Niki Isaak was approximately 33 miles into the Central Florida Classic bike ride near Brooksville in October when a group of motorcyclists entered the bike path and began riding dangerously close to her.

Despite there being a wide-open road, one motorcyclist narrowly passed Isaak on the right shoulder, another pinned her in on the left, and a third finally hit her from behind.

The sudden impact smashed her body to the ground, puncturing her anal canal and fracturing her tailbone, among other injuries. She was immediately rushed to HCA Florida Bayonet Point Hospital, where she remained in the trauma center for three days before being released to return to her home in Fort Myers.

Two months later, she is still doing physical therapy and has created a GoFundMe page to help with the medical bills now totaling more than $400,000 as she tries to pick up the pieces in her life.

“The impact is so big,” she said in a Zoom conversation last month. “It’s ruined our lives in so many ways, and we don’t even know the outcome. I just hope people can see that it’s just getting worse.”

Despite the seriousness of the accident, the offending motorcyclist was only charged with a citation for careless driving, a moving violation.

Frustration among cycling advocates 

“What is the response of the local law enforcement officers? Nothing,” fumes Matt Scarborough, Isaak’s attorney who specializes in defending cyclists involved in accidents. “We’re seeing in my practice that cyclists are just being ignored. If this was a motor vehicle vs. another motor vehicle causing this much damage to somebody, I think it would be a much different story.”

One of Scarborough’s other cases involves pro triathlete Gabrielle Suver, who was cycling along the side of a county road in Lake County on  Nov. 15 when a driver sideswiped her, resulting in a broken back, a fractured neck, a broken leg, fractured kneecap, liver laceration, scapula and sternum fractures and concussion, according to WESH-TV. She was released from the hospital this past Sunday after 28 days.

For decades, Florida’s roads have been listed as the most dangerous in the nation for pedestrians and bicyclists, and there has certainly been more awareness regarding safety concerns in the Sunshine State. But observers lament that conditions aren’t getting better.

A recently released report from the Bicycle Accident Lawyers group concluded that Florida remains the most dangerous state in the nation for bicyclists, looking at combined 2022 and 2023 data. And there were another 207 bicycle fatalities in 2024, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

These troubling statistics continue despite the fact that Florida lawmakers in 2006 passed a law requiring motorists to give cyclists at least three feet of space when driving along or passing them.

Cynics question how often that’s being enforced. Just 130 motorists were cited for violating that law in 2024, according to the annual uniform traffic citation report produced by the state.

Florida’s 3 foot rule

“The 3-foot rule is not the 3-foot rule,” says Tampa attorney Steele Olmstead, who has represented injured cyclists. “The statute says that the motorist has to pass at a safe distance. Not less than 3 feet? Well, cops fall back on that and go, ‘Oh, well. I can’t get out and measure it. I couldn’t tell whether it was 3 feet or not.”

Florida statute 316.083 (2) says that that any driver overtaking a bicycle or other nonmotorized vehicle or an electric bicycle occupying the travel lane must pass that vehicle “at a safe distance of not less than 3 feet or, if such movement cannot be safely accomplished, must remain at a safe distance behind the bicycle or other nonmotorized vehicle or electric bicycle until the driver can safely pass at a distance of not less than 3 feet and must safely clear the overtaken bicycle or other nonmotorized vehicle or electric bicycle.”

Olmstead says he “might have” won one case over the past decade in which a motorist received a ticket for unsafe passing.

Officials say increasing bicycle deaths is a national problem but note that there is a greater proximity to higher speed roads in Florida.

“There’s often a transition from a 20-25 miles per hour neighborhood development that’s relatively self-contained or something like a quasi-gated community, and then you’re immediately on a 45 mph road,” said Ken McLeod, policy director for the League of American Bicyclists. “And at 45 mph, any mistake by a driver is more likely to cause a death for a person biking or walking.”

And while more Florida cities have incorporated separated paths for people to bike and walk, there remain plenty of unprotected bike lanes. “All it takes is driver looking down at their phone and drifting down into the bike lane at 45 mph, and you have a crash that could be a fatality, because you have that high speed and that kinetic energy potential is there to cause the death,” McLeod said. “If it was 35 or 30, you have a lower chance of death when that crash occurred.”

The League of American Bicyclists “Benchmarking Report” released in December 2024 showed that the percentages of bicyclist deaths have increased in Florida from an average of 143 between 2014 and 2018 to 197 between 2019 and 2023, a 38% increase.

And, according to preliminary data compiled by the state of Florida, as of Dec. 13, there had been 185 bicycling fatalities this year (along with 9,277 injuries from bicycle crashes).

(A group called “Ghost Bikes” places white-painted bicycles at sites where someone was hit or killed while riding.)

Some law enforcement officials say the fault often lies with cyclists. In a YouTube video posted last month, Pinellas County Sheriff Sgt. Jessica Mackesy said that at least four cyclists were critically injured or killed in crashes with vehicles because they didn’t stop at a stop sign or a red light.

“Physics doesn’t care if you’ve done it 100 times before. A 4,000-pound vehicle versus a bike, there’s only one outcome,” Mackesy said. “And looking both ways isn’t enough when there’s a driver who has the right of way and expects you to stop. Stop means stop—on the road, on the trail—every time.”

The Florida Department of Transportation last updated its Pedestrian and Bicycle Strategic Safety Plan in October 2021. In it, the agency reported that, between 2016 and 2020, 90% of all pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and serious injuries on state roadways occurred in just 25 of the state’s 67 counties. (The top five counties for fatalities and serious injuries were Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange, Hillsborough, and Duval).

Potential solutions?

Pinellas County Democratic Rep. Lindsay Cross is a cyclist who can be seen riding her bike to the Capitol during the legislative session. She says there are common-sense things that government can do to enhance safety for pedestrians and cyclists, such as creating more protected bike lanes and pedestrian crosswalks, but she believes part of the problem is with how local governments develop communities.

“They’re all focused on having a car,” she said. “People by and large will choose places that are more walkable, that have mixed uses where you can walk to your grocery store or to a coffee shop. People like that, but a lot of the new development doesn’t have that as an option. You’ve got to drive to get into your community. You probably have to go a couple of miles to get to a grocery store.

“Maybe there’s sidewalks in your community, but they’re not leading to anywhere. They’re just a loop within the community. So, I think fundamentally, we need to shift the way our development is happening, so it’s geared towards people moving at a slower pace. Cars are also going to have to slow down and make it safer. That also helps to just enhance our quality of life, make it more accessible for people who are aging to have those options.”

John Sinibaldi Jr. is president of the St. Petersburg Bicycle Club. He has been hit twice by motorists while biking, the last time in 2010 when a collision with a distracted driver led to two lower-back surgeries and two cervical spinal-fusion surgeries. He offers two changes that he thinks could significantly improve bike safety in Florida.

“I would increase communications dramatically between the state and the people who drive on our roads,” said Sinibaldi, whose late father, John Sinibaldi Sr., was a two-time Olympic cyclist in 1932 and 1936. “That would include visual things like billboards and public service announcements on TV. That would  include better driver education before you get your license, [and] driver education when you renew your licenses.”

His other idea is less prescriptive, and more philosophical.

“The second thing is we have to get our local police out of the mindset that if a motorist in a car hits a cyclist, the default option should not be to just assume that the cyclist did something wrong. And yet that’s often the case,” he said.

The Phoenix reached out to law enforcement agencies in Florida for reaction.

“Law enforcement works to enforce the law, and they will treat everyone with respect in that process, that includes both motorists and cyclists,” said Logan Lewkow, deputy executive director of operations for the Florida Sheriffs Association. “You can look around the state — sheriffs’ offices have created visibility enforcement programs specifically to make roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists. The safety of pedestrians and cyclists is very important to law enforcement.”

The Florida Highway Patrol did not respond to a request for comment.

Legislation

The Florida Bicycle Association says its top legislative goal is for the state to pass a comprehensive “Hands Free” law that would make it illegal to hold a phone while operating a motor vehicle. The group says such legislation must go beyond “texting and driving” to encompass all activities that take a driver’s hands and attention away from the road, including scrolling through social media, streaming videos, and any other non-driving activity requiring manual interaction with a handheld device.

Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, sponsored a bill to do just that during the 2025 session, which passed in the Senate, 37-9. But its House companion never moved at all.

No similar bill has been filed yet for the 2026 session.

Bills addressing bike safety have been introduced for the coming Florida legislative session, but only regarding electric or e-bikes, a relatively new phenomenon resulting in a spike in injuries around the state.

Lots of people—from kids to seniors—began using e-bikes during the COVID pandemic. “A new subculture” of seniors who never rode a bike before are using e-bikes seeking the freedom they’re looking for, Sinibaldi said, adding that he sees younger people who have lost their licenses or can’t drive for whatever reason who are also using these new bikes.

“They’re terrorizing the Pinellas Trail—there’s no other way to put it—because they don’t know anything about trail etiquette,” he said. The trail occupies old railroad right of way between St. Pete and Tarpon Springs.

A bill (HB 243) sponsored by Republicans Yvette Benarroch from Collier County and Kim Kendall from St. Johns County would require a person using or renting a class 3 electric bike to hold a driver’s license or learner’s permit. Class 3 electric bikes are the fastest legal bikes with a maximum speed of 28 miles per hour. Anyone caught purposefully modifying an E-bike to boost its motor-powered speed would face a fine up to $100. Subsequent violations could go up to $250.

And Hillsborough County Republican state Rep. Susan Valdés filed legislation last week (HB 667) that would require anyone under 18 to wear a helmet while operating or riding an e-bike.

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Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried is blasting proposed legislation introduced this week by Florida Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Blaise Ingoglia aimed at increasing local government spending transparency—specifically, a provision that would allow removal of local officials found to have committed “financial abuse.”

The legislation, scheduled to be filed ahead of the coming legislative session in the Florida House by Rep. Monique Miller, R-Palm Bay, and in the Senate by Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, would increase local government transparency and formally establish Ingoglia’s Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight (FAFO) effort into statute.

The proposal includes a provision that would codify the state’s CFO’s ability to recommend removal of any elected official who is found to have committed “financial abuse, malfeasance or misfeasance.”

“I have heard zero from our new CFO about what he plans on doing to hold our property insurance companies accountable,” Fried said on a Zoom conference call on Thursday. “Instead, he’s bullying our local governments, creating fictitious formulas, and now he wants to overreach even more by putting a clause in there about removing elected local officials.”

More than any recent governor, Ron DeSantis has aggressively exercised the power within his office to remove elected officials from office, including school board members, sheriffs, and most controversially, two Democratic state prosecutors, Andrew Warren in Hillsborough County and Monique Worrell in Orange and Osceola counties.

Worrell rebounded from her 2023 suspension, winning re-election by a large margin in 2024.

“We see how Ron DeSantis has abused that power throughout his eight years in this administration, and so that is just them bullying our local governments that are the ones who are closest to the people,” Fried added.

In addition to those above listed suspensions, Attorney General James Uthmeier threatened other local governments officials in Florida earlier this year in Orange County and Key West when they raised objections to signing 287(g) agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In the case of Orange County, Mayor Jerry Demings said in August that he signed an updated agreement with ICE under “protest and extreme duress” after Uthmeier threatened the mayor and all six county commissioners that their failure to do so would result in their removal from office by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Other provisions in the legislation introduced by Ingoglia at a press conference in Tampa on Wednesday include allowing the Department of Financial Services to pursue financial penalties from local governments if they don’t respond to inquiries “promptly,” including by withholding any state funds until they do so.

“If we ask for the information on a Monday, and we’re giving you five days to compile the information — get it in five days; if you don’t, then you face a $1,000 a day penalty,” he said at the press conference.

The legislation comes as Ingoglia continues to make the case that local governments have been engaged in “excessive and wasteful spending” by comparing their fiscal year 2024-2025 budgets with what they were spending in 2019-2020. So far, after reviewing the budgets of 11 local governments this year, he says they have engaged collectively in $1.86 billion in alleged wasteful and excessive spending.

Local government officials who have received those FAFO audits have questioned the accuracy of the methodology used by the CFO’s auditors. Ingoglia has called such criticisms “bogus” and “not well thought out.”

Fried argued that if Ingoglia were serious about cutting excessive government spending, he should look inside the DeSantis administration’s own spending excesses. She referred to a Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald story published last week reporting that the DeSantis administration spent $36.2 million in taxpayer funds last year to purchase ads against the proposed marijuana and abortion ballot measures, both of which were contested by the governor.

“If [Ingoglia] wants to talk about saving dollars and making sure that the people are getting a return to the taxes they have put into this state, he should be focused on what’s happening in Tallahassee,” she said. “Ron DeSantis stole $38 million from the people of this state, and so that’s really where the attacks should be. That’s where his energy should be.”

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Florida Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Blaise Ingoglia previewed legislation Wednesday meant to increase spending accountability and transparency for local government officials, with penalties for noncompliance including fines and removal from office.

Ingoglia has been crisscrossing the state for months with his FAFO (Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight) team, auditing spending by some of the state’s largest counties and municipalities. To date they have reviewed spending by 11 local governments and say that they have found more than $1.86 billion in alleged wasteful and excessive spending.

Ingoglia has been clear that part of the effort is to show taxpayers that extensive wasteful spending is taking place. His assertion of such excesses, he believes, should quell arguments by local government officials that a proposed reduction in property taxes for homestead properties will harm essential local services.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he wants to put a measure on the statewide ballot next November that would eliminate of substantially reduce property taxes on homestead properties but has yet to release his own proposal(s). He has, however, ridiculed the proposals on the issue already moving their way through the Florida House as “milquetoast.”

Ingoglia introduced his proposal during a press conference in Tampa that featured state Rep. Monique Miller, R-Palm Bay, who said she will sponsor them in the Florida House during the 2026 session.

“Over the last five years, we have seen property taxes increase by nearly 50%, and this at a time when Florida’s families are being asked to tighten their belts,” she said. “To be direct, tax dollars have become a drug for local governments. And, like any addiction, as long as the supply is unlimited, the behavior will not change.”

The provisions in the legislation

The proposals discussed on Wednesday that will be sponsored by Miller in the House and Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, would include:

• Codifying FAFO into statute to increase accountability and transparency in local government and make this effort a long-term permanent initiative. “Protecting taxpayers should not have an expiration date, and neither should FAFO,” Ingoglia declared.
• Grant government employees, contractors, subcontractors, and taxpayers whistleblower protections when reporting waste, fraud, and abuse of local tax dollars.
• Allow the Department of Financial Services to pursue financial penalties from local governments if they do not respond to inquiries in a “timely manner,” including the withholding of state funds until they comply. That office would have the power to issue subpoenas (as Ingoglia’s office did this summer with officials in Orange County).
• Require local governments to upload all of their contracts into a centralized state financial system.
• Require local governments to submit annual financial efficiency reports to include information such as cash on hand and how much goes to investment accounts and nonprofit organizations, and to list salaries of every local government employee.
• Codify that the Florida CFO can recommend to the governor and state Cabinet removal of any elected official found to have committed financial abuse, malfeasance, or misfeasance.

Miller said that whenever the conversation about cutting back on excessive government spending takes place, she has been “immediately bombarded by naysayers and their supporters with arguments as to why it is impossible. It’s just astounding.”

Ingoglia spent considerable time during the news conference ridiculing local government officials “and their leftist big-budget apologists” who have questioned the methodology of his team’s audits.

‘Fictitious’ claims?

Last week in Palm Beach County, Ingoglia claimed his team of auditors identified $344 million in “excessive, wasteful spending” in the most recent fiscal year—the highest amount across the 11 local governments his agency has reviewed this year.

That received strong pushback from Palm Beach County Administrator Joe Abruzzo, who called the claims “fictitious,” and sent Ingoglia a public records request asking for detailed information about how the calculations were made, according to Stet News.

Local government officials have repeatedly questioned what the CFO is identifying as being “wasteful” and “excessive” in their spending practices. Ingoglia has promised those governments that detailed audits identifying that spending are coming, but they have yet to be released.

“Will there be specific instances outlining line items in the budget that they are spending? Yes, but that is why this information and this piece of legislation is vital, because it allows us to get more information quicker than we would have before,” he said.

Among the local governments Ingolia’s team has audited to date, Tampa, the state’s third largest municipality, hasn’t been one of them. But Ingoglia said if he is elected next year and then re-elected in 2030, he’ll eventually get to every local government that draws taxpayer funds.

“Whether it is a city, a county, a taxing jurisdiction, a school board, a board that has its own millage rate, its own taxing authority, that will not escape my grasp over the next nine years,” he said. “I’m going to be looking at everything.”

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Gov. Ron DeSantis’s eighth and final legislative budget makes another run at redirecting cancer funding in Florida, including jettisoning a requirement that funds be awarded only to peer-reviewed projects and empowering an eight-member “collaborative” to direct how the state spends hundreds of millions of dollars on cancer care and research.

The push by the governor is likely to spark another largely behind-the-scenes battle among those who rely on the state money to help with their research programs.

Specifically, DeSantis’s proposed budget eliminates a decade-old law that spells out how $127 million should be distributed to four National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated facilities: Moffitt Cancer Center; University of Florida Health Cancer Center; Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center; University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; and Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Instead, the governor’s budget would empower the Cancer Connect Collaborative to distribute the money to all cancer providers, with a requirement that at least 60% continues to be spent on the four NCI facilities. NCI is the federal government’s principal agency for cancer research and training. There are 72 NCI-designated facilities nationwide.

The collaborative, established in law in 2024, is a group of eight people — three appointed by the governor, two by the Senate president, and two by the speaker of the House.

Lobbyists representing the four NCI facilities did not immediately respond to Florida Phoenix’s request for comment on the proposal. But representatives of the four facilities testified against a similar plan in a House Health Care Budget Subcommittee earlier this year.

John Cleveland, Moffitt’s executive vice president, director, and scientific officer, told members of the House House Health Care Budget Subcommittee in February that NCI facilities have recruited 980 premier investigators since the Legislature created the program in 2014 and has helped changed cancer care in Florida.

“Florida used to be a state where you flew to New York City or Boston to get your (cancer) care. No longer,” Cleveland said. “So, now they actually want to stay in the state. And I think that’s super important — we have to support our citizens. Having them get on a plane to get their care up in other states is just ridiculous.”

Florida has the second highest cancer burden in the nation. Between 2021 and 2023, the total number of cancer deaths in Florida was 140,955, according to the Florida Department of Health (DOH).

Former Gov. Rick Scott championed the NCI program, which was passed by the Legislature in 2014. Lawmakers pumped an additional $37million into the program in 2022 and renamed it the Casey DeSantis Research Funds.

Cancer innovation and incubator funds

The DeSantis administration first tried to steer funding away from NCI facilities to additional providers during the 2024 session and again in 2025.

The DOH issued a long-range report in 2024 noting that restricting the funding to NCI facilities “limits funding accessibility for other cancer facilities and research institutions across Florida, including those in rural or underserved areas.”

Although the Legislature refused to go along with the changes, lawmakers did agree to create and fund two new cancer grant programs: the Cancer Innovation Fund in 2024 and the Cancer Incubator in 2025.

There is $60 million available in Cancer Innovation Fund and $30 million in the Cancer Incubator program, which is directed toward research at children’s specialty hospitals

The cancer collaborative oversees both grant programs and is charged with making recommendations to the DOH, which awards the grants.

The governor announced in November that four pediatric hospitals were each receiving $7.5 million grants: Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami; John’s Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Tampa; Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville; and Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando.

Statutes require that proposals for both the Innovation Fund and the Cancer Incubator program are “appropriate and are evaluated fairly on the basis of scientific merit.” To that end, the law requires the DOH to appoint peer review panels of independent, scientifically qualified individuals to review and score the merit of each proposal.

DeSantis’s proposed budget eliminates the requirement that grants for either fund be peer reviewed.

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Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet on Wednesday approved more than $2 million in immigration enforcement money for local agencies seeking AI language translators, pepper spray, GPS trackers, handcuffs, bonuses, and more.

The $2.4 million greenlit to 10 law enforcement agencies means Florida has now approved roughly $21 million of the original $250 million diverted by the Legislature in February to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

DeSantis and the Cabinet members, who make up the newly created State Board of Immigration Enforcement, approved the money unanimously.

The board is part of a broader Florida crackdown on undocumented immigration. In February, the GOP-dominated Legislature approved a sweeping measure demanding all counties partner with ICE, creating state-level penalties for entering Florida without proper documentation, and removing in-state tuition for undocumented college students.

The Florida law came right as President Donald Trump took office, ordering mass deportations and setting aside mass sums of money for states to set up migrant detention centers. Florida was the first state to do so with “Alligator Alcatraz,” a sprawling, controversial facility in the heart of the Everglades.

Where is the money going?

The largest lump of the $2.4 million will go to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, which requested the most money ($738,451) for the widest-ranging variety of immigration-related activity. 

After the Florida Highway Patrol, the South Florida county is responsible for the most encounters with suspected undocumented immigrants and the most non-citizens arrested on federal immigration charges, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s immigration dashboard.

Martin County’s breakdown includes:

$2,546 for 30 handcuffs and 30 leg irons; $13,153 for tactical goggles, ballistic helmets, and bulletproof vests; $1,639 for 10 canisters of high-volume pepper spray; $271,103 for a rapid DNA testing machine; $136,736 for license plate readers; $185,029 for tasers; and $859 for Bluetooth rechargeable shooting ear protectors.

The next highest grant is for Volusia County Corrections, totaling $505,789. The asks include $68,400 for detention beds, $22,400 to train 40 officers under the 287(g) program, $43,000 in bonuses for correctional officers, $183,760 for six detection screening systems to check migrants for “contraband,” $182,500 for a full-body security scanning system to check migrants for contraband, fevers, and health problems, $1,400 for 72 uniforms, and $4,100 for 50 mattresses.

GPS trackers, AI translators, and biometric scans

The remaining requests came from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the Madison Police Department, the Fruitland Park Police Department, the City of Port Richey Police Department, the town of Havana, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, the town of Welaka Police Department, and the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office.

The majority of the money is for license plate readers, overtime, or bonuses for law enforcement or correctional officers. Fruitland Park received $22,300 for GPS trackers. According to the submitted request, the department plans to deploy the trackers against “a suspect vehicle … allowing officers to safely monitor vehicles suspected of transporting unauthorized aliens.”

Havana received $93,687 for body-worn cameras, $90,088 for tasers, and $6,201 for nine universal AI language translators. These translators will “facilitate effective communication with non-English [speaking] individuals during stops and immigration focused activities.”

Putnam County received $17,378 for six laptops; $5,793 for handcuffs, leg cuffs, and chains; $69,384 for 21 Rapid ID devices, and $2,557 for one “Rapid ID two finger biometric device accompanied by a DNA barcode.”

These would be used to determine “accurate biometric identification of detainees.

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Florida’s University Chancellor Ray Rodrigues was already the highest-paid state employee with his more than $441K salary, beating out the No. 2 employee (Education Commissioner Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas) by roughly $110K.

But on Friday, that financial lead grew when the Board of Governors of the State University System approved a three-year contract extension including a $600,000 base salary with a chance at a 20% performance bonus. This makes Rodrigues the highest-paid state employee by far, according to the database of state employee salaries. The effective date is Jan. 1

He nearly doubles Kamoutsas’ $330K salary. But Kamoutsas was one of the biggest supporters of Rodrigues’ pay increase.

“When we talk about what a national model this state is in higher education and the envy of the country … I can’t emphasize enough how deserving he is,” Kamoutsas said during Friday’s Board of Governors meeting. “Not just of this pay increase, but honestly more.”

According to the contract amendment, raises in Rodrigues’ contract are paid from Board of Governors Foundation funds, which are considered private.

In July, as the state sets up its new university accrediting body, the BOG transferred $4 million in taxpayer money to the foundation — though that money is specifically appropriated for the accreditor and will not go to Rodrigues’ salary, a BOG spokesperson confirmed to the Phoenix.

The new contract expires in 2029 and provides a $75,000 annual housing stipend and $12,000 a car allowance.

Eric Silagy, former CEO of Florida Power & Light, was the lone BOG member to vote against the new contract — which he claimed was submitted to members at the 11th hour.

“I hear you loud and clear on the fact that taxpayers aren’t directly paying this increase, but it is coming through universities’ foundations,” he said, calling the increase “significant” and unprecedented for an employee staying in the same role. “And so, it is money that would otherwise be able to be spent for other things that would benefit students.”

Various university presidents make more than Rodrigues, but state law requires university president contracts to be paid by foundation funds once they exceed $200,000. 

The contract defines Rodrigues’ responsibilities as ensuring “the efficient operations of the Board” and he “is authorized to enter into any contract necessary for the operation of the Board to employ all personnel and establish policies and procedure, incident to Board personnel and operations, and to submit and annual legislative budget request and any amendments thereto for the Board office to the Board for approval.”

Rodrigues “shall serve as the Board’s liaison for communications with university boards of trustees, university presidents and other university officers and employees, the Governors and the Governor’s staff, the Legislature and the Legislature’s staff, the media, other state entities, and the public.”

Rodrigues has served as university chancellor since 2022. He’s now paid a $441,252 salary, some $40,000 more than under his first contract. Rodrigues previously served 12 years in the Florida Legislature. As of Dec. 2021 — his most recently available financial disclosure form — his net worth was $313,213.

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Florida professors, university faculty, and teaching assistants could soon be able to openly carry firearms on campus, thanks to a sweeping new measure filed by a Republican lawmaker.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Crestview, is sponsoring the legislation, entitled “School Safety,” to address security concerns in higher education. If passed, the bill would remove college campuses as gun-free zones — marking a significant shift in how Florida handles gun issues.

It would become one of the few Second Amendment expansion bills adopted in Florida since the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, which prompted a higher gun-purchasing age and red flag laws.

In an interview with the Phoenix, Gaetz called his legislation “sadly timed,” adding that he “never wanted” to file a bill like this.

He referred to a slate of violent incidents in the past few months, including a shooting spree at Florida State University in April, the assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in September, a shooting at Brown University over the weekend, and, most recently, an anti-Jewish shooting in Australia that left 15 dead.

“We’re living in a world where our institutions are being threatened,” Gaetz said, adding that he’s already filed another bill aimed at increasing protection outside of churches, mosques, and synagogues. “I’m sorry that I’m having to do this, but it just seems as though places in our society that we thought were safe, even sacrosanct, are now becoming targets.”

Although he anticipates objections that teachers may abuse the ability to bring a gun to school, Gaetz pointed out that there have been no instances of a school shooting sprouting from an unwell volunteer in the guardian program. This school safety initiative allows trained and vetted school employees to carry concealed weapons on K-12 campuses.

“None of the parade of terribles have happened that the opponents to the guardian program tried to advance,” he said. “While none of that has happened, people have been killed.”

What else is in the bill?
Gaetz isn’t this first Florida lawmaker to try to promote campus carry. At the start of the 2025 legislative session, then-Sen. Randy Fine brought his all-encompassing campus carry bill to its first committee — unlike Gaetz’s, Fine’s bill would have allowed all students to carry — but it was voted down. Fine later left to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gaetz said that the heart of his bill is hardening Florida’s state colleges and universities by requiring better threat assessments, better responses to threats, and better communications between first responders and faculty in emergencies.

SB 896 would allow university employees, faculty, and students who are also working for a college to either openly carry or carry conceal weapons on campus. It also would expand the school guardian program to the university level and create an offense of discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of school.

Gaetz said his measure also would require universities to ensure all classroom doors lock during an emergency — especially after FSU students discovered during the April school shooting that their doors could not lock. He estimates that around $60 million will end up being appropriated for the effort, in line with what Gov. Ron DeSantis requested in his budget proposal last week.

An identical bill has been filed in the House by Rep. Michelle Salzman.

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil-rights organization, has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order issued last week designating the group as a “terrorist organization.” CAIR is asking the court to block the executive order and declare it unconstitutional.

The CAIR-Foundation and CAIR-Florida filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee on Monday.

DeSantis issued his executive order on Dec. 8, designating CAIR a “terrorist organization.” The order directed Florida’s executive and Cabinet agencies, as well as every county and city, to deny local or state contracts, employment, funding, benefits, or privileges to CAIR and anyone known to provide “material support” to CAIR, including “expert advice or assistance.”

The order directs the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) to undertake “all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities in Florida” against terrorist organizations designated in Section 1 of the executive order, which includes the Muslim Brotherhood.

“This executive order does not present facts, it does not cite investigations, it does not point to any criminal findings. It simply declares guilt by proclamation,” said Hiba Rahim, interim executive director for CAIR-Florida, during a press conference at the organization’s Tampa headquarters Tuesday.

“It does not matter whether you agree or disagree with our policies or our advocacy. What should concern every American is the implication of allowing a government official to apply criminal designations without due process. This is not how things work in America. In this country, allegations come with evidence and evidence is tested in court. And it is judges, not politicians, who decide what is lawful.”

CAIR has never been declared a foreign terrorist organization by any federal agency.

In alleging that DeSantis has violated the Constitution, the lawsuit contends that he has:

• Illegally usurped the exclusive authority of the federal government to designate American organizations as terrorist groups based on allegations of material support for foreign terrorist groups.
• Violated the Constitution’s guarantee of due process by unilaterally designating CAIR a criminal actor and then ordering immediate punitive, discriminatory action against CAIR and its supporters without any chance to appeal that punishment or designation.
• Violated the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech by punishing Americans who seek to provide CAIR with material support, including speech in the form “assistance” and “advice,” and retaliating against CAIR for speech he finds objectionable, including the organization’s past lawsuit against him and its activism in support of Palestinian human rights.

CAIR-Florida and DeSantis do have a history in the courts. In November 2023, one month after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas against Israel, CAIR National and CAIR-Florida filed suit against Florida officials including DeSantis, challenging state directives to deactivate Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at Florida public universities. In January 2024, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the case was not valid because the ban had not been enforced.

Florida joins Texas

During Tuesday’s news conference, CAIR officials said that in filing the lawsuit, they weren’t just standing up for Muslim rights, but constitutional rights for others as well, and noted that they have been joined in the lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Muslim Legal Fund of America, and the Michigan law firm Akeel & Valentine.

Saying the executive order calls on the FDLE and FHP to prevent all “unlawful activity” by CAIR, attorney Omar Saleh added that he thought such laws were already in place. “But Gov. DeSantis wants to add additional penalties, just in case you’re Muslim or if you support a Muslim group, and it doesn’t work that way in this country,” he said.

DeSantis’ executive order listing both CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as “terrorist organizations” came three weeks after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation prohibiting CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood and its members from purchasing or acquiring land in the state, accusing them of supporting terrorism and undermining Texas laws through harassment, intimidation, and violence.

On Nov. 24, President Trump issued an executive order that sets in motion a process by which certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood “shall be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” CAIR has previously said that it has no association with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Texas U.S. Republican Sen. John Cornyn announced Monday that he wants to eliminate CAIR’s tax-exempt status as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, saying in a written statement that the group “is a radical group of terrorist sympathizers with a long history of undermining American values.”

CAIR was established in 1994 and now has 25 chapters around the state, including in Tampa and Miami. CAIR officials were asked Tuesday to speculate about why they are now being targeted by two states and a U.S. senator.

“This has been happening much longer than a month ago, but it’s picking up a lot more because public officials are being more brazen in showing what their true thoughts are about Islam and Muslims,” said Saleh. “When Texas happened, we knew Florida would be coming, because we know that’s what the governor’s sentiment is.”

Thania Clevenger, national chief operating officer for CAIR, agreed that negative allegations regarding the organization aren’t new, but said they have been growing steadily since the Hamas attack on Israel two years ago.

“The impact against the community has been growing steadily since Oct. 7 with the Palestinian movement,” she said. “Our work has been effective. We have sued governors across the country who are ‘Israeli First.’ And so that action has brought more scrutiny to CAIR.”

‘Discovery rights’

When asked for comment, the governor’s press office sent the Phoenix previous statements DeSantis has made over the past week on social media and in person regarding his decision to issue the executive order.

“I welcome the lawsuit because what will happen is, that will give the state of Florida discovery rights to be able to subpoena the bank records. … And honestly, it gives us even more reason. … And so this is something that our attorney general is ready, willing and able to fighting on this, DeSantis said on Dec. 9 in North Miami Beach.

“They have every right to sue, and then we’re going to have a right to get the information that we need to make sure. But our agencies are on notice about how any of our programs or any of our operations are impacted, or not impacted, and so to the extent that they can be, then they’re going to have a basis to be able to protect the people and the taxpayers from that.”

DeSantis added in that press conference that “people forget CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terror financing trial in the history of the United States of America. If there were any other situation where that happened, then people would be up in arms, but somehow that’s something that just gets forgotten.”

“A lot of it is financial,” he went to say. “That’s why I think a lawsuit is something that we very much welcome for that.”

That was a reference to a 2008 federal conviction of five former leaders of a U.S.-based Muslim charity named the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

CAIR had been included in the list of un-indicted co-conspirators in the case. The organization was not indicted, however, and on its website CAIR says that “the U.S. Attorney who led the Holy Land Foundation case confirmed decisions to indict were based only on evidence and law—not politics.”

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Gov. Ron DeSantis is confident that his proposed “AI Bill of Rights” to crack down on unfettered artificial intelligence would not violate President Donald Trump’s new executive order invalidating certain state-level AI regulations.

But if it does draw a lawsuit from the Department of Justice, DeSantis thinks Florida would win.

“I’m not concerned about the recent executive order, because it doesn’t apply against the states directly,” DeSantis said Monday, speaking during a Jupiter roundtable alongside three parents whose children were harmed by AI chatbots.

“I don’t think we’re gonna be doing anything that would even give rise to a Dormant Commerce Clause lawsuit from the U.S. DOJ but, to the extent we did, I’m confident that we’d be able to win that because, clearly, we’d be legislating within the confines of our 10th Amendment rights as states,” he continued.

The anti-AI panel was DeSantis’ latest stab at raising the alarm over unregulated artificial intelligence. For months, he has hinted at proposing legislation—revealing an outline last week—and has long spoken out against the costs of AI data centers, the danger AI presents to children, and the hazard of foreign-owned AI models being adopted by Americans.

He continued to hammer away at those points Monday, pausing briefly to deride the U.S. House of Representatives for approving a 10-year moratorium on states regulating AI.

Although the U.S. Senate stripped that provision out of the “Big Beautiful Bill” before Trump signed it into law, the move signaled a deepening split on the right over whether to fan the AI flames or stifle them. This divide became apparent when Trump early in his second term allied himself with tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

“What [Congress said] is, we don’t want California doing things that are woke or all this other stuff. Like, yeah, I mean, I don’t either, but that’s not a reason to take away Florida’s rights,” DeSantis said. “Are you kidding me? And second of all, these [tech] companies, their muscle memory is to be woke. They don’t need California to tell them.”

Megan Garcia and her husband Sewell Setzter joined DeSantis to tell the story of how their 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzter III, was sexually groomed by an AI chatbot nicknamed “Daenerys Targaryen.” The bot, created through the platform Character.AI, tried to convince Setzter to “come home to her.” He committed suicide in February.

Another mom, Mandi Furness from Texas, explained how her autistic son was groomed by one of these chatbots. The bot told her son to call child protective services on his parents when they attempted to take his phone away, encouraged him to self-harm, and even claimed that cutting off his access to the app justified killing them.

The teenager attempted to commit suicide, and only recently was released from a mental institution, Furness said.

“We lost our son. He’s still alive, but I don’t know if he’ll ever be the same,” she added.

What’s in Trump’s executive order?

Trump signed his executive order on AI last week. The document aims to create a federal standard for AI regulation that isn’t undermined by a “patchwork” of varying state laws.

It directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to create an “AI Litigation Task Force” within 30 days whose “sole responsibility shall be to challenge State AI laws” that run afoul of the order; Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to identify which laws require “AI models to alter their truthful outputs;” and White House AI czar David Sacks and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Michael Kratsios to recommend language for a federal statute preempting state laws regulating AI, NBC reported.

These recommendations won’t touch state AI laws regulating child-safety protections, data center infrastructure, or state procurement of AI—all matters DeSantis has emphasized in his “Bill of Rights.”

“To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation.  But excessive State regulation thwarts this imperative,” Trump’s order reads.

“The resulting framework must forbid State laws that conflict with the policy set forth in this order.  That framework should also ensure that children are protected, censorship is prevented, copyrights are respected, and communities are safeguarded.”

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The push by Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo to repeal some of the state’s vaccine requirements for public schools and day care kicked off last Friday with a lengthy and contentious hearing held in a hotel in Florida’s Panhandle.

Ladapo made the call to get rid of all vaccine mandates contained in both state rule and state law even though many of those mandates have been considered a public health success.

About 90 people attended the Department of Health three-hour public meeting on the proposed changes to Rule 64D-3.046, specifically removing the requirements for children to receive the hepatitis B, varicella (chicken pox), and haemophilus influenza B or Hib vaccine. The proposal would remove those vaccines, along with the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, for admission to a licensed day care facility.

Emma Spencer, DOH division director for public health statistics and performance management, and facilitator of the meeting, described the workshop as an opportunity for “public input” as “part of an ongoing efforts to ensure the health and safety of Florida students and communities.”

And there was lots of input, ranging from medical professionals to parental rights advocates to those who questioned whether a measles outbreak is underway in South Carolina. More than 280 people are in quarantine there for measles after a significant influx in cases following the Thanksgiving holiday, Phoenix affiliate South Carolina Daily Gazette reports.

Susan Sweeten, chief marketing officer for the National Vaccine Information Center and a Florida resident, was first to testify. The center’s website says the group is “dedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and advocating for informed consent protections in medical policies and public health laws.“

Sweeten said her son, just five hours old, was injured when he was given a hepatitis B vaccine in the hospital. 

“When I questioned it, she said, ‘If you don’t give your baby the vaccine, your pediatrician won’t see him, and you won’t know if he’s deaf, dumb, or blind,’” Sweeten told the DOH panel. “This is not informed consent. That is coercion. Vaccines should never be tied to a child’s education. Nothing that pierces the skin should ever be used as leverage over a child’s opportunity to education and to learn,” she said.

Doctors who showed up insisted vaccines work and that elimination of the mandates would lead to a resurgence of controllable childhood diseases.

“As a pediatric infectious disease physician, I cared for children before the varicella vaccine and saw ‘simple chickenpox’ turn into pneumonia, encephalitis, and needless hospitalizations — outcomes we can now prevent because of vaccines,” said Dr. Nectar Aintablian, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in Tallahassee. “Vaccines are victims of their own success; because they work, we forget the suffering they avert.”

Rick Frye, another Florida resident, said he’s been beseeching people not to vaccinate their children for about the past 20 years.

“Now, any pediatrician in this room who tells you that a kid needs 80 shots shouldn’t be trusted to put a band aid on a kid’s knee,” he said. “It’s obviously about freedom, but it’s also about the children these pediatricians damage because they get paid to to vaccinate these kids.”

More hearings coming

The meeting was the first one held on the proposed changes, but likely won’t be the last given the administrative rulemaking process and the requirements for public input.

The department did not say when the next meeting will occur, only that it would be announced in advance in the Florida Administrative Register.

DOH staff asked that public comment on the proposed rule changes be sent to the DOH at vaccinerule@flhealth.gov by Dec. 22, although Spencer acknowledged comments would remain open as the state works on the proposed changes.

The League of Women Voters of Florida didn’t focus on the science behind the vaccines, adverse reactions to vaccines, or parental rights. LWV representativeMary Winn focused her testimony instead on how the proposed changes conflict with the DOH’s statutory mission.

“This rule could probably be updated to reflect current practice and the responsibilities of the state, the Department of Health, private-practicing medical professionals, parents, and the public at large. But any changes must be consistent with the public health mission of the Department of Health as stated in Florida law,” she said. 

Winn noted that statutes require the DOH to conduct a communicable disease prevention and control program, which includes school immunization programs. The agency is charged by statute to ensure that “all children in this state” are immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases, she said.

“Eliminating the mandatory requirement will result in lower levels of immunization, which is contrary to that law stating that you are responsible for all of the children to be vaccinated in the state,” she said.

‘Tremendous damage’

Dr. Frederick Southwick testified that he has been an infectious disease specialist for 45 years. Although he worked with adult populations for much of his career, Southwick recalled helping cover pediatric infectious diseases in 1983 and 1984, before introduction of the Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) bacteria, which would be eliminated under the DOH proposal.

“What did I see?” he asked. 

Before the Hib vaccine, “I saw cases of orbital cellulitis, infections that went from the sinus causing bulging-eye blindness. I saw severe cases of pneumonia. I saw severe cases of otitis media. I saw bone infections, osteomyelitis that damaged the growth plate of the children so their bones could no longer grow. I saw sepsis, where patients got hypotension and died,” Southwick said.

“And the most feared was bacterial meningitis, and that had carried a 20% mortality. And this was the leading cause of deafness before the HiB vaccine. In 1985, the Hib vaccine came in, we went from 20,000 hospitalizations to 30, and today we don’t see any of those diseases. You are ending that vaccine. It’s going to cause tremendous damage.”

The proposed rule would change the existing religious exemption people can claim to refuse vaccines, removing language prohibiting exemptions based on personal or philosophical reasons.

Additionally, the proposed rule would allow parents, guardians, and college and university applicants aged 18-23 to decline to participate in documenting their vaccination status in the Florida SHOTS program, which is how the state collects vaccination data.

DeSantis and Ladapo made national headlines in September when they announced they’d like to eliminate all vaccine mandates from Florida statutes and rules, a move that could affect schoolchildren but also college students and even nursing home residents.

Ladapo said at the time that mandates drip “with disdain and slavery.” 

The proposed rule only removes the vaccines the DOH has authorized through its rules. The proposal cannot eliminate the school vaccines mandated by statute. 

The Legislature’s reaction

To date there’s been no legislation filed on behalf of the DeSantis administration to eliminate vaccine mandates from Florida statutes. Even Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott distanced himself from the idea. 

Meanwhile, Senate President Ben Albritton told reporters this week that he’s a believer in what he called “the vaccines of old,” but that he has never gotten an mRNA vaccine — used during the COVID-19 epidemic — because “he doesn’t trust the technology.”

He said he and his wife support parental rights.

“Missy and I believe we’re going to separate the mRNA stuff from the traditional stuff. And let’s be thoughtful about what works and what we know.”

Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat from Orlando, is pushing a proposal (SB 626) to amend statutes to require the vaccines (hepatitis B, chickenpox, haemophilus influenzae type b, and pneumococcal disease) Ladapo is trying to eliminate via rule.

SB 626 has been referred to the Senate Health Policy, Education Pre-K – 12, and Rules committees.

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