Latest news with #Foganholi
Miami Herald
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Daniel Foganholi barely confirmed to Florida Board of Education, following pro-gun op-ed
An op-ed advocating for students and professors to carry guns on college campuses nearly cost Daniel Foganholi a seat on the state Board of Education. Foganholi, a former appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis to the Broward County School Board, was confirmed by the Florida Senate to his newest education position by a narrow vote of 20 to 17. All 10 Democrats and seven of the 27 Republicans voted no. Sen. Jason Pizzo, who switched from Democrat to no party affiliation last week, did not cast a vote. The Board of Education sets policy and provides oversight for public K-12 institutions and state colleges in Florida. 'I am honored to have been confirmed by the Florida Senate today,' Foganholi told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. 'I will soon announce a statewide listening tour to meet with students, parents, and teachers at our schools and state colleges as we work to make education in Florida even stronger.' Read more at the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Florida Senate confirms 189 gubernatorial appointees — some barely
Senators gather in their chamber for the opening day of session on March 4, 2025. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix) Not without conflict, the Florida Senate took up 189 of Gov. Ron DeSantis' appointees for boards and commissions across the state and approved all of them. Among the confirmations was former House Speaker Paul Renner to the State University System Board of Governors, former Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez as chair of Space Florida, and former Sen. Rob Bradley to the St. Johns River Water Management District board. Two appointees, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Chair Rodney Barreto and Board of Education member Daniel Foganholi, received pushback but ultimately were confirmed. Senators approved Foganholi by a three-vote margin, 20-17. Foganholi has been appointed to four positions by DeSantis, including two times to the Broward School District board. In November, he ran to keep his spot on that board and lost, receiving 20% of the vote. New Board of Education member thanks God, DeSantis for fourth appointment After the loss, DeSantis appointed him to the state board. 'The people of Broward County did not trust Mr. Foganholi to represent them and he should not be rewarded for his failure to win the confidence of his community with a higher appointment to the State Board of Education,' Sen. Tina Polsky said on the floor. Foganholi, a first-generation American born to parents who came to the United States from Brazil, is a member of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, to which DeSantis appointed him. Miami New Times reported in August that Foganholi used to be a rapper. He told the outlet that he is proud of his music venture, but not of the music itself, which includes him 'spitting bars about everything from getting women to getting high,' according to the New Times. Foganholi appeared in a music video that includes a depiction of him robbing a convenience store with a gun, the outlet reported, and published a screenshot of the YouTube video. The video linked in the article has since been deleted. Polsky brought his rap career up on the floor. 'This is not the influence we need on our State Board of Education. We owe our children better,' Polsky said. Foganholi wrote an op-ed in support of gun open carry on campus following the shooting at Florida State University that killed two and injured six. 'At FSU, the shooter used his mother's legally-owned service weapon,' Foganholi wrote in The Spectator. 'No law could have stopped him. But, had even one trained professor, staff member or responsible student been armed, this tragedy might have ended differently.' He went on to write a similar sentiment about the 2017 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Polsky, who represents Parkland, site of the high school, said Foganholi misrepresented what happened that day in his op-ed, adding that he is 'either so ignorant on our state's tragedies or so willing to deliberately misrepresent them to promote his own agenda.' 'The students of Florida, of Parkland, and now of Florida State, continue to come to us, asking us to listen and prioritize their safety,' Polsky said. 'How do we justify them appointing someone with such a poor understanding of safety on the Board of Education.' Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith requested that Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Chair Rodney Barreto be removed from the consent list. Barreto, a Coral Gables resident, has been appointed to the commission by three different governors — Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, and DeSantis. Barreto is a millionaire who owns property in four states and chaired the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee three times. Smith said his and other senators' email inboxes 'have been blown up' by constituents concerned about Barreto. During his Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources confirmation hearing earlier this year, Barreto was asked about submerged land he owns at Singer Island and the potential sale of the environmentally sensitive land. 'I'm not in the business of buying land and giving it to people,' he said at the time when asked about the sale. 'I'm in the business of making money.' Smith recalled that testimony on the Senate floor Tuesday. 'Of course, there's nothing wrong with making money. It's not a crime or a bad thing. It's what makes our capitalist economic system work. But he didn't strike me as an environmental advocate, certainly not someone who should be the chair of the Florida Wildlife Commission. 'In my opinion, Mr. Barreto's personal financial and development interests directly conflict with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's mission,' Smith said. But Sens. Ana Maria Rodriguez and Bryan Avila defended Barreto. 'I know that there's a lot of noise and I think it's important for us to sometimes put the noise aside and look at the accomplishments and look at the individual who has been leading the effort not just on Biscayne Bay not just on the Everglades but on preserving a lot of land in our state for conservation,' Avila said. The Senate voted 31-7 to confirm Barreto. The Senate did not vote on all of DeSantis appointees. Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Shevaun Harris or Department of Children and Families Secretary Taylor Hatch were not confirmed. The Florida Phoenix was the first to report that the Senate wouldn't confirm them. Both Harris and Hatch testified during the House of Representatives investigation into a $10 million payment to the Hope Florida Foundation by health care giant Centene. The payment was part of a Medicaid overpayment settlement Centene reached with the state. One University of West Florida trustee, Adam Kissel, was rejected in committee. If the governor wants Harris, Hatch, or Kissel to continue to serve, he must reappoint them to that post within days of the end of session. They can continue to serve until the next legislative session. Appointees who fail to win confirmation a second time must leave their positions. Two other gubernatorial appointees to the UWF board resigned after senators showed hesitancy about DeSantis' desired conservative makeover of the Pensacola institution. The process the Senate followed for confirmations this year and next was outlined in a memo by Senate Ethics and Committee Chair Don Gaetz, himself a former Senate president, and committee vice chair Mack Bernard, a Democrat. The memo explains that every gubernatorial appointee will be considered by their substantive committee as well as the Ethics and Elections Committee. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Miami Herald
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Let professors and students carry guns on campus, Florida board of ed member says
In the wake of the devastating mass shooting at Florida State University last week, former Broward County School Board member and current Florida Board of Education member Daniel Foganholi calls for a controversial solution: allowing students and professors to carry guns on campus. Foganholi, a Republican from Coral Springs, published an opinion piece in conservative British magazine The Spectator on Wednesday arguing that 'gun-free zones do not protect our students – they turn them into defenseless, easy targets.' The recent shooting at one of Florida largest universities sent shockwaves throughout the state and brought back traumatizing memories of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, in which a former student killed 17 people and injured 17 others. In fact, several students who survived the 2018 shooting attend FSU. 'When sick individuals like the shooter at FSU attempt to terrorize campuses, they deserve swift and decisive confrontation by anyone capable of stopping them,' Foganholi writes in the op-ed. 'In other words, they deserve to be shot dead on the spot.' On April 17, a gunman killed two people and wounded several others at Florida State in Tallahassee. Within five minutes of the first shot, the 20-year-old suspect, the step-son of a sheriff's deputy, was shot by police and taken into custody. Police say the gunman used his stepmother's handgun in the attack. Foganholi is an ally of Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration, which has appointed him to education-related positions five times. He was first appointed to the Broward County School Board in May 2022 to fill a seat vacated by Rosalind Osgood, who stepped down to run for the state Senate. Jeff Holness was elected to that seat in November 2022. DeSantis appointed Foganholi to the school board again just a month later to fill another vacant seat. In 2023, Foganholi was appointed to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission and the Charter School Review Commission while he still served on the school board. Foganholi ran in the August 2024 election to keep his seat, but came in third place in a three-way race won by Maura Bulman. That election cemented the Broward County School Board's liberal majority, which reflects Broward's status as the only Democratic stronghold in South Florida following the 2024 presidential election. (The school board's lone conservative member, Brenda Fam, announced her resignation Tuesday, citing a 'toxic environment.') Just three days after his defeat, DeSantis appointed Foganholi to serve on the State Board of Education, which sets state education policy and enforces education laws. In the op-ed in The Spectator, Foganholi describes visiting FSU's campus days before the shooting, watching students socialize and read on the lawn. 'Today, that same lawn is a crime scene – the latest gun-free zone targeted by a coward intent on terrorizing innocent lives,' he wrote. 'At FSU, the shooter used his mother's legally-owned service weapon. No law could have stopped him,' Foganholi wrote. 'But, had even one trained professor, staff member or responsible student been armed, this tragedy might have ended differently.' 'Should everybody on campus have a weapon?' Foganholi referenced other high-profile school shootings in his argument, including the Parkland shooting, when Chris Hixon, a Navy veteran and school athletic director, rushed to help wounded students. Hixon, who was unarmed, was murdered by the gunman. 'Imagine if Hixon or even one teacher had carried a firearm that day. Imagine how differently things could have ended,' Foganholi wrote. Debra Hixon, the Broward County School Board chair and Chris Hixon's wife, told the Herald that while she agrees with some of Foganholi's points, she disagrees with the idea that allowing students and teachers to have weapons on campus would make everyone safer in an emergency. She said more guns on campus, potentially in the hands of young, impulsive people, would cause more harm than good. 'You can flip the conversation. Let's say there were five students around the shooter, untrained, nervous as all get out,' Hixon said. 'They throw out their weapons. They could've killed more people. The idea that people just carrying guns all over the place makes things safer, I just think is a not an accurate statement.' Debra Hixon did agree that if her husband had a gun, things would've ended much differently. In his lifetime, Chris Hixon did agree with the idea of trained staff being armed in schools. If he were alive today, Debra Hixon said, he would've opted into the state's Guardian Program, which was enacted after the Parkland shooting and named after Chris. But, as Hixon noted, her husband was a veteran with active shooter training, not 'just someone who went and got a gun.' 'I never opposed the guardianship program. I think it's important. But should everybody on campus have a weapon?' she said. 'Just think about road rage, right? Someone cuts you off. The next thing you know, they're whipping out a gun and shooting at people. That's not the world I want to live in.' Historically, Americans have been divided over how to best address school shootings, including gun reform or arming school faculty. In 2017, a year before the Parkland shooting, data from Pew Research Center showed that Americans 'narrowly opposed' allowing teachers to carry guns. A majority of Americans say it is too easy to legally obtain a gun and 58% of Americans support stricter gun laws, though specific gun policies are politically divisive, according to 2023 Pew data. David Hogg, a Parkland shooting survivor, outspoken gun control advocate and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, told CBS News that the FSU shooting highlights the need for stronger gun laws. He criticized the efforts of some Republicans in the Florida Legislature to roll back gun reforms that were made after the Parkland shooting. 'There are a lot of students from Parkland at FSU, and what really bothers me is, in Florida, we worked in a bipartisan manner to pass reforms after Parkland,' he told CBS's Major Garrett. 'We passed a red flag law that has been used over 19,000 times to disarm people who were a risk to themselves and others.'
