Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a measure that will overhaul the state’s alimony laws, after three vetoes of similar bills and a decade of emotional clashes over the issue.

The measure (SB 1416) includes doing away with what is known as permanent alimony. DeSantis’ approval came a year after he nixed a similar bill that sought to eliminate permanent alimony and set up a formula for alimony amounts based on the length of marriage.

The approval drew an outcry from members of the “First Wives Advocacy Group,” a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony and who assert that their lives will be upended without the payments.

“On behalf of the thousands of women who our group represents, we are very disappointed in the Governor’s decision to sign the alimony-reform bill. We believe by signing it, he has put older women in a situation which will cause financial devastation. The so-called party of ‘family values’ has just contributed to erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida,” Jan Killilea, a 63-year-old Boca Raton woman who founded the group a decade ago, told The News Service of Florida in a text message Friday.

The years-long effort to do away with permanent alimony has been a highly contentious issue. It elicited tearful testimony from members of the First Wives group. But it also spurred impassioned pleas from ex-spouses who said they had been forced to work long past the age they wanted to retire because they were on the hook for alimony payments.

Michael Buhler, chairman of Florida Family Fairness, a group that has pushed for doing away with permanent alimony, praised the approval of the bill.

“Florida Family Fairness is pleased that the Florida Legislature and Gov. DeSantis have passed a bill that ends permanent alimony and codifies in statute the right to retire for existing alimony payers,” Buhler said in a statement “Anything that adds clarity and ends permanent alimony is a win for Florida families.”

Along with DeSantis’ veto of the 2022 version, former Gov. Rick Scott twice vetoed similar bills. The issue spurred a near-fracas outside Scott’s office in 2016.

This year, however, the proposal received relatively little public pushback and got the blessing of Florida Family Fairness and The Florida Bar’s Family Law Section, which fiercely clashed over the issue in the past.

Along with eliminating permanent alimony, the measure will set up a process for ex-spouses who make alimony payments to seek modifications to alimony agreements when they want to retire.

It will allow judges to reduce or terminate alimony, support or maintenance payments after considering a number of factors, such as “the age and health” of the person who makes payments; the customary retirement age of that person’s occupation; “the economic impact” a reduction in alimony would have on the recipient of the payments; and the “motivation for retirement and likelihood of returning to work” for the person making the payments.

Supporters said it will codify into law a court decision in a 1992 divorce case that judges use as a guidepost when making decisions about retirement.

But, as with previous versions, opponents remained concerned that the bill would apply to existing permanent alimony agreements, which many ex-spouses accept in exchange for giving up other assets as part of divorce settlements.

“He (DeSantis) has just impoverished all the older women of Florida, and I know at least 3,000 women across the state of Florida are switching to Democrat and we will campaign against him, all the way, forever,” Camille Fiveash, a Milton Republican who receives permanent alimony, said in a phone interview Friday.

In vetoing the 2022 version, DeSantis pointed to concerns about the bill allowing ex-spouses to have existing alimony agreements amended. In a June 24, 2022, veto letter, he wrote that if the bill “were to become law and be given retroactive effect as the Legislature intends, it would unconstitutionally impair vested rights under certain pre-existing marital settlement agreements.”

But Senate bill sponsor Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, tried to assure lawmakers that the 2023 version would not unconstitutionally affect existing alimony settlements. This year’s proposal “went to what is currently case law,” Gruters told a Senate committee in April, pointing to the court ruling.

“So what you can do right now, under case law, we now codify all those laws and make that the rule of law. So we basically just solidify that. So from a retroactivity standpoint, no, because if anything could be modifiable before, it’s still modifiable. If it’s a non-modifiable agreement, you still can’t modify that agreement,” he said.

The bill, which will take effect Saturday, also will set a five-year limit on what is known as rehabilitative alimony. Under the plan, people married for less than three years will not be eligible for alimony payments, and those who have been married 20 years or longer will be eligible to receive payments for up to 75% of the term of the marriage.

The new law will also allow alimony payers to seek modifications if “a supportive relationship exists or has existed” involving their ex-spouses in the previous year. Critics argued the provision is vague and could apply to temporary roommates who help alimony recipients cover living expenses for short periods of time.

Fiveash, a 63-year-old with serious medical conditions, said she can’t afford another legal fight over alimony.

“My fears are that they can take you back to court, and I don’t have the money for an attorney. I literally live off a little bit I get for alimony. I work part-time, because I have all kinds of ailments. And now I’m going to be left without anything, absolutely anything,” she said.

Health insurance, Fiveash added, will “probably be the first thing to go” if her payments are reduced or eliminated.

“This is a death sentence for me,” she said.

Michael Kruse at Politico Magazine:

WEST PALM BEACH — Susie Wiles, the people who know her the best believe, is a force more sensed than seen. Her influence on political events, to many who know what they’re watching, is as obvious as it is invisible. The prints leave not so much as a smudge. It’s a shock when she shows up in pictures. Even then it is almost always in the background. She speaks on the record hardly ever, and she speaks about herself even less. Last month, though, on the afternoon of the day of the Republican primary in Florida, here Wiles was — sitting outside a Starbucks, at a table with an umbrella she picked for protection from the glare, wearing sensible flats and a cream-colored top and the sunglasses she likes with the lenses like mirrors, not far from the campaign headquarters of Donald J. Trump.

Wiles is not just one of Trump’s senior advisers. She’s his most important adviser. She’s his de facto campaign manager. She has been in essence his chief of staff for the last more than three years. She’s one of the reasons Trump is the GOP’s presumptive nominee and Ron DeSantis is not. She’s one of the reasons Trump’s current operation has been getting credit for being more professional than its fractious, seat-of-the-pants antecedents. And she’s a leading reason Trump has every chance to get elected again — even after his loss of 2020, the insurrection of 2021, his party’s defeats in the midterms of 2022, the criminal indictments of 2023 and the trial (or trials) of 2024. The former president is potentially a future president. And that’s because of him. But it’s also because of her. Trump, of course, is Trump — he can be irritable, he can be impulsive — and this campaign is facing unprecedented stressors and snags. It’s a long six-plus months till Election Day. For now, though, nobody around him is so influential, and nobody around him has been so influential for so long. “There is nobody, I think, that has the wealth of information that she does. Nobody in our orbit. Nobody,” top Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio told me. “She touches everything.” “Certainly,” said former Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, “she’s one of the most consequential people in American politics right now.” “And nobody,” said veteran Florida lobbyist Ronnie Book, “even knows who she is.”

She’s a mother. She’s a grandmother — she turns 67 next month. She’s worked in politics for more than 40 years — for presidents, for mayors, for governors, for members of Congress. She’s a soft-spoken Episcopalian. She’s a self-described moderate. Over the last few months, I’ve talked about Wiles with more than 100 people, people who have worked with her, around her, for her and against her, and there is a surprisingly bipartisan consensus: She’s good at what she does. She’s a savvy operator, a capable manager, a spotter and cultivator of up-and-coming talent, a maker and keeper of relationships with reporters, and a sly, subtle shaper of stories that help frame the political currents that can determine the difference between a win and a loss. She’s helmed signature statewide campaigns in 2010, 2016, 2018 and 2020 — Rick Scott, Trump, DeSantis, Trump again — all of which could have been defeats but were not. “She was already the most successful, well-respected Republican operative in Florida by a long mile, and she’s now cementing that brand,” said Ashley Walker, a Democratic strategist who twice ran Barack Obama’s Florida campaigns and has worked in lobbying with Wiles. “She is,” said Joe Gruters, a former chair of the Florida Republican Party, current state senator and longtime Trump ally, “the most valuable political adviser in the country.”

But coursing, too, through my conversations were not just questions I had for these scores of people but questions these people had for me — earnest inquiries from types who are perhaps not so accustomed to such doubt. Why is she working for him? And why does it seem to be working so well? Republicans and Democrats alike who know her and respect her and respect her work — they struggle to explain it. People who have considered themselves confidants and friends — they talk and they text, not so much with her as with each other, perplexed. In her usually calm disposition, in what most of them consider her general good sense, some of them find some small solace — at least he, they say, is listening to her. For others, though, it’s that placid mien and level head that’s in some sense precisely the source of the confusion. Liberals and even anti-Trump conservatives sketch analogies to the most odious authoritarians and see Wiles therefore by extension as the kind of associate who’s smart enough and sane enough to know better — and without whom any would-be dictator would be unable to get or wield such potentially destructive power. They see her as an accomplice.

[...] She worked in the 1990s and 2000s for a pair of two-term, generally centrist mayors of Jacksonville — first John Delaney, then John Peyton. She was by then certainly no novice. She’d been on Capitol Hill as an entry-level staffer for Jack Kemp, on the campaign and in the White House as a scheduler for Ronald Reagan, and in Northeast Florida as the district director for congressmember Tillie Fowler — after she’d gotten married to Reagan advance man Lanny Wiles and they’d moved south to Ponte Vedra Beach. She was Delaney’s director of communications and intergovernmental affairs, then his deputy chief of staff, then his chief of staff — the city’s very first female chief of staff. Delaney at the time called her “essential to what we are doing.” He described her as “a soulmate.” Peyton, for his part, hired her as his chief of special initiatives and communications — even after she worked for an opponent of his in the primary. It was a sign of respect, but something like unease as well — it was safer, he decided, to have her inside and not outside City Hall, working for him and not against him.

[...] It took nearly two years, though, before her next big post in politics. In 2008, she was the Duval County co-chair for John McCain’s presidential campaign. In 2009, she was a regular panelist on a local talk show on Jacksonville TV. In 2010, in March, she gave $500 to establishment GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum — five and a half weeks before she signed on to manage the longshot campaign of a businessperson and political outsider. Rick Scott stuck in his bid to a catch phrase — “Let’s get to work” — and steadfastly refused to meet with editorial boards at newspapers around the state. “Why?” he was asked. “I’ll have to ask Susie,” he answered.

In 2011, instead of joining Scott in Tallahassee, Wiles joined lobbyist Brian Ballard’s Florida-based firm to open an office in Jacksonville. “I really needed somebody in Jacksonville,” Ballard told me, “and she had great reach across the board.” She was a brief, ill-fated campaign manager for Jon Huntsman’s brief, ill-fated presidential campaign — a faltering, frustrating few months that spring, others involved remember, in which she clashed with the chief strategist and cried in the office. As an ex-head of an in-cycle campaign, she was for reporters on the presidential beat an at-the-ready quote — criticizing businessperson Herman Cain (“the possibility that he is a philanderer and an abuser”), praising in the National Journal more moderate New Jersey governor Chris Christie (“the best foil” for Barack Obama) and eventually endorsing former Massachusetts governor and private equity investor Mitt Romney (“the stability, intellect and integrity that Republicans are looking for in their standard bearer,” she said). In 2012, she advised one of the losing candidates in a seven-candidate congressional primary running from Jacksonville down toward Daytona Beach — the winner of which was a newcomer named DeSantis. In 2014, she gave money to then-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. And in 2015 — in August, a month in which she gave money to Jeb Bush — she went to New York, to Trump Tower, to meet with Donald Trump.

She came home and told Delaney she was impressed. She told Ballard she “saw something” in him. She told her friend Rick Mullaney, an adviser to Delaney and Peyton, she thought he was going to be the next president. And she told her friend Paul McCormick, a longtime Jacksonville political consultant and P.R. man, a story. “She said she went in to sit for her interview,” McCormick told me. She said the chair that had been set up for her was some 20 feet from where Trump was, and Trump started talking, and Wiles found it awkward. “And long story short, wherever she was sitting, and exactly how many feet away, she moved,” said McCormick, “right up next to where he was.” [...]

Her father was Pat Summerall. A native of rural Lake City, Florida, he endured a brutal childhood, as he recounts in his memoir — a club foot a doctor was able to somewhat miraculously fix, abandoned by his parents, a stepfather who beat him with a rubber hose. He played professional football, for the Lions, Cardinals and most notably the Giants in New York, an end and a kicker who booted with what had been his deformed foot one of the most important field goals in National Football League history. He got rich and he got famous, though, as a broadcaster. With a relentless work ethic and a smooth, spare speaking style, Summerall was the mellifluous voice of the Masters of golf, the U.S. Open of tennis but first and foremost the NFL — “the voice,” in the words of his longtime partner John Madden, “of football.” He was also, because of his drinking, a mostly absent parent. His daughter was born in 1957. She was followed quickly by two brothers. He had an affair for 17 years before his wife divorced him and he married his mistress. “My children grew up without me,” he wrote. “I failed them as a father.” Her mother was the former Katharine Jacobs. Also from Lake City, she was, according to her daughter, “a fantastic gardener,” “a beautiful seamstress” and “the best cook there ever was.” She made all the meals. She set all the appointments. She bought all the Christmas gifts, one of her brothers once wrote on Facebook. She so often had to do so much on her own. And every evening around 5, in the big, tidy house in Saddle River, New Jersey, she went upstairs and took a warm bath. She coped, her observant daughter thought, with courage and with grace.

POLITICO Magazine has a detailed report on GOP political operative Susie Wiles, who is the daughter of the late sports announcer Pat Summerall.

Gov. Ron DeSantis axed funding on Thursday for Central Florida projects to stop flooding during the next hurricane, strengthen government cybersecurity defenses, celebrate Black history and tackle gun violence.

The governor’s nearly $511 million veto list included about $15.3 million in projects for Orange, Osceola, Lake and Seminole counties.

DeSantis defended his veto list as showing fiscal restraint in a $116.5 billion budget that makes “historic investments in education, public safety, infrastructure, and the environment.”

Democrats, though, blasted DeSantis’ veto decisions.

“Unfortunately, many good projects that would have relieved Florida’s taxpayers with everything from flood water mitigation to neighborhood resource centers were vetoed because the governor is disconnected from the needs of average Floridians,” said state Rep. Rita Harris, D-Orlando.

Republican state Sen. Joe Gruters also slammed DeSantis, saying in a statement that the governor “took it out on Sarasota County” because Gruters endorsed former President Trump in the 2024 GOP primary.

“It’s mean-spirited acts like this that are defining him here and across the country,” Gruters said, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

The veto list included money for projects to alleviate flooding in the Orlo Vista neighborhood in Orange County, the Midway community in Seminole County, Kissimmee and Osceola County, and Winter Park. The governor axed money to bolster Sanford’s cybersecurity defenses and fund a 1619 Fest and 5K race to celebrate Black history in Orlando.

State Sen. Linda Stewart, D-Orlando, said she was able to secure nearly $30 million in projects for Central Florida, including nearly $15 million for a nursing building at the University of Central Florida, $5 million for a building at Valencia College’s campus in Lake Nona and almost $800,000 for AdventHealth Type 1 diabetes research project.

Stewart said she appreciated those dollars but was disappointed more money wasn’t devoted to flooding. The state keeps a priority list of water projects, and she suspects the governor vetoed items that tried to move up on that list through legislative appropriations.

“We had more money than normal,” Stewart said. “Some of these projects could have easily been added to [address] what our individual cities and counties consider to be emergencies.”

Here is a list of Central Florida projects the governor vetoed.

Orange County Utilities – Orlo Vista Integrated Water Resources Project, flood mitigation for the Orlo Vista neighborhood: $2 million

Osceola County Buenaventura Lakes Drainage Improvements, project to remove 142 homes and businesses from repetitive flood risk: $1.8 million

Oviedo West Mitchell Hammock Water Treatment Facility – Tank Construction, construction of  a new 2.5-million-gallon water tank: $1 million

Seminole County Midway Drainage Improvements, flooding mitigation projects for the Midway community: $1 million

Purpose Built Florida – Lift Orlando, funding to address the root causes of generational poverty in low-income communities: $1 million

Meet Us in the Middle Plaza and 8th Street Docks – City of Clermont: $1 million, construction of plaza and docks for 40 watercraft: $1 million

Central Florida Pilot Plant Project For Phosphogypsum Reclamation, initiative to convert waste into commercial products: $950,000

WUCF-TV, emergency backup transmitter: $625,000

Sanford Fire Department Station 40 Airpack Replacements: $540,000

WMFE-FM:, repair and refurbish failing sanitation life station: $508,431

Winter Park Stormwater Disaster Resiliency Project, flood mitigation for homes and businesses near Lake Mendsen: $500,000

Camp Thunderbird Commercial Kitchen Renovation, recreational program for adults with disabilities in Apopka: $500,000

Mount Dora Community Resource & Recreation Center, 26,000-square-foot center for low-income population: $500,000

Clermont Hartwood Marsh Fire Station Rebuild: $500,000

Community, Cops, Courts & State Attorney Violent Crime Intervention/Seminole County, initiative to reduce gun violence: $492,411

Sanford Station 40 New Engine: $367,500

Seminole County Sheriff’s Office Computer Aided Dispatch System, upgrades to improve emergency responses: $300,000

Kissimmee Master Stormwater System and Flood Mitigation Project: $250,000

Camp Thunderbird Septic to Sewer Conversion: $250,000

TechHealth Initiative – Orange County, a team of four health care workers to help the needy at no cost: $200,000

WMFE-FM, replace fire alarm system: $197,347

Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce of Central Florida Resource Center, program to assist small and mid-size businesses: $187,500

Sanford Cybersecurity Zero Trust Program, fortify city’s cyber defenses: $160,000

Black History Month Celebration – 1619Fest Orlando/Rebel Run 5K, a celebration of arts and culture from Africans in the Diaspora: $160,000

Community Scholars – Central Florida, a project to provide community service learning opportunities to students: $140,000

Planting Seeds of Prosperity in West Lakes – Orlando, community meetings and cleanup project: $125,000

Florida Recovery Schools of Central Florida, educational funding for teenagers in substance abuse recovery: $100,000

Adult Literacy League – Building a Thriving Central Florida through Literacy and Education, a project to provide tutors to adult learners: $25,000

The Florida Senate voted in favor of a bill on Wednesday that further undermines Disney's control of its resort in the state after the company filed a lawsuit against Governor Ron DeSantis earlier this week. Only one Florida Republican, Joe Gruters, voted against the measure. The new bill—SB 1604—was passed on Wednesday night with a 27-13 vote. It effectively nullifies development agreements between the entertainment company and the state of Florida. Only hours before, Disney filed a federal lawsuit against Florida after a board appointed by DeSantis nullified two other agreements that gave the company significant control over its world-famous resort in the state. Disney's lawsuit accuses DeSantis and other Florida officials of improperly retaliating against the company because of its opposition to the controversial "Don't Say Gay" bill. This was championed by the Republican governor and passed in 2022. It restricts mentions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. The agreements were made void because, as Daniel Langley, the board's general counsel, said, they presented evidence of "self-dealing" and "procedural unconscionability" on Disney's part. The board also accused the company of violating Florida state law throughout this year. Gruters had supported DeSantis' stance against Disney as the debate around the "Don't Say Gay" bill unfolded in the state Wednesday said: "We should be finding ways to support our job creators and turbocharge Florida's economy. People's pocketbooks are more powerful at influencing corporate behavior than the heavy hand of government. I'm sure Floridians will make their voices heard on this issue." But POLITICO reporter Gary Fineout has pointed out on Twitter that Gruters has recently endorsed Donald Trump in his bid for the presidency in 2024. The Republican senator dined with the former president and other members of the Florida GOP last week. While DeSantis has not formally announced that he will run in 2024, the governor is considered Trump's challenger within the GOP. Citing Disney's lawsuit's mention of Gruters, Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democratic Florida Senate candidate, wrote on Twitter: "According to pages 25-26 of Disney's lawsuit against Ron DeSantis, Senator Gruters thought it was okay for the heavy-handed government to punish job creators for expressing an opinion." He added: "Seems like Joe is changing his tune to distance himself from Ronnie and make Trump happy." Disney's lawsuit reports a quote from Gruters after the first vote nullifying agreements between the state and the company. It read: "Disney is learning lessons and paying the political price of jumping out there on an issue." The Senate bill passed by lawmakers on Wednesday is now heading to the House. Democrats who voted against it said to be "paused" until the lawsuit is settled. Newsweek has contacted Gruters' office for comment by email.

A Proposal Would Enact Partisan School Board Races in Florida

A Proposal Would Enact Partisan School Board Races in Florida

Republican State Rep. Lal Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, wants voters to decide whether school board elections should be changed from nonpartisan to partisan. The Florida Constitution currently requires school board elections to be nonpartisan. However, the joint resolution, sponsored by Roach and Rep. Joel Rudman, and Sen. Joe Gruters would propose amendments to change the state…

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A Proposal Would Enact Partisan School Board Races in Florida

A Proposal Would Enact Partisan School Board Races in Florida

Republican State Rep. Lal Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, wants voters to decide whether school board elections should be changed from nonpartisan to partisan. The Florida Constitution currently requires school board elections to be nonpartisan. However, the joint resolution, sponsored by Roach and Rep. Joel Rudman, and Sen. Joe Gruters would propose amendments to change the state…

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Facing South Florida: State Sen. Joe Gruters, Raquel Pacheco

Facing South Florida: State Sen. Joe Gruters, Raquel Pacheco

2022-09-11 13:00:00 With less than 60 days until the mid-term elections, Jim DeFede travels to Sarasota for a one-on-one interview with state Sen. Joe Gruters, the chairman of the Florida Republican party.  The two discuss a variety of topics including Gov. Ron DeSantis, the abortion issue, and why Gruters feels so confident in general about November and beyond for Florida Republicans.   Facing…

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Saturday at the North Port Republican Party picnic, me and Joe Gruters (Right)- (Chairman of the Florida Republican party & member of the Florida State Senate). (at North Port, Florida) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgqhJd1uFRH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Publix stopped giving to politicians after NRA controversy. But now they’re back in business.

Publix stopped giving to politicians after NRA controversy. But now they’re back in business.

Author: Steve Contorno / Source: Tampa Bay Times

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg speaks as demonstrators lie on the floor at a Publix Supermarket in Coral Springs, Fla., Friday, May 25, 2018. Students from the Florida high school where 17 people were shot and killed earlier this year did a “die in” protest at a supermarket chain that backs a gubernatorial candidate…

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 20, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

So many stories landed today that some will have to wait. Tonight’s news, though, boils down to Republican attempts to retake control of the government in the 2022 elections…and, if Trump has his way, even earlier.

This morning, CNN revealed another bombshell story from the forthcoming book by veteran reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa: a six-point memo from pro-Trump lawyer John Eastman laying out a plan for then–vice president Mike Pence to steal the 2020 election for Trump.

The memo started by falsely claiming that seven states had sent competing slates of electors to the President of the Senate; in fact, Trump loyalists demanded their own electors, but each state had certified one official slate of electors. If Pence—or, if Pence recused himself, the then–Senate president pro tempore, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley—rejected the ballots from those seven states, Eastman claimed, Trump would have ten more electoral votes than Biden and would win the election.

When Democrats howled, Pence could instead assert that neither candidate had a majority and throw the election into the House of Representatives, where each state would get a single vote. Since 26 of the 50 states were dominated by Republicans, Trump would win there, too.

“The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter,” Eastman wrote. “We should take all of our actions with that in mind.”

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani tried to convince Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to back the scheme; someone also ran the idea past Republican senator Mike Lee of Utah. Both dismissed it. But, notably, neither revealed this extraordinary attempt to destroy our democracy.

When Pence ultimately refused to go along, Trump turned on him and told attendees at the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally that “if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.” He explained that “the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country,” had offered a plan, and that “Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us….”

Aside from the obvious, Eastman’s memo raises three interesting points. First, it refers to the idea that Pence might hand over the count to Grassley, a plan that needs more investigation. Second, it relies on the work of emeritus Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe, who tweeted that it took snippets of his work out of context to create “a totally fake web of ‘law’ that no halfway decent lawyer would take seriously…. Ludicrous but scary as hell. Think 2024. Those guys mean business....” And, third, it debunks the current right-wing talking point that Trump wanted only to question the results of the election. Clearly, he wanted to be declared the winner.

Even after President Joe Biden was sworn in, Trump supporters continued to insist that the election had been fraudulent. Famously, the Arizona state senate hired a company called Cyber Ninjas to reexamine the votes from Maricopa County, although the county board of supervisors, a majority of whom were Republicans, had already audited the ballots and the machines and found no problems. The county board strongly opposed the new “audit.”

The Cyber Ninjas examined ballots for bamboo to see if China had hacked the election, used insecure practices, rejected observers, and finally sent voting information to Montana for analysis. Documents released by the state senate under a court order in late August revealed that groups backed by pro-Trump loyalists Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, and two correspondents from the One America News Network paid for the Arizona investigation.

Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the state senate and the Cyber Ninjas had to release the records concerning their activities. Cyber Ninjas is refusing to do so, offering as a reason—among others—that it is busy writing its report (which is already four months late) and document production will take time away from that effort. Its lawyer says it will “produce documents out of goodwill and its commitment to transparency” when it has time, but does not recognize any legal obligation to do so.

Seeking an Arizona-type “audit” in Pennsylvania, Republicans in that state’s legislature last Wednesday voted to issue subpoenas for personal information of about 6.9 million state voters, including names, addresses, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. Republicans say a private company needs that information to fix issues in election procedures uncovered in 2020, but the Republican leader of the investigation has declined to say how the information will be used.

Democrats sued Friday to stop the release of the voter information, and two Democratic representatives to Congress have asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the subpoenas could violate federal laws by leading to voter intimidation.

A new story sheds more light on the election reform Republicans are talking about. On May 6, 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis raised eyebrows when he signed a new election law in front of television cameras for the Fox News Channel, excluding all other media. While Republicans insisted they wrote new election laws to prevent voter fraud—despite the lack of evidence of any such widespread fraud—internal emails and text messages from Florida Republicans revealed today by Politico show that their concerns were actually about gaining advantage in the 2022 elections.

Joe Gruters, the state senator who chairs the Florida Republican Party, repeatedly said in public that the new bill would “make it as easy as possible to vote, and hard as possible to cheat.” But in private text exchanges with state representative Blaise Ingoglia, the former chair of the Florida party, Gruters called for getting rid of existing mail-in ballot requests, saying that keeping them would be “devastating,” since Democrats used them more frequently than Republicans. “We cannot make up ground,” Gruters wrote. “Trump campaign spent 10 million. Could not cut down lead….” Ingoglia told Politico: “This was a policy decision all along and had nothing to do with partisan reasons.”

Finally, tonight, the immigration issue is back in the news. Republicans have tried to make immigration their key issue for 2022, but the terrible surge in coronavirus in Republican-dominated states like Texas has captured the news cycle. For the past few days, though, the rise in Haitian refugees on the U.S. southern border has reclaimed headlines. Haitians have long come to the southern border for admission to the U.S., but the recent earthquake in Haiti, along with the assassination of the country’s president and hopes that the Biden administration will be welcoming, has brought 12,000–15,000 Haitians in the past few weeks.

The situation there remains much as it has always been under Biden: the administration kept the public health guidelines established during the pandemic under former president Trump, and it is turning away most adult immigrants and refugees. It has been returning Haitians to Haiti by plane, with seven flights daily set to begin on Wednesday.

But right-wing media is, once again, insisting that Biden is allowing a flood of immigrants to overrun the U.S. At the same time, images of white border patrol agents on horseback riding down Haitian migrants, with their reins swinging, has horrified those who see in them the history of southern slave patrols hunting enslaved Americans. The Biden administration will have to thread a very thin political needle: disavowing the actions of the border patrol agents without opening itself to Republican attacks that it is “soft” on immigration. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has launched an inquiry into the agents’ behavior.

For his part, Trump does not want to wait until 2022 for a change in government. On Friday, he wrote to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger charging that 43,000 Georgia ballots were “invalid.” He called for Raffensperger to decertify the 2020 election “and announce the true winner,” warning that the nation “is being systematically destroyed by an illegitimate president and his administration.”

Trump is under criminal investigation in Georgia for his previous attempts to overturn the state’s election results.

—

Notes:

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/09/20/devastating-florida-republicans-worried-about-2022-as-they-crafted-election-law-1391121

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21065006-arizona-senate-status-report-and-renewed-motion-to-consolidate#document/p328/a2054912

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arizona-audit-2020-election-recount-gop-maricopa-county/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cyber-ninjas-arizona-vote-audit-court-order_n_614678cce4b0efa77f80caf1

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/09/20/eastman.memo.pdf

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/20/politics/trump-pence-election-memo/index.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/09/15/pennsylvania-election-audit-gets-off-to-wild-start-as-gop-subpoenas-personal-details-on-every-voter-in-state/

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/pa-democrats-sue-over-gop-election-investigation/2963753/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/17/this-is-how-embarrassing-trumps-fraud-claims-have-gotten/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/20/us-begins-deportation-flights-haitians-texas-border-town

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/border-haitians-horses-agents/2021/09/20/c489c3ae-1a41-11ec-914a-99d701398e5a_story.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/politics/georgia-probe-trump-election/index.html

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

(via Huge 2A win: Florida governor signs bill allowing concealed carry in churches)

On June 29th, Governor DeSantis signed HB 259, which affords concealed carry permit holders the opportunity to exercise the benefits of said permit in houses of worship. HB 259 also covers churches and other various houses of worship that host schools, as there was previously a prohibition of any iteration of carrying a firearm at any place of worship if it was on school grounds.

Republican state Senator Joe Gruters, the sponsor of HB 259, made the following statement regarding the legislation:

“There are always threats. And all we’re doing is giving them, those religious institutions, the ability and the right to be able to say ‘yes,’ if we choose.”

“We’re going to allow concealed permit holders — it’s not the wild, wild West — we’re giving one of the safest subgroups in our society the ability to carry.”

Got a news alert about a ceremony in Florida to officially award Tr*mp with the 29 electoral votes from this state, which included this paragraph:

'“It is as of right now a bittersweet moment from the standpoint of, with the inauguration planned just a month down the road and the uncertainty that exists about (Tr*mp) getting sworn back in, it’s incredibly disappointing,” said Florida GOP Chair Joe Gruters, a Sarasota state senator who is one of Trump’s 29 Florida electors.'

Uncertainty??

No, I'm pretty certain: He lost. Pack it up. Get the fuck out. Have a miserable rest of your life.

FL Trump Ally Slammed by Progressives For Pro-LGBT LegislationFamily Values Groups Also Target Gruters

Joe Gruters, a longtime Trump ally in the Sunshine State, is under fire from progressives and some far-right gay hating groups for his bill in the Florida Senate that would prevent employers from firing or otherwise discriminating against employees for being LGBT. Progressives, who are generally never happy with any Republican support for the LGBT, […]

The post FL Trump Ally Slammed by Progressives For Pro-LGBT Legislation<br><span style='color:#000000;font-size:22px;'>Family Values Groups Also Target Gruters</span> appeared first on Roger Stone | Stone Cold Truth.

from Roger Stone | Stone Cold Truth https://stonecoldtruth.com/fl-trump-ally-slammed-by-progressives-for-pro-lgbt-legislation/

No smoking on the beach bill proposed by Republican Sen. Joe Gruters - https://youtu.be/Mk1fyYY1wSI

Red Dog Blue Dog waters down political divide with brews, puppy love

Red Dog Blue Dog waters down political divide with brews, puppy love

Author: Jacob Ogles / Source: floridapolitics.com

Imagine a less divided world where politicians from both parties meet in a bar just to share a few drinks. Or even pour out a couple of rounds for the house.

That seeming fantasy becomes reality once again at the annual Red Dog Blue DogCelebrity Bartender Event in Tallahassee. The March 12 event will bring teams of Republican and Democratic…

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