Ryan Nicol
We lost two giants in education this week who made their mark in Tallahassee.
First, news broke that the legendary John Thrasher, a former Florida State University President, passed away following a battle with cancer.
The passing of Thrasher, a former House Speaker and Senator, led to tributes from around the state about what a force Thrasher was.
After his time in the Legislature, Thrasher went on to co-found The Southern Group, now the top lobbying firm in Florida.
And his appointment as President of FSU was, at the time, controversial for some. But there are few who would argue that Thrasher didn’t rise far above any concerns about his partisan affiliation. He stood out during his tenure leading one of the state’s top public universities, raising the school’s reputation, particularly when it came to research.
In other words, the doomsayers were dead wrong, and his service at FSU helped elevate what was already a monumental career in public service.
Hours later Friday, word came out that former Florida School Boards Association Executive Director Wayne Blanton passed away as well.
“He was an icon,” said Andrea Messina, the association’s current leader. Blanton served with the Association for 40 years before retiring in 2015.
Funeral arrangements for Blanton are not yet decided. For Thrasher, he’ll have a private burial in Orange Park, and a celebration of his life will take place on Aug. 19, fittingly, at FSU’s Ruby Diamond Concert Hall.
The rest of us, meanwhile, are left to reflect upon how we can elevate ourselves to leave such a legacy behind when it’s our time.
Now, it’s onto our weekly game of winners and losers.
Winners
Honorable mention: Autism support advocates. The first bill the Senate passed this Session is now a law after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure (SB 112) to increase resources to assist children with autism.
This was a priority bill for Senate President Ben Albritton, with Republican Sen. Gayle Harrell guiding the legislation forward through passage.
The language will provide state resources through the Early Steps program until children are 4 years old, up from the current age of 3. More grants will also be available to aid children with autism and charter schools that educate such students.
The University of Florida Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment will also serve as the center to coordinate services with state and local agencies.
“What we’re doing today is we’re sending a message to those parents,” Albritton said at the start of Session. “We hear you, and we see you and we’re running to your fight.”
With the Governor’s signature, they’ve now run through the finish line.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Santa Ono. Ono is in … for now.
On the bright side for Ono, the UF Board of Trustees agreed unanimously to select him as the university’s next President. That lack of dissent would seem to signal that he’s got smooth sailing ahead as he awaits a final sign-off from the State University System Board of Governors (BOG).
But it’s not so simple given Ono’s past comments as University of Michigan President. Several prominent Republican dissenters have hit Ono, labeling his previous ideology as “woke” and worrying about the effect he’ll have on Florida’s flagship university.
U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the current 2026 front-runner for Governor, called early on for UF to reconsider the choice. U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and Donald Trump Jr. have since joined that chorus opposing Ono.
So far, DeSantis has defended UF’s choice despite leading the anti-“woke” charge here in Florida. But that support appears lukewarm at this point, and with so many conservative leaders vocal about the selection, Ono will be watched like a hawk going forward.
He’s attempted to address the concerns, arguing that his vision for Florida’s higher education system aligns with the Governor’s.
Will that be enough to get him over the finish line? This week’s unanimous vote in front of the UF Board is surely a good sign, but this saga is not over yet. Stay tuned.
The biggest winner: Manny Diaz. If you want a university President appointment from this week with a little less drama, then look to the University of West Florida choosing Diaz, the state’s Education Commissioner, in an interim role.
After being floated in the days prior — or months prior, if you’re a Florida Politics follower — the UWF Board of Trustees OK’d Diaz’s appointment on an 8-2 vote.
This hearing itself earned a little more pushback than did Ono’s — see the two “no” votes, plus some criticism of Diaz’s appointment during public comment. But approval is approval, and the path forward for Diaz looks clear, given his relationship with the BOG given his role as Education Commissioner.
Diaz is yet another DeSantis ally to earn a prominent role leading a Florida university. And it allows DeSantis to get further control over a university that opposed several of his recent Board appointments, which the Senate also shot down.
For Diaz though, this is a huge win. Just like now-Florida International University President Jeanette Nuñez, this UWF appointment serves as a dream job for Diaz after his original political plan didn’t manifest.
Diaz lost the contest to be Senate President to Albritton. But now, though his current title has an “interim” next to it, he is the favorite to land a permanent post atop the university. The same happened to Nuñez, who earned the official gig after serving as interim President for a few weeks.
If that happens to Diaz, he’s set for the foreseeable future even as his ally in the Governor’s Office nears the end of his time leading the state.
Losers
Dishonorable mention: Glen Gilzean. Here we go again. Despite being out of office for months now, reports continue to come in scrutinizing Gilzean’s spending patterns during his short tenure leading the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office.
The latest, from our own Gabrielle Russon, show Gilzean issued a $45,000 grant to Susan Plasencia, CEO of the Orlando Regional Realtor Foundation. That foundation is the nonprofit arm of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association, which just so happened to be involved in helping arrange Gilzean’s swearing-in ceremony, which reportedly cost more than $16,000.
It’s not clear that any laws were broken, but it adds to the list of questionable expenditures from the Office while Gilzean was in charge. To that end, the $45,000 was returned once Gilzean left office when staff for the new Supervisor began to seek documents related to the grant and how it was being used.
The deadline to submit those documents was March 28. The Foundation returned the money on March 27.
Perhaps Gilzean’s best defense from criticism here was he was chosen to supervise elections, not a budget?
Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. The ethics probe into the South Florida Congresswoman is continuing, with the Office of Congressional Conduct voting this month to forward a report on the investigation to the House Ethics Committee.
That report is notably not any finding of wrongdoing. But it does detail that the Miramar Democrat “may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law.”
The document specifically looks into claims that Cherfilus-McCormick pushed for community funding for a for-profit organization and accepted contributions connected to official actions. Both could violate House rules, and the latter may run afoul of federal statutes.
The look into Cherfilus-McCormick has expanded over time. She has maintained throughout the process that she’s done nothing wrong, and that may well be the conclusion in the end.
But this investigation is showing no signs of stopping yet, with continued claims of potential wrongdoing by the Congresswoman. The further the House Ethics Committee goes down the road of investigating these allegations, the fewer off ramps there are along the way.
The biggest loser: Medical malpractice victims. The Governor this week followed through with his threat to veto a bill that could have delivered justice to individuals who lose loved ones to medical malpractice.
Florida’s ridiculous ban on unmarried individuals above a certain age from recovering for pain and suffering will stand despite its arbitrariness. And mind you, Florida is the only state with such a law.
Lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to repeal that restriction. But DeSantis argued doing so would cause an increase in medical malpractice insurance costs, in turn increasing health care costs for Floridians, and could prompt doctors to leave the state entirely.
Here’s the thing: As the bill sponsors pointed out, the existing provisions have been in place since the ’90s, and Florida’s market has not stood out as some bastion of affordability. So it’s not accomplishing its goal of keeping prices down.
What it is doing is adding to the grief and devastation for those unlucky enough to fall into this exempted category of our fellow residents who can’t fully secure compensation for a health care professional causing the death of a loved one.
Maybe there is a way of rationalizing a veto here, despite its emotional impact for those suffering. But our Governor and Surgeon General wildly missed the mark.
DeSantis used the term “jackpot justice” to describe simply seeking this compensation for the wrongful death of a loved one, even comparing it to “winning the lottery,” arguing the potential cost increases weren’t worth it.
Perhaps seeking to one-up his boss, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo this week said the veto was necessary because “there simply isn’t enough justice to go around.”
Governments are responsible for all people, and sometimes you have to make painful decisions for the greater good (though we’ve yet to be convinced the still-standing law is anything resembling “good”).
But with these victims watching here specifically, could DeSantis and Ladapo not use a little more grace here and avoid adding insult to injury?
