'm homesteaded. My home payment went up considerably from last year to this year not due to property tax increases, but due to property insurance rates. Mr. Hall writes, let's do something about the insurance market before we start doing anything about property taxes. That's where we're getting killed.

I'm so grateful to hear this. Andrew just said that he lives in a condo. And condo insurance, I have 667 condo associations in my district alone. And that is the single highest expenditure of a condominium budget. And I don't, and I believe that we're going to hear from single family and family homeowners the same situation. They're not wrong. Property insurance is something I want to take a stab at this coming session. You and your fellow lawmakers did nothing on property

insurance this session. Well, yes, you're right. And I think there was a lot of pushback. There was some property tax reform that was introduced in the House that would have given homeowners more legal rights to sue their insurance companies. It would have brought back the one-way attorney fees.

Well, not so much one-way, but really prevailing party fees, which is everyone has to have skin in the game. And so the Senate did not in any fashion want to even look at some of those proposals, and so they died. But there's no question that this work that I'm doing now and that we will be doing as a committee is going to lead us into, well, what do we do about property insurance? You think that property insurance could be a byproduct of your special committee on property taxes?

I do believe because, look, we've just heard from two people now who want to talk about, forget property tax reform, let's do insurance reform. Because they feel, and I think Andrew or Mr. Hall who wrote and Andrew in Fort Lauderdale, the property taxes are going to services, the property insurance not going to local services, not going to trash pickup and police and fire and roads. Kendrick has been holding impatient in Miami Gardens in South Florida. Kendrick, you're on the radio. Go ahead, sir. Yes, I'm on the radio. Yeah. Let me say this. The insurance,

I'm property owner. The insurance here is ridiculous. Whenever they charge you money and you pay a certain amount of years or whatever, and if there's a hurricane or anything, they don't want to be responsible for the claim. So you'd like to see more insurance reform as opposed to property tax reform? There you go. Yes. Yeah. And then when we have that down pat, then we deal with the property taxes later on. Yeah. These insurance companies are thieves. Yeah. Kendrick, thanks for listening. Thanks for lending your voice to the conversation. Thanks for listening. Thanks for lending your voice to the conversation. Might property tax representative, property insurance, even take precedent as your property

tax special committee begins to try to put some shape to whatever's going to come out of it in the months ahead? What I think might happen as a byproduct of the work that we're doing and the public testimonies that we're taking. So public testimonies that we're taking. So now we've had two people talk about insurance here. I think it will probably signal that our insurance and banking committee should start doing some work based on what we're hearing from the public.

Definitely that'll be, I think that will be an absolute outcome. Let me shift into condominium reform. This was legislation that you authored and clearly tax and insurance and condominium reform. There's a three-way street here that's crossing over. The legislation that you authored and sponsored did get out of the House. It had a compromise bill in the Senate and now it sits on the governor's desk. It allows condominium associations to use lines of credit instead of having money in the bank for regular repairs, which was a requirement after Surfside. How does this make condominium associations financially secure if they don't actually have the money but they have to go out and borrow the money to make repairs?

So, you know, I always say you're either going to pay now or pay later. This is allowing folks to pay later. Yes it is. Yet again. And yet, yet, if they need to make the repairs, the credit line or the loan, and I say the credit line, if you have no repairs that you need to make now, but you've done your structural integrity reserve study, you know what you should be reserving. So your credit line is actually your reserve.

And like all reserves, either you paid them in on a monthly basis and you have the amount when you need to make the repairs, or the credit line is available for you when you need to make the repairs. The individual condominium owners, are they the collateral for the credit line? No. The credit, well, the whole building is. The condo association would go out and get a credit line, sort of a master credit line for the building. But then each person would have to, each unit owner would have to pay for whatever is taken out of

the credit line to make the reserves. So what it does is it gives some people more time to determine how they want to proceed. Listen, for some of our very elderly people, if the repairs don't need to be made for 10 years, some of them say, I'm not even going to be here. Maybe I've moved in with my kids. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's the buy no green bananas idea, right? Yes, exactly. Exactly. You were here in June of 2024 when we were talking about condominium reforms after the

Surfside collapse. And I asked your advice, what it would be to someone who was looking to buy a condominium in Florida. This is what you told us. I'm telling people not to buy a condominium now. Wait for things to settle down. Wait for the assessments to be clarified. Wait till you have more information. So how about now, Representative Lopez?

So I feel much better. I feel now that the structural integrity reserve studies have been done. Milestone inspections are being done. We finally have the information that I think anybody, a prospective buyer of a condo unit, needs to have. And we have increased those, I would say, disclosures. And so I think people now can make an informed decision, right? Whereas last year, I don't think any of us

knew what the impact was going to be. So is now a good time to buy? Yes. You would think, yes. And I think it's a good time to buy simply because there are more units on the market. The market has reduced some of those values, so it's probably a good deal for people. But they will now know what their future obligations will be. Representative Vicki Lopez, Republican from the City of Miami. Always great to have you,

Representative. Thank you so much, Tom. It was great being with you. Best of luck with your work with the special committee. We'll have a report back in the weeks ahead, I suspect. Absolutely. Terrific. We got more to come here on the Florida Roundup. Stick with us. You can always send us an email about your thoughts, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. You are listening to the Florida Roundup right here from your Florida Public Radio Station. Stick with us. Lots more to come here on the program next. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Great to have you here this week. It has now been more than one year since Florida banned most abortions after six weeks.

There are exceptions for pregnancies from rape, incest, and human trafficking. Many women do not know that they're pregnant before six weeks. The ban led to the steepest drop in abortions among all 50 states last year in Florida, according to data from the Gutmacher Institute. It found there were 12,000 fewer abortions last year. The state's data showed almost 20,000 fewer procedures. Nationwide, the number of abortions increased slightly over the same time period. Kelly Flynn is president of A Woman's Choice. That's an obstetrics and gynecology medical clinic in Jacksonville. Kelly, thanks for talking to us today. Does the clinic still offer abortion procedures for its patients?

We do. We are still open and still able to care for patients up to six weeks. It's of course a lot more challenging than it was a year ago. How has the clinic seen the abortion procedures change in a year in terms of volume, the number of patients coming in to select this procedure? Before May 1st last year, our parking lots were full, our waiting room chairs were full, and now there's plenty open chairs and lots of empty parking lot spaces. So by having this ban has created a much broader, bigger challenge for patients to seek access in the entire state of Florida, of course. Having to be in person, you know, is the first challenge and having to wait the 24 hours and then finding out that you're perhaps past the six-week mark.

Nat. How has it changed how your doctors talk about pregnancy options with patients in Jacksonville? Dr. We're, the physicians have to do the in-person consent so they have a script that the state has written that they have to read. And then sometime after that required script is written, the doctors are really good about encouraging patients how important it is to vote and to voice their opinion and how they feel about what they're having to experience and the challenges they've had to go through and to find ways and platforms to discuss this. So making a direct connection there in the examination room

between the procedure options and the political policy and decisions that have led to it. Yeah, yeah. Some patients don't think about that political aspect of it and how politics have just changed our whole landscape of how abortion is being delivered to patients. And so when we point that out and we explain the importance behind, you know, how it shouldn't be involved in politics to begin with, but you know, how important their voice is and

how they vote, you know, can determine the rest of their life and how we're able to provide health care to patients. How has the ban here in Florida, the six-week ban, changed the types of services that your patients are seeking, such as contraception? We have seen an increase in patients seeking contraception, but typically every patient that we would see in the office, we would also offer contraception too. So,

now that we have contraception that's available over the counter, a lot of times they can still see their regular doctor, we're happy to see them. So it seems that there's a lot more question, how do I go about getting it? Who pays for it? How many free samples can I get, that sort of thing.

Is it different types, different longer lasting contraceptive methods that folks are seeking or is it just kind of more of a blanket request? More of a blanket request for us because we're smaller and so we don't have, you know, and plus we're not at the office as frequently as we used to be. And so our availability of some physicians that offer more extensive birth control are not readily available to us, similar to like the IUD insertions, that sort of thing. What do you mean by you're not in the office as often as you once were?

Like we're, before May 1st, we were seeing patients Monday through Saturday. So now we went from seeing patients six days a week to three days a week. And that's a direct result of the restriction on abortion in Florida? Yes. Yep. The law also requires, as you've alluded to, the in-person communication. First of all, a medical professional, a doctor, needs to be present, and he or she needs to be physically present in the examination room for an abortion procedure or abortion medication, if that's administered. How has that changed the kind of implementation of that particular requirement under this

law? You know, it's not been easy to navigate the schedule of having, you know, a set of patients coming in one day to have the consent done by the physician and then the same physician having to come back either the following day or the day after depending on how many patients we may be seeing or the availability of the patients that are coming in for their consent. So it is created a really big challenge and is extraordinarily inconvenient for patients, especially those that are having to travel from central Florida, some even from South Florida, because they know that we have the resources to be able

to get them further north in the event they are past the six weeks. It's created a lot more steps for us, unnecessary steps for all of our staff and our physicians. Kelly, let me ask about that business up north. These are clinics that you run and own in North Carolina, which is the closest state to Florida with the more liberal abortion policy. It's 12 weeks in North Carolina, so twice as long compared to here in Florida. And it's also the longest state in the southeast except for Virginia, which has no restriction on abortion, which you also have a clinic there. What has the last year been like for those clinics that you run outside of the state of Florida? We're fortunate

to have funding navigators on our staff that can help patients navigate their trip and help pay for hotels and gas. Our North Carolina staff, they are really busy trying to take in all of the patients from the other surrounding states, not just Florida, you know, to include Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana. So you know, at times my staff, they're very overwhelmed. They work late hours, we're trying to just keep up with the patients that need to be seen, because especially North Carolina, they're still in a time limit.

And of course, having that 72-hour waiting period presents a challenge as well. How have the restrictions in Florida impacted your ability to staff your clinic in Jacksonville, given clearly what it sounds like is a drop-off in demand? Well, we're down to a minimal staff of about three to four people. They have figured out how to process patients in a timely manner. And more importantly, our staff here in Florida, they are committed to the cause. And so it's more than just a job for them.

They believe in what they're doing and will do anything to help these patients get what they need to get done. The clinic is still a business at the end of the day. A year into this abortion restriction in Florida, is your clinic in Jacksonville still a viable business long-term? I mean, it's hard to say long-term because, you know, we're hopeful that maybe there's a change in the coming years to say long term because, you know, we're hopeful that maybe there's a change in the coming years. But for right now, you know, we're keeping costs down as much as we can just to make

sure that we don't have to pass any additional increase on to our patients. My staff, they're efficient. They work well together, work quickly to help keep payroll costs down. So for now, we're doing okay. We're able to pay the bills and pay the rent, I suppose. So it's a challenge. It's a big challenge for sure. Kelly Flynn is the president of A Woman's Choice. Kelly, thanks for sharing your experiences with us. Much appreciated. Thank you very much for having me.

A measure to add abortion protections to the state constitution won a majority of support among voters last fall, but it did not pass the 60% threshold necessary to become law. This spring, Republican lawmakers approved and Governor Ron DeSantis has already signed a measure that raises the bar for voter-led constitutional amendments like that abortion amendment. has already signed a measure that raises the bar for voter-led constitutional

amendments like that abortion amendment. The governor and supporters pushed for the changes after unsuccessfully trying to keep the abortion amendment off of last year's ballot. Romy Ellenbogan is a capital reporter in Tallahassee with the Tampa Bay Times. Romy, thanks for joining us today. There was a state report that found problems with how supporters of the abortion amendment particularly gathered signatures for it to qualify to appear on the ballot back in November. What was alleged by this report and was any of it proven? So the report came out, there was an interim report and then there was a final report,

and it focused on mostly Amendment 4. And what it did was it reopened, it kind of looked at petition forms that had already been deemed valid by local supervisors and argued when doing a kind of auditing or recheck of these that a certain percentage were actually fraudulent, that they were not supposed to be validated. And therefore there could be a certain number of petitions that were validated that were done so incorrectly as to whether it's proven or not. I think that's disputed by both sides. This was the report that the governor latched onto and Republican lawmakers used to push for some significant changes to citizen-led ballot initiatives.

This legislation passed on the last day of the regular law writing session and the governor signed it right away. How does it change how citizens here in Florida can get an amendment on the ballot? It brings some pretty significant changes. One of the ones that is maybe most notable is that you can't really volunteer in the same way, volunteer and collect just tons and tons of petitions. Whether you're paid or unpaid now going forward, you have to register as a petition collector. The only way you can sort of not register with the state is if you collect petitions in your immediate family, your

own petition, and then you have up to 25. Anything beyond that. So if you collected say 30 and were in possession of those signed petitions, that could be a third degree felony, which would be punishable by up to five years in prison per statute. And so what's involved to be a registered petition gatherer under this now law? I believe it requires some training, some like training on how to handle petitions and protocol, but mostly it's, you know, being known by the state versus volunteers who may have just done it through community groups, through, you know, printing it off their own printer and going around and knocking on neighbors' doors before.

It also shortens pretty considerably the time between someone providing a signature and that signature then being kind of turned into the state to be validated, right? Yeah. So current law, you have 30 days to turn in a signed petition. This changes it to 10 days. That was a big point of conflict among people who opposed the bill, you know, who said that, I don't know if it, that that doesn't have anything to do with fraud, turning in a petition sooner, but bill sponsors argued it just allows kind of the system to flag things sooner. So these rules you and I have talked about here are kind of all about the gathering of

signatures, those folks who are, you know, outside of a grocery store or in a park looking for support. But folks who are signing these petitions, some rules also changing here, including, I think, some identifying information, right? So folks signing a petition now have to give a social security or the last four digits of a social security number or a driver's license. Presently, I believe when you sign a petition, it's sort of name, county, and your supervisor will then, you know, do the confirmation process. This, because of incidents that were pointed to in the report and other things generally where, you know, people have had petitions falsified, falsely signed in their name, it requires a Florida

driver's license number or the last four of your social security. Some people have opposed that as well, saying that, you know, when you ask for this additional information from people, if anything, opens it up to more fraud, right? If people are writing their last four of their social on forms and they fall into wrong hands. I'm Tom Hudson. This is the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. We're speaking with Romy Ellenbogen, Capitol reporter for the Tampa Bay Times in Tallahassee. The state elections police force, which was put together in recent years by the governor, it would launch an investigation automatically if 25% of the signatures turned into the state are found to be invalid. And I

know opponents of this legislation really raised a red flag here because petition this legislation really raised a red flag here because petition gatherers tend to gather up a significant number of signatures, much more than is necessary in case there are questions about validity. And so what about this 25% threshold now? Yeah, well, the 25% threshold, the Senate actually raised that, I think, in initial bill language, it was 10%, which people really said is just such a low bar or high bar, however you want to think of it, that it would flag basically every petition going through. The Senate thought that 25% was more reasonable, but groups still oppose it because they argue, even if you have, quote

unquote, a good validity rate, that can be in the high 60%, you know, because a lot of petitions just fraudulently or not, like are not confirmed as valid. This law already faces a legal challenge. It's only about a week old as you and I are talking. Florida decides healthcare is the group that has filed lawsuit. Tell us what you know about this legal challenge. Florida Decides Healthcare is a petition group.

They are trying to get onto the 2026 ballot to put it to the voters, a question of Medicaid expansion. And they are arguing in court that these changes make it like, are sort of onerous on them as they try to mount their campaign and are not actually targeted at fraud and are more broadly meant to kind of suppress the citizens initiative process is what they're arguing in their complaint. And that has been the opponent's argument, certainly in the Florida House and Florida Senate amongst the Democrats that did not support this legislation, that it increases the hurdle so far that really all but stops the citizen-led amendment

initiative in Florida. That's been sort of the argument of Democrats that state Republicans have repeatedly sort of taken hits at this process and made it more and more difficult to participate in. And what you hear from Republicans is, well, this is amending our Constitution. This is our most important document.

It deserves a process that is foolproof from fraud. The state legislature can propose amendments for voters to vote on. And then, of course, there is the infrequent state constitutional convention that happens. I think the next one isn't due for, gosh, more than a decade out here still. There's one other piece of this legislation I want to ask you about, which is the clause that bans the use of state funds in amendment referenda. So it bans the use of funds to advocate for or against ballot initiatives that wind up in front of voters. This strikes me as a direct response to how vocal the governor was and how much the state came out, particularly

against the abortion referendum and the recreational marijuana referendum. I don't think you're wrong. During the Senate debate, Senator Don Gates and Senator Jennifer Bradley, who are both Republicans, even though they didn't say the governor's name, they said, yes, things happened this last year. People in the administration did things to spend state dollars, and this is foolproofing against that.

Romy, thanks for sharing your reporting with us. Much appreciated. I hope you got some rest this week before lawmakers head back to tackle the budget. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. Romy Ellenbogan covers the state legislature in Tallahassee for the Tampa Bay Times. Next week, we will return with your Florida connecting you with legislation and policy throughout the state of Florida. If you've got a question about the state budget, how the decisions are made, where the money is being spent, email us now radio at the Florida roundup.org radio at the Florida roundup.org. And we may feature your question next week,

here on the Florida roundup. Stick around plenty more to come. I'm Tom Hudson, you're listening to the Florida roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Among the warehouses that bump up against the Everglades west of the Turnpike in Miami-Dade County is a door, and on that door is a sign. On that sign between two Department of Homeland Security logos in red capital letters is the word warning. This is a sign that identifies the building as a foreign trade zone.

Walk through this door and you're leaving the United States as far as international trade is concerned. You're actually exiting the commerce of the United States, you're entering a foreign territory. It's what it really means. We don't need a passport or anything like that. To get back in you do. Should have brought it. Let me put my vest on here.

Yeah. All right. Gary Goldfarb swipes his security card and opens the door. So as we step through the threshold this is now a foreign trade zone. There it is. Goldfarb is the chief strategy officer of Interport. That's a logistics warehousing and distribution company. He's considered one of the area's experts on FTZ's foreign trade zones. There are dozens of these doors with warning signs across the state. The important part of a foreign trade zone and to understand the foreign trade zone is

the merchandise that arrives here has not, where it's going hasn't been determined yet or what is happening to the merchandise hasn't been determined yet All that you're doing here is you're in foreign territory before you make a determination The entire warehouse that sits on the edge of a limestone quarry is considered a foreign trade zone There are pallets of tools patio umbrellas and toilets. Yeah toilets stacked more than 10 feet high paddy umbrellas and toilets, yeah toilets, stacked more than 10 feet high. This stuff has been imported from India, Vietnam and China. If it's headed to someplace in the United States it is subject to President Donald Trump's new tariffs. If this warehouse is just a waypoint as it makes its way to another

country, no tariff is due. Most of the stuff in this warehouse is bound for countries in the Caribbean, Central and South America, so no American tariff. That's the big benefit of these foreign trade zones, and some of the reason there are more than a dozen of them in Florida and more than 100 sites within those zones across South Florida. Foreign trade zones are a tool. It's as much a financing tool for a business as it is an actual logistics warehousing tool. CFOs love this.

Banks are saying, do I need now to have increased my lines of credit for my clients because now they have to pay duties or can we do something else? And this something else, foreign trade zone, is that something else that helps most of the people that import product that never really had high duties don't have the lines of credit to support that business. So they're in trouble. Companies that would be facing enormous increases in their cost of goods destined for the U.S. market due to the Trump tariffs instead can have their stuff sit in a foreign trade zone tax free before bringing it into the US.

The word into there is in air quotes. They can control their costs better by not having to pay tariffs until it leaves the foreign trade zone. My name is Harry Boudin, a group general manager for Toyota Tsusha America. We are in the parts and accessories center for Toyota Tsusha America, which is a central parks depot that feeds the Caribbean distributors at Toyota Parks. This warehouse is just off I-95. Planes descend overhead as they land at the Fort Lauderdale

Hollywood Airport nearby. We're standing on a floor painted lime green. Ahead are rows and rows of shelves with all sorts of auto parts, from small screws to windshields and bumpers. And between is a small entrance. It's almost ceremonial-like. Printed prominently is the Japanese word, Anzen, safety. There's no taxes that are paid because it's a bonded facility. We can bring parts from different areas of the world, consolidate here, ship out, and the duties are only the local duties that would be paid in each market. If a Toyota car or truck in Aruba, the Bahamas or Jamaica needs a part, it probably came

from this warehouse in Fort Lauderdale. But it was likely made somewhere in Asia. So it comes to this foreign trade zone does not pay American taxes and is shipped out to the Caribbean when it's needed. Jorge Hernandez is the business development director with Port Everglades, which is ultimately responsible for this foreign trade zone. We see that many of the companies that have established themselves here have that distribution model where they're bringing their merchandise from all over the world and then doing distribution from Broward County. It's a critical part for our operations and to ensure that the Toyota customers

in the Caribbean and Latin America have a good ownership experience. It wouldn't be possible without that designation. Foreign trade zones date back almost a century ago. They were created by a law four years after the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which sparked its own trade war back in the 1930s. Upwards of 25 billion dollars worth of merchandise moves through Florida's foreign trade zones, making it a top four state for exports passing through. There are zones in Pensacola, Jacksonville, and up and down the

Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. Even booze like French wines or Jamaican rum that is served on board cruise ships can be brought in, sit in a foreign trade zone near Port Miami or Port Everglades, for instance, and then taken to a ship's lounge without paying U.S. taxes. Three of the top 15 zones nationwide are in South Florida, according to a 2023 report to Congress. It's a ranking helped by South Florida's geography. And Gary Goldfarb, back at his warehouse in Dade County, And Gary Goldfarb back at his warehouse in Dade County thinks they give the region's economy an edge as new tariffs take hold.

We have all the tools necessary to help our clientele reduce the impact of tariffs as much as possible. And companies are flocking to Miami because Miami is that community that has all of that knowledge. Back through the door with that warning sign on the other side. Alright, we're heading back into the United States here. Yeah, you're back in the United States. Just like that. And we return. Here we are. This is that. And we return. Here we go.

This is already paid duty this past week. No passports and no tariffs. I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. There are two finalists for the top jobs at two of Florida's public universities. Former Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nunez

is the sole finalist to be the president at Florida International University and Santa Ono is the only person being considered to be president of the University of Florida. Currently he's the president of the University of Michigan where he rolled back that campus's DEI initiatives. This is how he explained that decision this week while on campus in Gainesville. It's the American thing to do to support all students and not just some of the students. That explanation wasn't enough for gubernatorial hopeful Byron Donalds. He went on Fox News to call for Ono's hiring to be stopped. That president has no business being the president of the number one university in the state of Florida. We need to do better. It's time to go back to the drawing board.

Donalds is a congressman from of Florida. We need to do better. It's time to go back to the drawing board. Donald's is a congressman from Southwest Florida. There was a deadly bear attack this week in that region. A man was out walking his dog and both were killed early Monday. Dogs and bears really just don't get along. We see that throughout the state. They really don't like each other,

so we do have conflicts with dogs quite frequently. Mike Orlando is the bear management program coordinator for the State Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. He says it's very rare for a bear to attack people and more rare for it to be a fatal attack. The issue with a person being not only injured but killed by a bear is extraordinarily rare. It's the first time we've had that in our state's history, and it's rare not only just throughout the country. It's a tragic event, and I don't really know how to answer the question of why this bear

did what it did. But we're in the process of trying to figure all that out. Mike Braun is a reporter with our partner station WGCU in Fort Myers. Mike, thanks for being here. What do you know about the neighborhood where this attack happened? Oh, it's completely rural part of Collier County. Actually, the road that it's on, it's kind of the dividing line between Fackahatchee State Forest and the Vicks-Cypress State Forest. If you would take a satellite shot and look at that area, it's trees, trees, trees, more trees surrounding a kind of a rural road.

What happened to the bear? We're not sure if it was just one. They have killed three bears. They're doing DNA testing on all three to see if they can match either items on their body or inside the body to remains that were found at the scene. They also took hair from a fourth bear. The Fish and Wildlife Commission has

been considering opening up black bears for a hunt later on this year. How does this death potentially influence that decision? I'm not sure that it's going to influence it at all. This would be the very first fatality by bear in Florida's history. I know there's a protest here in Fort Myers coming up really soon. It's going to be against the bear hunt. So there's a considerable anti-movement wanting not to do this. Mike Braun, thanks for sharing your reporting there

from our partner station WGCU. Yes, sir. And finally on the Roundup this week, what's on your DIY or honeydew list this weekend? More than 1,500 volunteers have been busy painting over 70 seniors' homes for free. It's all part of a nonprofit in Tampa called Paint Your Heart Out. Alton Kemp is a Navy veteran.

He's been living alone since his wife died in 2013. It's my home because what God has done and the community is part of that. It's for me what it is. So I'm thankful. Paint Your Heart Out has been putting paint brushes in the hands of volunteers for 35 years. It has added up to more than a half million hours worth of work. Jerry Hansen is the group's executive director. Our hope is to be able to help other communities in Florida start a program like this and help the whole state of Florida.

Now just make sure to get those brush strokes out of the paint before the sun hits. Florida. Now just make sure to get those brushstrokes out of the paint before the sun hits. That's our program for today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Grayson Docter with assistance from Denise Royal. WLRN's Vice President of Radio is Peter Merz. The program's technical director is MJ Smith. Engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson, Ernesto J, and Jackson Hart. Our theme music is provided by Miami Jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at aaronleibos.com. If you missed any of the program or you want to share it with someone else, you can download it, subscribe to it, listen to the podcast, do it all, just search The Florida Roundup on the NPR One app.

Be sure to email us radio at the Florida Roundup org. We love to hear from you and our inbox is always open. Thanks for calling, emailing, listening and above all supporting public media in your corner of the Sunshine State. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend!