FL Legislature 2021: FL’s business lobby and state’s trial lawyers clash: GOP wants to protect businesses from COVID lawsuits and possibly more

By Michael Moline – February 15, 2021

 Florida’s Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021. Credit: Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix

Barbara DeVane, lobbyist since 1972 for progressive causes in Tallahassee, offered some historical perspective last week to several senators considering whether to shield medical institutions, including hospitals and nursing homes, from liability from COVID lawsuits.

The Senate’s Judiciary Committee was debating a bill by its own chairman — Pinellas Republican Jeff Brandes — and voting down a series of Democratic amendments to weaken the bill.

To DeVane, representing Florida NOW and the Florida Alliance of Retired Americans, this was just another chapter in a decades-long campaign to restrict access to the courtroom.

“The tort reformers come and go, about every 20 years,” she testified.

“And here we go again. The only people that this bill will protect are the owners, the corporate owners, of nursing homes. They make a lot of money off of us who are residents in nursing homes, and they want to make more with bills like this.”

Brandes, though, pushing for protecting businesses, including the health care industry, from COVID lawsuits, reminded committee members of the confusion during the pandemic’s early days, when nobody understood how to guard against infection.

 FL Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg. Credit: Colin Hackley

“We are asking in this piece of legislation that we protect our health-care industry that has gone over and above the call of duty in order to protect and serve every resident of the state who needed help.”

That’s how the sides line up in a sharp debate over COVID liability protection and who will benefit most. Florida’s businesses, lawyers, and lobbyists? What about ordinary people who got infected on the job or in a health care facility?

House and Senate leaders, with backing from Gov. Ron DeSantis, are fast-tracking separate bills erecting barriers to lawsuits for people suing general businesses and medical providers for exposing them to the coronavirus.

Long struggle

It’s the latest battle in a decades-long war over tort reform between the cream of Florida’s business lobby and the state’s trial lawyers in the form of the Florida Justice Association — the latter allied with groups dedicated to looking out for the little guy, including DeVane’s groups and the AFL-CIO.

Torts are wrongful acts amenable to compensation through the civil trial system: People who’ve suffered harm — or plaintiffs — hire attorneys to press their claims in court, generally paying a share of whatever they recover through trials or settlements.

Tort reformers want to make it harder for them to do that by erecting barriers to the courthouse, they contend on the ground that the process is subject to abuse that can harm small businesses and enrich unscrupulous lawyers.

Business interests have been grinding away at tort reform for decades in areas including workers’ compensation insurance, personal injury protection (PIP) auto coverage, property insurance, and more. (Here’s a rundown by the Florida Justice Reform Institute, a tort reform group.)

Democratic state Sen. Tina Polsky, a mediation attorney who represents Palm Beach County and part of Broward, like DeVane, sees the push for COVID liability shields as one more whack at the tort system.

 State Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat representing part of Palm Beach County. Credit: Florida House of Representatives.

“I think it is part of the process of eventually getting to tort reform. It’s unique circumstances — if we didn’t have the COVID pandemic these particular bills wouldn’t be here,” Polsky told the Phoenix following the committee hearing.

But to House and Senate leaders, tort reform “is a priority, and they are looking for ways to get there. This is one of the vehicles,” she said.

The Florida Phoenix reported here about the details of the legislation targeting lawsuits against businesses, which also would apply to actions against individuals, charitable organizations, nonprofits, public or private educational institutions, government entities, and religious institutions.

The News Service of Florida provided a good explainer on the medical angle here. The bill would cover individual practitioners including doctors and nurses, plus hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical facilities. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities alone have seen 9,710 resident and 93 staff deaths, plus 231 deaths under investigation, according to the latest Florida Department of Health data.

The gist of the legislation is that businesses and health care providers can knock out lawsuits early if they followed the best available medical advice and government guidelines.

The House and Senate bills contain most of the asks sought by a Reset Liability Task Force organized by the most ardent tort reformers in Florida, including the justice reform institute, Associated Industries of Florida, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, the Florida Hospital Association, and the Florida Senior Living Association, plus insurance industry groups — 60 organizations in all.

The groups are in line to win one goal, the task force report says — “exempting essential businesses entirely from COVID-19 liability.”

“Blanket immunity” for “bad actors”

To critics, including Stephen Cain, a Miami trial attorney and an officer with the Florida Justice Association, the legislation would reward “bad actors” with “blanket immunity” by making it all but impossible to go to court, as he testified from an earlier legislative committee meeting.

Cain represents the family of Gerardo “Gerry” Gutierrez, who’s suing Publix on allegations that he caught COVID and died after the company refused to let workers wear face masks on the job, according his law firm.

“Floridians are being misled on purpose about the dangers this legislation represents for people working on the frontlines in our airports, retail stores, delivering packages, and so many other places,” said Mark Ferrulo, executive director of Progress Florida, in a written statement.

“This is another case of profits over people and bowing to special interests instead of serving the public interest. Legislators supporting this sham should be ashamed.”

It’s not clear how many lawsuits we’re taking about.

  William W. Large, president, Florida Justice Reform Institute. Credit. FJRI website.

William Large, president of the justice reform institute, has identified 49 COVID-related lawsuits filed in Florida and acknowledges he has missed some. Nine of them target operators of cruise ships, alleging failure to protect passengers or crew members against the coronavirus.

Eight are pending in federal court, and so would be outside the reach of the legislation. The ninth cruise claim is pending in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court.

Another nine cases raise claims against nursing homes in state trial courts, although three of these have been removed to U.S. district courts. Twenty-two accuse the Duval County Sheriff’s Department of exposing inmates to the virus. Other accuse employers and business owners of failure to take care against exposing workers and customers.

“There is a wave of litigation coming,” Large said during testimony before Brandes’ committee last week.

Robin Khanal, an Orlando lawyer who defends nursing homes and assisted living facilities in liability cases, testified that his firm alone is working on 60 claims against clients.

Meanwhile, the American Tort Reform Association issued a report identifying more than $6.6 million in attorney advertisements in Florida seeking COVID-related work. Additionally, the nonpartisan Florida TaxWatch has estimated COVID-related litigation could cost the state’s economy $27.6 billion and as much as 356 jobs per year.

Critics contend these fears are overblown.

“There aren’t a flood of lawsuits, particularly with the business liability,” Polsky told the Phoenix.

“Let’s be realistic: Lawyers take these cases on contingency. They’re not going to get paid if they lose the case. They’re going to have to put up a lot of money — especially in these medical-type cases. You need experts. That costs a lot of money.”

“Judicial hell hole”

Brandes takes a dimmer view of the trial bar.

“Florida is considered a judicial hell hole. The two things that we know when we look up in Florida is you’re going to see the sun and a trial lawyer’s face on a billboard,” he told the Phoenix in a telephone interview.

“What we’re trying to do is sift out the legitimate claims where people were truly grossly negligent, If they knowingly told people who had active COVID to come back to work, clearly that would be considered grossly negligent.”

These bills represent the vanguard of tort reform efforts in the Legislature this year. PIP reform is back, via SB 54, which would replace a liability system business considers rife with fraud with more straightforward bodily injury coverage. That bill also would make it harder for plaintiffs to claim bad faith by insurance companies if they delay payouts.

HB 561 and the companion SB 846 would make it harder for lawyers to send injured clients to hand-picked doctors who might run up medical costs to inflate payouts.

“Florida businesses and health care providers are very concerned about lawsuits. I think their voices have been heard by leaders of the House and Senate on those subjects,” Large said.

Notably, Republican attorney Anitere Flores has termed out of the Senate, which in recent years has been more skeptical than the House of tort reform. As chair of the Banking & Insurance Committee, she rode herd on the reformers for the past two years. Her replacement in that seat is fellow Republican Jim Boyd of Bradenton, who lists his employment as insurance and investments.

Polsky finds the situation worrisome.

“If they are successful with this [COVID liability limits], then — not that there’ll be another pandemic — but why not keep going? It’s what we have with a woman’s right to choose — a chipping away.”

https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2021/02/15/fl-legislature-2021-fls-business-lobby-and-states-trial-lawyers-clash-gop-wants-to-protect-businesses-from-covid-lawsuits-and-possibly-more/ 

 

FL Democrats confront a hard truth: ‘We need a whole new direction’

By Michael Moline – November 4, 2020

 Photo by CD Davidson-Hiers/Florida Phoenix

Florida Democrats on Wednesday were absorbing a stunning rebuke: President Donald Trump carried Florida with 51.24 percent of the vote to Biden’s 47.85 percent, a difference of nearly 400,000 votes out of 11 million cast, according to unofficial Florida Division of Elections data.

Trump claimed Florida’s 29 electoral votes. Moreover, his party added five seats to its majority in the Florida House of Representatives and may have expanded its 23-17 majority in the state Senate. Republican Ileana Garcia holds a 21-vote lead over Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez in Senate District 37 in Miami-Dade County, which will force a recount.

Meanwhile, South Florida Democrats Donna Shalala and Debby Murcarsel-Powell lost their seats in Congress.

How the Democrats stumbled so badly is still not known.

 Rep. Evan Jenne. Credit: Florida House

But State Rep. Evan Jenne of Broward County, policy chairman for the House Democratic caucus, had this to say:

“There needs to be a major, major deep dive and autopsy — whatever term you want to put on it,” Jenne said. “Not just on what the party did but how the party is structured and what that’s going to look like going forward. Because, quite clearly, what we’re doing now ain’t working.”

Democrat Javier Fernandez, who lost Senate District 39 to Republican Ana Maria Rodriguez, on Twitter lamented his party’s “total systemic failure.”

He blamed “party, caucuses, affiliated & independent groups. People have spoken & clearly said they don’t want what we are offering. Unforgivable part is that no one saw this coming. We got beat & bad. We need to own it so we can move on & rebuild.”

Democrats are likely deciphering some of things that went wrong.

Unreturned ballots

They beat Republicans in the early vote-by-mail and in-person turnout — 3.58 million to 3.46 million, with more than 1 million no-party-affiliation early votes (not counting votes for other parties).

But they left nearly 500,000 mail-in ballots unreturned to elections supervisors, compared to nearly 370,000 for the Republicans. Those unspent Democratic ballots could have made the difference for Biden.

Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Terrie Rizzo issued the following statement:

“I would like to thank all of our down ballot Democrats, our party leaders, our staff and our volunteers who gave their blood, sweat, and tears to help Democrats win. While we are confident In the ultimate victory of Joe Biden, I know our Florida losses sting deep, for our party, the candidates, and the 5 million Florida Democrats looking to build on the progress we have made. Together with our state and national partners, we need to do a deep dive to address data and turnout issues that caused these losses, and where our party goes from here.”

Florida House Victory, the state House caucus’ campaign arm, issued this statement:

“We’re obviously disappointed with the results in statehouse races, but they track what happened here in the state Senate, congressional, and the presidential races. It appears people voted Republican at the top of the ticket on down and some of our outstanding candidates lost as a result. Floridians are obviously very divided on the vision for the state and the country. We will continue to fight to enact policies that help everyday Floridians.”

Recriminations began almost immediately. House Democrat Anna Eskamani, who cruised to a second term in her Orlando-based District 45, was perhaps the first to speak out Tuesday evening.

“I’m saying it now. We need a whole new direction for the @FlaDems. We are losing too many incredible down-ballot elected officials and candidates right now and it’s not ok. I know we have the potential to be better and do better,” she said on Twitter.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani. Credit: Colin Hackley

Eskamani cited failure by many Democrats to campaign around Amendment 2, the minimum wage hike that looked likely to have cleared the 60 percent voter approval threshold. Republican leaders including DeSantis campaigned ardently against the proposal.

“Democratic Party is scared to stand with working people because then the corporations that fund @FlaDems and so many candidates will get mad and stop throwing crumbs at us while they throw a LOT more at Republican Party and caucuses. We lose, the people lose — corporations win,” she tweeted Wednesday.

Early votes, Cuba and Venezuela

William Large, president of the conservative Florida Justice Reform Institute, had called the outcome days before the election in an interview with the Phoenix, citing Democrats’ failure to return enough early votes to counteract what seemed like a strong Trump vote on election day.

To Large, many pre-election forecasts overlooked the saliency of Trump’s policy toward Cuba and Venezuela.

President Obama had moved toward rapproachement with Cuba but Trump reversed course, and he and other Republicans took a hard line toward Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“I think he solidified the entire Cuban-American vote behind the Republican banner,” Large said. Venezuelan-Americans, too, “have become loyal Republican voters.”

Additionally, voters in the Panhandle demonstrated “robust loyalty and support for Trump,” he said.

Biden won Miami-Dade with 617,201 votes against 532,409 for Trump. But the president had boosted his 2016 result by a reported 9 percent in a county where Hispanics comprise a quarter of the electorate. Biden’s win wasn’t big enough to offset the GOP vote elsewhere.

Still, the “Cuban voters” angle on Trump’s victory in Florida does not capture the whole picture, said Abel Iraola, press secretary for NextGen Florida, founded by former Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer.

“I think that what’s lost there is that the second- and third-generation Cuban Americans — those of us whose parents came here or grandparents came here — are much more likely to be Democrat and vote for Biden,” he said.

“The generational part — you have to look at it as people who have spent all their lives here and people who are coming and adopting this Republican identity,” Iraola said.

A study by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University suggests that had the election been put solely to voters between the ages of 18 and 29, Biden would have won Florida with 64 percent of the votes.

Democrats fell to a three-pronged attack, in Jenne’s view: “All Democrats are socialists and they want to defund the police and they took PPE money that should have gone to help everyday Floridians. Those were all things that resonated very deeply with people,” he said.

That last item involved the state party’s acceptance of COVID-related emergency aid that proved embarrassing when disclosed to the public. The party later returned at least $780,000, according to published reports.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ view

Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed reporters about the 2020 election returns on Nov. 4, 2020. Source: Screenshot

Gov. Ron DeSantis — easily the president’s biggest booster around here — called Trump’s victory “significant.” Even “historic.”

“I think his barnstorming — the extent to which this campaigning matters I don’t know. But I think in his case, doing these big events, the electricity it generated when we were in Miami-Dade right on the eve of the election, it was a really incredible thing to do,” the governor told reporters.

He referred to rallies Trump and his family members and Vice President Mike Pence staged in Florida, generally in defiance of social distancing and face-mask guidance, and often accompanied by the governor.

“You have to admit that Donald Trump is very popular in the state of Florida — or more popular than I think Democrats are willing to admit,” said Jenne, policy chairman for the House Democratic caucus.

To DeSantis, it also helped that Trump helped Florida with money for pressing needs including Everglades restoration, hurricane relief, and space infrastructure. “You name it, the president’s been there,” he said.

The governor said Florida’s conduct of the election should serve as an example to other states.

“Perhaps 2020 was the year that we finally vanquished the ghost of Bush v. Gore,” he said.

“If the third most populous state in the country can count 11 million votes, produce a result across the board, why can’t some of these other states that are much smaller?”

Patricia Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, agreed with Gov. DeSantis that the election ran smoothly.

Patricia Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. Credit: www.lwvfl.org

“Florida turned out a historic number of voters — and no matter what the outcome, we can be proud that so many Florida voters voted,” she said.

DeSantis was “really disappointed” in the way news broadcasters called races in various states. He said Florida could have been called by 8:30 p.m., once the early vote came in from Miami-Dade. “There was a real resistance to just recognize reality.”

DeSantis also savaged the polling industry, which he said “has not got elections right since 2012” and “just couldn’t have missed this one, I think, any worse if you look at some of the things that were circulating over these last many weeks and months.”

He declared: “If you’re that bad at your job, maybe some of these prognosticators should find another line of work. Because I can’t think of another line of work where you can be wrong so many times and then still be there to be able to offer analysis going forward.”

DeSantis took no questions but said: “I’ll be back to take questions probably some time before the weekend.”

Phoenix reporter Danielle J. Brown contributed to this story.

https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2020/11/04/fl-democrats-confront-a-hard-truth-we-need-a-whole-new-direction/ 

COVID primary: Some crowded races, dark money, and a push for women candidates

By Michael Moline -August 17, 2020

  Voters casting ballots. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

Floridians go to the polls on Tuesday in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic to cast votes in party primaries for state and local offices.

Scratch that: Florida doesn’t really have election day anymore — it’s more of a multi-week election episode. Early in-person voting began on Aug. 3, and local supervisors of election began sending vote-by-mail ballots to people who requested them on July 9.

Better to say that the vote count begins on Tuesday.

As of Friday, more than 2.3 million Floridians had cast ballots amid a surge of mail-in voting, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Meanwhile, President Trump’s appointees at the U.S. Postal Service have made service cuts that threaten the service’s ability to process mail-in ballots — not to mention pharmaceutical prescriptions and pay checks.

Voters will cast their ballots for candidates in contests ranging from members of Congress and state lawmakers in the House and Senate to circuit judges, school board members, and city and county commissioners, among other positions.

 Florida Capitol. Credit: Colin Hackley.

To gain an idea of the electoral picture in the state, the Florida Phoenix reached out to political players on both sides of the spectrum. Those who replied saw no evidence the Democrats will shift control of either chamber in the Florida Legislature, even though the Democratic Party hopes to eat into GOP majorities.

Republicans maintain a 72-46 majority (with two vacancies) in the House and a 23-17 seat majority in the Senate.

The Florida Phoenix reached out to the state Democratic and Republican parties and heard back from Rosy Gonzalez Speers, who coordinates down-ballot races for the Democrats. In a written statement, she emphasized the importance of those contests.

“Over the last few months, COVID and the Black Lives Matter movement have made the importance of having strong and diverse leaders at the state and municipal levels abundantly clear. People across the state are seeing how local leaders directly impact their daily lives, from mask mandates, to police budgets, to whether their children are going back to school with safe conditions in a pandemic,” she said.

“Voters are experiencing the lack of Republican leadership in this state. We will continue to educate voters on down-ballot elections and look forward to sending Biden/Harris to the White House and newly elected Democrats to Tallahassee.”

The GOP did not reply, but on their Twitter feeds, the Republican Party of Florida and party chairman Joe Gruters were more focused on the presidential race. The party did urge supporters via its Facebook page on Aug. 11 to vote early, or by mail, or in person: “Let’s show the Democrats we’re fired up and ready to Keep Florida Red this November!”

COVID has thrown a curveball into elections

As for tipping the House or Senate, Rich Templin, legislative director in Tallahassee for the AFL-CIO, cautioned against focusing on party majorities at this stage.
“The emphasis should be on electing candidates who will do what’s right for the state of Florida, as far as working families. And there are plenty of Republicans in the Senate and the House who do that,” he said in a telephone interview.

The AFL-CIO represents 1.3 million union households and retirees in Florida and includes the American Postal Workers Union and the National Association of Letter Carriers, Templin said.

 Novel coronavirus SARS CoV2, which causes COVID-19. Credit: National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a curveball into traditional electioneering.

“It’s a very weird time. It’s hard to know how to reach voters effectively and do virtual stuff and Zoom town halls,” said Karen Woodall, a veteran lobbyist in Tallahassee for disadvantaged people.

“But because there are younger people running, they’re more familiar with those technologies. And I think they’re running on change, to make sure that everybody has a seat at the table — that the disenfranchised impoverished communities are represented,” Woodall said.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, where people are hesitant to knock on doors because of COVID-19. Hesitant to get in front of large groups,” said William Large, president of the conservative Florida Justice Reform Institute, which lobbies for tort reform. He worked in the Jeb Bush administration.

“Traditional stakeholders who meet individuals over the summer at large conferences, the conferences have been cancelled. Interviews for candidates are taking place via Zoom,” Large said.

“In some respects, I think it might be helpful, because people have time at home to study the candidates,” said Barbara Zdravecky, interim Florida director for Ruth’s List, which trains and supports progressive Democratic women candidates.

“That may help us this year with the opportunity to do more deep digging into who’s running and who best represents their interests.”

Congressional races

For those who keep up with the news, Congressional District 3, a north Florida district that includes Gainesville, is connected to a recent drama in Congress.

 U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho. Credit: U.S. House webpage.

The seat is now held by Republican Ted Yoho, who is retiring. He’s the lawmaker who called New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), a “f—–g bitch,” within earshot of a reporter while in Washington, D.C.

Whether Yoho’s comments will affect the District 3 election in Florida is unclear. But it’s a crowded race. The GOP primary has drawn 10 contenders and the Democratic primary, three.

“His district is very challenging, so I don’t know how many resources we’re going to invest in that race,” said Templin, of the AFL-CIO in Tallahassee.

There’s no primary in the race for Congressional District 16, in Southwest Florida, but Woodall will be watching that one, too. The challengers are incumbent Congressman Vern Buchanan, a businessman, and Democratic state House member Margaret Good, an attorney.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted Buchanan, as well as Ross Spano in nearby District 15, which includes parts of Hillsborough, Lake, and Polk counties.

Spano, by the way, is being challenged in the Republican primary by Lakeland City Commissioner Scott Franklin. TV reporter Alan Cohn, state House member and Navy veteran Adam Hattersley, and Jesse Philippe, a Marine veteran with a law degree, are competing in the Democratic primary, the Lakeland Ledger reported.

Panhandle Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz has endorsed Franklin against Spano, who has been under investigation for an allegedly illegal personal loan to his 2018 campaign, as Florida Politics has reported

Young progressives

Woodall is watching two young female community organizers running for House seats. Jasmen Rogers-Shaw is up against incumbent Anika Omphroy in the Democratic primary in House District 95 in western Broward and Angie Nixon is challenging incumbent Kimberly Daniels in House District 14 in Jacksonville. There’s a write-in candidate in that second race.

“They’re both excellent advocates for everything I care about, and they’re bright young women who are savvy about the legislative process,” Woodall said. Very much in the mold of Orlando Democrat Anna Eskamani, who also came from the nonprofit organizing world, she said.

Plus, both became infected with COVID, Woodall said. They “were trying to do their campaign stuff while dealing with that at the same time,” she said.

 Karen Woodall, speaking at a Capitol press conference. Photo via Twitter

To the degree that COVID has opened people’s eyes to inequities in health care and other areas of society, these candidates backgrounds could prove an asset, she continued.

Woodall also is watching the race to succeed Democrat Loranne Ausley in House District 9, which includes Tallahassee. (Ausley is unopposed in the primary for the state Senate.) Allison Tant, an advocate of independent living for disabled people and former chair of the Florida Democratic Party, is running in the primary against Arnitta Jane Grice-Walker, an elementary school teacher making her second bid for the seat.

Jim Kallinger, a former House member who serves as president of the Florida Faith and Freedom Coalition, is unopposed for the GOP nomination.

And Woodall’s watching the Senate District 29 primary between Florida House member Tina Polsky and former House member Irv Slosberg. Sen. Kevin Rader, who declined to seek re-election, is backing Polsky. The district includes portions of Palm Beach and Broward counties. Brian Norton is unopposed for the Republican nomination.

The AFL-CIO is backing Polsky, Templin said, although he considers Slosberg a “fine, fine man.”

‘Critically important’ primary races for conservatives

Large, the tort reformer, has identified three races “that are really critically important to the direction of the Florida Senate.

They include Senate District 9, the Seminole and Volusia county seat vacated by term-limited Republican David Simmons.

“Seminole County has traditionally been a very red area of the state that now is being turned purple. That’s going to be a competitive race,” Large said.

Former House member Jason Brodeur is running unopposed for the GOP nomination. Five Democrats are on the primary ballot: employment lawyer Patricia Sigman, engineer Rick Ashby, attorney Alexis Carter, and two activists, Alexander Duncan and Guerdy Remy.

 William W. Large, president, Florida Justice Reform Institute. Credit. FJRI website.

“We believe it’s important that a pro-business individual like Jason Brodeur be elected to the Florida Senate,” Large said.

Large is looking, too, at Senate District 27, where GOP House members Ray Rodrigues and Heather Fitzenhagen are contesting that primary. Rodrigues has drawn an endorsement from Gaetz, as Florida Politics has reported.

Fitzenhagen, by the way is a trial lawyer — a bête noire for a group like Large’s.

“It’s going to be competitive. The trial lawyers are supporting Heather Fitzenhagen; the business community is supporting Ray Rodrigues,” Large said.

Additionally, the Senate District 39 race “will be important in the general,” Large said. That’s the race to replace Anitere Flores, a Republican who will term out of the seat, which covers Monroe and a portion of Miami-Dade counties. Tort reformers didn’t always find her a reliable vote.

The Democratic primary pits state House member Javier Fernández against Daniel Horton-Diaz, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

Democratic pickups in these races “could change the direction of the entire state Senate,” Large said. “There are important House races, but I don’t know that the House is going to change if one or two people lose.”

Dark money

The AFL-CIO is closely watching dark money spending in some races — that’s financing channeled through political committees to obscure its origins.

One of them is Senate District 33 in Broward County, where Democrat Perry Thurston faces three Democrats in Tuesday’s primary. According to a News Service of Florida report, political committees linked to Republicans have been sending mailers describing Thurston as a closet Republican.

Another dark money campaign is happening in Senate District 9, the Seminole and Volusia county seat, Templin said. A group called Floridians for Equality and Justice issued mailers calling Patricia Sigman a “do-nothing mouthpiece” and praising Rick Ashby, the Tampa Bay Times has reported.

“In some of those instances we’ve increased our activities, whether it be direct mail to our members and their families, virtual phone banks, or other activities,” Templin said.

 State Rep. Al Jacquet, Democrat representing part of Palm Beach County. Credit: Florida House of Representatives.

And he’s watching House District 88, in Palm Beach, where Democratic incumbent Al Jacquet has drawn four Democrats as his challengers: public housing official Omari Hardy, radio host Bob Louis Jeune, attorney Sienna Osta, and former Riviera Beach councilman Cedrick Thomas.

Jacquet, running for his third term, drew criticism from several Democratic House colleagues after directing anti-gay slurs against Hardy, who has said he is not gay but was raised by two mothers, according to this Florida Politics report

“We’re really pushing for Omari Hardy. We think that’s much better for representation of that district,” Templin said.

Ruth’s List

Zdravecky, of Ruth’s List, said the organization supports 64 candidates for state and local office but no congressional seats.

The organization is behind Jasmen Rogers-Shaw in the House District 95 race in Broward.

Michele Rayner, running in House District 70 in Tampa Bay, and Rogers-Shaw “would be the first black queer women that would be elected to the Florida House. That would be a very big victory for equality and racial justice,” Zdravecky said.

Ruth’s List also supports Patricia Sigman in Senate District 9 and Tina Polsky in Senate District 29. Zdravecky, too, decried the influx of dark money against Sigman, saying the other side “really sees her as a threat.”

“We can certainly mobilize our donors and do a lot of social media about what’s happening,” she said.

In the state House, the organization hopes to flip House District 105, the South Florida seat Ana Maria Rodriguez is leaving to run for the Senate. Ruth’s List’s candidate is attorney Maureen Porras, competing with leasing agent Javier Estevez for the Democratic nomination. Mental health counselor Pedro Barrios, Sweetwater City Commissioner David Borrero and attorney Bibiana Potestad are in the Republican primary.

Ruth’s List also includes candidates seeking election or reelection to the Senate without primary challengers — Zdravecky mentioned Ausley in Tallahassee, Linda Stewart in Orange County, and Lori Berman in Palm Beach County.

https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2020/08/17/covid-primary-some-crowded-races-and-dark-money-and-a-push-for-wins-for-women-candidates/

The changing judiciary: Gov. DeSantis appoints the people who’ll help him shape Florida’s courts

July 2, 2019

 Florida Supreme Court

Gov. Ron DeSantis has named 66 people to sit on the panels that nominate candidates for judgeships at every level, continuing the process of remaking the state’s judiciary.

From civil litigation to criminal trials and lofty arguments about privacy rights and the death penalty, these panels will help select judges who will decide what the law says in ways that will reshape how Floridians live and work.

Already since taking office, DeSantis has moved the nine-member Florida Supreme Court court decisively to the right through appointment of three conservatives following the retirement of justices who helped comprise the court’s liberal wing.

The 66 people DeSantis appointed Monday evening will help fill any future vacancies on the high court, plus the five intermediate appellate courts that decide a large number of important cases each year, and every trial court in the state.

The new commissioners will nominate justices and judges who are more deferential to the Legislature, predicted William Large, president of the conservative Florida Justice Reform Institute, depending on the case at hand.

“The type of judges or justices who will come out of this process would understand that their role is not that of the policymaking branch of government. The policymaking branch of government is the legislative branch,” Large said.

In other words, the process will produce “texturalists” – “judges and justices who will say what the law is and not what it should be,” he said.

The appointees include Jeanne Tate and Daniel Nordby to seats on the Florida Supreme Court Nominating Commission. Tate is managing partner of Jeanne T. Tate P.A. in Tampa and specializes in adoption law. Nordby is a partner in the Tallahassee office of Schutts & Bowen LLP and specializes in constitutional, administrative, and elections litigation.

DeSantis’ new Supreme Court justices are Carlos Genaro Muñiz, a former aide to former Gov. Jeb Bush and state Attorney General Pam Bondi. He  more recently served as general counsel to U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos; Barbara Lagoa and Robert Luck, both former federal prosecutors who served on the 3rd District Court of Appeal.

DeSantis, a Harvard-trained lawyer, has said that he looks for jurists who respect what he considers the proper role of judges – not liberal activists like the old Supreme Court majority, whose rulings occasionally frustrated the Republican legislative agenda by striking down state laws. Issues now pending before the Supreme Court include interpretation of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, the death penalty, plus the access to abortion and other privacy rights.

“He understands the proper role of the court,” DeSantis said of Muniz, for example, when announcing his appointment. “I think that is a very useful perspective to be able to bring to the court, particularly because one of the criticisms I’ve had with the court is that they have not understood their proper jurisdiction and they have expanded beyond where they should.”

Each commission contains nine members, four of whom are nominated to the governor by the Florida Bar. The other five the governor directly appoints. The members must live within the jurisdiction they serve. Governors convene these panels when a vacancy occurs through resignation, retirement, death, or elevation of a sitting judge. They then screen applicants and by majority vote submit at least three or at most six nominees to the governor.

DeSantis’ office forced the resignation of the chairman of the JNC for the 18th Judicial Circuit, the trial court for Brevard and Seminole counties, after ordering that panel to recommend a specific candidate for a trial court vacancy, Politico Florida first reported on June 21. That chairman, Brevard attorney Alan Landman, said the governor’s aides ordered him to place Seminole County General Magistrate Tesha Ballou on the short list for the vacancy, the publication reported. DeSantis placed her on the Circuit Court in early June.

Jason Unger, who sits on the Supreme Court JNC, told the Florida Phoenix the governor’s office did nothing wrong.

“I’ve gotten those calls from governors’ staff before when there are specific names that a governor wanted. I don’t know if that’s what happened here, but certainly there’s nothing improper or unusual about that at all,” Unger said.

“Any governor, they travel the state, they have lawyers they know, lawyers they respect. Same with judges. If the governor has a name, or his staff knows of someone who’s applied that they think is a really talented lawyer who’d be an exceptional judge, they have every right to suggest. They don’t have the ability to require anything, but certainly they have the right and I’d say even the duty to let the JNC know there’s someone on the list that they think very highly of,” he said.

https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2019/07/02/the-changing-judiciary-gov-desantis-appoints-the-people-wholl-help-him-shape-floridas-courts/?utm_source=Florida+Phoenix&utm_campaign=a086b40aba-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_02_09_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_492fc70e72-a086b40aba-87732589