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.

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. This brings DeSantis' total estimated taxpayer spending on its campaigns to keep abortion banned and marijuana illegal to ~$19.3 million

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.

Ron DeSantis has dragged yet another state agency into his tax-funded crusade against two constitutional amendments on this year’s ballot.

This time it's the Florida Department of Education, which is helping pay for a new TV ad warning of the “risks to marijuana."

🧵... The 30-second spot is airing just as voters begin casting ballots on a constitutional amendment that would legalize marijuana in Florida.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may be preparing to take legal action against television stations airing ads in support of a citizen-led constitutional amendment that would end a near-total ban on abortion in Florida... Records show that DeSantis' Department of Health just signed contracts with a pair of law firms "to provide legal representation...in regard to false political advertisements under chapters 381 and 386."

A trio of Donald Trump-backing billionaires just put half a million dollars into the Florida election that will decide the next top prosecutor in Trump’s home county.

🧵... The sudden cash infusion appears to be financing television ads promoting Republican Sam Stern, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer who is running for state attorney in Palm Beach County.

As voting begins across Florida, Ron DeSantis is ramping up a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign against ballot measures that would overturn a statewide abortion ban and legalize marijuana.

🧵... The DeSantis administration has in recent days launched more television commercials targeting both Amendment 3, which would allow recreational use of marijuana, and Amendment 4, which would end one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation.

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.

So…Ron DeSantis just ordered $15.5 million in taxpayer-funded advertising.

It comes as his administration campaigns against a referendum to repeal a statewide abortion ban – and amid rumors it may launch a public campaign against a referendum to legalize recreational marijuana. The purchase orders were all made last week through four different state agencies: The Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), the Department of Children & Families (DCF), the Department of Education (DOE) and the Department of Health (DOE).

New: A few months before Florida’s public healthcare agency launched an ad campaign to stop Florida voters from overturning the state’s near-total abortion ban, state lawmakers in Tallahassee quietly gave the agency $1 million in taxpayer money to spend on “marketing.”

(1/12) Lawmakers slipped the money into the state budget under a misleading line item that gave no hint of how it could be used.

(2/12)

The Supreme Court of Florida appears ready to impose a fetal personhood law on the state – via a ruling that'd classify zygotes, embryos and fetuses as people under the state constitution.

I say that because 6 of the court’s 7 justices just signaled support for fetal rights...🧵 To explain: As anyone who follows Florida politics knows, the state Supreme Court issued two seismic rulings on abortion this week.

A bit of budget intrigue:

Florida lawmakers may be growing skeptical of Ron DeSantis' attempt to turn New College of Florida into an explicitly conservative institution (and an easy landing spot for DeSantis administration allies in need of high-paying jobs).... Yesterday evening, lawmakers negotiating a final state budget proposed giving an extra $382 million to fund operations at Florida's 12 public universities.

In a last-minute maneuver, the Florida Senate wants to stop cities and counties from imposing any kind of restrictions on gas-powered leaf blowers for at least the next year.

Senate budget negotiators just proposed adding the issue to a budget-related bill: The Senate also wants to add $100,000 to the budget to pay for a study comparing the life cycles of gas-powered leaf blowers vs. electric/battery-powered ones:

Ron DeSantis has come back to Florida...and state lawmakers are poised to give him essentially unlimited military power. The bill makes a bunch of changes around the "Florida State Guard," the governor-controlled militia that lawmakers resurrected in 2022 at DeSantis' request.

But it does two big things, in particular.

A Republican lawmaker in Florida wants to let kids drop out of school and start working full-time instead the moment they reach their 16th birthday.

The idea is tucked inside a proposed amendment to a controversial bill (HB 49) rolling back Florida's child-labor laws. Records show the original version of the bill –was written by a billionaire-funded group trying to weaken child-labor laws across the U.S.

It would have let companies make some high-school students work overnight shifts, 12-hour days or 40-hour workweeks during the school year

The sponsor of a bill in Florida to let businesses make 16- and 17-year-olds work overnight on a school night or 40+ hours during a school week, just said she filed the bill partly to provide more labor for the tourism industry. "Being in a tourist area of Florida and knowing the needs of the hospitality industry…..I felt this was a common sense bill," said Rep. Linda Chaney (R-St. Pete Beach).

The Republican-controlled Florida House of Representatives just filed sweeping legislation that would block efforts in communities all across the state to make businesses pay higher wages, provide better benefits or ensure safer workplaces. The bill would dissolve local living wage laws, allowing contractors to slash pay for tens of thousands of workers at places like airports and construction sites.

Via @lmower3: An internal investigation found that the guy Ron DeSantis personally picked to run Florida's affordable housing agency:

1. Screamed at his staff, made sexist comments, talked about employees' weight and threatened their jobs.

More... 2. Is simultaneously serving on the board of a company that contracts with the agency.

*Three* general counsels said that was a conflict of interest. But DeSantis' guy refused to give up his board seat and instead says conflict-of-interest policies are "outdated."

More...

Two weeks before he launched his campaign for president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a big union-busting bill.

This bill was bad: Five Republican senators crossed DeSantis and voted against it.

But I don’t think most folks realize just how bad it is...

🧵 To start with, Senate Bill 256 is designed to make it much harder for public-sector workers in Florida to band together in unions and collectively bargain for things like pay, better insurance, paid sick leave, predictable schedules and so on.

Back in May, NBC News reported that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had his taxpayer-paid staff pressuring Tallahassee lobbyists to donate to DeSantis' presidential campaign – right as DeSantis was debating whether to sign or veto bills and budget projects:

nbcnews.com/politics/2024-… That pressure campaign seems to have paid off. A review of DeSantis' first fundraising report as a presidential candidate shows that he raised at least $290,000 from Florida lobbyists seeking favors from his administration:

jasongarcia.substack.com/p/records-show…

So…just before the end of this year’s session of the Florida Legislature, state lawmakers slipped a new issue into the state budget: A law making it harder for local communities to regulate the sale or use of lawn fertilizer (which contributes to water pollution). Nobody had any idea at the time where this idea came from.

After all, legislative leaders basically hid it from the public until day 55 of their 60-day session.

But @craigtimes eventually figured it out.