Winner and Loser of the Week in Florida politics — Week of 2.9.25

Friday was a day to celebrate the loved ones closest to us. But this week was also a painful one for many, as we lost multiple good servants around the state.

Democratic Sen. Geraldine Thompson died this week at age 76 after undergoing knee replacement surgery. Her sudden loss prompted tributes from both sides of the aisle, as the stalwart Democrat has held roles in the Legislature almost consistently for 20 years.

Just days before, we lost former Tallahassee City Manager Dan Kleman at 79. Kleman also served the city for 20 years, helping to revitalize downtown Tallahassee.

And this week, former Rep. Ralph Massullo announced he lost his wife, Patty, earlier this month.

“I’ve been through a lot of difficult things. Nothing like this. It’s certainly life changing and opens your eyes to the fact that we’re mortal,” Massullo said.

And of course, Florida, and South Florida in particular, have a complicated relationship with Valentine’s Day after the attack at Stoneman Douglas on Feb. 14, 2018.

The day is a difficult one for families of survivors, and the community once again held several events this year remembering those whose lives were taken that terrible day.

So we hope those who celebrated this week did so with the knowledge that these moments don’t last forever, and those you love should be cherished and know how much they mean to you. And for those for whom this week was one overshadowed by loss, we hope you still have loved ones around you to help you get through the pain until one day the memories of those you lost can also bring a smile to your face through the tears.

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

Winners

Honorable mention: Legislators in higher ed. Both former House Majority Leader Adam Hasner and former House Speaker Paul Renner landed significant roles in higher education this week.

For Hasner, he was unanimously picked to be the next President of Florida Atlantic University, pending approval from the State University System Board of Governors.

And speaking of that Board, Renner will be serving there come April 15 thanks to an appointment from Gov. Ron DeSantis. Renner, of course, made K-12 vouchers a top priority during his time as Speaker, and will now carry that passion to oversee higher education institutions.

And of course, these moves come less than a week after Florida International University tapped Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez to serve as the university’s Interim President.

It’s a great time for successful elected officials to find paths in Florida’s education system to continue their public service.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Debbie Mayfield. Mayfield landed on last week’s loser list as she dealt with the repercussions of being kicked off the Senate District 19 ballot. But here’s what we wrote then:

“Now, Mayfield is suing over this decision, which seems to fly in the face of how the constitution has been interpreted in the past. She may very well win in court, and in that case we’ll likely weigh in on this saga again.”

Well, she very much did win in court, and that puts her on this week’s winner’s list.

The Florida Supreme Court unanimously sided with Mayfield, and against the DeSantis administration, to place her back on the ballot. And the Justices did not hold back in their rebukes of Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd for his interpretation of the state’s term limit rules.

Byrd argued Mayfield was “constitutionally ineligible,” as Florida’s Constitution bars state lawmakers from serving in a position for more than eight consecutive years. But Mayfield complied with that restriction, running for the House this past November and departing her Senate seat. Only after her successor, Sen. Randy Fine, announced his intention to resign and run for Congress did Mayfield file to run in a Special Election this year.

The Supreme Court blasted Byrd’s decision to bar Mayfield from the ballot.

“This case has come to us because the Secretary has — without any plausible legal basis — taken action that threatens to disrupt the orderly and fair administration of the special election for Senate District 19,” Justice Charles Canady wrote in a concurring opinion.

Canady went on to point to the statute Byrd cited to explain his decision, with Canady noting that it “expressly prohibits the Secretary from determining ‘whether the contents of the qualifying papers are accurate.’”

“It is indeed remarkable that the Secretary must be instructed on this elementary legal principle,” Canady added.

Oof.

And we repeat: Mayfield was one of several state lawmakers who swapped her endorsement from DeSantis to Donald Trump during last cycle’s Presidential Primary. If this was the DeSantis administration’s idea of revenge, it just got blown up by a court loaded with his own appointees.

About that …

The biggest winner: Three branches of government. Turns out our state has checks and balances after all!

You would excuse those who started following Florida politics in the age of DeSantis to believe otherwise. We’ve mentioned multiple times DeSantis’ historic level of control over the Legislature. And the Florida Supreme Court has also frequently aligned with the Governor.

But it looks like things are finally changing.

In addition to the Court shutting down the attempt to keep Mayfield off the ballot, the Legislature has also stood up to the Governor on immigration and overrode one veto while exploring potential additional overrides.

This week, DeSantis came to a compromise on immigration with Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez, but the Governor didn’t get nearly the level of power as he proposed during his own call for a Special Session, which Albritton and Perez immediately shot down.

It’s not a radical idea to think that lawmakers may occasionally stand up to DeSantis, even though he and legislative leaders are all Republicans. That’s been the case in Florida for decades, yet the Legislature typically asserted its independence when needed.

So this is getting blown up into a giant intraparty struggle, but that’s only when compared to the baseline of the last few years. What we’re actually getting is a return to normalcy, and a healthier Process overall.

Losers

Dishonorable mention: Anna Paulina Luna. Luna landed a gig leading a task force to investigate secrets of governments past, such as UFOs, the origins of COVID, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy and John. F. Kennedy.

Good on her. It continues previous bipartisan work she did with Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz on UFOs. And while there may or may not be any uncovered, flashy secrets surrounding any of these events, more transparent government is better here. And Luna will be leading an effort that will certainly capture the public’s attention should it yield anything interesting — particularly regarding the killing of JFK.

So why is Luna on the losers list? Well, that’s because she embarrassingly flubbed the extent of her powers related to an investigation on the JFK assassination.

“Based on what we’re actually looking to do with the JFK investigation, I’m looking to actually bring in some of the attending physicians at the initial assassination and then also people that had been on the various commissions looking into — like the Warren Commission — looking into the initial assassination.”

The problem is that every member of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination that took place more than 60 years ago, is dead. So too are doctors who attended to Kennedy.

Luna is one of the youngest members of Congress, and that may have contributed to her flubbing her history this badly. She’s got plenty of time to recover and deliver a report that will drown out the current headlines dunking on her, but this was a sloppy start from the Congresswoman.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: DeSantis. As Mayfield won in court and Floridians one by once again having a government operating as the founders intended, so too there must have been a loser. And though he will never come close to even hinting at the possibility publicly, and even as he and other Republicans tried their best to tout this week as a win that made everyone stronger, DeSantis is nevertheless the loser in all of this.

The Mayfield case is easy. He and his team tried to flex the power of the state against someone who dared to publicly go against him. Team DeSantis lost unanimously in court.

The immigration bill is a different story, as it’s a compromise. Both sides gave something. But we agree with the indefatigable Jim DeFede, who ticked off point after point in a column this week where DeSantis caved after launching a malicious grassroots and online smear campaign against legislators who dared stand in his way.

DeSantis’ online trolls are vicious and are effective at shouting down opponents whose power largely relies on social media clout.

But that’s not where Albritton’s and Perez’s power lies. Trying to target them or any other lawmaker who dared to defy DeSantis isn’t going to be so easy as flooding the comments section on an X post.

The bottom line of this new bill is that DeSantis is not the immigration czar of Florida. He’s sharing power and he failed to get a lot of the policies he proposed in his own bill. That’s a loss for a guy not used to taking them, as we explained earlier.

DeSantis built himself up in his own mind when riding a wave of popularity during COVID and established himself as a presidential contender. And a lot of that was based in reality. He really was one of the most popular Governors in America.

Then he decided to tank it by mounting both a needless and an epically poorly strategized campaign against Trump. Did it completely destroy DeSantis’ political power? No, but it knocked him down enough rungs that state Republicans no longer fear him.

The Legislature sent him a message loud and clear that they are not his lapdogs. And if DeSantis keeps trying to abuse them anyway, they are going to bite back again. He would be wise to learn his lesson and treat lawmakers as equal, tout the inevitable conservative wins they’ll churn out, and try to figure out his next career move.

And if that’s backing a Casey DeSantis run for Governor against a Trump-endorsed alternative, well, we know what happened the last time the existing Florida GOP power structure ran a candidate for Governor against a Trump-backed opponent.

The biggest loser: Dreamers. As DeSantis and lawmakers finally landed on a bill to execute on Trump’s agenda — ramping up penalties for undocumented migrants who commit crimes and helping make it easier to find and deport those who do — Florida’s undocumented student population got caught in the crosshairs.

As an aside, it’s really easy for outlets to take a political position and frame heated issues one way or another to make the other side sound crazy. “They’re here ILLEGALLY. Get ’em out.” Or, “These poor students just trying to make it in America are effectively being denied an education, stomping out their hopes and dreams … “

The reality is there is a little of both of those truths in this whole debate, and the reality is more nuanced than partisans want it to be.

We don’t think the Legislature landed in a good spot here regarding Dreamers — i.e., students who have lived here most of their lives after being brought to the U.S. as children through no fault of their own. They were kids. They didn’t make a decision to come here and break the law, and they often are just living the only life they know here in America.

But let’s also be fair. If the feds and Florida want to deport everyone here illegally, they technically can. It is fair to debate whether it’s a good use of resources to track down a law-abiding, productive member of society who was brought over as a 2-year-old and has lived here for decades. We don’t think it is.

But if that’s how the government wants to spend time and money, then that’s a policy choice you can make when you control all levers of power.

The same is true for Florida. In 2014, the Legislature passed a law granting lower in-state tuition rates to those Dreamers. The thought being: These kids are law-abiding and are pursuing an education here. They’re likely to stay here, contribute to the economy and pay taxes. Why not entice them with those lower rates?

Before 2014, that wasn’t the case. We’ve already tried forcing these students to pay higher, out-of-state rates. Society didn’t collapse. It’s a fair policy argument to have.

Our problem is how the Legislature is implementing this. They’re not rolling this in or only applying it to incoming freshmen going forward. No, these higher rates are set to kick in this Summer. That means students who are one or two years away from a degree are now, with just a few months notice, going to pay several times what they are currently paying to finish their degree.

What is the precise policy reason to do that? Republicans during debate argued it’s unfair that these kids are potentially taking spots that could go to other students. Fair enough. But again, that’s a debate to have for future students. Those already attending Florida colleges and universities got in already. What’s done is done. What exactly is the need to screw over these students?

The answer: to appear tough to the base by kicking a vulnerable population when they’re down.

We’re not going to ride the bandwagon and act holier than thou about the overall policy debate here. It’s a valid disagreement. But to implement the changes like this is needlessly cruel.