Can Orlando Break Free from Big Tourism Influence?
You know, for as long as I've been covering Florida politics, Orlando has been a total company town, a place that is just dominated by big tourism bosses and lobbyists who make every decision and control almost every local politician. But after Tuesday's elections, things may finally be changing. We're going to talk about how, with one of the smartest guys in all of Florida politics. Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to Seeking Rents, the Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Garcia.
I am the publisher of Seeking Rent. That's a newsletter in Florida about state politics with a particular emphasis on the ways big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state that need seeking rents comes from a term in economics called rent seeking. And rent seeking is what's happening when someone with lots of wealth and influence, like a big business or a billionaire, uses that wealth and influence to get laws changed in their favor in a way that allows them to capture even more wealth and influence for themselves, usually at the expense of someone else. So, I am just super excited for today's show. I'm going to be joined by a guy who is, one of the smartest people in all of Florida politics, a guy who is, one of the sharpest writers I've ever met, a guy who can, digest critical subjects and explain them to folks in ways, you know, it's just got an absolute gift for that. And a guy who is also, one of my best friends in the world and who's been an enormous, professional influence on me over the years.
Scott Maxwell, the columnist at the Orlando Sentinel. I think, our conversation, we're going to talk about state politics, where Ron DeSantis in the Florida legislature might go from here after, yet another red wave, election across Florida, but also, why, tourism lobbyists in Orlando have reason to be nervous after these elections, too. So, I think you'll enjoy the conversation. It's a lot of fun. If you're watching this on YouTube, though, if you don't mind, make sure to, click the subscribe button and hit like, for this episode. And if, you follow along and, and you learn anything or anything, tickles a thought, make sure to leave a comment too.
So, okay. With that, let's, get right to the conversation with Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell. Scott Maxwell, welcome to the pod. That's where we started. We're off to a great start. It's.
I don't like your face. I got to be honest. Okay. You want to start, state or local with, like, election results? Your.
You're dealer's choice. Here. Oh, God. I hate making these decisions. Let's go. Let's go state, because that conversation is probably going to be angrier than local. So, tell me, what do you make of the the state results? And I'm going to say I this was actually redder than even I expected.
But I'm curious, your take on everything. Right. Oh, I didn't know that.
Right. Yeah, that all makes sense to me. Except, like, And I get that, like, special and off off mid-cycle elections are different and stuff. Or. I guess this is all special, but like, Democrats had won the Tom Kean seat, right? Like he threw him out. The Jacksonville mayor's race, Democrats won that. It seemed like, if I'm recalling correctly, there was, special election, state House election in Miami where the Republicans won, but Democrats overperformed.
It just sort of seemed like, you know, we're talking about, like, building off from what I thought was the bottom. So, I mean, it was minor steps, but it just, and then the primary election was, I think you and I have talked like the if you're if you think the state has been too extreme, the primary election seemed to be a pretty sort of resounding victory and folks pushing back against that. But maybe that has something to do with the fact that Partizanship isn't as much of a factor in in primaries, where either it's just like a jumble of nonpartisan candidates with top two going on, or you're looking at people of the same letter, so you don't have the same immediate, biases.
But I don't know, that's that's where I'm thinking, like. I've been the host. I've been the host the whole time. There's not been a predecessor. Right, right.
Right. Right. Yeah. I went back and looked through, my list of.
I had sort of gathered a list of, like, ten races around the state, and they did, they did better than they did in the primary. Certainly, but still is a mixed bag. Like a couple of DeSantis candidates lost. A couple of at least one of them was a monster.
There was a big race in, like Pinellas County, for instance, where, the right wing MAGA person lost. But but yeah, you've actually, Right. Yeah. This is an issue you have, I have changed my mind on over the years. And I think you were always on this, but, like, you know, we're both in Orlando, where, for a long time, there was a big push to make all the local races, Partizan, because, you know, and this was led by Democrats locally, if you're correct me if I'm wrong, but I think so because, you know, they figure put a D next to the name in a blue county. It's going to help everyone.
And I initially bought into the argument that like, just more information on the ballot is better, but now like having watched just how much that sort of blinds people to any information that doesn't sort of like fit with their team, basically. I've come around, to this idea that nonpartisan is better. And, and I say that even in a place like Orlando, where, you know, more progressive candidates who I probably support would probably benefit from having letters. Excellent. But but you've been on that for a while. So maybe like, I can give you a little soapbox moment here.
Why is that so important to you? Right. Right. Oh, wow. Right.
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense to me.
that school board election going down was, one of the our school board, amendment. Partizan amendment was probably one of the silver linings to the state. This is also going to lead us to something you and I have talked a bit about offline, but like sort of where we once again end up with this disconnect between sort of, you know, 57% of voters wanting to end government interference with abortion, 55 and 56% wanting to legalize weed, but instead with a in a gerrymandered legislature that's like ban nearly all abortion. It is, you know, refusing to, to do anything on marijuana other than sort of protect this existing medical marijuana cartel. Tell me, you know, I'm curious to get your thoughts.
Why why you see such a disconnect between. And I guess it's going to end up leading back to just the same place we were talking about, too. But like, every time there is kind of, to your point, like a center or left of center policy on the ballot, it does incredibly well statewide is red as Florida has gotten, you know, may not always get 60% thanks to, Florida Chamber of Commerce for that rule. But it always gets a strong majority, at least. And yet we have, but I think it's fair to call one of the most far right legislatures in the entire country at this point. What do you make of that? Right.
Right. Right. That's right. Right.
Right. Right. Yeah.
Right. Right. That's essentially what his endorsements and school board races have been meant to do. Right? That's basically that's his way of trying to put the letter on there without having the the ability to actually put the letter on the ballot.
Although, you know, the way this this election is running, maybe they're just going to even though they got the the amendments failed, maybe they're going to try and find a way to put the letter on the ballot anyway. And all these races, I don't know. Right, right.
Right. Right. Right. Right.
Right. Yeah. It's like Susan Placentia wins by 300 votes. And then, like Lavon Bracy, Davis wins by, like, 15,000 votes or something like that. You know? Right? Right.
Right. Right. I'm getting, As far as I know, I, have actually not really been on Twitter a lot lately, since the election, just because, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of horrible stuff going on on there right now.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's owned by this, this really horrible guy. Now, you should, Yeah. Yeah.
I think, yeah. Like chief of staff or Commerce secretary. I don't know what. Also, like our entire national defense, infrastructure. He basically owns this place, Yeah.
One of the, I'm going on too many directions. But one of the wildest stories to come out of this presidential race is that the Wall Street Journal figured out that, Elon Musk was the guy funding this giant dark money entity that, that tried to bankroll helped bankroll Ron DeSantis, his presidential campaign, and nobody knew about it at the time, which is, you know, wild because taken to remember that, like, you know, this legislature and the governor were doing favors for Elon Musk and stuff like, you know, banning or shielding SpaceX from lawsuits and stuff. So, Yeah, yeah, it's got a great name. You should, you should definitely, check.
Yeah. That, that that's the restrained, nuanced take. I appreciate I appreciate that, for anybody listening to this, every time I do a little explanation of the name at the start of the show, it's Scott Maxwell who I'm talking to when I do. Thank you very much.
It gives me a reliable intro, a pattern of familiarity. Yes. This is going off the rails a bit. I did not, this was not on my list of questions.
Maybe we'll edit that out in post. So none of this ever shows up. What I was going to ask you now. And now I'm mad about the name. You don't get it.
That. That's right. Yeah. Every time you say something, I get more.
This name becomes more beloved to me. The. The moral of the story is I need smarter friends. So I know what I was thinking was, I. Oh, Twitter is how I got on this. Stupid.
How we ended up hammering at my name. I'm getting I'm getting sort of lit up on Twitter is my understanding from, like, team DeSantis and people, even though they're, like, fundamentally like, lacking any reading comprehension. But the point I was making is, and made well, by the way, just just to be clear, I went back and read, made it, made it perfectly. This abortion is like illustrates the impact of, of gerrymandering in Florida perfectly, in my opinion. Like you've now got you now got a documented that 57% of the state would like to end government interference in abortion, and we just have it. We also have a state legislature that is instead banned nearly all abortion.
Like that's what gerrymandering gets you, get you a bunch of legislators and legislation that is completely out of step and far more extreme than the state these people are supposed to represent. You know, because you're only catering to the, the, the fringe few in each race. Right, right. Yeah.
Yeah. That's right. I, I'm curious to get your take on this, because some of the reporting I think this came out of Politico is that this seems if it did not come out of Politico, it should have, because this is the classic Politico story that, Ron DeSantis was that if he was able to to if these amendments failed, the we'd in the are the abortion amendments failed that these were going to be big victories for Ron DeSantis and that he was going to they were going to help propel him back onto the national stage and propel a future presidential run. I'm curious to get your take because I'm sort of thinking like, you know, having 57% of your own voters tell you, they think, one of your signature policies should be overturned is is not a winning issue.
But I, I'm curious your take. Right, right. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. But you got you got sidetracked with the name stuff, and that was.
That was important to get into. Yeah. Right. Right. Right.
Right. Right. Right.
Right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, yeah. One of the more, sort of, gross ways.
Florida. The DeSantis administration operated the last couple of years is, he waited until after the 2022 election to do all of his, Republic most extreme stuff. And, like, was really, like, nakedly transparent about it in one case, like, I remember in the lead up to that 2022 election when he's running for reelection, he basically, I think it was CNN.
He told he was like, yeah, we're going to do more on insurance after the election. You know, it was like, because they didn't want to pass a giant industry written bill right before going to voters. Right. But at the same token, like, if you remember, in 2022, they passed that 15 week abortion ban, right? Which was, you know, for what it's worth, incredibly extreme in its own right, lacked exceptions and stuff like this. But but still, that was sort of seen in Republican circles is this is kind of like the moderate compromise. This is how we. And then the second he got reelected, they turned around and passed one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation.
And they did all of that conservative stuff they did in 2023 was built around his Republican primary running for president. He knew he was going to do it all, but he waited until after he had to run through another general election before doing any of it. Yeah. Right.
Last question I want to get your take on. So my feeling after these results where, you know, Florida, basically Florida got another red wave, you know, where in 2022 it was like a low turnout red wave 2024. It's a high turnout.
Still, a red wave like the Florida legislature somehow increased its majority in the in the state House, you know, at Ron DeSantis. Now, regardless of whether or not you sort of believe the narrative, he's going to try and build one out of, you know, defeating the, the abortion amendment with 43% of the vote. And he's going to run for president again. So everything he does now is going to be geared around that Iowa caucus in got a candidate that's three years from now. Who knows. But my take is that Florida is about to like go through get even more extreme Florida politicians. But I don't I don't know that.
That's just my take. I'm sort of curious what you think the next couple of years look like. In Tallahassee.
Yeah. Right. Right. But, Right. Right.
Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.
Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah. That's right. They get increasingly crass or, like, clumsy about it, too.
I'm thinking of, like, ratified. Right. Right. Yeah.
Bill, I want to ban drag queens and then, like, by the people. Like you can't put that in writing. You're going to have to do it in a different way.
But it's also if Ron DeSantis wants to ban big money in, politics, I would love to have a conversation with the guy about, you know, a few easy ways you could take a step towards that. You know, did did I ever tell you I had one long conversation with him? Have I had if I told you this story? Yeah. That's right. Florida trend, which is like a friendly place. Okay. I think I've even told this on the podcast, so I'm not going to tell it again.
I, I've only got like eight different stories. So, you know, we he was that he was not impressive. Let's just say that and I did not see Ron DeSantis Republican Party savior coming and then a few years later. So but hey, you know, that might have been on me. Yeah. Right.
Okay. Let's go, local, which, for my money, was far more encouraging. We had, and I talked about this, whatever. I recorded some. It's just sort of, like, stream of consciousness thing yesterday, but like these county commissioners, county commissioner races in Orlando that for my money, all went the right way.
If you care, if you care about, like, standing up, you know, and doing rent seeking, standing up to big tourism, standing up to giant developers. Curious, what's your take on those elections? What you what do you make of them? What do you think? Decide. Just just riff on those three races if you can. Right. Right.
Right. All three. Lost. Right? Right. Right.
Right. Right. Right. Yeah.
Man, I you know, the Nicole Wilson race. She was outspent 8 to 1, and she still won. And, by the way, like, won handily.
That ended up not being close, particularly after that primary. And then, you know, at least from the tourism lines, from my mind, like Kelly Severide winning that the other races because she has been sort of, and you, you would know this better than I, but but I've she's been a, like, a leader in this spend hotel taxes on local needs up there. Yeah. It's a really nice thing to say.
I'm sure she's going to that she's going to be really appreciative of. You said that. That's those kind of you. Right. Right. That's right.
I forgot about that. Right. Right. There. Right.
right. Yeah. You could. You could tell how freaked out the industry was about that race, specifically by, I'm going up memory, but I'm pretty sure that's right.
Harris. Rosen alone. Right. Who I get is a complicated guy, but on this issue is, pretty, pretty, I would say very firmly on the wrong side. Gave more than $20,000 to Steve Lee or spent more than $20,000 on Steve Urban. Universal Orlando, $15,000 for, Steve, Larry and Kelly Severide rolled across them with like that that was the biggest, most lopsided race in the entire state. And all these three commission races and. Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Right. Right. Right.
Right. Yeah. That's right. Right. Right. Right.
Oh. That's right. Yeah, right. Just to just to emphasize, in case people don't hear the statewide, we're talking about, like, legislators, state senator talking about like the Democrats. Right, right.
Right. Right. Yeah.
It. Yeah. Right. Right.
Right. Yeah, yeah. And so, Scott, we'll we'll just talk about this later, but generally we try not to like, allude to what we talked about off camera before.
We do people. So people think this is all organic. So just, you know. If I don't do it I'm just like aping whatever podcasts I listen to. Right? Like just trying to pretend like that sounds like what a podcaster says.
So I want to talk about the future stuff, because this so actually. But let me let me set this up a little bit different. What do you expect? So now we've got this this, this new county commission where we've got Nicole and Kelly on there.
You've got, Myra, who, like you said, is is sort of complicated. I think I was, pretty clearly. I think she was the right choice in that race, but that was more of a function of the fact that I think Linda Stuart had been the worst Democrat, Democratic state senator, that I've ever seen. And also like, yeah.
Well, also a person and someone I knew from a long time of watching. So when I showed up, which was just after you, like she was on the county commission and was probably the most progressive person on the county commission. And, I have not seen in all my 20 plus years of doing this, a politician change more than Linda Stuart has, particularly once she got to Tallahassee. And, you know, I'm not. Yeah, dude. Right, right.
Right, right. Right. Right. County. Fire him! Right.
Right. Right. Yeah.
That's right. So tourism industry immediately endorses the opponent, right? Right. Yeah. And do you have any expectations for.
We'll jump ahead in two years or just a sack. But like, do you have any expectations on what to what you might see out of the county commission. Are there specific policies that you think, that Nicole or Kelly could, would push or whether, you know, the county commission becomes as a whole, the other the other members maybe are slightly less cowed by the Treasury. Do you expect, like any substantive result over this over the next few years, or is this more about continuing to build to, to more sort of politicians willing to do. Yeah. Right.
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
He's great. Hey, I did I didn't know that was for sure. That's great.
Right. No kidding. Yeah.
Right. Right. Most dependent on it, right? Right. Right. Right. That makes sense.
And. Yeah, that must have. I mean, if memory serves, that was triggered by, You know, I was covering Disney at the time and their lobbying. And one of the things they were lobbying for is they had been funding a bus route that served Disney. Right? So it was good for their business.
They were lobbied to get the legislature to fund it. Instead, they wanted taxpayers to fund it. And it's like that was one like, yeah, I want this route to be funded in, like there are far worse ways that the legislature spends taxpayer money, but also you're already doing it and you're like, you make billions of dollars every year in profit. Just keep doing it. It's for your business, right? Right, right.
Right. Right. Got my. Got wild. Wild. Okay, let's let's look ahead. Because there is, you know, if, like, you and I obviously very encouraged by these results, there's like a really interesting opportunity now because, two years from now, we got a county mayor's race.
And for for people outside of the the Orlando area listening to this. That is, that's probably the most powerful job in Central Florida. You know, you make a case between Orlando mayor has kind of like the image in the bully pulpit, but the George County mayors, the ones who's actually got all the money, and, and we're going to have two new county commission seats on the ballot. So because of this, a charter amendment just passed that's boosting a number of county commission seats from 6 to 8. How sort of significant is that for you? And are you hearing anything about, what are you who might run for anything? Obviously, Eric Gray's you're going to run for something that sounds great.
We're just just sort of looking ahead. How important is that? Because. Because if you get to the point where, you know, you've, you know, if I Kelly some. Right.
And Nicole Wilson becomes mayor and fills two more seats like that, then you start, you start to really look at a transformative, board of commissioners, but curious what you think looking at. Right, right, right. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah, I'll allow it.
Well, wait. Whoa whoa whoa whoa. What were you going to say? Okay. Thank you. I sort of, I think back to, one of the smart things the tourism lobby did.
And this is kind of like, say, tourism lobby is kind of this the whole big business lobby in Orlando, although, like you pointed out, the real estate lobby, the tourism lobby are so like, overlapped because so much real estate development in Orlando is tourism related. But, you know, the last time. So 20 what was the county mayor's race? The last one would have been, 2018, right, or. I'm sorry. 2020.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so 2020 was when it was open. So that was when Theresa Jacobs was gone and Jerry Demings got elected. Right? No, no, no.
20. Yeah. I wish we had some sort of like electronic communication portal that we could like to look up in 2018 is when it happened. I'm ruling out years.
It didn't happen. Thank you. And I've settled on 2018 is when Jerry Demings was selected. Well, yeah. You know what? We'll I'll check it afterwards if, if, it turns out to be wrong, there'll be a little correction at the end of this.
I bet it's right 2018 probably is. When, Jerry. But anyway, when that race happened, that was at that point it become clear that, Orange County was pretty dumb because initially there were a couple of Republicans that wanted to run for county mayor, and the conventional wisdom at the time was that there was going to be probably a progressive Democrat like Scott Randolph or bear in mind, in this a his age poorly but Rick thing remember him was was also thinking about running for mayor. Yeah. That's right.
And we'll get to that in just a second. The point I'm making, if you'll allow me to finish, yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of table setting. This is what I do. Anyway, the the business establishment pretty quickly realized that, a Republican wasn't going to win that race. And so they basically abandoned Bill Sublette and Andy Gardner, who were both interested in doing. And they found Jerry Demings, who was like an acceptable Democrat to them, kind of a moderate Democrat.
And he's the entire reason I'm convinced that Jerry Demings ended up Orange County mayor was because was to stop, like, Scott Randolph from being Orange County mayor. And so I think it'll be really interesting this time because everybody goes into this, like eyes wide open and like, I wouldn't be surprised to see, like, a Scott Randolph run again or something like that. But, you know, there'll be a there will be I would expect there will be a business Democrat that runs like a tourism backed Democrat that runs. And I have no idea who will be. But.
Oh yeah. Yeah. That's right. Okay. That's where we live. Yeah. That would make total sense.
Right. Yeah. This is chilling.
Right? Yeah. Okay. Right. Right. Right.
Right. Right. Yeah.
That's right. Right. Yeah, right. So what? What do we want to win? Scott, do you know how much money these guys are? Right. Yeah.
Let me ask you one last thing. Just because you you mentioned that, that that shift we're seeing where, like, Trump did surprisingly well in Orange County. If you just look at at sort of the, you know, previous elections, do you have any sense is that a Trump specific thing? Is it like his unique appeal is like a bomb thrower throw the bums out kind of guy? Or do you think is there like, you know, it is like Ron DeSantis would is the next Republican governor going to do better in, in 2020? I'm going to not even guess what year the next governors races.
But yeah, if you say so. Yeah. Do you what do you what do you make of it? Is that a Trump specific phenomenon? Yeah. So. Right there. Wow. Right.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. You're a groomer, right? Right. Right.
That makes sense. Well, we'll end with you not knowing the answer to a question, because that seems, you know, sort of. What? What? Yeah. Yes.
That's right. What what? I think Orlando subtle readers have come to expect. Scott, thank you for doing this. Yeah. That's right. Sorry.
A couple of days later. Not usually the very next day. Right. Thank you for doing this. I will let's, I would like to have you on before. I'd like to have you invest time together, too.
I think that would be a lot of fun. Yeah. That's fair, I, I think I get that a lot, actually.
So. All right. I'm going to end the call now.
So thank you for being here, Siri. All right. Thank you once again to Scott Maxwell for joining the show. That was fun. Like I said, he's one of my best friends in the world, so it's, probably the the easiest one of these conversations I've ever had.
Just, like having lunch with him all over again, Anyway, if you've made it this far again, please, please click the, the subscribe button and the like button and leave a comment or to let us know what you think. If you've got any thoughts about any of the stuff we discussed or, you know, even if you got other subjects you'd like to see us tackle and shows you've got other experts, you think, would be worth bringing onto the show. Happy to, to take a look at all that stuff. So, okay, with that out of the way, thanks for watching. And we'll see you again soon.
2024-11-16 15:40
