Winner and Loser of the Week in Florida politics — Week of 10.13.24

Democrats got some national help this week, when the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) announced the group would put resources to seven legislative battleground seats in Florida as part of a nationwide investment effort targeting 180 seats across the U.S.

The DLCC infrastructure aims to help these candidates raise more money through the DLCC’s site. The move comes with Election Day less than two weeks away, and with early voting set to start in several Florida counties on Monday.

Senate District 3 candidate Daryl Parks is the only Democrat running for Senate to benefit from the DLCC resources. The group is also supporting incumbent state Rep. Tom Keen in House District 35, as well as House candidates Sarah Henry in House District 38, Leonard Spencer in House District 45, María Revelles in House District 47, Jay Shooster in House District 91 and Joe Saunders in House District 108.

That’s not the only national help coming into Florida. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also released a joint ad this week with U.S. Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell targeting incumbent U.S. Sen. Rick Scott.

How much will all of this matter? Well, national and swing state polls seem to be moving away from Democrats in the last week or two. Make no mistake, this was and still is going to be a toss-up Presidential Election. But Florida was always a tough slog for Democrats statewide, and a poorer polling environment isn’t going to reinforce their confidence here.

But at the state legislative level, some of this support may matter. Republicans won several seats they probably shouldn’t have in 2022 thanks to their most dominant performance in Florida in modern history. Several of those seats, including many listed above, could be in play this year with a slight reversion to the political mean.

So it matters that national Democrats are stepping in here, even though Florida is not the presidential swing state it once was. Though if Democrats overperform this cycle, maybe they’ll have a better argument to make on that front in 2028.

We’ll know in just 16 days.

Now, it’s onto our weekly game of winners and losers.

Winners

Honorable mention: Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jaguars are officially staying put in Jacksonville after the NFL approved a 30-year stadium deal that the City Council had previously OK’d.

The approval by the NFL came via a unanimous 32-0 vote among the owners.

Jaguars owner Shad Khan praised the move, saying it shows a long-term commitment to the city.

“Today’s vote at the league’s meeting was a vote for Jacksonville,” Khan said. “The NFL believes in Jacksonville. I believe in Jacksonville, and I know our fans and the people throughout the community believe in Jacksonville. So now we’re about to make magic happen in Jacksonville.”

The total stadium cost is around $1.4 billion, with the city approving a $775 million package and Khan spending $625 million.

So it looks like Jacksonville residents will be able to show up and cheer on their home team for decades to come. Next step: putting a team on the field that makes people want to show up in the first place.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: John Wilson. Former Department of Health (DOH) General Counsel John Wilson sparked a firestorm earlier this month when he sent a cease and desist letter to local TV stations threatening criminal charges for airing an ad supporting Florida’s upcoming abortion rights initiative.

The pro-abortion rights ad promoting Amendment 4 was “false” and “dangerous,” Wilson’s letter said, and should be removed from the air immediately. That letter caused at least one station to pull the ad, leading to a lawsuit and a later order from a Judge barring the state from seeking any criminal charges here, thus allowing stations to continue playing the ad.

It also, notably, led to Wilson’s resignation. And now, he’s explaining why.

“A man is nothing without his conscience,” Wilson wrote in his resignation letter, per the Miami Herald. “It has become clear in recent days that I cannot join you on the road that lies before the agency.”

That sure sounds like Wilson was pressured to put his name on that blustering missive. Good on him for making clear his objections to DOH’s pressure campaign here, and hopefully he speaks out more.

Amendment 4 is an incredibly contentious initiative, and there are reasonable arguments on either side of the issue. But what is clear is that the Gov. Ron DeSantis administration is trying to use government influence to put a thumb on the scale in this election. It’s unseemly, and outright hypocritical for the leader of a party that has so vocally opposed purported meddling in past elections.

And because the underlying issue of abortion is so contentious, many Floridians won’t decide their vote on behind-the-scenes shenanigans like this, or like creating a state website to campaign against the amendment, or using taxpayer dollars to run anti-Amendment 4 ads.

Instead, Floridians will vote their conscience about the issue at hand. And that’s understandable. But it also allows the DeSantis administration to push to the limit, and beyond, of what is acceptable government action here knowing there are little to no political repercussions.

Maybe Wilson speaking out will help change that.

The biggest winner: Lineman and power companies. We know they are tired. We know many of them are working despite also being impacted by back-to-back strikes by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. But nevertheless, the workers at Duke Energy, Florida Power & Light Company, TECO and others went above and beyond yet again to help Floridians get their power back after a storm.

It was more difficult this time around. Milton landed less than two weeks after Helene. Helene carved through the south, impacting North Carolina especially, and workers from across the country were still trying to help that area recover when Milton made landfall in Florida.

That made it tougher for companies to gather reinforcements from out-of-state to prepare for power regeneration.

But these companies got it done anyway, bringing in workers from more distant states and amassing their own workers to help Floridians get back online.

And for some, that effort was measured in days rather than hours given the logistical hurdles of the latest storm. But lineworkers were hard at work through last weekend trying to break through, and the result was most companies beating their estimates for power restoration.

We just hope this is the last time we have to rely on them this hurricane season. We’ve all had more than enough at this point.

Losers

Dishonorable mention: Miami City Commission. It always seems a bit sketchy when elected officials in positions of power vote to give raises to themselves. But despite the instinctual ick, there can at times be legitimate reasons for doing so. As just one example, having these positions provide little or no pay often means only those with existing wealth can afford to run for office.

But what Miami City Commissioners did this week was not that.

By a narrow 3-2 vote, the body voted to give juicy lifetime pensions to the city’s elected officials, including themselves and the Mayor. To be eligible, officials would need to serve at least seven years.

First off, providing a pension potentially years after service is not solving the above problem of opening these positions up to more people.

Second, the vote only succeeded by the slimmest of majorities. Again, there may be times that extra compensation is warranted. But those situations would likely warrant a unanimous vote, or close to it. That the largest minority possible voted against this measure shows it was egregious.

And finally, the Commissioners who supported this move deliberately rejected a plan to put the question to voters. At least in that scenario, they would allow the taxpayers whose money they are siphoning to pay for this to actually weigh in on the plan. Of course, there’s a good chance they would reject such a ploy, so Commissioners Joe Carollo, Miguel Angel Gabela and Christine King just went ahead and voted to grant themselves this package.

Even future House Speaker Daniel Perez, who calls South Florida home, objected to the move publicly.

“It’s unacceptable that Miami city commissioners are lining their own pockets at the expense of hardworking residents,” Perez said. “This decision prioritizes personal gain over our community’s needs. The commission must ensure tax dollars serve Miami’s people, not lavish retirement packages.”

Our thoughts exactly.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Carolina Amesty. Amesty is entering the Zieglers’ territory in that we keep thinking this story has run its course, then there’s another revelation that just makes us shake our heads.

The latest, again from the dauntless team at the Orlando Sentinel, is that the man at the center of a criminal probe into Amesty says she approached him and asked him to change his story.

You’ll recall that Amesty was charged in August after reporting focused on Amesty notarizing a document signed by educator Robert Shaffer, which Shaffer says he never signed. Amesty purportedly did so as a way to promote the staff at Central Christian University, which was founded by her father.

Now, Shaffer and his roommate say Amesty visited his home asking him to recant the allegations, according to the Sentinel.

“When the man, a former employee of her family’s K-12 school, refused, Amesty continued to insist that he acknowledge the authenticity of his signature on an employment document she had notarized. He declined multiple times. Finally the roommate intervened, she said, imploring Amesty to stop,” the paper added.

Witness tampering, if proven, could add even more to Amesty’s legal troubles.

We already called for Amesty to drop her re-election bid in House District 45 when news of those charges first broke. If this latest story is true, it’s all the more reason to reinforce that call. Though with just over two weeks until Election Day, it looks like it will ultimately be up to voters to decide whether Amesty’s behavior is becoming of one of Florida’s legislators.

The biggest loser: Donna Deegan. Deegan stepped in it big time this week when, during an overseas trip to London, she argued former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies would lead to a “concentration camp-type situation” should he win the White House again.

That included widespread pushback, including from our own publisher Peter Schorsch, over Deegan using language that, for most, will reflexively invoke the Holocaust in Germany.

Some are defending Deegan, arguing Trump really is that dangerous and accusations that Deegan was antisemitic for using the phrase “concentration camp.” And they have some legitimate points. But Deegan nevertheless was careless here, as evidenced by her own partial apology she released on Friday.

Let’s get a few qualifications out of the way. First, after Deegan framed Trump as seeking to put “people in what would really amount to a concentration camp-type situation to round them out of the country,” she received immediate pushback from the host (perhaps an immediate sign the comments may have gone too far).

And to be fair to Deegan, she attempted to clarify. “What would we call them? If you’re rounding people up and putting them in camps?” Deegan responded. “What would we call those? It’s a concentration of people that are in a camp. I’m not suggesting anything beyond that, but I just think it seems rather inhumane to me” (emphasis ours).

So after a nudge, she admitted she was not suggesting anything — such as mass killings on a scale with the Holocaust — beyond rounding people up and putting them in a camp. Indeed, Trump himself has promised a mass deportation plan that logistically raises plenty of questions he has refused to answer.

So we’re not mindlessly piling on here. But even with all of that, Deegan still royally screwed up here.

Why? For two reasons. The first, and this should not be overlooked, is that she was in London as part of a taxpayer-funded trip to promote trade. She wasn’t there on her own dime, and she wasn’t there for political reasons. So right off the bat, she is in a position where she should be exercising more caution when wading into domestic politics.

Secondly, if you want to argue Trump’s immigration policies could raise serious human rights issues — and they most definitely could, especially since he refuses to explain to the public how he plans to deport 10 million-plus people — then just say that!

The second you start evoking language most attached to the Holocaust, you start crossing the line into an extreme moment of pain for so many people. There are dozens of other phrases she could have used other than “concentration camp.”

Now, did Republicans pounce on this in an attempt to go after a political rival when they’ve held their tongue at some of the horrific and at times antisemitic language from Trump? Yep, they did.

But could they have done that if Deegan didn’t make these careless remarks in the first place? Nope!

We are in a mudslinging time right now. That’s the nature of politics. That is, yet again, another sign you should be careful with your language, especially when dealing with an unequaled atrocity in human history like the Holocaust.

By the time she tried to qualify her remarks, it was too late. She opened the floodgates of criticism, and gave Republicans an easy way to go after her should she run for another term.