Show notes

To make a donation in support of Seeking Rents, click here.

To reserve a ticket to our discussion about data centers in Venice with Alice Herman and Christian Casale of Suncoast Searchlight and Emily Mahoney of the Tampa Bay Times, click here.

Stories discussed in today’s show:

The DeSantis decisions: Quiet wins for homebuilders and car dealers

Billionaire Ken Griffin pours money into Byron Donalds’ campaign for governor

Meet the billionaire pushing taxpayer-funded school vouchers

The billionaire trying to reinvent Florida schools has a $7.5 million bet on Byron Donalds

The Scale of Billionaires’ Campaign Donations is Overwhelming U.S. Politics

Lobbyist for a billionaire-run hedge fund wrote a bill allowing longer non-competes, records show

Lobbyists for a billionaire and a charter network pushed Florida lawmakers to expand a school privatization program, records show

A billionaire-backed think tank keeps sabotaging Florida workers. More attacks are coming.

Untraceable: Who sends all those political mailers?

Fewer Florida residents are receiving federal food benefits

The Fontainebleau wanted another favor from the Florida Legislature

New law has Florida ‘open for business’ for AI data centers, utility execs say

Florida judge refuses to boot Fishback from the ballot, won’t ‘decide the race’

Bills discussed in today’s show:

Senate Bill 686 – Agricultural Enclaves

Senate Bill 484 – Data Centers

House Bill 399 – Land Use and Development Regulations

Questions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.com

Listen to the show: Apple | Spotify

Watch the show: YouTube

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing independent journalism about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But you can support my work by becoming a paid subscriber and/or by making a one-time donation.

Subscribe now

A new state law touted as a way to “protect” Floridians from the impacts of giant data centers may actually be accelerating the development of giant data centers around the state.

Executives at Florida’s largest power company revealed last week that they expect to sell significantly more electricity to large data centers over the next few years — in part because the new law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in May, has made Florida a more attractive destination for the massive warehouses of computer servers needed to power artificial intelligence and other technologies.

“Having that legislation come in place in May allows for a lot of certainty for these customers that are going to make multibillion-dollar investments in the state of Florida,” Scott Bores, the president and CEO of Florida Power & Light, told investment analysis during a July 24 conference call to discuss the second-quarter earnings of parent company NextEra Energy Inc. “So I think that gives us a good foundation to build upon.”

Florida Power & Light — which expects to announce at least one major data center deal by the end of the year — now forecasts 8 gigawatts of electricity demand from “large load” customers like data centers by the year 2032. That’s a 33 percent increase from the 6 gigawatts of data center demand the company had been projecting at the beginning of the year.

One gigawatt of electricity is roughly enough to power 800,000 homes.

FPL isn’t the only company crowing about Florida’s new data center law, which passed the Republican-controlled state Legislature in March as Senate Bill 484 and focuses primarily on especially energy-intensive facilities known as “hyperscale” data centers. DeSantis signed the bill into law two months later at a ceremony featuring the slogan, “Protecting Florida Consumers.”

The day after DeSantis put his signature on Senate Bill 484, executives at another big Florida power company — Tampa Electric Co. — celebrated the news on a quarterly earnings call.

“Everyone was waiting to see whether or not the governor was going to sign Senate Bill 484, and he did that yesterday,” Archibald Collins, TECO’s president and CEO, said on the call. “That certainly makes it clearer to the data center investment community that Florida is, in fact, open for business as long as certain guidelines are respected in the process.”

The head of TECO’s parent company — Canadian energy conglomerate Emera Inc. — similarly praised DeSantis on another shareholder call a few weeks later.

“Recently, Gov. DeSantis passed legislation that sets a clear path for data center development in the state, providing clarity and ensuring fairness to all stakeholders for the development of data centers,” Emera Chairman and CEO Scott Balfour said.

The effusive industry praise for Florida’s new data center law comes after the utility companies and other data center interests successfully lobbied to weaken the legislation as it moved through Tallahassee.

For example, an initial draft of the proposal submitted to the Legislature by the Governor’s Office — which Seeking Rents obtained through a public records request — would have prohibited the construction of large data centers on agricultural land. It would have imposed minimum setbacks of at least 500 feet. And it would have prohibited tax incentives for data centers.

Hyperscale Data Centers - Governor's Office draft

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Another version of the bill, filed in the Florida House of Representatives would have banned non-disclosure agreements between data center developers and local governments. The House plan also would have made it very difficult to build a data center within 5 miles of any home or school — by forbidding construction unless approved by a unanimous vote of the local county commission or city council.

All of those provisions were either blocked or stripped from Senate Bill 484 before the legislation passed.

The proposal to ban data centers within five miles of a home or school was pushed, in part, by residents in Palm Beach County fighting a proposed AI data center known by the code name “Project Tango” that would purchase its electricity from FPL.

But data center lobbyists leaned hard on legislators to reject the idea.

“Banning the construction of data centers within five miles of any residential property or school unless waived by unanimous vote by the local governing body would significantly limit where data centers can be constructed while sending the signal that Florida is less than welcoming of their siting altogether,” Colton Madill, a lobbyist with the Florida Chamber of Commerce, told the House Commerce Committee during a hearing on the data center legislation.

FPL and TECO are two of the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s biggest funders

This is not to say that Senate Bill 484 accomplished nothing.

The new law requires utilities to implement rate structures that “reasonably ensure” the costs of providing power to large data centers aren’t subsidized by other ratepayers — although executives at FPL, TECO and Duke Energy Corp. have all said that the legislation simply codifies plans they already had in place.

Perhaps more importantly, the law empowers local governments to block proposed data centers by giving them explicit authority to enforce strict zoning and land-development rules.

That’s what happened in Palm Beach County, where the county commission voted 5-1 earlier this month to deny the Project Tango development application.

But some other communities have proven more welcoming.

In tiny Fort Meade, a rural community about 50 miles southeast of Tampa, city leaders unanimously approved a more than 4 million square foot AI data center that would buy electricity from Tampa Electric. Some locals are suing to stop it.

The utility companies appear confident they can find many more Fort Meades around Florida.

“I think we all saw Project Tango in West Palm Beach. I want to reiterate, that was never part of our development expectations and shows the importance of site selection and transparency,” FPL President and CEO Scott Bores said on last week’s NextEra earnings call.

“I think there are a lot of spots in the state of Florida,” Bores added. “And we are working with those communities that are really interested and have good locations that will be the perfect host for data centers.”

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing independent journalism about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But you can support my work by becoming a paid subscriber and/or by making a one-time donation.

Subscribe now

Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

There aren’t many people in Florida who got more help from state lawmakers this year than Jeffrey Soffer, the billionaire megadonor who owns the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach and The Big Easy Casino in Hallandale Beach.

Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill during the 2026 session meant to help the Fontainebleau bypass local opposition to a proposed waterpark on the historic property. They also eliminated an annual licensing fee for The Big Easy, effectively a tax break worth $2 million a year.

And Soffer — or at least his hotel — wanted more.

Records show that Soffer’s Fontainebleau also pressed lawmakers to crush a civil lawsuit against the hotel that was filed by owners in two adjoining condo towers after the hotel imposed new rules making it harder for them to rent their units on third-party platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo — rather than through a rental program run by the Fontainebleau itself.

Some Fontainebleau condo owners have called the changes — which require owners who opt out of the hotel-run rental program to pay extra fees for services like housekeeping and forbid them from using hotel staff to check-in their guests — an “economic disaster.” A group of them sued in mid-January, asking a court to stop the Fontainebleau from enforcing the changes.

So the Fontainebleau tried to have the state’s condo laws rewritten in its favor.

Records obtained by Seeking Rents show that a Fontainebleau lobbyist proposed legislation that would have created a new category of hotel in state law — dubbed a “historically designated tourist destination” — with unilateral authority to set short-term rental rules for condos that use the hotel’s check-in, housekeeping and other services.

The Fontainebleau lobbyist emailed the language in mid-February to the office of Rep. Juan Carlos Porras (R-Miami), in hopes that Porras could slip it into a broader condo bill he was sponsoring.

It’s essentially the exact same play the Fontainebleau ran its bid to sidestep local opposition to its proposed waterpark.

In that case, hotel lobbyists gave another Republican House member from south Florida — Rep. David Borrero (R-Hialeah) — a proposal to create a new legal category of hotel called a “large destination resort” that could get around local government reviews for expansion projects. The language was then inserted into a larger bill dealing with land development.

But while the land development legislation (House Bill 399) passed during the 2026 session, the condo package (House Bill 657) did not.

The Fontainebleau may not need the help in the end. Not long after the session ended in March, attorneys for the hotel persuaded a Miami judge to dismiss the original lawsuit challenging its new condo rental rules. Fontainebleau condo owners have filed a second suit, but the hotel is trying to have that one tossed, too.

And, of course, Fontainebleau lobbyists could always resurrect the idea next year, if needed. It took the Mosaic Co. two sessions to lobby a bill through the Florida Legislature protecting the phosphate-mining giant from lawsuits over radioactive contamination on former phosphate mines.

In an all too familiar story in Tallahassee, the legislation shielding Mosaic was originally written by lobbyists for Mosaic.

Meanwhile, the Fontainebleau is now fighting to preserve its waterpark win.

A Miami Beach resident recently filed a separate lawsuit seeking to have the Fontainebleau provision of House Bill 399 declared unconstitutional. And city leaders said in April that the hotel must still get approval for its waterpark from the local historic preservation board — exactly the kind of review it was trying to avoid.

But the Fontainebleau has also picked up a powerful ally: James Uthmeier, the Ron DeSantis-appointed attorney general who has repeatedly used his office to help big donors.

And there aren’t many donors much bigger than Jeffrey Soffer. The real-estate mogul once made a $1 million contribution to a Super PAC supporting DeSantis’ failed presidential campaign — a campaign that was managed at one point by James Uthmeier.

Records show that Soffer’s Big Easy Casino has also given $25,000 to Uthmeier himself via a fundraising committee Uthmeier set up a few days before he was sworn in as attorney general.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

Follow the money

Byron Donalds gets his biggest contribution yet: $10M from Ken Griffin (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: The TikTok billionaire bankrolling Byron Donalds (Miami New Times)

See also: Airbnb gives $1 million to Byron Donalds as rentals remain a Suncoast flashpoint (Suncoast Searchlight)

See also: The data center and AI donors powering Donalds’ bid for Florida governor (Politico Florida)

See also: Business groups line up behind Byron Donalds’ governor bid (State Affairs) ($)

Meanwhile in District 12

Fewer Florida residents are receiving federal food benefits (Florida Phoenix)

See also: Judge to rule on state’s reluctance to expand children’s health insurance program (Central Florida Public Media)

See also: Free school lunches to end for thousands of Miami-Dade students (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: The hidden costs of the affordable housing crisis in Naples (Naples Daily News) ($)

See also: Childcare costs in Florida ‘far exceed’ income affordability benchmark, report says (WPTV)

See also: It now takes a $97,000 salary to afford a two-bedroom in Miami (Miami Herald) ($)

‘We were asked by Chairman Rodriguez for tickets’

Miami-Dade commissioner’s PAC got $38K in World Cup tix from county tourism bureau (Miami Herald) ($)

The Florida Legislature at work

Miami-Dade leaders say state’s anti-DEI law is so confusing they may have to sue (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: ‘Live Local’ law stirs critics, becomes election year clash (USA Today Network – Florida) ($)

See also: Inside Florida’s prison staffing crisis: When 1 guard watches 150 inmates (Tallahassee Democrat) ($)

See also: How predominantly Black areas have been split up by redistricting in South Florida, other states (WLRN)

An orphan amendment

Florida police and fire unions oppose property tax rollback (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: Rick Scott breaks with DeSantis on Florida property tax amendment: ‘I’m worried’ (Fox 13)

See also: Florida Democratic Party votes to oppose property tax amendment (Florida Phoenix)

Perspectives

An attorney general for the well-connected (South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Dear Lord, protect us from those who politick divisively in your name (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

Florida wildlife agency targeted its critics for secret surveillance (Florida Phoenix)

Floridians Have Made Resistance to Flock and Data Centers Central to State Politics (Truthout)

Ban Data Center Subsidies Once and For All (Boondoggle)

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing independent journalism about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But you can support my work by becoming a paid subscriber and/or by making a one-time donation.

Subscribe now

Seeking Rents is going back on the road.

I’m really excited to announce that I’ll be partnering up with the team at Suncoast Searchlight for a community conversation about data centers — which have become a flashpoint in cities and towns across Florida and a top-tier issue in state and local elections, particularly the governor’s race.

“Powering the Future?” will include both a panel discussion and an audience question-and-answer session. The event will be held Tuesday, Aug. 11, at the Frances T. Bourne Jacaranda Library in Venice. It’ll start at 6 pm.

Admission is free and open to everyone. But space is limited, so make sure to reserve a ticket in advance.

For folks in other parts of the state who may be unfamiliar with Suncoast Searchlight, it’s a nonprofit news outlet covering Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties, with an emphasis on explanatory and investigative journalism.

Though it’s not yet two years old, Suncoast Searchlight is already doing some of the very best local news coverage anywhere in the state. The reporters and editors over there regularly break big stories and reveal important insights about their community.

Suncoast Searchlight stories are a staple in “Florida in Five,” the weekly news roundup I write every Sunday here at Seeking Rents. I’m so happy for the chance to collaborate with them.

This is, I hope, the first of several Seeking Rents events that I’ll be announcing over the next few weeks — each in a different part of the state. So be on the lookout for those, too.

In the meantime, though, I hope to see you in Sarasota!

Show notes

To make a donation in support of Seeking Rents, click here.

Stories discussed in today’s show:

Data center donors have spent more than $20 million in Florida ahead of the 2026 elections

Meta Begins $65 Million Election Push to Advance A.I. Agenda

Florida’s attorney general is trying to help Elon Musk’s Tesla get out of a $243 million verdict

An insurance company led by a billionaire megadonor wrote a law pushing Florida condo owners into higher-priced property insurance

Group tied to influential Ruane Cunniff sues Reinhold Corporation over Clay County land sale dispute

A New York investment firm with vast land holdings across north Florida wants state lawmakers to greenlight giant developments

Ron DeSantis is helping real estate developers exploit a hurricane relief law

The Florida Legislature made a mess. The Florida House refused to clean it up.

Bills discussed in today’s show:

Senate Bill 484 — Data Centers

Senate Bill 1616 — Liability of Advanced Driving System Manufacturers and Developers

Senate Bill 1028 — Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

House Bill 299 / Senate Bill 354 — Blue Ribbon Projects

Senate Bill 840 — Land Use Regulations for Local Governments Affected by Natural Disasters

Senate Bill 180 (2025) — Emergencies

Questions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.com

Listen to the show: Apple | Spotify

Watch the show: YouTube

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing independent journalism about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But you can support my work by becoming a paid subscriber and/or by making a one-time donation.

Subscribe now

Data center supporters have spent more than $22 million on campaign contributions in Florida ahead of the 2026 elections, according to a new Seeking Rents analysis of state fundraising data.

Roughly a quarter of that money — around $5.8 million — has been spent boosting Byron Donalds, the Republican Congressman from Naples who is the heavy favorite to win the GOP nomination for governor in next month’s primary elections.

Billionaire artificial intelligence investors, who depend on data center computing power, have put $3 million into a state committee paying for advertisements touting Donalds. The parent company of utility giant Florida Power & Light, which is building a network of gigawatt-scale data center hubs that it will supply with electricity, has donated $1 million to Donald’s personal political committee. People and companies connected to an AI data center proposed in Palm Beach County have given Donalds at least $375,000.

Donalds became the GOP frontrunner thanks to an endorsement from President Donald Trump, who has called data centers “money machines” and “LIQUID GOLD!” and encouraged states to build more of them.

And though he has since begun to backtrack, Donalds himself has also been far more open to data center development in Florida than other major candidates, Republican or Democrat, in the race to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Data centers are going to be a function of American life going forward, the more you use technology, the more server space you’re going to need,” Donalds said in March, during a meeting with students at Florida Gulf Coast University. “I think when it comes to technology, AI and everything else, Florida should lead.”

Data center interests have also poured money into Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature.

The top individual recipient: Sen. Jim Boyd, a Republican from Bradenton who is about to become president of the Florida Senate. Boyd has raised more than $375,000 from companies involved in data center development — via five- and six-figure gifts from Duke Energy, Meta Platforms and Timberline Real Estate Partners, among others.

The industry’s investment in Tallahassee has already paid dividends.

DeSantis and the Legislature enacted a law earlier this year setting a variety of new rules and regulations around data centers. But industry lobbyists persuaded lawmakers to defang much of the package the before they passed it.

Early drafts of the legislation would have banned non-disclosure agreements between data center developers and government agencies; eliminated tax incentives for the industry; and prohibited construction of a data center within five miles of any home or school unless approved by a unanimous vote of the local county commission or city council.

Each of those provisions was removed before DeSantis signed the bill into law.

Florida’s data center donors

Altogether, Seeking Rents identified more than a dozen companies connected to the data center industry that have made $10,000 or more in state-level campaign contributions in Florida since the start of the 2026 election cycle.

Now, before we go any further, I should probably take a moment to explain who I’m counting as a “data center supporter.” Because the industry can be a bit amorphous.

Some companies are obvious: Big Tech “hyperscalers” like Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft; artificial intelligence companies and investors like OpenAI and the financiers at Andreessen Horowitz; and electric utilities like Florida Power & Light, Duke and TECO.

But there is also an entire constellation of landowners, developers, suppliers and others who are often the driving force behind a specific data center development — but who may otherwise be largely unconnected to the industry.

For instance, New Jersey-based Ferreira Construction and Maryland-based Stonebridge Associates are both broad commercial-real estate companies. But both have also been linked to massive data center proposals in Florida — the now-withdrawn “Silver Fox” project in Indiantown and a still-advancing 1,300-acre facility in Fort Meade.

(Quick shoutout here to Emily Mahoney of the Tampa Bay Times, who has been owning the data center beat and who put together an indispensable map of projects around the state.)

Then there’s Rayonier Inc., which is one of the top timber companies in the country. Rayonier is also among the largest private landowners in Florida and an increasingly important real-estate developer in the state. And the company is actively pursuing data center projects.

“We’ve definitely seen interest in land purchases from data center developers, and we continue to focus on trying to build out some of those opportunities,” Rayonier President and CEO Mark McHugh told Wall Street analysts in May.

That’s why you see Rayonier on this list.

I’ve also included Phillips Inc., a major infrastructure contractor in Tennessee that works on everything from airports to water reservoirs, and Palm Beach Aggregates, a rock-mining firm in south Florida.

The reason? Executives from the two companies are part of the development group behind the proposed data center in Palm Beach County known as “Project Tango. The local county commission just rejected the project, although though the battle may not be over.

On the other hand, I have not included Florida Crystals — even though the Big Sugar producer reportedly co-owns Palm Beach Aggregates. Florida Crystals is one of the top corporate contributors in all of Florida politics, and adding them to this dataset could unfairly distort the totals.

The point is that this whole exercise is, admittedly, somewhat subjective. Your mileage may vary on where exactly to draw these lines.

The power of the power companies

Speaking of distorting the totals, one thing immediately stands out on the list of data center donors in Florida.

Two out of every three dollars comes from the state’s big corporate power companies: NextEra Energy, the parent company of Florida Power & Light; Duke Energy; and TECO, also known as Tampa Electric Co.

FPL, Duke and TECO are regulated monopolies, which means that their profits are, ultimately, controlled by state politicians and political appointees in Tallahassee. So the three companies spend millions every year contributing to elected officials and lobbying them on a wide rang of issues, from tax breaks to climate policy to the selection of the regulators who decide their rate cases.

But the electric utilities are driving data center development just as much as the Big Tech and AI firms. In December, for instance, NextEra announced a deal with Google to build a network of gigawatt-scale data center campuses across the country.

Harry Sideris, the president and CEO of Duke Energy, recently told Wall Street analysts that Duke is aggressively pursuing data center customers, too. “We have a team in place that their goal — seven days a week, 24 hours a day — is, ‘How do we get these things signed quicker?’” he said during a company earnings call in May.

“We have a lot of interest in Florida,” Sideris added.

The monopoly utilities also lobbied on the new data center law Ron DeSantis recently signed.

No one from FPL ever publicly testified on the legislation as it moved though the Legislature. But the company was buttonholing lawmakers behind closed doors — urging them to support a more milquetoast version of the bill filed in the Florida Senate over a far more aggressive proposal pushed by the state House.

That’s according to FPL President and CEO Scott Bores, who shared the company’s lobbying strategy with investment analysts during a quarterly earnings call while Florida lawmakers were still in session.

“There are two pieces of legislation out there — one by the House, one by the Senate. The Senate is the one that’s advanced already through a committee and, I will say, is the more constructive legislation,” Bores said on the Jan. 27 conference call. “And so we are going to continue to support that legislation as it advances.”

The AI billionaires

The other dominant donor so far is a federal Super PAC called “Leading the Future.”

It’s financed largely by three data center-backing billionaires: AI investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz; and Greg Brockman, the president and co-founder of OpenAI, which owns the ChatGPT chatbot.

Leading the Future put $3 million earlier this year into a new state political committee called American Mission Florida. American Mission Florida has used the money for a barrage of advertisements promoting Byron Donalds, the frontrunner in the Republican primary for governor.

The Miami Herald reported earlier this month that the organization had already sponsored roughly 1,700 television spots touting Donalds’ endorsement from President Donald Trump. NBC News reported earlier this year that the AI titans were prepared to spend as much as $5 million on Donalds’ behalf.

“Byron Donalds understands we’re on the cusp of a magical era of technological advancement that will unleash enormous economic benefits and protect Florida’s future, and that’s why we’re proud to support him for Governor,” a strategist for Leading the Future told NBC News at the time.

Meta rising

There’s another company that stands out among Florida’s data center donors: Meta Platforms.

For as big a corporation as it is, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram has historically been a modest campaign contributor at the state level — especially when compared to the top corporate donors like the utilities.

But that may be changing.

In April, Meta suddenly began cutting sizable checks to key figures in the Florida Legislature. The burst of donations included a $25,000 gift to Sen. Jim Boyd, the Bradenton Republican who is about to become Senate president — plus $10,000 each to future Senate presidents Jay Trumbull (R-Panama City) and Tom Leek (R-Palm Coast) and future House speakers Jennifer Canady (R-Lakeland) and Mike Redondo (R-Miami).

It appears to be part of a nationwide strategic shift for the company, which plans to spend up to $65 million this year supporting state-level politicians it deems “friendly” to AI, according to a February report in the New York Times.

Some of Meta’s state-level campaign spending is being routed through company-controlled PACs with otherwise innocuous names.

One, called “Forge the Future Project,” is specifically for Republican candidates and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in GOP primaries in Georgia, among other states.

Another, called “Making Our Tomorrow,” is just for Democrats and has been active in Democratic primaries in states like Illinois.

Money in a bundle

Data center supporters don’t always write one big check to a candidate. Sometimes they bundle lots of smaller ones together.

A good example of this is Timberline Real Estate Partners, a data center developer whose projects include “Sentinel Grove,” a $13.5 billion hyperscale facility proposed in rural St. Lucie County that has been halted by public backlash — at least for now.

Records show that Byron Donalds has raised $70,000 from nearly two dozen people and corporate entities connected to Timberline — including 21 different donations, for $3,000 each, all deposited on the same day last month.

This kind of bundling can make it difficult to trace the full extent of the money that data center interests are pouring into Florida politics. But it’s important to remember, particularly if you go digging through the campaign finance repots for your local city and county candidates, whose fundraising isn’t included in these totals.

And it’s those mayors, commissioners and council members who ultimately decide whether or not to approve a data center in your area.

So where is all this money going?

Here are the top 10 recipients of data center money, according to my analysis:

Every politician on this list is a Republican. That’s probably not a surprise; the Florida GOP controls the Governor’s Office, the entire statewide Cabinet and supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature.

But there are some Florida Democrats taking data center money, too.

In fact, the Florida Democratic Party and the Democrats’ House and Senate leadership committees have taken a combined $570,000 from data center interests. Most of that money came from Florida Power & Light and Duke, though Amazon and Oracle were substantial donors, too.

Among individual candidates, Byron Donalds is the biggest individual beneficiary by far — especially when you remember that the money put into the “American Mission Florida” political committee is being spent supporting Donalds’ campaign for governor.

But taken together, Senate Republicans aren’t all that far behind him. The Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, incoming Senate President Jim Boyd and outgoing Senate President Ben Albritton have raised more $3 million combined from data center interests.

Some of that is the influence of FPL, Duke and TECO on these numbers. The utility companies try to keep a tight grip on the 40-member Florida Senate, which is responsible for confirming or rejecting the governor’s appointments to the Public Service Commission — the state agency that the utility companies come to when they want to raise electricity rates.

I should mention that these totals are missing some money — quite a lot, probably.

Why? Because, thanks to Florida’s porous fundraising reporting deadlines, the state’s political parties and legislative leadership committees haven’t had to disclose any of their donors since the end of March. And they won’t have to again until mid-August.

That is a big blank space on this map. And it won’t be filled in until less than a week before the Aug. 18 primary election.

Hiding behind brand launderers

As you can see, the companies pushing data centers in Florida filter much of their political spending through intermediaries — particularly Associated Industries of Florida and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the state’s biggest business-lobbying groups.

Google, for example, has already spent a quarter of a million dollars on Florida campaign contributions so far in the 2026 election cycle. But Google has put all of that money into a political committee controlled by AIF, which can then turn around and distribute the company’s cash to specific candidates.

AIF and the Chamber also run this kind of cover in Tallahassee. Virtually all of the public lobbying against this year’s data center legislation, for instance, came from AIF, the Chamber and other brand-laundering business groups and think tanks.

“Data centers can be a major economic driver here in Florida,” Florida Chamber lobbyist Colton Madill said during a House committee hearing on the legislation.

“We see a lot of benefits of these coming to the states,” AIF lobbyist Adam Basford added during another legislative committee meeting.

Obviously, channeling campaign contributions through intermediaries like AIF and the Chamber makes it all-but-impossible to trace the money down to the candidate level. But keep the scheme in mind if you try to look up the data center donors to candidates on your ballot.

You might not see Google in their contribution reports. But you may see Associated Industries.

And they’re pretty much the same thing at this point.

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing independent journalism about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But you can support my work by becoming a paid subscriber and/or by making a one-time donation.

Subscribe now

Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is trying to help Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. avoid paying $243 million to victims of a fatal car crash involving the company’s Autopilot driving technology.

Uthmeier wants an appellate court in Atlanta to overturn a jury in Miami that found Tesla party responsible for an April 2019 crash in which a 44-year-old finance executive driving a Tesla Model S on Autopilot blew through a stop sign in Key Largo at 60 miles per hour and crashed into another car, killing a 22-year-old college student and seriously injuring her friend.

Jurors ordered the electric vehicle manufacturer to pay nearly $43 million in compensatory damages and another $200 million in punitive damages following a three-week trial last summer.

If the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals isn’t willing to reverse the decision or order a new trial, Uthmeier wants the court to at least reduce the amount of money that Tesla must pay for its negligence. Tesla turned a nearly $4 billion profit last year; the company is currently valued at $1.4 trillion.

“The Court should reverse and direct entry of judgment for Tesla or vacate and remand for a new trial,” Uthmeier’s office wrote in a legal brief submitted earlier this month in support of Tesla. “But should the Court affirm the district court on liability, the Court should reverse the district court’s grant of punitive damages or, at minimum, reduce the punitive damages to three times the net compensatory damages.

The attorneys general of Alabama and Georgia signed on in support of Florida’s filing, which is known as an amicus brief because it is filed by someone who is not a party to the case but who wants to advise the court a legal matter as an amicus curiae —a Latin term that means “friend of the court.”

Intervening in legal disputes is one of the many powers of Florida’s attorney general — a job that James Uthmeier was never elected to do.

The former chief of staff to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was instead appointed to the position by the governor after DeSantis gave former Attorney General Ashley Moody the U.S. Senate seat that opened when President Donald Trump named Marco Rubio his Secretary of State.

Uthmeier is now running for election to a full term. The Republican incumbent faces Jose Javier Rodriguez, a former Democratic state senator who was ousted from the Florida Legislature by a law-breaking “ghost candidate” scheme orchestrated in part by consultants for utility giant Florida Power & Light, Big Sugar producer Florida Crystals, and mining firm Mosaic Co.

Uthmeier has raised more than $10 million for the race so far. He has done so, in part, by taking money from donors who have then received legal help from his office.

A recent investigation by the Tampa Bay Times documented three cases in which Uthmeier’s fundraising committee took $25,000 donations from people and companies involved in civil litigation shortly before his office intervened in the disputes on their behalf — including, in two of the cases, by writing amicus briefs.

Interestingly enough, about three weeks before Uthmeier’s office submitted its brief in support of Tesla, his fundraising committee accepted a $25,000 donation from a political committee controlled by one of the lobbying firms that represents Tesla in Tallahassee. That lobbying firm — the Southern Group — recently began lobbying for Tesla specifically on issues related to liability for advanced driver-assistance systems, according to disclosure records.

To be fair, the Southern Group has a long list of clients, so there’s no way to know for sure if that donation was tied to Tesla. And $25,000 isn’t even pocket change to Musk, Tesla’s CEO and largest shareholder, who briefly became the world’s first trillionaire following the initial public offering last month of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

But Musk, who remains the richest person on the planet, is one of the very biggest political donors in the country. And Uthmeier knows the campaign-sustaining capabilities of Musk’s money better than most.

Musk, after all, spent at least $10 million in support of Ron DeSantis’ failed 2024 campaign for president — a campaign that was, for a time, managed by James Uthmeier. Much of the right-wing mogul’s pro-DeSantis money was filtered through dark-money intermediaries, which made it difficult to trace in real-time.

Even if appellate court judges ultimately uphold the $243 million verdict against Tesla, the company may still have another card to play.

During Florida’s most recent legislative session, a bill was filed that would have granted broad legal immunity to car manufacturers that make vehicles equipped with “advanced driving systems” like Tesla’s Autopilot.

The legislation — Senate Bill 1616 — would have incorporated some of the same legal arguments that Uthmeier’s office made in its amicus brief defending Tesla. And it would have largely precluded juries from making manufacturers of assisted-driving tech pay any punitive damages.

The measure didn’t move forward this year. But it has a powerful booster: Sen. Tom Leek, the bill sponsor and a Republican from Ormond Beach who is tentatively in line to become president of the Florida Senate following the 2030 elections.

So the legal shield could resurface in Tallahassee next year — perhaps depending on how Tesla’s appeal unfolds.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

The Surveillance State of Florida

FWC secretly investigated outspoken environmental activists, records show (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: ‘Appalled.’ FWC looks at its critics’ info in database meant for criminal probes (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Miami-Dade’s brushfires helped reveal that ICE violated over 100 court orders in South Florida (WLRN)

See also: D.C. event reveals extremist ties in Florida DOGE’s national push (Florida Trident)

Legalized corruption

Ken Griffin Has Poured $40 Million Into Helping Republicans Win the Midterms (Wall Street Journal) ($)

See also: Miami billionaire Ken Griffin quietly dropped $2.5M into Florida’s Senate race (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: The billionaire trying to reinvent Florida schools has a $7.5 million bet on Byron Donalds (Miami New Times)

See also: GEO Group’s immigration detention windfall follows millions in pro-Trump political spending (Florida Bulldog)

How Tallahassee governs vs. how locals govern

‘A handout to developers’? New Florida law has meant more Tampa Bay wetlands filled in (Tampa Bay Times)

See also: ‘Not compatible’: Palm Beach County rejects controversial Project Tango AI data center (WLRN)

Asleep at the wheel, intentionally

Public Money Is Fueling an Explosion of Private Schools. States Often Don’t Care How They’re Run. (ProPublica)

See also: What comes after book bans? Some Florida school officials are questioning traditional libraries (WUSF)

See also: An AI school with $65K tuition is the latest sign of billionaires reshaping Miami (Miami Herald) ($)

For small towns, an existential threat

What Florida’s tax rollback looks like through the eyes of one small town

See also: Florida healthcare, children’s services to be hit under property tax plan (Tampa Bay Times)

See also: Orange County stalls hiring more deputies amid property-tax concerns (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: New Smyrna Beach considers fire assessment fee amid concerns over potential property tax revenue losses (WKMG Orlando)

Perspectives

Courts confirm Florida’s ‘Stop WOKE’ law is un-American garbage (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

Florida governor’s betrayal of clean water promise reaches peak with biosolids veto (Florida Phoenix)

The Dire Lengths Florida Farmworkers Go to Keep Working in ‘Scorching’ Heat (Inside Climate News)

Joe Abruzzo: Florida Property Tax Cut Could Be ‘Catastrophic’ (Top of Mind Florida)

Property Tax Showdown - Bigger Tax Break or Budget Cuts? (Top of Mind Florida)

Show notes:

To make a donation in support of Seeking Rents, click here.

Stories discussed in today’s show:

‘Breathtaking assertion of power’: Appeals court slams door on Florida ‘Stop Woke’ law championed by DeSantis

Scott Maxwell: Courts confirm Florida’s ‘Stop WOKE’ law is un-American garbage

A lawyer for Ron DeSantis revealed the real motive behind one of Florida’s most controversial laws

Next in Florida's war on 'woke': Becoming its own higher ed watchdog

Florida leaders hid money for controversial higher education project

City-by-city estimates of property tax impacts from Amendment 3

What Florida’s tax rollback looks like through the eyes of one small town

An insurance company led by a billionaire megadonor wrote a law pushing Florida condo owners into higher-priced property insurance

Questions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.com

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This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing independent journalism about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But you can support my work by becoming a paid subscriber and/or by making a one-time donation.

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Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

For a brief moment last fall, it seemed as though Danny Perez, the speaker of the state House of Representatives, might run against Attorney General James Uthmeier, the former Ron DeSantis chief of staff and presidential campaign manager who was handed the AG job by the governor after it opened up mid-term and is now running for election to the post.

It was hard to imagine a sexier statewide clash (politically speaking, that is). Under Perez, the state House had just exposed Uthmeier’s starring role in what’s now widely known as the “Hope Florida scandal” — a scheme in which the DeSantis administration took $10 million from a Medicaid legal settlement and turned it into cash for political campaign ads.

Obviously, that showdown didn’t happen. And maybe it doesn’t matter — because there’s not all that much difference between James Uthmeier and Danny Perez, based on a pair of ugly new reports revealing how the two politicians have been using their offices to help financial supporters.

Let’s start with Uthmeier. An investigation by the Tampa Bay Times’ Lawrence Mower (watch out, Texas) found that the appointed attorney general has at least three times had the Attorney General’s Office intervene in civil disputes on behalf of donors who had just given $25,000 to his political committee.

In one example — first reported by Seeking Rents — Uthmeier took a combined $25,000 from billionaire car dealer Norman Braman and his wife. One of Braman’s dealerships is currently the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit accusing Scout Motors, an electric vehicle startup, of breaking state laws that prohibit car manufacturers from selling cars directly to Floridians.

Three weeks later, Uthmeier’s office sent a threatening letter to Scout Motors, accusing the company of violating direct-sales laws and demanding that it turn over detailed financial information — the same kind of internal records that Braman and other car dealers were seeking in their lawsuit.

In February, Uthmeier took $25,000 from Two Roads Development. Two Roads is a South Florida real estate firm that’s currently in the midst of a protracted legal dispute with holdout owners in a 60-year-old Miami condo building who are fighting the developer’s plans to demolish the place and put up new luxury towers on the site.

A little over one week later, the AG’s office attempted to intervene with a legal brief on behalf of the developer

And in March, Uthmeier took $25,000 from a personal trust for the CEO of a development company that is suing the Village of Bar Harbour, after the beachfront community in Miami rejected the developer’s plans build a high-rise hotel and residential tower at a local shopping mall.

Two weeks later, Uthmeier’s office inserted itself into that suit, too, with a brief arguing that Bal Harbour is required to approve the project under a new state law.

“I’ve been telling the local government in Bal Harbour for over two years, they’re not picking a fight with me, they’re picking a fight with the state of Florida,” the developer told The Real Deal in March.

The mayor of Bal Harbour responded to the Times with a quote that may as well be the official motto of Florida state government right now: “I figured there was some quid pro quo,” he said. “I just didn’t think it would be that brazen.”

There are many more details in the Times’ piece — including examples of how Uthmeier has also used his seat on the Florida Cabinet — so make sure to read every word.

And that brings us to Danny Perez, who, the Miami Herald revealed, has a long list of secret legal clients — at least several of whom have benefitted from policies pushed by the state House during Perez’s tenure as speaker.

The client list was discovered by Herald reporters Garrett Shanley (look out, American higher education) and Claire Heddles, who unearthed a federal financial disclosure Perez had to file after President Donald Trump nominated him to be America’s next ambassador to Brazil.

One of his clients is Airbnb, the vacation rental giant that has been at the center of a lobbying battle in Tallahassee over accessory dwelling units — more commonly known as granny flats or mother-in-law suites.

As the Herald reported, the state Senate passed a bill this year that would have made it easier for homeowners across Florida to build ADUs on their properties — as long as the unit was going to be used for permanent housing rather than as a short-term rental on a platform like Airbnb.

The House, however, pushed a competing version of the bill allowing ADUs to be used as vacation rentals. Nothing passed as a result.

Another Perez client is Newsmax, the far-right cable news network, which Perez’s House has also helped.

In another story first reported by Seeking Rents, Perez’s House worked with lobbyists for Newsmax last year to slip a provision into the state budget forbidding state agencies from contracting with any vendors who work with fact-checking organizations or other media-monitoring firms. Perez’s House had the same provision added to the state budget again this year.

The vendor prohibition is designed to choke off private funding for companies like NewsGuard Technologies, which evaluates news outlets based on their accuracy, ethics and bias on behalf of clients ranging from advertisers to AI developers.

Newsmax — which agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle defamation claims stemming from false claims it aired about the 2020 election — scores particularly poorly on NewsGuard’s ratings.

Another Perez client: MasTec, an infrastructure construction company led by Jorge Mas, the billionaire and managing owner of Inter Miami.

The Major League Soccer team, best known as Lionel Messi’s current club, benefited from a $3 million earmark in the 2025-26 state budget to pay for site work and flood control at Miami Freedom Park, the home of Inter Miami’s new stadium.

There’s more in the Miami Herald piece, so make you read every word of that story, as well. And then, if you’re financially able, make sure you’re supporting local journalism in Florida so that investigative reporters can continue doing important watchdog work like this — whether that means subscribing to your local newspaper or contributing to independent outlets like Seeking Rents.

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By the way, Uthmeier and Perez have both made recent headlines for other reasons, too.

Perez just pushed a tax break for ambassadors through the Florida Legislature — right before Trump made him an ambassador.

Uthmeier, meanwhile, literally fled from Jim DeFede of CBS Miami, ducking questions about “Alligator Alcatraz” now that bills are coming due on the billion-dollar boondoggle in the middle of the Florida Everglades.

When DeFede approached Uthmeier at a recent Republican Party event with a few questions about Alligator Alcatraz, “he refused to speak and was hurried away, surrounded by his security detail,” CBS Miami reported.

So perhaps this is an opportune moment to remind readers that the one person who actually did step up to run against Uthmeier this fall — a former Democratic state senator named Jose Javier Rodriguez — was so despised by big Tallahassee donors like Florida Power & Light that operatives devised a “ghost candidate” scheme to get him out of the state Senate.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

Fox guarding the henhouse

Next in Florida’s war on ‘woke’: Becoming its own higher ed watchdog (WLRN)

See also: UWF Trustees Considering Dropping NPR (Rick’s Blog)

See also: ‘Breathtaking assertion of power’: Appeals court slams door on Florida ‘Stop Woke’ law championed by DeSantis (Politico Florida)

Busted

Former St. Augustine Beach mayor, two county commissioners charged in 2024 fake voter guide scheme (First Coast News)

See also: Florida invests $500K in ‘deceptive’ hotline program to deter abortions (Orlando Weekly)

See also: Suncoast lawmakers hollowed out home rule. Do voters care? (Suncoast Searchlight)

The big issue everyone is talking about

Rising voter resistance to data centers fuel attacks on Byron Donalds (USA Today Network – Florida)

See also: Data centers can devour energy and water; threaten people and wildlife (Treasure Coast Newspapers) ($)

See also: In Polk County, fight against data centers unites political opposites (Lakeland Ledger) ($)

See also: County to put a pause on data centers, but it won’t halt Project Tango (Palm Beach Post) ($)

See also: Florida regulators cast doubt on Duke Energy’s data center plan (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

The other issue everyone is talking about

How will Florida’s property tax reduction plan affect renters across the state? (WUSF)

See also: How the property tax amendment could reshape funding for Florida’s public hospitals (WUSF)

See also: Florida’s proposed property tax cuts rely on a population boom that has slowed dramatically (The Conversation)

See also: If Florida Slashes Property Taxes, Where Will the Money Come From? (New York Times) ($)

Florida state government at work

Florida said it couldn’t fix confusing Medicaid notices. Under court order, it only took months (Florida Trib)

See also: Florida regulators stood by as dozens of sloths died, new records reveal (Inside Climate News)

See also: Is Florida’s high SNAP error rate by design? State’s top Democrat says yes (Florida Phoenix)

See also: Alligator Alcatraz may be closed, but the legal fallout isn’t over (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Florida left county to cover some costs for Trump rebrand of Palm Beach airport (Miami Herald) ($)

Perspectives

Uthmeier scurries from cameras, now that ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ bills are due (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

DeSantis’ culture wars hit a wall in court, but consequences are real in Miami (Miami Herald) ($)

Property tax break sounds great. Here’s the catch for Brevard (Florida Today) ($)

‘Jack Latvala will be missed’: Florida reacts to the death of a Senate icon (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing independent journalism about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But you can support my work by becoming a paid subscriber or by making a one-time donation.

Subscribe now

An insurance company led by a billionaire megadonor wrote much of a new state law that could force condo owners across Florida to pay higher prices for property insurance.

Records obtained by Seeking Rents show that executives at Ryan Specialty Holdings Inc. drafted and edited key provisions of the new law, which requires Citizens Property Insurance — the state-backed nonprofit insurance company for Floridians who cannot find affordable coverage on the traditional private market — to launch a new program pushing condo buildings and business properties toward higher-priced policies sold by loosely regulated “surplus lines” insurers.

Lobbyists for Ryan — a multibillion-dollar insurance broker that works with surplus lines insurers and wants a contract to manage the new program — also stage-managed the legislation as it moved through Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature during the 2026 legislative session earlier this year.

Though no one from the company ever publicly testified in favor of the bill, the records show that Ryan Specialty’s lobbyists supplied lawmakers with talking points to repeat during committee hearings, pre-packaged answers to anticipated questions from opponents, and even a list of “buzz words” to emphasize.

The legislation, Senate Bill 1028, was nominally sponsored by Sen. Joe Gruters, a Republican from Sarasota. But when Gruters presented it on the floor of the Florida Senate, he read nearly verbatim from a script written by Ryan Specialty.

Gruters is not merely a Florida state senator. He is also the chair of the Republican National Committee, a high-profile national post he was installed into last year at the request of President Donald Trump.

And Ryan Specialty is led by one of the largest Republican donors in the country: Pat Ryan, a Chicago insurance magnate with an estimated $8 billion net worth who, along with his wife, has donated more than $50 million to Republican congressional candidates over the past five years, according to federal campaign-finance records.

Ryan Specialty has also become a big political donor in Florida.

Two months before the start of the 2026 session, state records show the company put a combined $750,000 into a pair of political committees controlled by one of its lobbying firms in Tallahassee. They were the first major state-level campaign contributions Ryan Specialty has ever made in Florida.

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Those lobbyist-controlled political committees have in turn cut five- and six-figure checks to key figures across state government — including Gruters and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed Senate Bill 1028 into law last month despite others across the insurance industry urging the governor to veto the legislation.

Ryan Specialty did not respond to requests for comment.

Tailor-made legislation

Ryan Specialty began working on Senate Bill 1028 months before the legislation became public.

“Here is the latest draft we discussed,” an aide to Gruters wrote in a Nov. 14 email to a Ryan lobbyist. It is one of dozens of emails, memos, drafts, and other materials related to the legislation that Seeking Rents obtained through a public records request of the Florida Senate.

Though the legislation was still more than a month from being filed — and seven months from becoming law — it already contained many of the core elements of what would become the final product.

Specifically, it required Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to create a new program — called a “clearinghouse” — for surplus lines insurance companies, through which they could submit offers of coverage for condo buildings and other commercial properties that had been unable to find affordable policies on the standard private market and had turned instead to the state’s nonprofit insurer of last resort.

Surplus lines insurers are much different than standard insurance companies like State Farm or Nationwide. Their rates and policy terms do not have to be approved by state regulators, meaning they can charge much higher premiums and the policies they sell often lack basic consumer protections. That’s why surplus lines insurers typically operate in niche markets, covering unusual risks like celebrity body parts or ultra-high-end properties.

The proposed legislation also contained an odd wrinkle: It prohibited Citizens from managing this new surplus lines clearinghouse itself. Instead, the agency would have to hire an outside vendor to run it.

And the vendor requirements were already tailored for Ryan Specialty.

For example, the draft legislation required Citizens to contract with a company that has at least five years of “publicly available” audited financial statements.

That’s significant because most companies are privately held — and private companies rarely reveal that kind of financial detail to the public.

But publicly traded corporations are required by law to include audited financial statements in annual reports that are available to anyone who wants to read them.

Ryan Specialty went public in July 2021 — exactly five years ago.

Tilting the procurement process further

Once Joe Gruters filed Senate Bill 1028 and the proposal began to move through the Legislature, Ryan Specialty pushed for further changes likely to tilt the procurement process in its favor.

During one committee hearing on the legislation, Gruters filed an amendment that, among other things, ordered Citizens to award the clearinghouse contract very quickly — within 90 days of the bill becoming law.

That idea, bill drafts show, was initially written into the amendment by Mark Katz, an executive vice president and the general counsel at Ryan Specialty.

Why would a fast procurement process favor Ryan? Because the company has already spent many months developing an artificial intelligence-enabled clearinghouse platform to pitch to Citizens Property Insurance. The company dubbed it “The Florida Risk Exchange,” according to a February 2026 report in Insurance Journal, an industry news publication.

A separate set of records obtained by Seeking Rents — directly from Citizens Property Insurance, rather than the Florida Senate — suggests that Ryan executives were already discussing a clearinghouse proposal with Citizens as early as March 2025.

The records include a March 25, 2025, email in which a manager at Citizens sent a message to an executive at Ryan Specialty referring to “your clearinghouse concept.” The records also include messages scheduling a September 2025 meeting between Citizens and Ryan reps to discuss “Clearinghouse/Legislative concepts.”

Other insurance firms urged legislators to make changes that would have opened up the clearinghouse contract to more potential bidders.

Two Ryan’s top competitors in the surplus lines distribution market — Amwins and CRC Group — specifically requested that the requirement for “publicly available” financial statements be removed from Senate Bill 1028. That’s according to notes that the staff director of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee wrote into a draft amendment midway through the legislative session.

Amwins and CRC Group are both privately held companies.

Amwins and CRC Group also asked that the 90-day deadline to award the clearinghouse contract be extended or eliminated, the notes show.

Florida lawmakers refused both requests.

A gatekeeper with a conflict of interest

Senate Bill 1028 doesn’t just force Citizens to hire an outside vendor to manage the surplus lines clearinghouse. It also turn that vendor into a powerful gatekeeper.

Under the legislation, a surplus lines insurance company can only participate in the clearinghouse if it is recommended by the vendor managing the program. In other words, that vendor will get to pick and choose which surplus lines insurers are permitted to make offers for Citizens policies.

Records show that’s another idea that came from Ryan Specialty, which had the language added to Senate Bill 1028 via an amendment.

But it also poses an obvious conflict of interest. If a broker that already sells surplus lines insurance itself can also control which surplus lines insurance companies can make offers through the clearinghouse, it could engage in anticompetitive tactics — like steering Citizens policies to its own network of insurers or using the leverage to squeeze extra fees out of unaffiliated companies that want to participate.

In fact, records show that others repeatedly urged lawmakers to ensure open access to the clearinghouse and prevent potential abuses by the company chosen as administrator.

The Florida Association of Insurance Agents, a lobbying group that represents independent agents, asked that Senate Bill 1028 be rewritten “so that the participation is not limited to the brokerage that Citizens procures the clearinghouse from,” according to feedback the organization provided to the Senate.

Citizens Commercial Clearinghouse Feedback From FAIA Staff

24.9KB ∙ PDF file

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Meanwhile, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation — the agency that oversees the insurance industry on behalf of the public — wanted provisions added to the legislation expressly forbidding the vendor hired to run the clearinghouse from “steering” policies to preferred insurers and prohibiting conflicts of interest.

FLOIR proposed amendment to SB 1028

246KB ∙ PDF file

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And the staff director of the Senate’s own Banking and Insurance Committee warned Senate leadership about allowing the clearinghouse manager too much discretion. “There should be clear criteria that, if met, allow a surplus lines insurer to participate,” he noted in a draft of a mid-session amendment.

Comments On CSCSSB1028 W Floor Amendment Incorporated

224KB ∙ PDF file

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Lawmakers largely ignored the recommendations — at least in part because Ryan lobbied against them.

For instance, after the Florida Association of Insurance Agents provided feedback to the Senate, a lobbyist for Ryan responded with a point-by-point rebuttal. In that document, the company noted that the vendor hired to run the clearinghouse would have to make “a sizable investment” in technology — and suggested that having control over which insurers could participate in the program would help the vendor recoup its investment.

The company also argued that if an agent or policyholder were unhappy with the offer they received through the clearinghouse, they could always go searching for a different offer from some other surplus lines insurer outside the program.

“The clearinghouse is a subset of the surplus lines market,” the company wrote in the document. “Agents can engage surplus lines agents of their choice to market accounts in the surplus lines market outside of the clearinghouse.”

Condo and business owners pay the price

For all the behind-the-scenes battles over issues like procurement, the most salient detail about Senate Bill 1028 — at least if you own a condo or business in Florida — is that it will almost certainly lead to some condo and business owners paying higher prices for their property insurance.

That’s partly because of another provision in the bill that will make a commercial property automatically ineligible for a policy from Citizens if a surplus lines insurer offers coverage through the clearinghouse — even if that surplus lines policy is more expensive.

A condo building, for instance, would only remain eligible for coverage under Citizens if the surplus lines quote is more than 15 percent higher than the price that Citizens would charge. Any offer within that threshold — a concept that insurance lobbyists sometimes call a “strike zone” — would immediately disqualify the property from eligibility for a policy through Citizens.

The condo association could still turn down the surplus lines offer. But it would then have to go looking for a private policy somewhere else — without the safety net of Citizens as a backstop.

Records show that insurance agents tried to have that provision removed. They argued that it would inevitably lead to policyholders paying higher prices to a company they never wanted to be in business with in the first place.

“An eligibility terminating offer would often result in the policyholder and agent having to obtain coverage from the surplus lines insurer making the offer,” FAIA said in the feedback it provided to the Senate. “[It] Could result in policyholders and agents having to accept insurance with surplus lines carriers they may not want to be in business with.”

But Ryan’s lobbyists again insisted on keeping automatic termination in the bill.

“The surplus lines insurers participating in the clearinghouse would be AM Best rated A-VII or better and would have to meet market security standards, which should alleviate agent concerns about ‘having to accept insurance with surplus lines carriers they may not want to be in business with,’” the company wrote in a document provided to the Senate in response to FAIA’s feedback.

Ryan Responses to FAIA Feedback on SB 1028

37.9KB ∙ PDF file

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What’s more, the records show Ryan also pushed to make the “strike zone” wider.

For instance, the early draft of the bill — the one that Ryan Specialty was working on with Joe Gruters back in mid-November — would have forced policyholders out of Citizens if they received a surplus lines offer that was up to 20 percent more expensive.

Later in session, the Office of Insurance Regulation pushed to lower the threshold to 10 percent.

But Ryan Specialty executives then lobbied it back up to 15 percent, according to drafts exchanged during some of the late-session negotiations on Senate Bill 1028.

Modest changes fail to mollify opponents

Lawmakers did make some changes to Senate Bill 1028 before it finally passed on a 33-1 vote in the Senate and an 88-19 vote in the House of Representatives.

They agreed, for instance, to give the Office of Insurance Regulation more oversight over the clearinghouse than the proposal originally envisioned — despite apparent opposition from Ryan, whose lobbyists argued that surplus lines insurers “will refuse to participate” if they face too much scrutiny from regulators.

Lawmakers also required Citizens to set up a second clearinghouse for commercial properties — one that will essentially require the agency to shop policies one more time with standard insurance companies before they are put through the the surplus lines clearinghouse.

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But the modest changes failed to mollify opponents, who still warn that Senate Bill 1028 may end up enriching Ryan Specialty at the expense of condo and business owners across the state.

A trade group representing the surplus lines insurance industry itself even came out against the bill after the session ended. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis approved it anyway, signing the legislation with little fanfare on June 16.

Citizens is now racing to award the contract.

Show notes

Stories discussed on today’s show:

They gave Uthmeier’s campaign $25,000. Then his office stepped in to help.

Filing reveals FL House Speaker’s private client list, including Airbnb, Newsmax

Florida’s top cop uses his power to prop up car dealers

A favor for a billionaire car dealer and Republican megadonor, tucked inside a transportation law

Ron DeSantis' top aide punished bank lobbyists for being disloyal

Records show Big Sugar lobbyists are working on plans for an Everglades-area mine

A right-wing news network lobbied Florida lawmakers to defund fact-checkers, records show

A new tax break for Trump appointees

Questions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.com

Listen to the show: Apple | Spotify

Watch the show: YouTube

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing original journalism — and lifting up the work of others — about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But please consider a voluntary paid subscription, if you can afford one, to help support our work. And check out our video channel, too.

Subscribe now

Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

Here’s something you might not know about Florida’s new state budget: It takes money from Florida high school students — and gives money to Publix Super Markets.

That’s thanks to a provision slipped into the new spending plan by Republican legislative leaders that will give a bigger cut of lottery ticket sales to grocery stores, gas stations and convenience chains.

The mandate — buried about halfway through a 208-page piece of legislation known as the “budget implementing bill” — forces the Florida Lottery to increase the commission it pays retailers that sell its tickets from 5 percent to 6 percent.

That may sound like a small adjustment. But it has a big impact.

State economists estimate that raising the retailer commission to 6 percent will result in the Florida Lottery paying nearly $40 million more next year to stores — and transferring nearly $40 million less into the state’s Educational Enhancement Trust Fund, which is funded with Lottery profits and pays for important programs like Bright Futures Scholarships.

That’s enough money to cover close to 8,000 scholarships.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature have been playing this game for five years now, using the annual implementing bill — a bill that typically attracts little public attention and gets negotiated largely in secret — to steer more Lottery money to stores.

The increased commissions — which legislators must reinstate each session, because changes made through a budget implementing bill expire at the end of the fiscal year— have meant millions of dollars in additional payments to big retail chains like Publix, Wal-Mart, Circle K, and 7-Eleven, at the expense of the educational trust fund.

The governor and lawmakers use the budget scheme to raise retailer commissions because attempts to permanently change the law have failed — perhaps because cutting funding for Bright Futures in order to fatten the profits of retailers would be a truly toxic standalone vote.

In 2022, for instance, the Orlando Sentinel reported that lobbyists representing Sunshine Gasoline Distributors — a Miami company that operates hundreds of gas stations around Florida and is run by a substantial GOP donor — wrote a bill filed by Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez (R-Miami) that would have permanently lifted lottery commissions. The legislation failed to pass.

Sen. Ileana Garcia (R-Miami) and Rep. Jim Mooney (R-Islamorada) sponsored similar proposals the next year. Those bills failed to pass, too.

But while the front door has been locked in Tallahassee, the back door has been left wide open.

It still is.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

It’s not what they say; it’s who they take money from

A pro-AI group spent $500K on ads for Byron Donalds using controversial media firm (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Airbnb gives $1 million to Byron Donalds as rentals remain a Suncoast flashpoint (Suncoast Searchlight)

See also: Disney, Bloomberg open wallets as Orange County mayoral hopefuls rake in cash (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: Voter registration deadline approaches for primary election (WLRN)

The Florida Way

Florida enters new era of AI policing, politically connected firm gets contracts (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: Overwhelmed by Florida data center news? We made a map to help (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: Zoning Board denies Project Tango AI data center (Stet News)

Maybe cut out the middleman and make Leonard Leo the chancellor

‘A political decision’: FIU law school community uneasy over new dean with Trump ties (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: FIU moves to discipline 7 students for ‘indoor’ silent protest on immigration policies (WLRN)

See also: Undocumented immigrants are now blocked from attending Florida state colleges and GED programs (CBS Miami)

See also: After politicized search process, Bell becomes UF’s president (Florida Trib)

Mosaic goes MAGA

Tampa mining giant Mosaic among sponsors for Trump’s Freedom 250 bash (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

Sessions have consequences

DeSantis announces CAIR Florida as a domestic terrorist group under new law (Florida Phoenix)

See also: New law makes it easier to pave over Florida farmland (Florida Trib)

See also: DeSantis signs crypto payment pilot program and stablecoin, kiosk regulations (State Affairs) ($)

Perspectives

The Property Tax Amendment: What’s at Stake (The As Bad As It Is In Florida Podcast)

Free speech? Florida students have diplomas threatened for silent ICE protest (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

A ‘Trump lawyer’ picked as dean of FIU Law could pay off big (Miami Herald) ($)

A Critical THINKING Review of Governor’s DeSantis’ Veto of CS/SB 688: Naturopathic Medicine (Natural Path to Wellness)

Show notes

The bills discussed in today’s show:

Senate Bill 688 — Naturopathic Medicine

Passed the House of Representatives by an 85-22 vote (vote sheet) and the Senate by a 33-3 vote (vote sheet). See the governor’s veto letter here.

House Bill 893 — Trust Fund Interest for Purposes Approved by Supreme Court

Passed the House of Representatives by a 112-0 vote (vote sheet) and the Senate by a 38-0 vote (vote sheet). Read the governor’s veto letter here.

House Bill 461 — Volunteering at Polling Locations

Passed the House of Representatives by a 108-0 vote (vote sheet) and the Florida Senate by a 37-0 vote (vote sheet). Read the governor’s veto letter here.

Senate Bill 382 — Micromobility Devices

Passed the House of Representatives by a 112-0 vote (vote sheet) and the Senate by a 37-0 vote (vote sheet). Read the governor’s veto letter here.

The stories discussed in today’s show:

DeSantis cuts free tax prep for working families but approves money for Mike Huckabee

A tour of Florida’s new state budget, from money for Mike Huckabee to tax cuts for casinos

Banks lobbyists want to slash funding for legal support programs

Amid a growing national witch hunt for abortion medication, Florida may fund testing for ‘contaminants’ in toilet water

An Attorney General-backed vendor pitched wastewater surveillance program

Questions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.com

Listen to the show: Apple | Spotify

Watch the show: YouTube

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing original journalism — and lifting up the work of others — about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But please consider a voluntary paid subscription, if you can afford one, to help support our work. And check out our video channel, too.

Subscribe now

One of the most effective poverty reduction programs in the United States is something called the “Earned Income Tax Credit.” It’s a federal tax break for working-class people — primarily working parents — that provides money to families through year-end tax refunds that can be worth several thousand dollars.

A challenge, however, is that millions of Americans who are entitled to the refundable tax credit do not actually claim the money they are owed — largely because of non-financial barriers like lack of awareness, bureaucratic red tape, distrust of government, and fear of social stigma. Roughly one in five eligible taxpayers fails to claim the EITC, according to IRS data; Florida families alone leave more than $1 billion on the table every year.

That unclaimed money has widespread impacts. Working families tend to immediately spend their EITC refunds on essentials they need to provide for loved ones and continue working; one prominent study found that EITC recipients are most likely to use the money buying or repairing a car. Their consumer spending drives activity at local businesses and generates tax revenue for the state.

All of this is why the Florida Legislature agreed to put a bit of money into the new state budget for the United Way of Florida to provide free tax-prep services to working class families across the state.

The request was sponsored by Republicans: Rep. David Smith (R-Winter Springs) and Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R-Fleming Island). And the $700,000 project cost was a pittance in the scheme of state government that will spend more than $50 billion in general revenue during the 2026-27 fiscal year.

Ron DeSantis vetoed it anyway.

Funding for United Way’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program was part of the approximately $800 million that Florida’s outgoing governor stripped from the state spending plan yesterday when he signed the new budget into law. He did so using what’s known as his “line item veto” — a power that not even U.S. presidents have that allows the governor to pick and choose which legislative earmarks ultimately get funded.

The United Way tax-prep program is but one example among hundreds. DeSantis also cut $750,000 to restore habitat in Florida’s largest open-water estuary. He killed a $15 million security grant program for Catholic schools. He blocked funding for a new prison hospital — and pay raises for prison guards.

At the same time, DeSantis agreed to pay $750,000 to an education-and-propaganda company connected to Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and current U.S. ambassador to Israel. He signed off on a $2 million contract that appears ticketed for a company backed by a venture capital firm in billionaire Charles Koch’s network. And he approved $4 million for a garbage-to-gas project led by a startup that has already given at least $100,000 in campaign contributions to the governor.

(Perhaps this is a good place to point out that Ron DeSantis also vetoed $250,000 for public corruption investigations in Miami.)

And, of course, the Republican governor — who is widely expected to run for president again in 2028 — didn’t dare touch $2.75 million set aside for a vanity project rebranding Palm Beach International Airport as “President Donald J. Trump International Airport.”

In fact, about a month ago, just after GOP leaders in the Legislature completed their own budget negotiations, I compiled a long list of interesting earmarks — many of them favors lobbied into the budget on behalf of major campaign contributors.

Now, not everything on that list could have been vetoed — at least, not without causing bigger headaches because of the way some provisions get embedded into bigger pots of money or broader pieces of legislation.

But of all the items on that list that Ron DeSantis could have removed with relative ease, the governor ultimately vetoed just one: $500,000 to buy and test new software that would have used what sounded like AI chatbots to interview people applying for state jobs.

Here are a few other notable earmarks from that list that Ron DeSantis just approved:

• $725,000 to pay an education-and-propaganda company linked to U.S. Ambassador to Israel and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to develop anti-communism curriculum materials for use in Florida public schools (read more)

• $3 million to install athletic fields at a classical charter school in Jacksonville led by apartment developer John Rood, a major campaign contributor

• $2 million to purchase an online platform to implement a new system of federally funded private school scholarships — a procurement that appears tailored for a new startup company backed a venture capital firm connected to right-wing billionaire Charles Koch (read more)

• $50 million to support construction of a new baseball stadium on the campus of Hillsborough College for the Tampa Bay Rays, whose billionaire majority owner, Patrick Zalupski, is a major campaign contributor

• $4 million to buy artificial intelligence-enabled software that can review and help make eligibility determinations for grocery benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (read more)

• $500,000 for a hotline run by an anti-abortion called the Human Coalition that uses data tracking and online search ads to identify and intercept women seeking abortions

• $4 million to buy hearing-protection equipment for police officers from a company owned by billionaire Bill Austin, a major campaign contributor

• $500,000 to fund testing of municipal toilet water for narcotics and explosives, a proposal pitched by a wastewater surveillance vendor whose lobbyists include former U.S. Attorney General William “Bill” Barr (read more)

• $6 million to enable more law enforcement agencies to use a criminal intelligence platform developed by Peregrine Technologies, a contractor founded by a former Palantir executive

• $675,000 to pay the law firm Cooper & Kirk to continue defending a 2021 law prohibiting social media networks from suspending the accounts of politicians like Donald Trump

• $4 million for a garbage-to-gas project led by a new company that has donated more than $500,000 to Florida politicians in the two years since it was founded (read more)

• $5 million to build a new I-75 interchange near the Hillsborough County and Manatee County line lobbied for by homebuilder Pat Neal, a major campaign contributor

• $5 million to widen Power Line Road in Polk County pushed by real estate developer Cassidy Holdings, a major campaign contributor

• $2.75 million to rebrand Palm Beach International Airport as “President Donald J. Trump International Airport” (read more)

• A provision blocking local battery-recycling laws, like one in Broward County that requires stores that sell lots of batteries to let customers drop off dead batteries for recycling (read more)

• The transfer the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing original journalism — and lifting up the work of others — about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But please consider a voluntary paid subscription, if you can afford one, to help support our work. And check out our video channel, too.

Subscribe now

Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

In late May, aides to Gov. Ron DeSantis awarded a $75,000 deal to design a new state website to Strategic Digital Services, a small marketing firm in Tallahassee.

Sometime within the next 24 hours or so, the state of Florida launched a site promoting a DeSantis-backed constitutional amendment that would slash local property taxes and gut funding for cities, counties and towns across Florida.

Neither the Governor’s Office nor Strategic Digital Services would say whether the firm helped develop the website touting the governor’s tax plan — which uses the same logo that DeSantis staffers are now printing and attaching to his traveling podium whenever he makes a public appearance to talk about property taxes.

But Strategic Digital Services was also the main contractor DeSantis used two years ago to coordinate a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign against two other proposed constitutional amendments — a pair of citizen-led ballot measures that would have overturned a statewide abortion ban and legalized recreational marijuana.

DeSantis and his top advisors — led by James Uthmeier, the governor’s then-chief of staff who DeSantis has now installed as the attorney general of Florida — ultimately burned an estimated $35 million-to-$40 million on that unprecedented ad campaign, blanketing broadcast, cable and streaming channels with so-called “public service announcements” that implicitly attacked the abortion and marijuana amendments.

The governor and his team also bent — and arguably broke — a bunch of laws in the process.

They commandeered $10 million from a Medicaid settlement and turned into political campaign cash by funneling it through a foundation connected to First Lady Casey DeSantis’ “Hope Florida” initiative. They diverted millions more from programs meant to help needy children and sick Floridians, while also dipping into state reserves. They waived procurement rules in order to rush TV commercials onto the air in time for football games. They paid political strategists using hidden state subcontracts.

And now the governor might be gearing up to do it all again — this time in support of Amendment 3, the property tax proposal that he and Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature rushed onto the ballot during a 27-hour special session earlier this month.

The measure going on the November ballot — which, it is very important to note, differs substantially from the proposal DeSantis is currently promoting on his state-sponsored website — would supersize tax breaks for both homeowners and commercial property owners.

But it would also wipe out roughly a quarter of all local government property tax revenue. And it would further concentrate political power in Tallahassee — reducing the decision-making authority of locally elected city councils and county commissions and giving greater community control to the governor and a gerrymandered state Legislature.

DeSantis has, perhaps, already tipped his hand.

As part of the original property tax plan he pitched to the Legislature, DeSantis asked for $5.5 million in taxpayer funds to spend mailing marketing materials to property owners across Florida. The mailers would direct people to a state-run website with a calculator they could use to estimate their potential savings from the proposed property tax amendment, which will need the support of 60 percent of voters in order to pass.

The governor also wanted lawmakers to give him explicit assurances that his website would be legal under a new law that prohibits state agencies from advertising around proposed constitutional amendments. That law was passed in 2025 — in direct response to DeSantis’ spending abuses during his 2024 campaign against the abortion and marijuana ballot measures.

Lawmakers declined to give DeSantis money for the mailers — or explicit permission for his website.

But, then again, this is the same governor who once took taxpayer money set aside to remove undocumented immigrants from Florida and spent it instead rounding up asylum seekers in Texas and flying them to Massachusetts for a Fox News publicity stunt. Then, when he got sued, DeSantis had the Legislature rewrite the law and retroactively approve his antics.

It’s also the same governor who exploited a nearly three-year-long “state of emergency” — and hundreds of millions of dollars meant for emergency response to disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires — in order to build a slap-dash immigrant prison camp in the Florida Everglades that he could show off to MAGA influencers. And then he concealed key details about all the vendor contracts his administration was handing out as part of the rushed project, which proved so ill-conceived that it is now being shut down after a single year of operation.

So it seems unlikely that Ron DeSantis would let a little thing like the law stop him from trying to make Florida taxpayers pay for another political advertising campaign.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

Defunding libraries, dumping on renters: The Florida story

Florida’s historic property tax reform: Libraries and renters fear ‘existential threat’ (WLRN)

See also: Bay County could lose $38 million under property tax plan (Panama City News Herald)

See also: Local officials react to proposed Florida property tax amendment (Lake Okeechobee News)

See also: What property tax cut could cost Hollywood (Axios Hollywood)

See also: Campaign launches to oppose property tax cut constitutional amendment (Florida Phoenix)

This is going to be A Problem

USDA releases Florida’s SNAP error rate. It comes with a $1B penalty (WUSF)

See also: SNAP error rate lowered, but still too high to skirt potential future costs (Florida Phoenix)

And now the vendors get to pocket ‘demobilization fees’

Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” shutting down permanently, sources say (CBS New Miami)

See also: DeSantis says Alligator Alcatraz ‘fulfilled’ its role as he closes it after 1 year (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: ‘Failure by every measure’: Advocates demand accountability for Alligator Alcatraz (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Miami-Dade mayor wants Alligator Alcatraz site turned over to National Park Service (Miami Herald) ($)

What could go wrong?

Matt Gaetz announces he’s ‘returning to public service’ on Florida nonprofit board (Politico)

See also: Matt Gaetz’s appointment puts spotlight on NW Florida economic development board (WUWF)

It’s almost like he’s a pure political opportunist whose sole polestar is personal ambition

Florida gives millions in tax breaks to data centers under DeSantis-backed law (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: What a Data Center Moratorium Can Buy (Boondoggle)

Perspectives

A Ballot that Buries the Cost (3 Degrees Florida)

Good Riddance to ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ a Cruel, Expensive, and Pointless Authoritarian Stunt (Reason)

The injustice of justices ignoring our rights (South Florida Sun Sentinel) ($)

Lobbyists work for and against Florida governments dealing with PFAS pollution (Florida Phoenix)

Show notes

The stories discussed in today’s show:

Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” shutting down permanently, sources say

Good Riddance to ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ a Cruel, Expensive, and Pointless Authoritarian Stunt

Scrutiny mounts over DeSantis’s use of state funds for migrant flights

Hidden consultants and hurried payments: Records reveal details of DeSantis’ campaign against abortion and marijuana amendments

Ron DeSantis proposed delaying a tax break for Florida drivers until it was most helpful to his re-election campaign

A favor for a billionaire car dealer and Republican megadonor, tucked inside a transportation law

State lawmakers gave another gift to car dealers

Industry leaders urge DeSantis to veto billionaire-backed insurance bill

Florida tax package delivers gambling breaks to Soffer’s Big Easy

The bills discussed in today’s show:

Senate Bill 488 — Transportation

House Bill 291 and Senate Bill 352 — Common Entities of Motor Vehicle Distributors and Manufacturers

Senate Bill 1028 — Citizens Property Insurance Corporation

Questions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.com

Listen to the show: Apple | Spotify

Watch the show: YouTube

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing original journalism — and lifting up the work of others — about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But please consider a voluntary paid subscription, if you can afford one, to help support our work. And check out our video channel, too.

Subscribe now

Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

Seeking Rents had a story last week revealing that the car dealer lobby — led by one billionaire-owned dealership group, in particular — got legislators to pass a new law this past session that’s basically a protectionist scheme meant to stop a Spanish car company from selling its vehicles in Florida unless it agrees to cut multiple dealers in on the deal.

But that wasn’t the only gift car dealers got from Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature this year. Lawmakers also quietly killed another bill that would have enabled a new electric vehicle startup to sell its cars directly to Floridians.

That legislation — House Bill 291, sponsored by Rep. Fiona McFarland (R-Sarasota) and Senate Bill 352, sponsored by Sen. Jonathan Martin (R-Fort Myers) — was intended to support Scout Motors, an old American brand that has been resurrected by Volkswagen and turned into a standalone company planning to produce electric pickups and SUVs.

Neither bill got so much as a single hearing during the 60-day legislative session — because car dealers were lobbying furiously against them behind the scenes.

Records show, for instance, that the Florida Automobile Dealers Association arranged a series of meetings opposing the bills with members of the House Industries & Professional Activities Subcommittee and the Senate Transportation Committee, the two legislative committees with initial control over the legislation. Some of the meetings included executives from the Tom Bush Family of Dealerships in Jacksonville and Reed Automotive Group in Orlando.

The dealer lobbyists also distributed talking points urging legislators to oppose the legislation — talking points that explicitly argued that middleman dealers simply couldn’t be expected to compete in a truly free car market.

And they made campaign contributions — everything from $5,000 to Rep. Mike Giallombardo (R-Cape Coral), the chair of the House Industries & Professional Activities Subcommittee, to $50,000 to Rep. Sam Garrison (R-Fleming Island), the incoming speaker of the state House.

Some individual dealer owners gave even more — like Braman Management, the network owned by Miami billionaire Norman Braman and the driving force behind the legislation intended to thwart Cupra, the Barcelona-based carmaker that wants to enter the U.S. market. (Incidentally, Cupra is, like Scout, financially backed by Volkswagen.)

None of this is terribly surprising, of course. The entire car dealer business model depends on 20th century state laws that make it illegal for consumers to buy most new cars directly from the companies that actually make them.

Florida dealers have been trying for nearly two years now to prevent Scout Motors from selling directly to consumers — with help from politicians like Attorney General James Uthmeier. Other dealers across the country are scrambling to stop Scout, too.

But it’s a helpful reminder that whenever some pro-consumer or pro-worker piece of legislation fails to get a hearing in Tallahassee, it’s usually because a deep-pocketed corporate interest doesn’t want it to.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

He gave $33K to James Uthmeier

Florida’s Roku lawsuit could end in a payday for a politically connected lawyer (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Florida’s GOP AGs used to intervene in utility rate cases, but no longer (Florida Phoenix)

See also: Kalshi is touting Byron Donalds’ lead, and funding his campaign (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Alligator Alcatraz contractor gave big to Miami-Dade commissioners this spring (Miami Herald) ($)

A 75 percent hit in some suburban communities

Property appraisers: ‘Bedroom’ towns face serious funding challenges under property tax relief plan (WLRN)

See also: DeSantis’ property tax plan could be unconstitutional. Here’s why (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: Property tax cuts could hurt local government credit ratings (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: Property tax cuts could end up squeezing some Florida renters (South Florida Sun Sentinel) ($)

The ghost story that still haunts Florida

FPL parent company agrees to $150 million to end lawsuit over past controversies (The Florida Trib)

Now that’s how you write a headline

DeSantis signs Gruters bill likely to raise insurance costs, favor one company (WSLR)

See also: DeSantis Signs Citizens Commercial Clearinghouse Bill That’s Been Called ‘Unneeded’ (Insurance Journal)

What the hell are we even doing here?

A Sloth Exhibitor Shut Down by New York Wants a Florida Comeback—and Florida Licensed Him (Inside Climate News)

See also: Lawsuit over KidCare funding heads court while Florida’s Medicaid rate for kids drops (Central Florida Public Media)

See also: Florida DOH defends tighter income restrictions for AIDS Drug Assistance program (Politico Pro) ($)

See also: The Quiet Unraveling of America’s Food Safety Net (Politico Magazine)

Perspectives

The Selective Pursuit of Government Critics in the Free State of Florida (Florida Trident)

Florida might expect property tax cuts. But, in reality... (Treasure Coast Newspapers) ($)

Python captures by Florida scientists overshadowed by hoopla over annual amateur contest (Florida Phoenix)

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing original journalism — and lifting up the work of others — about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But please consider a voluntary paid subscription, if you can afford one, to help support our work. And check out our video channel, too.

Subscribe now

In late April and with little fanfare, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a seemingly mundane piece of transportation legislation that never attracted much public attention beyond a few changes clearing up the law around license plate frames.

But tucked inside that transportation package is a favor for a billionaire car dealer and Republican megadonor.

Records obtained by Seeking Rents show that lobbyists for Braman Management, the dealership group led by Miami billionaire Norman Braman, got Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature to pass a new law that essentially forces car manufacturers to distribute new vehicle brands through multiple middleman car dealers.

The provision, which some other lobbyists and legislators referred to internally as “the Braman language,” is apparently intended to thwart plans by a Volkswagen-owned car company in Spain that wants to bring its vehicles to the United States — but without necessarily selling them through dealerships like Braman’s.

Emails obtained through public records requests show that a top Braman executive helped write and edit the legislation. And the company simultaneously showered compliant legislators with campaign contributions — including $20,000 for the state House member who helped get the ball rolling on the company’s proposal and $50,000 for the powerful state senator who agreed to personally sponsor it.

It’s yet another example of Florida politicians in Tallahassee bowing to the car dealers’ lobby — and specifically to Braman, who records show has made than $2 million in state-level campaign contributions over the last four years, plus more than $300,000 to federal PACs supporting DeSantis’ presidential ambitions.

In 2023, for instance, lawmakers passed and DeSantis signed a law written in part by Braman representatives that was intended to make sure legacy carmakers like Honda and Ford can never sell new electric vehicles directly to Floridians. Braman gave $10,000 each to the House and Senate bill sponsors shortly after they filed the legislation.

One of Braman’s dealerships is also the lead plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit meant to sabotage Scout Motors, another VW-funded startup that wants to bypass franchised dealers and sell its electric pickups and SUVs straight to consumers over a mobile app. James Uthmeier, Florida’s appointed attorney general, used his office last year to try and help Braman and other VW dealers in their suit against Scout — right after taking a $25,000 donation from Braman.

This year’s lobbying campaign was sparked by Cupra, an eight-year-old Spanish company that has become one of the fastest-growing carmakers in Europe. Based in Barcelona and backed by the Volkswagen Group, Cupra focuses primarily on selling sporty electric vehicles that slot just below premium brands. The company recently sold its 1 millionth car.

Cupra now wants to enter the U.S. market. But most American states still have antiquated laws in place that generally prevent traditional car manufacturers like VW — and other carmakers affiliated with them — from selling directly to consumers.

So Cupra has been working on a deal to distribute its vehicles in the U.S. through one dealership network in particular: Penske Automotive Group, which has more than 200 outlets around the country, including five in Florida. During an April 2025 event in Miami, Cupra executives said they and Penske were aiming to open up showrooms in as many as 20 states by the end of the decade, though those plans have since been put on hold.

Cupra’s potential partnership with Penske seems to have upset some of Volkswagen’s other U.S. dealers — like Braman, whose collection of dealerships includes a location in West Palm Beach selling VW’s Audi brand.

In November 2025 — just a few months after Cupra’s media splash in Miami — a lobbyist for Braman Management approached state Rep. Mike Redondo (R-Miami) with a plan to prevent any exclusive distribution deal between Cupra and Penske.

Specifically, Braman wanted to rewrite state law to force a car manufacturer planning to distribute more than 3,000 vehicles a year in Florida to sell those cars through at least five different dealership groups in the state.

“Rep [sic] Redondo graciously agreed to submit the attached dealer language into drafting for us,” Erica Chanti, one of half a dozen lobbyists Braman has on retainer in Tallahassee, wrote in a Nov. 4 email to Redondo’s legislative aide.

The proposed legislation wasn’t the only thing Braman gave that week to Redondo, who is quickly becoming an influential figure in the Florida Capitol as he is expected to become speaker of the state House after the 2030 elections.

One day earlier, records show, Braman Management had made a $15,000 donation to a fundraising committee Redondo controls. And three days later, a group of Braman’s business entities — including Audi of West Palm Beach — contributed another $5,000 to Redondo’s regular campaign account.

Redondo put Braman’s language into House bill drafting, the first step before a proposal can be formally filed and voted on. Once staffers had finished drafting it, Redondo had it sent back to Chanti for feedback — who soon returned it with further edits proposed by Brian Shack, the general counsel at Braman Management.

Neither Shack nor Chanti responded to requests for comment.

Redondo ultimately passed the legislation off to Rep. Brad Yeager, a Republican from New Port Richey who sponsored it in the state House during the 2026 session, which ran from January to March. The matching Senate legislation was sponsored by Sen. Jay Trumbull, a Republican from Panama City.

They, too, received large donations from Braman in November 2025. Records show the company gave $7,500 to a fundraising committee for Yeager — and $50,000 to a committee for Trumbull, who is scheduled to become president of the state Senate after the 2028 elections.

Braman never publicly testified in support of the legislation. And supportive lawmakers never mentioned the company when answering questions about the proposal during committee hearings and floor sessions.

But behind the scenes, it was clear who they were trying to help — and why.

A lobbyist for the Florida Automobile Dealers Association even referred to it as the “Braman proposal” and “Braman language” in a pre-session email to Rep. Jim Buchanan, a Republican from Sarasota. Buchanan chaired the House Commerce Commerce Committee, which would later hold a hearing on the legislation.

“Braman is concerned and has proposed language to address VW’s desire to potentially sell Cupra (Spanish EVs) through a single dealer point in Florida,” the automobile dealers association explained in attached document sent to Buchanan.

Part of the reason the automobile dealers association intervened is that Braman’s original proposal threatened to create conflicts between smaller dealers and larger dealerships groups. And the plan briefly appeared to stall out toward the end of the 60-day legislative session.

But Republican leaders in the House resurrected it during the final week by inserting a slightly revised version into an omnibus transportation bill that was about to pass.

The rewritten legislation — which DeSantis signed in April and takes effect Oct. 1 — essentially requires a car manufacturer that sells more than 1,000 vehicles a year in Florida to sell through at least three separate dealership groups.

It also only applies to new lines of vehicles being introduced to the market — like Cupra. The forthcoming law includes a carveout for existing models where a manufacturer already distributes more than one-third of its cars through a single dealership group.

That eleventh-hour amendment was sponsored by Rep. Juan Porras, a Republican from Miami — who, records show, deposited a $7,500 donation from Braman Management shortly after the session ended.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated a timeframe. Norman Braman, Braman Management and related Braman business entities have made more than $2 million in state-level campaign contributions over the past four years.

Show notes

The stories discussed in today’s show:

State-backed ballot measure could wipe out a quarter of local property tax collections

A national chain selling puppies for profit lobbied to weaken new rules for pet stores, records show

A Koch-connected school choice contractor could get $2 million from Florida taxpayers

Corporations could get a $3.5 billion tax break in Florida unless state lawmakers step in to stop it

The bills discussed in today’s show:

Senate Bill 1004 — Domestic Animals

Senate Bill 1356 — Handling of Animals (note: the animal shelter privatization language is in section 2 of the original text)

House Bill 1451 — Utility Services

House Bill 655 — Pub. Rec. and Pub. Meetings/Attorney Meetings to Discuss Private Property Rights Claims

House Bill 7031 — Internal Revenue Code

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This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing original journalism — and lifting up the work of others — about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But please consider a voluntary paid subscription, if you can afford one, to help support our work. And check out our video channel, too.

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Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

Cities, counties and towns across Florida could lose close to a quarter of their annual property tax collections, if voters approve a state-backed ballot measure this fall that would cut and cap local property taxes.

That’s according to a new analysis by the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference — also known as the REC — a panel of nonpartisan economists tasked with forecasting the financial impacts of proposed legislation.

It’s the first full analysis of the seismic property tax plan that Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature rushed to pass during a 28-hour special session earlier this month.

The proposed constitutional amendment — which will only take effect if at least 60 percent of Florida voters support it in a statewide referendum in November — was conceived so quickly and with so little input from anyone outside the inner circles of Tallahassee leadership that even legislators who voted for the plan gave contradictory explanations of how it would actually work.

The REC analysis — which, to be very clear, should have been done before state lawmakers voted on this — found that the proposal would quickly lop off more than $8 billion a year in funding for local governments by supersizing a tax break for primary homeowners.

That provision, which would be phased in over two years, would generally increase the state’s homestead tax exemption from $50,000 to $250,000 — meaning, for example, that the owner of a $750,000 home would pay taxes to their local city or county government as if their home were worth only $500,000.

But the local revenue losses would widen rapidly from there — thanks largely to a second tax break that would suppress the annual tax bills for all other property owners, too.

That piece of the package would further restrict the year-to-year growth in tax assessments on all non-homestead property — everything from a New York couple’s vacation condo in Miami Beach to the Walt Disney Co.’s Magic Kingdom theme park.

Florida already caps increases to the annual tax assessments on non-homestead property at no more than 10 percent a year, the result of Big Business-backed constitutional amendments that passed in 2008 and 2018.

This new proposal would lower that ceiling even further so that the assessed value of non-homestead property could climb by no more than 5 percent a year — no matter how much the actual market value of the property rises.

In fact, one of the most striking findings from the REC’s analysis is just how quickly that tighter tax cap would compound, as the gap between what a piece of non-homestead property is worth and what it is taxed at steadily widens.

Local government revenue losses just from the non-homestead tax cap would swell more than six-fold over the first five years it is in effect — from around $350 million to more than $2.2 billion. And the tax differentials would keep on stacking up over time.

Altogether, the REC estimates that the combined package — the $250,000 homestead exemption plus the 5 percent annual non-homestead assessment cap — would wipe out nearly $12 billion in annual funding for local governments by the 2031-32 fiscal year.

And that does not include other not-yet-calculable impacts from the proposed constitutional amendment, which would, among other things, make it possible to continue increasing the homestead exemption — all the way up to 100 percent — without another statewide referendum.

For perspective: $12 billion would be somewhere in the ballpark of 24 percent of total local government property tax collections, based on the REC’s property tax growth forecasts and a bit of back-of-the-napkin math by Seeking Rents.

That’s an almost-unfathomable hit to local governments that pay for police, fire, parks, roads, sidewalks, stormwater drains, sewage plants, libraries, animal shelters, trash collection, summer camps and so much more.

Cities, counties and towns would have to make that money up somehow — through some inevitable combination of cutting public services, raising property tax rates, and charging new taxes and fees.

To understand how painful that process would be: Recall that the Florida House of Representatives last year proposed cutting the statewide sales tax from 6 percent to 5.25 percent. That three-quarters-of-a-point cut to sales tax would have reduced the state’s general revenue — the flexible pot of money that legislators are free to spend however they want — by about 10 percent.

And the Florida Legislature absolutely fell apart over it.

What was supposed to be a 60-day session dragged for more than 100 days as House and Senate leaders in Tallahassee proved utterly incapable of completing a state budget with that big a hole in the middle of it. They clashed over what existing programs to slash and which new projects to leave unfunded — and ultimately abandoned the sales tax cut entirely. The Florida Capitol has been basically dysfunctional for two years now, in large part because of the animosity that developed during that budget fight.

In other words, Republican legislators in Tallahassee could not handle even a 10 percent cut to their general revenue.

But, of course, they have no problems tossing an even bigger budget grenade into the laps of local governments.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

Austerity is coming

Florida property tax relief proposal could cost Palm Beach County $400M in services (WLRN)

See also: Florida tax plan would cost cities 25% or more, county estimate says (The Palm Beach Post) ($)

See also: Seminole commissioners warn of severe cuts in services if tax referendum approved (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: Boca Raton could lose millions if property taxes are cut, impacting city services, officials say (South Florida Sun-Sentinel) ($)

See also: Fort Myers stares down revenue loss, advances police, fire projects (Fort Myers News-Press) ($)

Bipartisan sleaze at New College of Florida

St. Petersburg Sen. Rouson taking job at New College of Florida (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: New College of Florida: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO | YouTube)

Cheating to win elections, from Congress to classrooms

‘Total victory’: Florida’s top court allows use of DeSantis’ new congressional maps (Florida Trib)

See also: DeSantis wants teachers’ unions gone. United Teachers of Dade says it is here to stay (WLRN)

Legislators cut a study on the impacts of privatization from the new state budget

Florida taxpayers pay billions to Centurion, the prison health care provider and lawsuit magnet (Florida Bulldog)

See also: Legislature sweeps Florida Forever funding to rural conservation program (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

Dark clouds over the Sunshine State

More Floridians are turning to ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ plans to cover grocery costs (WUSF)

See also: Florida immigration arrests have quietly surged, with state and local agencies at the forefront (WLRN)

Perspectives

Florida Makes a Property Tax Mistake (Wall Street Journal) ($)

Déjà vu: another misleading property tax ballot question (South Florida Sun Sentinel) ($)

The state strips power from local governments. You can change that (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

Feds order a Florida power plant to keep burning dirty coal (Florida Phoenix)

10 years after Pulse, Orlando won’t let anyone erase this tragedy (Orlando Sentinel) ($)