Latest news with #non-Floridians
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Editorial: Trump's Florida judicial picks spur doubts
When the U.S. Senate considers five Floridians who are up for federal judgeships, three of them should be forced to answer a familiar Washington question: What did you know and when did you know it? Ed Artau and Jordan Pratt are Florida appellate judges who recently wrote opinions sure to please President Donald Trump, who announced their nominations last week. It would impugn their fitness to be federal judges if they knew at the time that Trump was considering them for the federal bench. Their generally hard-right leanings are an issue, too, casting additional doubt on whether either of them should be confirmed by the Senate. Trump's third Florida nominee, John Guard, is chief deputy state attorney general. He signed off on the $67 million Medicaid settlement that earmarked $10 million to First Lady Casey DeSantis' Hope Florida Foundation. The money apparently flowed through to a political committee helping Gov. Ron DeSantis defeat the recreational-marijuana amendment last November. State Attorney Jack Campbell in Tallahassee has begun a criminal investigation into the diversion of that money, and Sen. Rick Scott has said that Guard should have to answer 'some questions' about it. Some obvious ones: Did he know where the money would go? Was it an appropriation that only the Legislature should have made? Scott isn't on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Florida's other senator, Ashley Moody, is. Because Moody was Guard's boss when he signed off on the settlement, she should disqualify herself from voting on his nomination. Artau, a judge of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, flagrantly flattered Trump's cause when the court ruled in February that he could continue suing non-Floridians on the Pulitzer Prize Board in a state court. Trump claims they defamed him by awarding prizes to the Washington Post and the New York Times for their coverage of alleged Russian interference in the 2020 election. From a First Amendment standpoint, the suit is preposterous. The main opinion of a three-judge panel gave a simple 'yes' to that jurisdictional question and did not go into the main issue of whether the Pulitzer board had libeled Trump. Artau's concurring opinion reads as if Trump wrote it. It quoted Trump's claim that it was all 'fake news,' a 'phony witch hunt' and 'a big hoax.' The rest of the 12 pages — six times as long as the opinion — was pro-Trump, too. Artau has not replied to our email asking if he knew Trump was considering him for a federal judgeship when he wrote that opinion. The public deserves to know. Artau wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court should reconsider New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark case that raised the standard for defamation lawsuits by public officials. Trump and his lawyers have repeatedly made the same argument. In an earlier, unrelated case, Artau dissented from a majority opinion overturning the resisting-arrest conviction of a woman who had been photographing Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. Pratt, a judge of the Fifth District Court of Appeal at Daytona Beach, wrote the opinion last month striking down the Florida law allowing minors to obtain a judge's permission for an abortion rather than to have to notify their parents and obtain their consent. His opinion for a unanimous panel embraced a far-fetched legal theory that the 14th Amendment gives parents an inherent right to be informed and to consent. The other Floridians whom Trump is nominating are Judge Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe of Florida's Second District Court of Appeal and Kyle Dudek, a federal magistrate judge in Fort Myers. All the nominees except Dudek are known members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization that has had extraordinary influence in judicial appointments by Trump as well as DeSantis. Artau flaunted his Federalist ties when he unsuccessfully sought a Florida Supreme Court appointment from DeSantis. The society's standing with Trump would appear to be shaky now in light of the tantrum the president pitched last week over a three-judge federal court's ruling against his tariffs. That outburst came just after he had announced the five Florida nominations. And it was over the top, even for Trump, in that he didn't assail just the ruling but denounced Leonard Leo, former executive vice president of the Federalist Society, and the group itself for 'bad advice they gave me on numerous legal occasions.' The outburst was likely just another attempt to intimidate federal judges into treating him as deferentially as the Republican Congress does. Nevertheless, there's great danger in his reckless jawboning. It is evident in a surge of threats against federal judges and their families. A total of 373 were investigated by the U.S. Marshals Service in just the first five months of this year, compared to 509 all last year. There have also been more than 100 unsolicited pizza deliveries, a menacing way of saying 'We know where you live.' If any judge or family member is harmed, the world will know who incited it. ____ ___
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Florida House to weigh property tax cuts
A special House committee will begin hearings this week to consider possible alternatives for asking Florida voters to cut property taxes. House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, on Tuesday announced the creation of a select committee to look at potential property-tax changes that could go before voters in November 2026. The full House would take up the issue at the start of the 2026 legislative session in January. 'Given the importance of this issue we cannot afford further delay in moving this conversation beyond promises or generalities,' Perez said. Perez's announcement came as Gov. Ron DeSantis has called for eliminating property taxes or raising the homestead exemption. The House, by contrast, has proposed reducing the state's sales-tax rate from 6 percent to 5.25 percent. Perez called DeSantis' property-tax elimination proposal 'exciting.' But Perez said the governor hasn't provided specifics, while questions have swirled about potential effects of such a move on the ability of local governments to pay for police, fire-rescue, infrastructure and other services. 'One of the things I have learned about our (House) committee process over the years is that our process is most effective when we can build our conversations around specifics rather than generalities,' Perez said. 'In other words, saying, 'property taxes bad' isn't the basis for developing a plan.' Homeowners can qualify for homestead tax exemptions from local-government and school-district taxes on the first $25,000 of the appraised values of their properties and from local-government taxes on the value between $50,000 and $75,000. Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City, and Rep. Vicki Lopez, R-Miami, will co-chair the select committee. The Legislature would have to approve any proposals before they could go on the November 2026 ballot. Perez outlined five potential changes for the committee to consider as a 'springboard' for discussions: --- Requiring cities, counties and special districts to hold referendums on eliminating homestead property taxes. --- Creating a $500,000 homestead exemption for non-school property taxes, which would increase to $1 million for residents who are age 65 and older or who have had a homestead for more than 30 years. --- Authorizing the Legislature to raise the homestead exemption by law, so future increases wouldn't have to go to the ballot. --- Changing caps on annual increases in taxable property values. Currently, for example, such increases for homesteaded property are capped at 3 percent or the percent change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. --- Prohibiting governments from foreclosing on homesteaded property for unpaid taxes. DeSantis has repeatedly called for cutting property taxes. He has said the state should shift the tax burden to tourists, non-Floridians and people with multiple homes. But as lawmakers have considered a number of property-tax proposals, legislative leaders have pointed to a need to get more information from local governments and state economists. Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, this month said he wanted to see the Legislature's Economic and Demographic Research study the possibility of reducing or eliminating property taxes and report back by Nov. 1. 'I agree with Floridians who are not only frustrated by the cost of property taxes, but also with the very idea that you have to keep paying in perpetuity for the privilege of living in a home you bought and paid for long ago,' Albritton said in an April 9 memo to senators. 'The whole concept doesn't sit right with me either. However, I believe we need to accept the fact that unwinding the state's largest source of revenue that funds local emergency response, public safety services, and education should not be taken lightly.' A Senate Finance and Tax Committee analysis estimated local property-tax revenues total about $30 billion for non-school taxes and $20 billion for school taxes. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
