PNJ Headlines: Here’s what’s in the news Thursday
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Two special elections to fill congressional vacancies in Florida already have drawn a crowded field of candidates, including a pair of Republican contenders endorsed by Donald Trump.
But now these candidates are throwing out policy proposals that appear crafted to appeal not just to conservative voters, but to the president-elect himself.
Loosening Florida’s gun laws, blunting benefits to undocumented immigrants, and moving the state closer toward allowing silver and gold as currency are among the campaign pitches being made in the contests which could be effectively decided in Republican primaries on January 28.
“I think it’s fair to say that some of this stuff isn’t so much targeted at voters as at a president-elect,” said Michael Binder, a University of North Florida political scientist and director of the school’s polling center.
“For those who’ve gotten Trump’s endorsement, it’s a ‘Thank you. Look at the kind of things I’m ready to do once I get to Congress,’” he added.
Guns, immigration and Fox News advertisers become grist for campaigns
Florida Congressional District 1 in the Panhandle was vacated by former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz who was nominated by Trump to become U.S. attorney general, only to withdraw his name amid a series of allegations of sexual misconduct.
Ten Republicans have qualified as candidates for CD 1, along with one Democrat, Gay Valimont, who lost to Gaetz in November. There are also four write-in candidates and one no-party-affiliated contender who will be part of the April 1 general election.
But only Florida’s Republican Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis has Trump’s endorsement.
Patronis, who once proposed that Florida should spend taxpayer funds on Trump’s personal legal defense, announced Wednesday that his Cabinet office is studying whether gold and silver could be used as money in the state.
Ads for gold coins are a mainstay on Fox News, Newsmax and other conservative outlets. A Trump gold coin is often featured and Patronis seems to see the currency idea as having some appeal to voters on the political right.
“That’s interesting because Trump’s people seem to be saying he’s going to be a big promoter of crypto (currency),” Binder added.
Another of the District 1 Republicans, state Rep. Joel Rudman of Navarre, also has been active on the policy front.
Although Rudman is resigning from the Legislature on Jan. 1, he’s filed a bill for next spring’s session that would allow guns to be carried openly in Florida. His bill also would repeal the ‘red flag’ law enacted in 2018 following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
The red flag laws allows a court to order that guns be confiscated from someone deemed a threat to themselves or others.
Trump spoke at a National Rifle Association convention during his presidential campaign and outlined plans to expand gun access during his second term.
Although contenders are heading to exit in Tallahassee, they still file bills
Another Trump-endorsed Florida congressional candidate, state Sen. Randy Fine, a Brevard County Republican, is running to replace U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz, who the president-elect has chosen as his national security adviser.
Although Fine plans to leave the Legislature on March 31, a day before the general election for the Congressional District 6 seat, he also has introduced a bill to erase another post-Parkland gun measure, which prevents people under age 21 from buying rifles and other long guns.
Fine voted in favor of the measure in 2018. But since then, he’s been calling for its repeal.
The NRA sued to overturn the law claiming it violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment on gun rights, but lost in federal court and before an appellate panel. The NRA has asked the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the challenge, which is still pending.
Fine also is advancing legislation which echoes some of Trump’s anti-immigration themes.
Although he’ll only be in the Legislature for the first month of the scheduled two-month session next spring, Fine wants to repeal in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.
Since 2014, Florida has allowed undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates across its public colleges if they’d spent most of their high school years in the state. The measure was enacted by U.S. Sen. Rick Scott when he was the state’s Republican governor and it was portrayed as helping “Dreamers,” thousands of Florida children whose parents had brought them to the U.S.
Fine, though, said eliminating this provision “is a no-brainer way to reduce the size of government and free up resources to help Floridians in need.”
Trump has promised mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, which could include possibly 1.1 million people in Florida.
Fine is among three Republican candidates running in Congressional District 6, which is a heavily GOP-leaning seat. Three Democrats have qualified, with nominees for both parties to be picked by voters Jan. 28.
The April 1 general election also will include a write-in candidate, another running as a no-party contender and a third campaigning as a Libertarian Party candidate.
Could beach access play a role in Panhandle contest?
In the Panhandle race, Trump is featured heavily in Patronis’ first TV spot, which begins airing Saturday. In it, Patronis pledges that, “President Trump can count on me and so can you.”
Rudman, running without the Trump imprint in the heavy Republican Congressional District 1, acknowledges his uphill fight.
But he’s trying to broaden his reach to voters and also rolled out a bill that would repeal a 2018 state law which bolstered the power of property owners in the district’s Walton County to declare their beachfront off-limits to the public.
The law spawned lawsuits and bitter clashes among neighbors. Rudman said businesses are also fearing an economic decline caused by tourists staying away from the county because of limited beach access.
Among the powerful Walton County property owners who pushed for that state law was Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who Trump recently named ambassador to Israel. Huckabee sold his Walton County beach house in 2021.
The 2018 law overturned a Walton County ordinance intended to keep the beaches open to the public. And Rudman said returning to that standard could appeal to the voters he’s now trying to woo in the January primary.
“I’m definitely doing it for the people,” Rudman said, adding, “I’m doing what I think President Trump would want me to do, and that’s stand with working Americans.”
John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on X at @JKennedyReport.