Florida's Latest News

DeSantis defends less coronavirus testing, but seeks ‘consequences’ for delays

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday explained the slowdown of coronavirus testing in Florida by saying fewer people are coming in to be checked out for COVID-19.

He also said labs that are late in reporting results should face “consequences,’' but he didn’t elaborate on what those should be.

“We’re testing a lot,” DeSantis told reporters at the Capitol. “I think part of the reason why some of our sites aren’t doing as much is because people aren’t going as much as they used to. If you look at the Orange County Convention Center, at the beginning of July, we were having 2,000 people show up to get PCR tested there; now 700 are going.

This Florida lawmaker picked as finalist for top job after making $50k contribution

With more than $300,000 left in his political committee and only months remaining in his last term as a state legislator, Rep. Mike La Rosa wrote the largest check of his political career on July 2, steering $50,000 to the fund used to elect Republicans to the state Senate.

La Rosa, a Republican from St. Cloud, is not running for the Senate but he did have other aspirations in which the Senate plays a role.

On June 24, days before La Rosa wrote the hefty check, he applied for the Florida Public Service Commission, the board the regulates the state’s utilities, which pays $132,036 a year.

Florida legislator led reshaping of key state job. He just took it for himself.

State Rep. James Grant, an architect of Florida’s controversial Amendment 4 law, is leaving the Legislature to take a job as the state’s chief information officer.

In a corresponding move Wednesday, Grant ended his reelection bid for House District 64 “effective immediately,” according to a letter he sent to Secretary of State Laurel Lee obtained by the Tampa Bay Times. Grant was slated in November to face a lone opponent for the Tampa Bay-area seat — Democrat and teacher Jessica Harrington.

Grant now steps into a role that he was personally involved in shaping. A bill passed this year, sponsored by Grant himself, rearranged the office and its responsibilities. But it also changed the qualifications, eliminating a requirement that the state chief information officer “must be a proven, effective administrator who must have at least 10 years of executive-level experience in the public or private sector.”

Democrat says she won Florida House seat after Jamie Grant’s resignation

Jessica Harrington, Democratic candidate for the District 64 state House seat, said she intends to file a state Ethics Commission complaint against state Rep. Jamie Grant, R-Tampa, which she said could result in her being declared winner of the seat.

Harrington said Grant, who sold his Carrollwood home in September, didn’t file to run for the office with his residential address as the law requires and improperly had his mail-in primary ballot sent to the address of his district office.

Grant has denied the basis of Harrington’s accusations.