Nicolas Maduro continues to bring together Republicans and Democrats in Florida’s Capitol.
And on Wednesday the Venezuelan strongman had lawmakers and leaders from both parties supporting the actions of President Donald Trump.
Democrats lined up outside the Florida Historic Capitol Museum to demonstrate support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido after Trump recognized him as the legitimate president of Venezuela.
“We’re in solidarity with the Venezuelan community, the Venezuelan people, to put pressure on the Maduro regime at a critical moment toward a peaceful transition to democratic elections in Venezuela,” said state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez of Miami amid a group of Democratic lawmakers and flag-waving Venezuelans.
“Another thing we know happened today, was that Maduro reacted by taking a page from the dictator playbook,” Rodriguez continued. “He first read a speech that could have easily been written by the Castro brothers and then proceeded to break diplomatic relations with the United States.”
Earlier in the day, Gov. Ron DeSantis noted he pushed Trump to act in support of Guaido.
DeSantis, along with Florida’s U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, went to the White House on Tuesday to discuss the Maduro regime.
DeSantis said he advised Trump to “seize the moment” by recognizing Guaido, which would be “bold” and “have a huge impact on Venezuela.”
“The president was receptive to that,” DeSantis said Wednesday while in Miami.
“And then we were also urging ways to circumscribe Cuba, because it’s really the Castro regime that is fueling some of what you see in Venezuela,” DeSantis added. “I think we have a great chance to really be pushing some of these really bad regimes in Latin America towards freedom and really standing up for these people that have been oppressed so much.”
POT CZAR’S NEW GIG
It’s probably one of the worst-kept secrets in certain capital circles, but all the chatter lately about DeSantis’ positions on medical marijuana provided a good time to dish about Christian Bax, Florida’s former pot czar.
Bax, who stepped down as director of the Office of Medical Marijuana Use late last year, has joined forces with regulatory lawyer John Lockwood.
Lockwood, who’s bested the state in a number of gambling-related cases, has emerged as one of Florida’s major cannabis lawyers.
“This industry is rapidly expanding and evolving, and it makes perfect sense for us to have somebody with the significant experience Christian provides,” Lockwood said.
Bax is “of counsel” to Lockwood’s law firm and also has his own firm, which Bax said “is a full-service management and regulatory consulting” shop.
Bax said most of his firm’s clients are from outside Florida, and he doesn’t represent anyone whose application he scored during his tenure at Office of Medical Marijuana Use.
After he left state government, Bax said he “looked at a lot of different opportunities” before settling on the Lockwood Law Firm.
BAY PASS
DeSantis repeatedly expressed the need to follow the law when suspending Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, a Democrat, over her handling of last year’s recount.
DeSantis described Bucher’s operations as “Keystone Kops” and outlined issues from failing to complete a machine recount of three statewide contests by a legal deadline to violating state law in handling damaged ballots, reporting vote totals and providing ballots to the canvassing board.
But at the same news conference Friday in Palm Beach County, DeSantis gave a pass to Bay County Supervisor of Elections Mark Andersen, who allowed voters to cast ballots via email and fax even though an order from the state at the time didn’t authorize such methods.
DeSantis shook off Andersen’s action, pointing to Bay County’s extenuating circumstances after massive damage from the Oct. 10 Hurricane Michael.
“They got in their returns on time,” DeSantis said. “They also had to deal with a Category 5 hurricane. And so, I think if you compare what Bay County did to Palm Beach, Bay did much better than Palm Beach did. And that’s just a reality of the situation.”
In October, an executive order from former Gov. Rick Scott eased restrictions on vote-by-mail ballots in eight counties --- Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Jackson, Liberty, and Washington --- ravaged by Hurricane Michael, while also giving elections supervisors more time to conduct early voting.
The changes did not include allowing voters to cast ballots by fax or email.
“In the hardest hit areas, communication via phone, fax and email remains challenging and would be an unreliable method for returning ballots,” then-Secretary of State Ken Detzner said in a news release that accompanied Scott’s order. “Additionally, past attempts by other states to allow voters impacted by natural disasters to fax or email ballots have been rife with issues.”
In Bay County, at least 11 voters were allowed to submit votes through emailed ballots, while another 147 were able to fax in their selections.
At the time, Andersen defended his move, saying the voters were sent a PDF of the ballot and had to sign an oath, in addition to verifying identification.
TWEET OF THE WEEK: “Today we filed SJR362 to disband the CRC. The CRC=Constitutional Jumanji: It’s rediscovered every 20yrs, has no rules, players have no experience, once it starts it can’t stop, crazy things pop out, and you never know how damaging they will be. Election night you yell Jumanji!” --- St. Petersburg Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes (@JeffreyBrandes) on Wednesday, referring to the Constitution Revision Commission.
