Poised for COVID session; election comes into focus with new voting laws, and the governor finds more vaccine VIPs

It’s Monday, Feb. 22 and it’s almost showtime for the Florida Legislature. After a year of sitting on the sidelines as a global pandemic blew holes through every small-government safety net they had knit, Florida legislators prepare to return for their 60-day legislative session starting March 2.

Lawmakers are back in their districts this week but, during the committee weeks of the past month, they us gave us a window into their priorities for the session that will be historically hamstrung by COVID-19.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

Liability shields: House Speaker Chris Sprowls said last week the first bill to hit the floor of the House will give businesses and health care companies immunity from COVID-19 liability. In their zeal to push the measure through, Republicans are also poised to include abortion clinics in that liability protection.

CareerSource Qs: The House is also engaged in some needed oversight into programs run by private contractors with taxpayer funds. Last week a House committee had some good questions for the executives who run CareerSource, the workforce development program. The answers were not as good.

Fix what’s not broken: The legislative priority list also includes some voting-related bills, all of which have the effect of reducing voter access. First up: mail-in ballots. After a record 4.8 million Floridians voted by mail in November, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican leaders have decided what wasn’t broken still needs fixing.

A Senate committee approved SB 90 along party lines to limit vote-by-mail ballot access by requiring everyone who signed up for mail ballots in 2020 to reapply to get them in 2022. The idea is opposed by both Democrats and Florida’s nonpartisan election supervisors, who last week warned lawmakers about tinkering with Florida’s election laws after the state conducted the first election in years that wasn’t marred by problems.

Unproven claims: At a news conference Friday that had all the appearances of a political rally, the governor also presented his case for limiting access to voting in 2022, when he will be on the ballot for re-election. DeSantis alluded to unproven claims of voter fraud and called for crack downs on drop boxes, mail-in balloting and “ballot harvesting” but made no mention of the fact this was a year with record voter turnout, especially among minorities.

Maskless messaging: More noteworthy than the campaign feel of the DeSantis event was the fact that most of the crowd didn’t wear masks. Palm Beach County noticed too, and issued a warning to the Hilton Palm Beach Airport for allowing the crowd to violate the county’s mask ordinance, a charge that carries a fine of up to $15,000. According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “DeSantis himself showed up without a mask and remained that way.” The governor’s spokesperson was defiant, noting that the governor’s ban on enforcing mask ordinances “remains in place.”

New tone: A month after saying President Joe Biden’s distribution plan to use FEMA to build COVID-19 vaccine clinics was a “big mistake”, DeSantis changed his tone last week and opened the door to four federal “mass vaccination” sites in Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville and Miami.

Geller appeals: After Jackson Health announced it was ready to expand vaccines to people ages 55 and up with certain medical conditions, Broward Mayor Steve Geller on Friday sent a letter to DeSantis asking to expand the COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to first responders, teachers and people 55 and older.

Vaccination VIPs: Allegations that DeSantis uses his office to steer vaccines to politically preferred communities continue to surface. Last week, Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh hosted a news conference with DeSantis and secured COVID-19 vaccines for herself and friends, creating a VIP list of former neighbors, the developer of the master-planned Lakewood Ranch community; the developer’s father and herself. After both she and DeSantis drew heat, Baugh apologized for creating the list for the two wealthiest zip codes in the mostly-white communities. But, she said she was doing what the governor wanted. The governor suggested the state give the vaccines to another county if Manatee County wasn’t grateful for them.

Fried fires: The incident became a made-for-TV moment for Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who hasn’t officially announced a campaign for governor but is acting more like it all the time. Fried snagged an appearance on CNN to blast DeSantis and also last week released a heavily-produced video blasting DeSantis’ handling of the COVID-19.

So who will challenge DeSantis? The list of hopefuls keeps growing. The Miami-Dade Democratic Party are asking its members to rank 10 of them. They are: former Congresswoman Gwen Graham, state Sens. Lauren Book, Annette Taddeo and Jason Pizzo, state Rep. Anna Eskamani, Congresswoman Val Demings, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, Congressmen Charlie Crist and Al Lawson, and Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber.

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

Ivanka stands down: Sen. Marco Rubio’s office said Thursday that Ivanka Trump, daughter of former President Donald Trump, has no plans to run against Rubio in the 2022 election. This isn’t the much of a surprise as Rubio had been someone who had worked closely with Ivanka as she pursued much of her White House agenda.

Trump resurfaces: Next Sunday, former Pres. Donald Trump will emerge for his first public speech since the insurrection attempt and address an audience of some of his strongest supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando. He is reportedly going to speak about the future of the Republican Party and conservatism. But, after Congressman Steve Scalise refused to admit Sunday that Biden had legitimately won the 2020 presidential election, will the former president attempt to reframe the events of Jan. 6 to convince his supporters to continue to fight to overturn the election? If GOP leaders don’t counter the lie, how does it stop?

Cuba re-engagement: Members of Congress, mayors, and Cuban exile and opposition organizations in Cuba asked President Joe Biden to condition a new opening towards the island to improvements in human rights. Biden has vowed to reverse Trump’s sanctions, starting with lifting restrictions on remittances and travel, but he has not indicated whether he will foster a new thaw in relations.

Cuban-American Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who has been one of the most vocal critics of the thaw in relations that happened under former President Barack Obama, wants any normalization of relations to be preceded by progress.

It’s the same advice given to the Biden administration from the influential Cuba Study Group, which encourages re-engagement with conditions as well as a better rapport with the Cuban diaspora about the formation of policies.

Jared ‘takes a pause’: Jared Moskowitz, the former Broward state legislator named chief of emergency operations by DeSantis, announced he was stepping down at the end of April, as expected. As the only high-profile Democrat in the conservative Republican’s administration, Moskowitz held a precarious and powerful post. He took the heat for the logistics failures and successes over PPE, testing and vaccine distribution. He also was in the potent position of being able to steer billions of federal emergency dollars to private contractors. With connections like that, Moskowitz made it clear he’s not leaving public office for good, just “taking a pause.”

Flags for Rush: In September, Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered the flags at public buildings to be flown at half-staff to honor deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In January, he did the same for the police victims of the Capitol riot. On Friday, DeSantis said flags would come down once again in honor of Rush Limbaugh, the divisive radio personality who died earlier this week. That’s not sitting well for some Democrats.

Deadly horsetrack: More than 100 horses have died in the past two years at Gulfstream Park, making it one of the deadliest racetracks in Florida, according to a new analysis. Fifty-eight horses died there in 2019 and the death toll in 2020 was 55. Gulfstream’s parent company, Stronach Group, explains that the track is the busiest in Florida, and the high number of horses leads to more deaths.

Another Jan. 6 arrest: Former North Miami Beach police officer Nicholes Lentz, 41, has been arrested for entering the U.S. Capitol building during the Jan. 6 insurrection and charged with entering a restricted building and disruptive and disorderly conduct on restricted grounds, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Sunday.

Springs watch: This week, a small group of opponents will ask the Suwannee River Water Management District in Live Oak not to allow Nestle Waters North America to pump and bottle about a million gallons a day from Ginnie Springs, a popular diving and swimming spot in North Florida. The struggle of the springs is examined in a new documentary, The Fellowship of the Springs — a two-hour, two-part series scheduled to air in April on WPBT2 and other PBS affiliates around Florida.

Stay well and we’d love to hear from you. Miami Herald Capitol Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas curated this newsletter. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please drop me a note at meklas@miamiherald.com.

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