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Jason Garcia Profile picture
@Jason_Garcia
Oct 1, 2024 • 13 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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As Ron DeSantis & other Tallahassee Republicans spend taxpayer money fighting citizen-led referendums to overturn a state abortion ban (Amendment 4) and legalize marijuana (Amendment 3), they keep blurring the line between public governing and partisan campaigning.

For example:
When three state agencies in Tallahassee booked airtime for a joint TV commercial attacking Amendment 4, disclosure records show they used a buyer named Whitney Eversole.
On the ad buy for the state agencies, Eversole is listed representing a firm called FiDi Media.

But other concurrent records show Eversole also works with a firm called FlexPoint Media.
Image
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FlexPoint Media is the same firm being used by both the Republican Party of Florida, which is running ads against Amendment 3 and Amendment 4, and Keep Florida Clean, which is running ads against Amendment 3.
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At the same time, DeSantis has his chief of staff –James Uthmeier – who draws a $202,000-a-year salary from Florida taxpayers – chairing two political committees raising money against the amendments: Keep Florida Clean and Florida Freedom Fund Image
Last month, DeSantis used a state office to hold a strategy call with anti-abortion activists working against Amendment 4.

One of the people DeSantis had speak on that call is the leader of a firm called The Liberty Counsel.

tallahassee.com/story/news/pol…
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The Liberty Counsel is simultaneously working as a consultant to one of the political groups campaigning against Amendment 4 ("Florida Voters Against Extremism"): Image
And earlier this summer, Florida House Speaker Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast) gave a $75-an-hour part-time job to an anti-abortion analyst from the conservative Heritage Foundation. That's the far-right think tank in Washington behind Project 2025.
Putting this Heritage Foundation analyst on the public payroll allowed Renner to install her on a state panel that wrote an economic statement for Amendment 4 that will be printed on the ballot alongside the amendment.

washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/07…
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She then helped write an economic statement that was so speculative and misleading that Florida’s chief economist refused to sign off on it. Image
The Heritage Foundation was also one of the right-wing groups that lobbied DeSantis, Renner and other Florida Republicans to pass the state’s near-total abortion ban in the first place. Image
In other words, the Heritage Foundation lobbied for Florida’s abortion ban.

And then the Heritage Foundation got to help write a misleading ballot summary for an amendment that would overturn that ban.

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More from @Jason_Garcia

Jason Garcia Profile picture
Apr 23
There is someone who appears at both the beginning and the end of the still-unfolding “Hope Florida” scandal:

James Uthmeier, who was Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff during the entire sequence of events (and who is now Florida's attorney general.)

🧵...
To recap: The DeSantis administration had a Medicaid contractor make a $10 million “donation” to the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity founded by Casey DeSantis.

It was part of a $67 million legal settlement with Centene Corp., after the company overbilled the state.

(2/x)
Days later, the Hope Florida Foundation gave that $10 million to a pair of dark-money nonprofits (including one controlled by executives at the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Big Business lobbying group).

(3/x)
Read 20 tweets
Jason Garcia Profile picture
Mar 24
The appointee picked by Ron DeSantis to run elections in Orlando last year spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on campaign-style self-promotion, contracts with personal friends, and payments to allies of the Republican governor and other GOP leaders.

🧵...
During a 10-month stint as Supervisor of Elections in Orange County, records show Glen Gilzean steered work to an assortment of businesses and organizations run by Republican operatives — ranging from DeSantis' former communications director to state Rep. Susan Plasencia.

2/x
Gilzean also awarded a lucrative legal contract to a law firm run by the best man at his wedding — and a marketing contract to a newly created video production company that corporate, obituary, and email records suggest involved his best man’s brother.

3/x
Read 13 tweets
Jason Garcia Profile picture
Mar 24
Last fall, as Ron DeSantis was raising money to fight a ballot measures to legalize marijuana and end a statewide abortion ban, Florida’s governor turned to an odious source for help: Philip Morris, the Big Tobacco company best known as the maker of Marlboro cigarettes.

🧵...1/x
Records show DeSantis took $500,000 from Philip Morris International in the closing weeks of last year’s campaign, making the tobacco company one of the top contributors to the fundraising committee DeSantis used to oppose the marijuana and abortion-rights ballot measures.

2/x
It was a big favor for the governor, who made himself the face of the opposition to the two constitutional amendments — both of which fell just short of the 60 percent supermajority needed to pass.

And now Ron DeSantis has done a big favor for Philip Morris.

3/x
Read 25 tweets
Jason Garcia Profile picture
Oct 31, 2024
So earlier this year, commissioners in Orange County (Orlando) voted 4-3 to to block a sprawling subdivision that would have been built on 1,800 acres of largely rural land.

That developer is now spending tens of thousands of dollars on this year's county elections.

🧵...
Records show a Texas company behind the development – called "Sustanee" – has in recent weeks donated at least $4,500 to a political committee that Steve Leary has been using to attack Democrat Kelly Semrad in Orange County’s District 5 county commission race.
Leary is a developer-friendly former mayor of Winter Park while Semrad is an activist who has led a campaign to make it harder for developers to build on rural land.

Semrad has also been endorsed by incumbent Commissioner Emily Bonilla – who voted against Susanee.
Read 6 tweets
Jason Garcia Profile picture
Oct 28, 2024
With early voting underway, the DeSantis administration has ordered nearly $1 million more in taxpayer-funded advertising as it campaigns against Amendment 3 (legal marijuana) and Amendment 4 (abortion rights).

The latest buy was made Oct. 24 through the Department of Health. Image
This brings DeSantis' total estimated taxpayer spending on its campaigns to keep abortion banned and marijuana illegal to ~$19.3 million
That estimate comes from:

- $17.2115 million in concurrent purchase orders by the Agency for Health Care Administration and the Departments of Children & Families, Education, and Health through the same marketing agency.

The four agencies are co-sponsoring ads together.
Read 5 tweets
Jason Garcia Profile picture
Oct 24, 2024
Ron DeSantis appears to have taken nearly $4 million that was supposed to be spent combating the opioid crisis – and burned the money instead on advertising against ballot measures that would legalize marijuana and overturn a statewide abortion ban.

🧵...
To explain: Over the past few weeks, four state agencies have ordered ~$16.2 million worth of advertising from the same Tallahassee-based marketing agency. Image
Those same four agencies are now jointly funding TV and digital ads meant to weaken support for Amendment 3, which would legalize marijuana in Florida, and Amendment 4, would overturn the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
Read 14 tweets

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