First Read for Friday, Feb. 17, 2023

Good morning. It’s National Tennis Pro Day. Here’s how Florida became the tennis capital of the world. 

FIRST UP

Despite the verbal wars on social media between their various supporters, the candidates in the Florida Democratic Party chair race were cordial during a debate hosted by the Florida Legislative Black Caucus in Tallahassee. Frontrunners Nikki Fried and Annette Taddeo, as well as Rick Hoye and Carolina Amudia delivered no jabs against each other and committed to get behind whoever ended up becoming the next party chair.

But they didn’t hold back about the state of the party. Fried said the collapse was 30 years in the making. To turn it around, she said the party must stop messaging solely against Republicans, but “make sure that we're giving people a reason to vote for us.” Taddeo said the statewide defeats were due to a lack of year-round investment in the state’s communities of color and young voters. To bring change, she said they have to work on outreach “every day, not just for elections.” 

The two also talked about party infighting. Taddeo said “background deals” are how leadership in the party had previously been selected, cutting out the most qualified from positions in the party. Fried said that the progressive and centrist wings of the party should debate, but stop fighting so much as it undermines the party’s outreach under its big tent.

And both former electeds leveraged their previous elected office experience and involvement as reasons why they should helm the effort to turn the party around, but both agreed that is likely a long road ahead. We’ll have a fuller report later today at cityandstatefl.com.  

– Tristan Wood 

Editor’s Note — First Read will be off Monday for Presidents Day, returning to inboxes Tuesday, Feb. 21. 

FROM CITY & STATE 

* WHO’S UP? WHO’S DOWN? Find out in this week’s Winners & Losers. 

* FIVE QUESTIONS: We talk to former DeSantis attorney Nick Primrose for his take on the Andrew Warren suspension saga and the latest appeal to the state Supreme Court. 

* ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ SUIT: For the second time in less than five months, a federal judge has rejected a lawsuit seeking to block a controversial Florida law that restricts classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.

NEW THIS MORNING

* Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is bringing forth a bill that in many cases would bar transgender people from serving in the military, the Miami Herald reports. 

* Students across Florida are planning a statewide walkout after Gov. Ron DeSantis requested all public universities comply in delivering data from student health services on transgender students who sought gender-affirming care at the institutions, Insider reports.

* A week after Florida’s high school sports association decided against requiring students to report their menstrual cycles, state lawmakers moved to give DeSantis control over the board, the Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau reports. 

* State lawmakers are considering letting Floridians carry concealed guns in public without a permit – but not at their meetings, or in courthouses, police stations, jails, polling places, bars, colleges and universities, airports and more, the Orlando Sentinel reports. 

* Explainer: Rick Scott wants to force Congress to re-pass every federal law or else let them lapse – a move that, in Democrats’ telling, would endanger much of what the government does, including beloved federal programs like Medicare and Social Security, Vox reports.

More news below …

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* Suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren now is taking his case against DeSantis to the Florida Supreme Court, the Tampa Bay Times reports. 

* The Florida Supreme Court rejected appeals by Death Row inmate Donald Dillbeck, scheduled to be executed next week in the 1990 murder of a woman during a carjacking in a Tallahassee mall parking lot, the News Service of Florida reports. 

* DeSantis signed a bill that repeals the state’s restrictions for college athletes to make money on ‘name, image or likeness’ endorsement deals, though universities will still not be allowed to pay student athletes directly, The Athletic reports. 

* Three of Jacksonville’s best known African American pastors are backing Democrat Donna Deegan for mayor, the latest sign of coalescence behind Deegan, the frontrunner in a St. Pete Polls survey of the race this week, Florida Politics reports. 

* Bay District School Board members unanimously agreed to join a nationwide lawsuit against social media platforms, saying they not only exploit children and teenagers, but can make them mentally ill, the Panama City News Herald reports. 

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DESANTIS WATCH 

The governor met with University Of Florida & Florida State University student-athletes and coaches before signing a bill to change the state's system allowing name, image or likeness endorsement deals for collegiate athletes, met with General Counsel Ryan Newman and Communications Director Taryn Fenske, then attended the Governor's Baseball Dinner, which kicks off “the annual Major League Baseball Spring Training season in Florida,” in Dunedin, his hometown, according to his official schedule for Thursday. 

2024 ROUNDUP

* DeSantis is a distant second in a South Carolina poll for 2024, far behind front runner Donald Trump when it comes to the preference of Palmetto State Republicans, Florida Politics reports. 

* Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, says he is not sure how DeSantis would perform in a presidential contest if he joins the race, saying that “none of us really know who he is” on the national stage, The Hill reports. 

* Mainstream media is pushing the narrative that DeSantis is a kinder, gentler version of Trump, but there’s a fair bit of evidence to suggest DeSantis is as dangerous as Trump – if not more, Vanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast writes. 

* DeSantis hasn’t officially decided whether he’ll seek the 2024 GOP presidential nomination but already the contradictions are sharpening between his prospective general-election strengths and his emerging strategy to win the Republican primaries, The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein writes. 

* A new poll of Republican primary voters found that the vast majority want the party’s presidential candidates to lean into culture war issues, especially when it comes to education and health care, National Review reports. 

ANALYSIS & OPINION 

* DeSantis is almost inevitably going to run for president, and needs some grand gestures to get him onto Fox News on a regular basis. What’s more fun than talking about his record on Medicare and Social Security? Enter “the bans,” Esquire’s Jack Holmes writes. 

* DeSantis could be this presidential election cycle’s Scott Walker, a gleaming governor who can’t make the leap from a local stage to the national one, who dims as the lights grow brighter, Frank Bruni writes for The New York Times. 

* The governor should remove politics from schools, allowing students to receive a comprehensive and inclusive education that acknowledges Black history in the U.S., Jamar J. Hebert writes for the Orlando Sentinel. 

* In order to score political points and smear Republicans, mainstream media acted as an agent of the Democratic Party and twisted, omitted and obfuscated key information about the Matt Gaetz case, The Florida Standard’s Will Witt writes. 

ANNOUNCEMENTS 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: To former state Rep. Ardian Zika. 

On SATURDAY, to WFSU Public Media news director Lynn Hatter …  to former state Rep. Marlene O’Toole … to state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka. 

On SUNDAY, to Tampa Bay Times politics editor Emily Mahoney … to Michael Williams, deputy communications director for the Florida Department of Transportation. 

On MONDAY, to state Rep. Joe Casello … to former Tampa Bay Times reporter and Tampa Tribune alum Anastasia Dawson … to Weed for Warriors’ Jimmy Johnston. 

Have a birthday, career change, birth, death or life event to announce? Email us: editor@cityandstatefl.com. 

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YOUR MESSAGE HERE: City & State First Read is the must-read morning roundup of Florida politics and government. Reaching thousands of subscribers each morning, it's the most effective and targeted digital ad venue to get your message in front of city and state elected officials, agency and industry leaders, and the staff, advocates, media and operatives who drive the issues of the day – all by 7 a.m. each weekday. For advertising information, please email: advertising@cityandstatefl.com

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KICKER

“GOP leaders and candidates should take from this poll one important lesson: voters expect them to fight wokeness.” 

– Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, via National Review, on a new poll showing GOP primary voters want the party’s presidential candidates to lean into culture war issues.