Florida governor debate: DeSantis, Crist make their arguments on CRT
Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Congressman Charlie Crist made their arguments on many controversial topics including critical race theory and abortion.
Patrick Colson-Price, USA TODAY
The Florida Association of Broadcasters, a lobbying group whose members include many TV and radio news organizations, is sponsoring a controversial ad blitz led by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ health secretary aimed at dissuading voters from repealing the state’s six-week abortion ban in November.
The details of the Florida Association of Broadcasters’ sponsorship is a closely held secret. Neither the lobbying organization nor its longtime president, Pat Roberts, answered repeated questions about how and why the DeSantis administration and Florida’s broadcast industry have linked arms in an effort to derail Amendment 4, a proposed change to Florida’s constitution that would protect abortion rights through fetal viability, or 24 weeks. Several association board members, including some Florida news executives, also refused to answer questions, and the Agency for Health Care Administration only provided generic talking points that didn’t address the questions posed.
But the broadcast association’s tax filings, public statements from state officials, and interviews with broadcast insiders indicate that the nonprofit’s support is substantial: The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration was likely able to purchase airtime from the broadcasting association at a steep discount through a program intended to support public-service announcements and education campaigns, like hurricane preparedness and safe driving. That discount — 75 percent off the estimated value of airtime — is supported by TV stations that donate the time, charity the association says is an “ideal way for a station to fulfill its obligation to operate in the public interest.”
The upshot is that Florida’s broadcasters might be, perhaps unwittingly, effectively offering in-kind contributions to a state-sponsored campaign that critics have alleged in court is an unlawful effort by Florida’s governor to influence the outcome of a vote.
DeSantis signed the state’s six-week abortion ban last year ahead of his failed presidential campaign, but polls show Amendment 4 is broadly popular despite the governor deploying the full weight of his political brand — and, more recently, the power of state government — in an effort to kill it.
“(The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration) urging voters to oppose an amendment proposed by its citizens through such a misinformation campaign violates the Florida Constitution and the political power that has been reserved to the people …,” attorneys with the ACLU, which backs Amendment 4, told a Leon County judge in a lawsuit filed last week.
“With vote-by-mail ballots scheduled to be mailed in less than two weeks, AHCA is grossly misrepresenting what the Amendment would do, making allegations that are explicitly refuted by the language of the Amendment itself, and misleading voters through both inaccurate statements and through omission of countervailing information.”
State law generally forbids public officials from using official state resources to influence the outcome of an election, a bright line DeSantis has, if not outright crossed, indisputably muddled in his efforts to fight Amendment 4.
To wit: a 30-second TV spot paid for by the Agency for Health Care Administration — and supported by the state Association of Broadcasters — is hardly the kind of innocuous public-service announcement that the discount program usually supports. The television ad doesn’t mention Amendment 4, but it characterizes Florida’s draconian six-week ban — which the amendment is intended to overturn — as common sense and supportive of women and families, and it seems tailored to answer criticisms frequently raised by abortion-rights backers. “No woman can go to jail for having an abortion,” the ad’s female narrator says.
Most crucially, the ad directs viewers to visit an AHCA-run website that has more explicit political language, including a statement that Amendment 4 “threatens women’s safety.” It also casts aspersions on groups and donors who support the amendment’s passage, characterizing them as “self interested.”
At the end of the TV ad, a statement says it was sponsored by AHCA, the Florida Association of Broadcasters and “this television station.”
One current Florida broadcast executive told me that language indicates AHCA almost certainly benefited from the 75 percent discount available to state government for public-service advertisements, courtesy of time donated from stations. The value of that donated time is unclear, but tax records show it could be substantial.
The association has characterized this public-service work with the state — and more specifically with the governor, the cabinet and state agencies — as among its top accomplishments as a nonprofit. In its most recent tax filing, covering 2022, the association said it ran 500,000 public-service ads totaling $27 million of airtime. The association says it uses the revenue it collects from those state offices to “cover the cost of administering the (public-service-announcement) program and to provide additional services to the broadcasters and residents of Florida.”
AHCA — and DeSantis — have repeatedly cast the abortion ad campaign as a routine effort to educate the public. “The Florida Association of Broadcasters has a 30+ year history of providing assistance to the state on a wide range of PSA’s to help educate the general public,” an unidentified AHCA official said in an emailed response to questions about the broadcast association’s sponsorship.
The agency didn’t answer my specific questions about the association’s sponsorship. Jason Garcia, a longtime Florida investigative reporter and publisher of Seeking Rents, likewise found a remarkable cone of silence around this topic, including among the state, the broadcast association and some Florida broadcast veterans. Jason and I shared reporting on this story.
The ACLU accused AHCA of “retooling” a “website initially established to help Floridians research healthcare costs” into a vehicle to spread misinformation about Amendment 4. The 30-second television ad, the group said, helps to “drive voters to the deceptive website.”
Amendment 4 needs 60 percent support in November to become law, a challenging hurdle even for a popular proposal.
It’s not clear how many stations have run the ad or how large AHCA’s purchase of airtime was. Neither the state nor the association responded to questions about the cost or scope of the ad campaign throughout Florida. The USA TODAY Network-Florida has submitted a public records request in an effort to find that information.
Notably, Florida broadcasters do not have to offer discounts to political committees looking to run television ads, so DeSantis’ administration is able to get the same amount of traction on the airwaves for less money with AHCA’s ad campaign than if the governor had run it through his committee instead.
For the Florida Association of Broadcasters, this public-service program is vital: fees from those ads supplied the vast majority of the association’s $1.4 million revenue in 2022, according to the group’s most recent tax filing. That was enough to pay its president, Roberts, a base salary of $205,500 plus a bonus of $137,496. The year before, the association reported paying Roberts more than $780,000.
The group’s tax filings also indicate that the nonprofit provided Roberts $12,000 per year in first-class travel, “travel for companions,” and social-club dues.
Roberts, who, along with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, was inducted into the association’s inaugural hall of fame class this year, is not shy about sharing his views over the airwaves. In 2002, Roberts headed an ad campaign targeting then-Senate President John McKay, who proposed an overhaul to the state’s tax system that Roberts opposed. McKay’s supporters called the ad campaign deceptive.
“It makes me look like Boss Hogg,” former state Sen. Jim King, a McKay ally, said of a broadcast association ad at the time. “If they’re trying to defame me, at least they could use a decent picture.”
Nate Monroe is a Florida columnist for the USA Today Network. Follow him on Twitter @NateMonroeTU. Email him at nmonroe@gannett.com.
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Publish date : 2024-09-19 03:18:00
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