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Gaming deal ‘is close,’ governor and Senate president tell parimutuel leaders

Florida legislators are “getting close” to a new gambling deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Senate President Wilton Simpson told 20 top officials of Florida’s casinos, poker rooms, horse tracks and jai-alai facilities on Thursday, according to some of the men in attendance at the closed-door meeting in the Capitol.

Simpson, DeSantis and House Speaker Chris Sprowls, all Republicans, have been in behind-the-scenes talks with the Tribe over a new gambling compact for several months as part of an ambitious plan to draft a proposal this legislative session.

“We will probably know one way or the other within the next week or so whether we have a path to agreement,” DeSantis told reporters after the meeting with the pari-mutuel leaders.

Ron DeSantis is very pleased with himself

Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has been saying as much for weeks — in partisan speeches, on conservative cable, at often out-of-the-way vaccine sites around the state in quick-hit appearances as spartan as they are scripted. One recent breezy, sunny afternoon in rural central Florida, for instance, an extension cord stretched from the back of a small building here at the local community college toward a thin lectern in the middle of an open field. Up pulled a shiny silver SUV. Out stepped DeSantis. Wearing black cowboy boots and a dark, too-baggy suit, he wasted no time getting to his spot. He opened a black binder. He quickly flipped through some papers. And he launched into his numbers-laden, nasal-voiced pitch.

“We’ve done as good as anybody with seniors as anywhere in the country,” DeSantis said. Behind him, elderly residents idled in lines of cars, waiting to get single-dose shots. “We have a 75-percent decrease in cases for 65 and up since the first week of January, and we have a 75-percent decrease in hospitalizations among seniors since the beginning of February. Forty states throughout the country —”

A couple dozen supporters from local Republican clubs had assembled off to his left. They interrupted him with applause. DeSantis turned. He looked at them for a split second. “Yeah—it’s good,” he confirmed. He promptly picked up where he’d left off.

DeSantis: COVID vaccine could be available to all Florida residents in April

DeSantis also said he could announce a reduction in the age requirement to get the vaccine on Friday. 

He discussed the vaccine during a press conference outside Panama City's A.D. Harris Learning Center, a local vaccination site that is temporarily administering the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to those 55 years old and older. 

"We're going to keep dropping the age, I'll have an announcement on that maybe tomorrow," DeSantis said. "The demand (has) really started to go down amongst elderly, so that means you're getting it where it needs to go. We also feel that over the next however many weeks we have an opportunity to really get it into the 55 and up category and potentially by sometime in April, just open it up to everyone who wants it."

Former GOP state senator accused of paying independent candidate nearly $45K

A former Republican state senator and a South Florida man who filed to run as an independent in a hotly contested Senate race last year are facing felony charges after Miami-Dade prosecutors say the former senator paid the “ghost” candidate to run in hopes that he would siphon away votes from the Democrat incumbent, with whom he shares a last name.

Frank Artiles, the former GOP senator, and Alexis Pedro Rodriguez of Delray Beach, who received more than 6,300 votes in last November’s general election but did no campaigning, are accused of breaking state campaign contribution laws and making false statements in connection with voting or elections.

Voters in District 37, which includes downtown Miami, received mailers promoting Rodriguez’s candidacy that were nearly identical and paid for by the same dark money group as ads that went out to homes in Seminole and Volusia counties in the high-profile race between Republican Jason Brodeur and Democrat Patrica Sigman.