The Florida Roundup - Undecided voters, Isaias recovery, ICE spending and weekly news briefing

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

This week on The Florida Roundup, we looked at Florida’s undecided voters with Sean Freeder with UNF’s Public Opinion Research Lab (00:00). Then, we checked in on early recovery efforts from Hurricane Isaias with our partner station WUWF in Pensacola (19:42). Plus, Your Florida state government reporter Meghan Bowman joined us from our partner station WUSF to talk about a recent federal accountability report looking at ICE spending and Florida (24:40). And later, news from the week including a court ruling upholding Florida’s social media ban for minors (37:20), how a Governor-appointed commission impacts energy costs (39:08), and the induction of Florida’s newest Tuskegee Airmen chapter (47:38).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Carlton Gillespie. The 2026 midterm elections are not imminent. They're here. Votes are being cast across the states. Mail and ballots are being counted. And the mandatory early voting period starts next week, which is why we're looking at the polls. No, we aren't interested in the horse race. We're looking at that third column. You know, the one labeled undecided. That's right. Even at a time. that feels like the most politically polarized period in history. There are still those who haven't made up their minds. And it's no small chunk either.

Polls show the amount of undecideds could sway a number of key races. Are you one of them? What's keeping you from committing to one candidate or the other? Maybe a particular race is giving you pause. What are the issues that matter to you? Or are you out there right now screaming at your radio in disbelief that there are still those who have yet to pick aside. Either way, we want to hear from you.

So give us a call. 305-995-1800 or email radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Joining us to talk about undecided voters in the races all across this state is Sean Freeder, the faculty director of the University of North Florida's Public Opinion Research Lab. Sean, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, good to be here. Thanks for having me. Hey, Sean.

So let's start with the 9th,000. numbers here. Let's looking at some of the key races in the state, just how many folks are answering pollsters that they're undecided? So, you know, we're looking at probably something like, you know, maybe one out of 10 people are actually undecided at this point. And when we're thinking about that population, we're including maybe something like 5 to 10 percent of people who are registered with one party or the other. And then we're looking within that independent registration category. You know, it's about 28% of people that registers independence. Most of those people, though, lean heavily towards one party have probably made up their minds. So we're also probably

looking at about maybe 10 to 15% of folks within that category. So a few partisans that have yet to maybe commit one way or the other and a little bit higher number of independence that maybe haven't swung one way or the other yet. And that's what we hear every election, right? It's the independence who can win the battle for the independence especially in this state absolutely so is it common this late in the race to have that many undecided voters it is i mean we're looking actually at probably somewhat lower numbers of people who at this point have not yet made up their mind but it's pretty common to be hovering around the 10% mark just a few uh weeks out from the race and you know a lot of that is driven by, you know, those who tend to be undecided. It doesn't tend to be people who are very

close watchers of politics, who are very tough decision ambivalent between both sides, trying to make up their minds. It tends to be people who maybe don't pay that much attention to politics at all. They may be closer to the decision of should I vote whatsoever rather than for this person or that person. So, you know, as much as independence making up their minds as part of it, really who's going to turn out a little bit more broadly on midterms, if we could just take a slight step back here. You know, we often expect the incumbent party, and this time around, that's Republicans who control the presidency and both chambers of Congress to do worse in midterm elections, right? Why is that? And is that the trend so far in Florida?

That is. That's a very, very common trend in midterm elections. So, you know, this is something that we've observed nationwide in virtually every state going back 50 or 60 years. Some party wins the presidency. Two years later, you can almost count on it that that party is going to struggle more in the midterms. So there's always kind of an anti-incumbent bias that's built into the midterms. That was particularly large in some years. It's smaller in others back in 2022. It was relatively small. The Biden administration didn't face as much midterm pushback as your average administration. This year is really starting to look more like the 2006 elections in which, yes, you have undecided, but independents seem to be pretty substantially breaking one direction,

and that's towards Democrats. So this fits in a longstanding pattern. So why is it that these incumbent parties perform so much worse? 50 or 60 years. So some of this, I think, is just general frustration with whoever's in charge. This is something that we see, especially over the past decade or so. This is, you know, if you look, or even in other countries, there's just a general frustration with sort of the sense of where we are economically, where we are socially. Beyond that, I think that it's also just kind of a sense that maybe if you're an independent,

if you feel like, you know, the other party has had a control for the last couple years, they've had their chance. They're not happy. They're willing to at least maybe try to bring in the other party to sort of balance that. So when you have these unified government controls like we have right now with Republicans, maybe some independents think the government would perform more functionally if Republicans and Democrats were sort of in control of at least one chamber each. Okay. Well, so let's look at some of the thought processes for some of these undecided voters.

When you or your team is reaching out to voters doing these polls, what are you hearing from undecided voters? So, you know, when we, when we poll people, we look at, you know, what people are saying in terms of what issues affect them. And we're seeing, you know, overwhelmingly, this is true of Democrats or Republicans alike. It's certainly true of independence. Affordability is a top concern. That's really been the overwhelming concern over the past year. Within that, particularly in the state of Florida, obviously Amendment 3 is going to be on the ballot.

So property tax is a concern more for Republicans than. Democrats. Property insurance, the market there is also a concern for Democrats, maybe more than Republicans. But all across the board, inflation is a big concern. The cost of living generally, wages are a concern. So we really are hearing a lot of that in this election cycle. And then interestingly, we're hearing a lot about tech regulation issues too. People are concerned about AI, maybe the economic effects that we see there. People are concerned about the construction of data centers. So this is kind of an issue at the beginning of this year. If you'd ask me, what would be a major issue.

I wouldn't have tech regulation at number two, but it's arguably the number two issue right now. That's interesting. I kind of want to dive into to each of those because I think there's really interesting stuff kind of hidden in all of those. I mean, number one, we've been referring to it on this program,

you know, for this midterm election. We're calling it the affordability election. And from what you're saying, that seems like that is, you know, issue number one for everybody. What are maybe, what are you hearing on affordability? Are there certain areas where people are feeling more squeezed or what are they telling you? So we asked back in February what was the top issue, an affordability far and away the biggest concern. It was over a majority of folks.

The next issue, you didn't even register in double digits. So we followed up on that in July asking people, you know, when it comes to affordability, what are your concerns? And we found that it's really a pretty even split across the board. You have people talking about property tax. You have people talking about property insurance, inflated. is a concern. Joblessness is increasingly a concern, I think, related to the tech issue. There's differences in terms of which priority people have, depending on their age, their race, where in the state they are. So it varies somewhat based on that. As you'd imagine,

older folks are more likely to be property owners, so they're more likely to focus on property costs. Younger folks are much more concerned about cost of living and employment. So, you know, this is something I think the campaigns want to touch on. It's also an extraordinarily difficult issue to touch on. You know, you have to come up with a plan to solve the economy, which is a really, really big ass, which I think is why a lot of campaigns have maybe pivoted to tech. It's newer and maybe has fewer moving parts in some ways. Yeah, that's very interesting. So we actually have an undecided caller on with us, Lisa from Hollywood. She is undecided on the Senate rate. Lisa, go ahead. You're on the Florida Roundup. Hi. Well, I'm kind of speaking for a lot of my friends. Sure.

I've decided I'm going to really hold my nose to choose a candidate for the Senate race because it's looking like polls are tightening and I can't afford to leave it blank. I've already decided it all the way down the rest of the ticket. But, yeah, the Senate race, Ashley Moody is just unacceptable. And Angie Nixon has got some real, real big issues. that, you know, when she joined the DSA and the primary, I have a real problem with that. I have a real problem with, you know, the leaning towards anti-Semitism, you know, campaigning with the likes of Linda Sarsauer. I have a problem with that.

Yeah. So it sounds like you're saying that you are going to hold your nose and vote. Is that against Ashley Moody and for Angie Nixon? I'm going to vote, hold my nose and vote for Angie Nixon. Okay. Because one thing we got to do is we got to stop this runaway train going on. And one way to stop it is to have some sort of handle on what kind of nominees get through. And we need a good blue Senate for that because this, again, this is a runaway train.

This is awful what's happened. Okay. And you said you have friends who are. are undecided. Is there anything they're telling you about what issues are pressure points for them this election? Well, that's why I feel like I'm speaking for a lot of my friends, because the reason they're undecided on the, they're just on the Senate race and down ballot, you know, the same way I'm voting. Uh-huh. So it's, it's about that Senate race. And, you know, some of my friends are still really on the fence about it. Yeah. And, you know, some, I have quite a few friends.

and the Jewish community who have problems with it. You know, I mean, Jewish women voted for Kamala Harris by 88% second only to black women. Uh-huh. And losing that voting block would be awful. So you're concerned about both candidates, it sounds like you don't, you think Ashley Moody is unacceptable, but you're really concerned with some of the issues that Angie Nixon had. Lisa, thank you so much for calling. Sean, I want to ask you, what is that the quality of candidate?

Are you hearing anything like that when you talk to undecided voters? Yeah, I think what your caller was just expressing there is pretty consistent with what I'm seeing in both the governor's race and the Senate race. And for different reasons, it's a really interesting kind of situation that in governor's race, you know, the Democratic Party right now divided into at least two factions, a more moderate wing, a more left-leaning wing. In the governor's race, the more moderate wing gets a candidate that they want, David Jolly. the more left-leaning wing gets the candidate they want Angie Nixon in the Senate race. And so you might have different types of independent voters, kind of as your caller said, maybe holding their nose in some of these cases. You can imagine in the Senate race, you know, if you're a more moderate independent,

Angie Nixon might be somewhat far out on the left there for you. And I think that's what the caller was expressing. Right. On the other hand, if you're in the governor's race, David Jolly, former Republican, fairly moderate, if you're a Republican or a conservative-leaning independent, maybe you're thinking about now voting for the Democrat in that race. So I think we could actually see a lot of undecided,

it's kind of splitting their vote between Republicans and Democrats between the governors and Senate race. And that's because we're just seeing the two different types of candidates that the Democrats have. It's kind of which strategy would pay off for them in the long run here. That's right. And I think that there's some interesting synergy between those strategies, because usually you tend to see in states,

either the entire slate of the left-leaning candidates will tend to win or the entire slate of the more moderate candidates will tend to win. So the fact that we have this kind of split in Florida, I think, allows the party to maybe test a strategy here where ultimately, as much as you might want to convince undecided voters, you're also really trying to excite and turn out your base, some of whom might have been disappointed if Nixon hadn't won, some of whom might have been disappointed, you know, if Vindman in one. But you can imagine if you have one moderate and one left-leaning candidate for each side of your base to come and vote, people. People might all decide to show up and, you know, they're going to be enthusiastic about one of those people. But while they're there, they're going to go, fine, this person is at least closer to my interests of the two candidates. I'll check the box for them. So in some ways, I think that the difference between the two races kind of helps with that additional thing, which is turnout, which is a really big part of the game. Yeah, very interesting.

So let's go back to some of the issues that you're hearing about. I want to talk about Amendment 3. Last week, we had a robust discussion on this show about Amendment 3. we heard from a pro and anti folks all across the state. What are you hearing about Amendment 3 and the need for some sort of affordability relief in the form of either property tax or property insurance? Yeah, so I mean the dynamic on Amendment 3, you know, we pulled on this back in July and, you know, there's two kind of opposing forces here in a year where affordability is a really

big concern. Obviously one way that you could ransom people, some relief with that would be to pass Amendment 3. At the same time, there's a lot of concern about what effects that would have on local budgets. And I think those are really the two main competing forces on this issue. Back in July, when we asked about this, we asked two different versions of the question of support on Amendment 3, one with the budget impact and one without. If you don't tell people about the budget impact, it barely passed by at 61%. You need 60% for this to go through. If you tell people about the budget impact, it's sitting much lower at 45%, so not really even close to that threshold.

So we're back in the field next week. We'll have some results, another poll on Amendment 3 to see where people are. I'm guessing that the real world will live in, given all the spending different groups concerned about the impact on local budgets that Amendment 3 would create. We're probably living in a world that's somewhere between 45 and 61%. So we might be sitting somewhere in the mid-50s where it still wouldn't pass, but it still looks like quite close. It would not be surprising if it passed. Yeah, that's very interesting. It seems like it's an information problem for a lot of folks. because I think especially on things like constitutional ballot amendments,

it's just not something that everyday voters can take, can even afford to take the time to look into. It is. I mean, if you look at the way that the amendments are written, and this is often the case for amendments, you know, you're going to get two or three paragraphs of pretty fine legalese or economics speak. So, you know, a lot of this is not so much, you know,

how people are going to react to the amendment language, which is fairly technical. This is going to be about how much they're hearing about Amendment 3 from outside sources, and there's been a lot of spending on both sides with this, you know, and a lot of endorsements on both sides. So the hottest issue, not number one for you, but a surprise number two since the start of this year, is AI and AI data centers. What are you hearing from people about this? And is there another topic you can think of in your years doing this that has kind of made this meteoric rise to the top of people's interest lists?

I mean, not really. This is kind of, you know, thinking back over a couple decades of looking back over a couple decades of looking. looking at opinion polling for an issue to go from, you know, virtually non-existent to a really top issue over the course of a year is kind of unprecedented as far as I'm concerned. You know, when we ask people about their opinions of AI generally, it's very mixed. It's almost exactly 50-50 in the few times that we've asked it. There are partisan differences. Democrats tend to be more skeptical of AI than Republicans, young people more skeptical than older folks. But when it comes to data center construction specifically, it's a totally different story.

People are overwhelmingly opposed to data centers. Our most recent poll had 68% opposed, 28% support. Those partisan age differences are there, but there was not a single group who we found a majority were in support of the construction of data centers. And if you take that and kind of combine it with how quickly this has become an issue, you find yourself potentially with a lot of politicians

who took an early stance on data centers and now might find themselves on the wrong side of the issue. Yeah, I think that's fascinating. I know that those numbers go up on data centers, even more when the question is asked about in your own community. Not to disparage the NIMBY's out there, but generally the construction of data centers as opposed, but especially when it's in your backyard,

that really seems to be a pressure point for people. Yeah, I mean, like a lot of issues, when you make people think about the immediate impact you would have on your own life, maybe the noise pollution or the light pollution or other effects on the environment, you know, people respond to it somewhat differently than if you just said the issue in abstract.

And, you know, those numbers that I gave you, that comes from people saying, you know, I don't want this in my area, that probably that support goes up a bit if they imagine it happening somewhere else. But even just seeing the disconnect between AI and data centers kind of implies if it's 50-50 for AI, overwhelmingly opposed to data centers, there's a lot of people saying, I don't mind the product, but I just don't want the infrastructure for it built anywhere near me. And I want to read this really quickly before we go here. This is from David in Newberry. He says he's always voted Republican, but the party is dead and gone. he says, Trump says he's to pretend he's on the ballot. That makes my vote easy. His impact on prices, starting senseless wars, brutality towards immigrants, and corruptions mean none of his enablers, Republicans will get my vote. And I want to ask you just in about 45 seconds that we have left here, Sean, how much of the Trump bump has been a big feature in Florida politics for a long time? Does it still have the same impact with voters here? Yeah, thinking about the president is always going to be top of mind in any midterm, even though.

the president's not on the ballot, they really are because it's the single biggest thing that impacts people's votes. Trump's numbers are really bad right now. In a situation where you have a president with flagging numbers, you'd maybe want to pull them off the campaign trail and minimize their thoughts that voters might have about them. But Trump's been kind of pushing full steam ahead in the other direction. He doesn't want to be hidden. And I think that makes it even more difficult for your average Republican candidate right now. Well, Sean, thank you so much. Sean Frieder is the faculty director of UNF's public opinion research lab, Sean. Thanks so much. Great talk. Absolutely. Thank you. You are listening to The Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station.

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Carlton Gillespie. Next week on our program, we're looking at the race for U.S. Senate, incumbent Republican Ashley Moody and progressive Democrat Angie Nixon. We want to hear from you about that race. What are your biggest questions for the candidates? What issues are you looking for your next senator to solve? Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. That's next week. Today, Hurricane Isayas made landfall last week near Destin as a Category 2 storm.

The damage was widespread and devastating. This week, Governor Ronda Santos said six people have died due to the storm in Florida. Damage and recovery costs will be in the billions. So we're checking in on the recovery with Sandra Averhart from our partner station, WUWF, in Pennsylvania. Pensacola. The city of Milton was among the communities hardest hit by Hurricane Isaias. Milton High School suffered extensive damage as did the Park Avenue

apartments nearby. For about two years Darcy Gartman has lived in the apartment complex where the roof was blown off. Friday night when the storm came through we were sitting there and we could just hear a lot of wind, ferocious wind and a lot of breathe flying and then we believe what was a couple of tornadoes came across killed the roofs off the top and just kind of like split the roof in half Gartman says waiting out the storm was a wild ride people that lived upstairs came down and sheltered with us till everything passed and stuff and it was just it was just crazy we have part of the scoreboard from the high school in the

bushes luckily all the cars were spared nobody's lives were taken so that was really good. Just a lot of property damage and a lot of displacement going on right now and a lot of mixed feelings, you know. Gartman says it's unfortunate that it sometimes takes a natural disaster to bring a community together. But she said she was grateful for the number of good people who've been stopping by, offering help, and bringing food and water. Neighbors helping neighbors is exactly what Ivan Rosado and his wife were doing in their Pace neighborhood. This is the first lady when we moved into this neighborhood almost 17 years ago that came to my house, knocked on the door and said, welcome to the neighborhood, you know.

So ever since then, you know, we built a good friendship with her. And because she was older, you know, we tried to take care of her, you know. A couple of days after the storm, the Rosados were across the street hauling debris to the curb and working to remove a tree that fell on the roof of the. their elderly neighbor's house. It went into the house, into the back bathroom, so there's a hole in the ceiling. The water went in and damaged some flooring inside. I know she's devastated, but, you know, we try to do whatever we can.

You know, our house didn't get damaged, just a bunch of what we're cutting up, the same thing. But, you know, just trying to help her out, you know. Also in Pace, resident Frank Larritz and a friend were working on cutting down what was left of a sheared water oak in front of his mrs. mobile home, which he says he was smart to evacuate. As they were cutting it back, limb by limb, Larritz was already lamenting the loss of the tree. I missed the tree. That was a beautiful tree right there, and I'd got everything else cut out of my yard except that one in these two and they even snapped. In his backyard, Larritz says all the big trees were taken out by the storm.

Now he says every one of the trees left in his yard are coming down, so he won't have any that can hit his house again. I've had enough trees. I'll take the hot sun. I'll take the 120-degree weather. Since the storm has passed, a lot of resources have been dispatched to the community to assist with hurricane recovery. Assistance has been wide-ranging from the establishment of points of distribution or population. locations, feeding sites, access to showers and laundry facilities, and help with insurance. Have a blessed day. For several days, volunteers with the Faith-Based Disaster Relief Organization, Convoy of Hope, have been distributing boxes of food, water, ice, and other supplies from their local

base of operations at Pace Assembly of God. Joyce Richardson and her daughter, Jenny, whose Woodbine Hills neighborhood was still without power as of midweek were among the hundreds who waited in their cars to get some of those much-needed supplies. Ice and water because we had to throw everything out of our refrigerator and freezer and outside. We lost everything. We lost everything. Convoy of Hope will continue daily distributions through Saturday with plans to at that time reevaluate whether to continue distributions or shipped their efforts to assist with hurricane cleanup. Sandra Averhart, WUWF News.

Now we're going to take another look at Florida's immigration detention centers. A few weeks ago on our program, we looked at an audit from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General. That report said that Florida's alligator Alcatraz's detainees were not given adequate living space, recreation time, and even access to clean water. There was also the matter of an 18 square foot metal cage, kept outdoors that was used as punishment for detainees. All while the state has been increasing the funding headed to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which ran the facility and the state's immigration efforts. Now, there's another report, not about inhumane conditions, but immigration and customs enforcement spending.

I think our main takeaway is that there was no plan for ICE to, to proceed with these different initiatives. That's Heather McLeod from the nonpartisan independent government accountability office, or the GAO. She authored this report and says the lack of planning led to wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. Now, that report looked at ice spending nationwide. But of course, Florida was the only state that got their own section. Here to talk with us about that report from our partner station WUSF in Tampa is Megan Bowman. Thanks for joining us.

Of course. So let's talk about the organization behind this report, the government accountability office. That's maybe a lesser known part of the government. What do they do and how do they get involved with investigations like this? Yeah. So the GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for the U.S. Congress to audit and find how federal money is spent. They got involved when, or they get involved when the law requires or, Congress requests something to be audited.

So in this instance, three Democratic senators and one representative requested a review of ISIS spending. A big part of that is because ISIS budget was nearly $4 billion last year. And after the one big beautiful bill act passed, it ballooned to $45 billion. So now that it's looked at that spending, that ballooning number, what is how do they characterize? rise ICE's spending or what kind of went wrong for ICE in spending all of this money? Yeah. So the GAO report said ICE needs, quote, urgent planning to avoid wasting more taxpayer money. The report's author, Heather McLeod, says the agency's significant investments to expand detention operations without a plan is what led to the waste. So ICE got an influx of money and

just spent. Even looking at my own budget, which is considerably smaller. Without that budget, that money can, you know, burn a hole through my pocket. So, you know, I might end up spending more for certain items or things that are unnecessary. And that's essentially what happened with ICE. The GAO found six detention-focused projects that wasted a lot of money. Now, more than half of those have already been scaled back, like purchasing warehouses to convert to detention centers, expanding Guantanamo Bay to hold about 5,000 detainees and building on military bases,

like at Camp East Montana in Texas. You know, that's actually where the GAO started reviews for this report. McLeod said they found some serious issues there and actually had to pause before they finished it up. And of course, another section in that report is Florida's facilities. It's the only The only subheading I saw in there that just says Florida's detention facilities. What's in that section about Florida's facilities? Yes. The report also included the South Florida Detention Center dubbed Alligator, Alcatraz. In the report, it's called the Florida soft-sided facility.

So it says ICE did not tell the state to open the facility or, you know, enter into an agreement or contract authorizing its operation as a detention facility. the GAO says the lack of those contracts or agreements in place is what resulted in the waste due to high operating costs. So one example are the bed rates. Ices median rate to hold a detainee for one night is $92. At Alligator Alcatraz, it cost $249. It wasn't a shock to see those numbers. I mean, my reporting showed the Florida Division of Emergency Management had spent. I spent nearly a billion dollars to build it.

But I will say I reached out to the FDEM to see what they thought of the report. And a spokesperson told me nobody takes the GAO seriously. Is that true? Does nobody take the GAO seriously? Well, so I kind of followed that response up with Heather McLeod. You know, and she just said, well, I sure hope people do. and the Congress members that had requested the report actually put out their own, you know, release kind of saying, we accept this. And even DHS and ICE had, you know, said, yes, we accept this.

And they concurred with the findings. And the state has also said that the expenses that they pay to enforce these immigration policies, it says they claim that they far outweigh what illegal immigration costs the state. Yes. Yes, they have. What kind of numbers did they give you? Because I dug into some of the numbers that I heard them say to you. And I've heard some other state officials across the state give. Well, you mean in the report? Like what kind of numbers did we find? Right. So I think the state has said that, I think a spokesperson for FDM, and correct me if I'm wrong, said to you that illegal immigration costs was it tens of billions of dollars to Americans every year? Yeah, I mean, I think that's been one of the talking points about how they've kind of moved forward in doing this.

And there's been, you know, alternate reporting done on that that says actually like, you know, a lot of these immigrants actually, you know, really contribute to our economy. But, you know, when we look at this report, you know, we did learn something about the grant. which is, you know, Alligator Alcatraz is one of the only sole recipient of this reimbursement grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Right. And, you know, as you know, right, they were approved a little bit over $600 million in September of last year. So from this report, we learned that Florida requested to add Baker Correctional Institution in North Florida. which the state-dub deportation depot depot to this FEMA grant. The report says FEMA approved the request and it will reimburse the state at the same bed

rate is Alligator Alcatraz that nearly $250. So, I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of money kind of moving around throughout all of this. Well, and I do kind of want to touch on the grant in just a minute, but that's after I tell everyone out there that I'm Carlton Gillespie. and you're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida public radio station. Now, sorry for the segue, Megan, but I want to get back to the grant because when Alligator Alcatraz was first conceived of, right? We were told by FEMA officials and Christy Nome herself said that the state would be reimbursed completely by this grant. So now not only have they only gotten 600 million for Alligator Alcatraz that may have cost up to a billion dollars,

They've also now have to incur the expenses from deportation depotation depot. And further, this grant hasn't even paid out a quarter of its, if it's money to the state. Yeah. And in fact, the FDEM approached state lawmakers a few months ago to request more money to pay off some of the vendors because their emergency coffers were nearly empty. Right. So at that point, almost 600 invoices remained unpaid for work on these days. detention centers statewide. Now all indications show the federal government will follow through and pay the remainder of this 600 million, right, or 608, but it won't be a clean wash. Ultimately, there will be Florida taxpayer money going toward these detention centers. So FEMA officials told the GAO, the state can ask for more money for its operation costs and allowable activities

incurred from June 1st of last year through July 31st of next year. But it's unclear whether the state will be able to get additional money on top of that current grant for detention operations or if it'll all come out of that, that's 608. And we also learned some new things about the timeline and construction of the very idea of Allegor Alcatraz. Namely, it was in the works for longer than we previously thought, right? Can you tell us about that? Yes, we did. So the Department of Homeland Security is, you know, reimbursing Florida through that grant.

That we already knew. They approved that money September last year. And it's important to note that alligator Alcatraz was the only eligible recipient of that grant. But what we didn't know was the GAO says ICE and FEMA began developing this grant in April of last year. And that's interesting because when the state put this detention center up last summer, you know, they said they moved quickly, eight days, in fact, to get everything in order to build it. So I spoke with Elise Bennett, one of the Center for Biological Diversity attorneys involved in the lawsuit that said the state and federal governments violated environmental

laws to build it. And she said that bit of information really stuck out to her as well, because if they did start planning this in April, that's months before we were originally told. So did she indicate how that could impact that lawsuit? I mean, they're still in the lawsuit, but she, it definitely kind of perked her ears and she said, you know, she'll be digging. Okay. So, you know, we've talked about this report and it like, like mostly it focuses on ICE's spending nationally. We've talked about the way Florida has spent, but are we able to kind of reverse engineer just, you know, was Florida being just as reckless as ICE was nationally was spent? here? What did we learn about Florida spending kind of methodology here? Well, I mean, I can't really speak to how, you know, Florida spent because I think in the

beginning, right, they assumed they were going to get reimbursed for it. I think this is kind of a catch up, right? They're trying to figure things out as they go. And it kind of ties back into what the report found is that there was really a lack of a plan on both sides to build this facility. And judging just really quickly here, judging based on the state's response to not only this report, but on your reporting earlier about the Department of Homeland Securities Office of the Inspector General report, it does not seem, and I know I asked you this a month ago, the state does not seem keen on learning any lessons from either of these oversight reports. No, based off of what the FDEM even said about the GAO report,

you know, that nobody takes it seriously. I mean, it sure doesn't seem that way. All right. Well, Megan Bowman is from our partner station WUSF in Tampa. Megan, thank you. Great reporting, as always. Thanks for having me. We want to hear from you, radio at the Florida Roundup.

For anything you've heard on today's show, you can reach us there. That's radio at the Florida Roundup.org. I'm Carlton Gillespie. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Carlton Gillespie. Florida just won a key court ruling on social media and kids. An appeals court ruled this week that the state can enforce its ban on social media accounts for children under 14 years old.

The decision says that though the law limits protected speech, it is constitutional because it targets children and, quote, addictive features. A judge blocked the law in 2024 following a lawsuit from tech industry. trade groups. With that injunction now overturned, the case returns to federal court in Tallahassee. Before all the legal wrangling, we spoke with Brevard County Republican representative, Tyler Siroy, who sponsored the bill in the House. This legislation is not about whether social media is good or bad, but what we are working to do is to protect our youth from platforms that we now understand are harmful. We're seeing soaring suicide rates, hospital admissions for self-harm are increasing.

And we understand, based on testimony that we received here in Tallahassee, that on our present course, it's going to be normal for American girls to suffer from depression. You know, so that is something that I find alarming. And it doesn't have to be that way. And all of the data that we have points to social media as being a main contributor. So what we want to do is make sure that our minors are. protected. And there's precedent for that in our law. When you look at things like alcohol and tobacco sales, casino gaming, getting a tattoo, you know, I'm not here to say that any of those

things are good or bad. But what we are saying is there are some things that are just not developmentally appropriate for children. That was the representative speaking on this program in February 24 during the annual legislative session. Who decides when to raise your electric bill? Many of those decisions come from the Florida Public Service Commission. The final installment of a three-part series from our partner station WUSF in Tampa reports on the commission and what it could mean for your energy costs. When Thaddeus Williams looks at his electric bill, he sometimes has a series of choices to make. Should the 75-year-old retiree from Tampa shut off his air conditioning to save a few dollars, turn off the lights to make ends meet? Everybody I talk to him, talk about, oh man.

My electric bill is higher than it was last month. And I know people who just wouldn't even pay the bill, and they live in the house with candles. When electricity bills like his start becoming unaffordable, the culprits can be numerous. Higher fuel prices, higher demand, extreme weather, aging grids, and, of course, profits. But who gets to decide whether your electric bill goes up? That decision comes down to five people, all appointed by the governor. They're the Florida Public Service Commission, and they oversee businesses that are essentially monopolies, says Susan Glickman with the Clio Institute, a non-profit clean energy advocacy group.

Florida is one of only four states where the law expressly prohibits you from buying energy from anyone other than your government-assigned monopoly utility. It's not like that everywhere. About 18 states have deregulated their electricity market. to allow customers to choose their provider. Legislators on both sides of the island, Florida, have tried to reform the PSC. They wanted to change the qualifications for who sits on the board, cap the profits utility companies make, and force utilities to justify rate increases. But those bills went nowhere. Some politicians, including gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds,

think our system works best compared to other states. We've seen what's happened in unregulated states. States where you have these price jumps 20, 30 percent on a whim because you do not have a regulated center like we have here in Florida using the Public Service Commission. Florida's four major investor-owned utilities has spent over $80 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. Donald's campaign for governor had received nearly $2 million from the four companies as of June. Last year, those utilities made more than $6 billion in profits. Florida Power and Light recorded a net profit margin of more than 27% two years ago.

The Energy and Policy Institute says it was the highest profit margin of any investor-owned utility in the country that year. FPL made a record profit of $5 billion last year. Shelby Green says the National Industry Standard is about 10%. Florida's top investor-owned utilities, Florida Power and Light, Duke and Energy, Florida, Tico, they make more than that. So what power do you, as a consumer, have to provide input on what you pay for electricity? You can attend the monthly public meetings, usually held in Tallahassee and plead your case.

Consumer groups have sued to challenge increases approved by the commission. Or you can elect a new governor who can appoint new members. Before 1979, voters elected commissioners in Florida. Now the governor selects them. William says that system isn't fair. we the people should have, some say so, into what we're paying and what we're doing. You know, they take that freedom away from them. Public service commissioners are elected by voters in 10 states.

Some say that would make them more susceptible to being influenced by utilities with large campaign contributions. Others, like Lickman, say elections are a way to hold them more accountable for rate hikes, like what happened in Georgia. The last election cycle, two Georgia Public Service Commissioners were defeated by consumer-minded challengers. And it was quite unusual, and I know that it got a lot of attention all over the country, because people are really fed up with these electric bills. Current PSC Commissioner Gary Clark wants to be appointed to another four-year term.

During a recent nominating committee meeting in Lakeland, he said the board has to weigh competing interests. Large customers have advocates, utilities have advocates, consumer groups have advocates, but ultimately the commission must weigh the evidence presented in the record, and they must make decision based on Florida law and the public interest. In Florida, there was one man appointed to represent the citizens and cases before the PSC. That's public counsel Walt Trierweiler. We are advocates, we're educators, we try to bring the balance perspective, I don't argue that the utilities aren't entitled to a rate increase.

Earlier this year, he formally opposed Duke's proposal to establish new electricity rates for data centers. He says it could lead to unnecessary power plants being built and hire bills for customers. Trierweiler and a staff of four attorneys are up against deep-pocketed corporations. He knows the odds are stacked against them. The resources array against us are incredible. It doesn't bother me, but I recognize that. And so we give it everything we have, win or lose, we do an honest assessment, learn what we can and then push on for the next one.

He believes people are getting fed up with the high cost of power, and power will swing back to them. I think that in the next three to five years, enough is going to be enough, and we will see dramatic changes. But I think it's going to be a tough road to hoe between, here and there. For people like Thaddeus Williams, being at the mercy of decisions made by the PSC means it's tough right now. Oh yeah, they ain't got to worry about their lights. You know, they got enough money to pay them. And here we are, we got a struggle. We got to borrow it,

bed. But they sit in the big office, you know, don't worry about unplugging nothing. Williams, in the meantime, worries about whether he'll have to keep unplugging his lights if his bills keep rising. I'm Steve Newborn in Tampa. And just this week, Governor Ronda Santis reappointed Public Service Commissioner Gary Clark and Gabriella Pasadomo Smith to new four-year terms. The next public service commission hearing is scheduled to take place next week. I'm Carlton Gillespie, and you're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida radio station. Two women have filed a federal civil lawsuit against former Republican Florida

Congressman Matt Gates. Gates, along with two others, is alleged to have participated in a sex trafficking scheme in which young women were given drugs and trafficked across state lines. One of the accusers said she saw Gates engaging in sex acts with a 17-year-old child. Gates resigned from Congress in 2024 to accept President Donald Trump's nomination for Attorney General. However, his confirmation was derailed by a bipartisan House Ethics Committee that was investigating these same claims. Gates said in a statement that, quote, much of the conduct alleged against me is false, and that, quote, the lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a congressional committee report that didn't allow me to confront my accusers. Now I will finally have that chance.

On last week's program, we talked about Amendment 3 and its potential impact on public libraries, along with funding for other local services like police, fire, and mosquito control. If Florida voters passed the measure in the midterm elections, the homestead exemption would be raised for all non-school property. taxes. Jay wrote us, The antis are not paying attention. Someone commented that it will amount to a tax shift. True. And I am all for it. If they raise other taxes, then everyone pays a share, not just homeowners. Susan wrote, I don't always like how my tax money is being spent, but I'm voting no on

Amendment 3. Part of the reason is I think funding for needed services will be decreased, and fees will be increased and local control will be further diminished. The constitutional amendment needs 60% of the voters to pass on November 3rd. We'll talk more about the language of the measure and what experts are saying next week. Join the conversation. Email us at radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Finally, this week on the Florida Roundup, it's official.

The Tampa Bay chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen was formally recognized. It's the fourth chapter to be added in Florida. The group is charged with preserving the legacy of America's first black military pilots. World War II veteran Daniel Keel was the guest of honor at the ceremony. The 104-year-old was drafted as a Tuskegee flight officer back when the U.S. military was segregated. He still remembers how he was treated on the airfield. I figured I made the best of a bad situation, so I did my best to make my sure to show people that if we're given the opportunity, We could do the job just as well as they could, if not even better.

Formal complaints by Kiel and other pilots helped make his airfield officers club among the first to integrate. Just as his service with the Tuskegee Airmen ultimately helped to segregate the U.S. military after the war. Keel was one of three black officers during the war to be triple-rated, as a navigator, bombardier, and a pilot. He's the only one still alive today. That's our program for today. The Florida Roundup is produced by W.

WLRN public media in Miami. The show is produced by Bridget O'Brien. Denise Royal is WLRN's senior producer of content streaming and news products. WLRN's director of live original programming is Katie Munoz, and the vice president of radio is Peter Maers. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith. Engineering help from Doug Peterson, Harvey Bressard, and Ernesto J. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at Aaron Leibos.com.

If you missed any of today's show, you can download it and pass programs on the NPR app. Thanks for calling in and listening.