Live: Gov. Ron DeSantis news conference in Sarasota

Time on the airplane, but we're here and we're really excited about today's announcement. So we've got a number of folks that are that are with us here today. We have the president of First Liberty Institute, Kelly Shackelford. We also have the professor at the Robertson School of Government at Regent University, Dr. Mark David Hall. And then of course, last, some would say least, but not me, is Richard Corcoran, the president of New College here at Sarasota. Richard's done a great job here and it's been really amazing. And also, he did a great job as the commissioner of education in Florida during my first term. And Florida, I mean, if you look at what we've been able to do with universal school choice, if you look what we've been able to do with student achievement, all these things, really, really good stuff. We just talked last week about our results. You know, we had had, you got to measure whether people are learning. You got to measure the school performance. That's not the easiest thing to do because there's a lot of intangibles. Florida, for many years, had just focused on one end of year high stakes test. And then that would be the grades for the schools. And the students would either pass or not those tests based on that one time. And Richard really led the charge to say, well, we want to measure. But if you do one test at the end of the year and students don't do good, they're on summer vacation. So how are you going to remediate? So we replaced the one end of year high stakes test with progress monitoring, where they have assessments throughout the school year. So this way, they're not doing well at the beginning. Talk to the parents, talk to the student, teacher can talk about what the path forward and then they do it. So we were able to announce last week, you know, major, major gains based on the progress monitoring results. And that's year over year and during the school year, which is really important. We also in Florida, Manny Diaz, who was a senator, a senator from Miami, succeeded Richard as the commissioner of education, I guess. When was that, 2023 that you left? You left? 22. So left in 22. So Richard was there three, three and a half years at education. Manny then has been in since then. And then today is the first day. So Manny has left the commissioner's office to be the president of the University of West Florida. And so he's basically being charged with similar Richard to be able to really have the University of West Florida in Pensacola realize its potential. And I think there's a lot of potential there. There's been some good stuff done over the years, but I think that there's definitely some slack and we're going to see. And then we now have a new commissioner of education effective today, Stasi Kamoutsis, who's worked in our administration on all these issues and, you know, is going to be going to be very, very strong over there. So things are really looking good for that realm. We also have some of our representatives. I saw Buchanan and Robinson from the area. And then we also have our state senator, our warrior Green Beret from Tampa, Jay Collins is here with us, and they've all been instrumental in supporting new college. Now, not everyone in the legislature was supportive of continuing new colleges mission. But, you know, you know, you had some folks there that I think really went astray and people recognize that. And I think ultimately, you know, we'll hold them accountable for what they're doing. But this is something that has been, I know, a labor of love for Richard. But it just shows that we want to get the most potential out of these institutions. And there's a debate about higher education where, you know, there's some people that think higher education should just be whatever kind of the most liberal faculty want, and then that should just be it. I don't think that's what Florida taxpayers want out of their public institutions. And so we want to make sure that our universities, but particularly a place like New College, is really answering the call to provide a classical education that really has students think about big questions, where they learn how to think critically, where they learn how to make arguments, where they learn how to think about things and have their assumptions questioned in ways that in some of these universities that are promoting orthodoxy, you don't see anymore. And I know they've had great debates. When's your most recent debate you've had? Yeah, Dershowitz, yeah. And yeah, that's right. You guys put out a clip about that. That was the commencement speaker. And I think Alan Dershowitz said that, you know, America would be fine without Harvard or Yale at this juncture, but America really needs New College. And I think that that was pretty. And this is a guy that's taught at Harvard Law School. This is a guy that taught at Harvard Law School for decades. And so he, when he's saying that, you know that that's something that's really, really meaningful. So this mission is important. And I'm very happy to be back here for this. Now, that is actually not the purpose of today's announcement. The purpose of today's announcement, as you may gather from what the placard on this podium says, is we're celebrating yet another number one ranking for the state of Florida. And you've heard me talk about we've been ranked number one in higher education for X years in a row, a lot of years now. Number one in economy by U.S. News and World Report two years in a row. Number one by CNBC. The talking points had two years in a row, but they just came out again. And CNBC, for the third year in a row, has rated Florida's economy number one amongst all 50 states. So that's great. Number one in education freedom by the Heritage Foundation. Number one in education freedom by the Alex Center for State Education Freedom. Number one for parent empowerment. Number one for new business formations. Number one for entrepreneurship. Fastest growing state in the nation based on the U.S. Census Bureau, including home to four of the top 10 fastest growing metro areas from the last years they have records. Although I know there's a lot of people that are like slow down, like we don't want all of these. And trust me, I'm not asking for people to come because there's benefits to it, but there's also challenges and we've got to do infrastructure and schools and all this other stuff. So that's kind of a natural, I think, progression. I do think that that ebbs and flows. Number one state to retire by WalletHub. Number one state for talent attraction. Number one for Ed Choice Freedman Index for having the most robust school choice options. And then, of course, number one vacation destination. What else is new there? We also have AAA credit ratings across the board, if you look. Florida, so we just signed the budget a couple weeks ago. We have the smallest number of state government workers per capita in the entire United States of America. And yet, would you rather get a license here or in New York? Who's going to give you better customer service at the DMV? I don't even think we have to ask that question. Who's got better infrastructure and roads? And obviously, our education success speaks for itself. We've also worked since I've been governor to accelerate the repayment early of our state debt. So from the time Florida was a state until I became governor, you take all the debt that was accumulated over almost 180 years. We've paid off over 41 percent of it just since I've been governor. And by the end of the fiscal year, we will have paid off almost half of the state's historical debt just in my tenure as governor. We also, of course, have no income tax. One of the lowest per capita tax burdens of anywhere in the country, and maybe the lowest at the state level or certainly close to that. We're working on the local taxes with the property initiative that we're going to go to provide folks protection on that front. And then we've also reduced taxes for many, many years, billions and billions of dollars. Everything from now when you raise kids, all the baby items are tax-free. So diapers, wipes, all this stuff, no tax on that. We just eliminated a tax, a business rent tax. We were one of the few states in the country that charged commercial rent and it just didn't make sense. So I think that's going to help our economy even more. So we eliminated that. So on and on it goes. We're leading, but the result is in last year's budget that I signed in 24, we spent less than the previous year. And then in the budget I just signed, we're spending less than in 2024, 2025. So who else in the country is actually reducing spending? And yet we've done that for many years in a row. So all that's great. And we're proud of all that. But today we're here because we get to add another number one ranking to our list of successes. But this one is really, really meaningful. And not that the others aren't. You want to have entrepreneurship. You want to have a lean government. You want to have a strong economy. But today Florida has earned the number one ranking amongst all 50 states for protecting religious liberty. And that is something that matters. And if you go back to the founding of our country, religious liberty was basically the freedom that the founding fathers sought to protect. And of course, religious freedom was part of the reason people even settled in the American colonies to begin with. So this is something that is central to the American experiment and central to our way of life. But it is something that has really been under assault in recent years, particularly over the last decade or so. And I'm just proud to say we have a strong record of protecting this first freedom throughout the state of Florida. I mean, just think of what we did to protect parents' rights in the state of Florida. Parents have a fundamental right to direct the education and upbringing of their children in this state. And that includes religious instruction and students' ability to practice faith. I also signed legislation requiring teachers in classrooms in Florida public schools when they start the school day to set aside time for a moment of silence so that students have an opportunity to pray before the day's events happen. In 2020, when COVID-19 hit, you saw a concerted effort to target religious institutions for closure. I remember Fauci was always complaining about churches. And so you had a lot of places around the country, they'd have liquor stores open, but they would have churches closed. Now, we didn't do that in Florida at the state level, but you did have in those early days of COVID people that were I think it was hysteria that was really taking over that were trying to enforce closures based on local ordinances or emergency declarations, and even got to the point where there was one local jurisdiction that arrested a pastor in Florida. And so I think it was the next day, I signed an executive order overriding all those local restrictions saying that religious worship, going to church, that is not only an essential activity, in many ways, the essential activity, and that is protected in the state of Florida. So not only did we put the kibosh on the movement to try to snuff out religious worship. And look, at first, maybe it was just people were scared, they didn't want to see. But I mean, if you look at how some of these governments clung to this for weeks and weeks and months and months, whereas they didn't mind that you could have a strip club open, but somehow people going singing in a choir on Sunday was like the big problem, there was an agenda behind that. So we snuffed that out very early on. And it's interesting because people talk about, oh, I moved to Florida, I moved my business to Florida, and that happens. We actually had people move churches to Florida. We had people that had congregations in places like Washington State, that decided they're going to move their church. Not every parishioner was in the position to move, but some moved, and then they established a church here in the state of Florida. So we were proud on standing on the front lines during those days. Of course, we have signed legislation protecting folks' medical freedoms, particularly when there's religious objections to certain medications. We've also protected freedom of speech and physicians' ability to conduct themselves in a way that's consistent with their religious beliefs, particularly when they're being perhaps forced to perform procedures that they disagree with vehemently. That's something that's been done. We've also ensured that, and it's sad that we even have to do this, but we made sure that you can say a prayer before a football, high school football game. I mean, imagine that. They used to do that as a matter of course. They ended up in litigation in Florida when I became governor, and we've settled that and making clear that that is absolutely appropriate. And then, of course, after the October 7th attacks by Hamas against Israel, you saw really an ugly wave of anti-Semitism unleashed that really continues to this day. But in the state of Florida, Jewish students did not have to worry about having a Columbia University happen here, and we knew that that wouldn't happen. And we knew that that wouldn't happen because, quite frankly, if any university president allowed that to happen, they would no longer be university presidents in the state of Florida, and we would make sure that there was accountability very quickly. Last year, I signed legislation which established a statewide school chaplain program and authorized school districts and charter schools to allow volunteer chaplains to be on school campuses and provide additional counseling support for students. The Founding Fathers, when they adopted the First Amendment, they were trying to prevent government from endorsing a particular religious sect or denomination. They were not trying to say that you could not have faith involved in public institutions. That was never anything that they believed in. And, in fact, I think that they viewed it just the opposite. And George Washington said many times that you needed that. So that had kind of gotten perverted, and it got to the point where in schools, public schools, okay, yes, the public school system in Sarasota is not going to establish Episcopalianism as what people are instructed in. But the flip side is not that there should be no mention of God at all in school and that people somehow have to smother their faith. So we've really worked to kind of rebalance this in the direction that the Founding Fathers originally intended. And I think people are better for it, and I think religious freedom is better for it. And we've done more, but that brings us to today's announcement. So I had another number one ranking. First Liberty Institute's Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy has ranked Florida number one on their religious liberty in the state's index. This is a comprehensive peer-reviewed comparison of how all 50 states protect religious liberty through public law. And the index offers the most comprehensive legal analysis of religious liberty protections across all 50 states. It evaluates factors such as religious exemptions, protections for religious organizations in schools, and the freedom of individuals to live out their faith in both their private but also public lives. Florida tops the national ranking for protecting religious liberty, and we're grateful for this recognition from the First Liberty Institute. And I know that a lot of parents, I mean, if you think about how this impacts so many different facets, our school choice program, for example, all parents in Florida now have the wherewithal to make meaningful choices about their children's education. And for many parents, having religious basis and religious instruction is central to what they want in terms of raising their kids and educating their kids. But not every parent could afford that. Now everybody has access to that, and that's something that's huge. Homeschool parents. We're the number one homeschool state in the country. Some of our homeschool parents, they appreciate some of the private schools. I mean, some of them, you know, may not pass muster for what the parents want. And so they take control of that situation, and now it's financially viable for them to be able to do so. So across the board in K-12 education, we've made sure that we're on the side of parents. We want parental freedom. We want students to be able to achieve their ambitions and reach their potential. And a huge part of that is empowering parents to make decisions that are going to allow their children not only to grow in terms of ABCs, history, but also in religious instruction. So thank you to First Liberty. We'll have Kelly come up now, and then we'll hear from our other speakers. So thank you. First Liberty Institute's the largest legal non-profit in the country that all we do is religious freedom. So we've had a 9-0 record at the Supreme Court in the last six years alone. That includes cases like the Coach Kennedy case, the coach who was fired for going to a knee and praying after the game. The big school choice case, the Carson versus Macon case about the rights of parents to choose whatever private school that they choose in a school choice program, including religious schools, not excluding the religious schools. It includes the big Bladensburg Cross case at the Supreme Court where they tried to tear down a 100-year-old veterans memorial because it was a cross from World War I. And so just a lot of cases. We have cases all over the country. Jewish synagogues are representing all over the country. And we have the highest win rate of any non-profit legal group in the country. But what we realized is that winning the cases is not enough, that people have to know they have these rights. They have to be educated. And so we created a think tank a number of years ago, the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, to study these things and try to help educate. And one of the things they did, I thought it was brilliant, was they said we want to do an index, an objective, scientific, academic index that compares what laws every state has to protect the religious freedoms of their citizens. And four years ago was the first one. Two years ago, Florida wasn't even in the top five. But this year, Florida has vaulted into first place. And that doesn't happen without a governor who embraces religious freedom. And so I just want to say thank you to you for your commitment to religious freedom and for your incredible leadership in bringing Florida to number one in the country. Every citizen and business in Florida can know they have the most religious freedom protections than any other state in the nation. Thank you, Governor. Well, thank you, Governor. It's an honor to be here and thank you, Kelly. So I'll address, I only have five minutes, I'll address a couple of basic questions that might come to mind. First of all, I think Americans naturally think when we think of religious liberty, well, doesn't the First Amendment cover that? What about federal legislation like the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person Act? And these are very important. First Liberty is using these federal protections every day. But the very smart folks at First Liberty recognize that there's more than one game in town. There are, in fact, 50 other games in town, states, state legislatures. And there are a variety of ways that states can choose to protect religious liberty, but they don't have to. And so in the first year of the study, we looked at 29 of those distinct protections. This year, we look at 47 of these distinct protections, and we put them on our website and you can go there. And if you're a legislator from a state that doesn't do so well, you can go and look at the Florida laws and copy them or use them as a starting place for your own state. So we hope this is a very aggressive sort of study. But we're Americans, so we have to rank the states. And I'm very pleased to announce that Florida is now number one, a very richly deserved reward. Of course, it goes from 1 to 50. And so states that don't do as well, hopefully we'll look to Florida as an example. We do recognize that some protections are more important than others. I'm pleased to say Florida had the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a state-level act in place in 1998. But under the governor's leadership, the Medical Conscience Act, probably the second most important protection we look at, was put in place. And there are a variety of other important protections. Let me address two points critics might point out that might want to take away from Florida's accomplishment. First of all, I can imagine critics saying, well, Florida's a red state and conservatives support religious liberty, so it's obvious that it would be number one. Well, it's not so obvious. I think conservatives have been doing more over the last decade to protect religious liberty, but they don't always do that. Your neighbor to the north, Georgia, is solidly Republican at the state level, state legislature, state offices. It ranks an abysmal 36th in the nation. West Virginia is even worse, solidly Republican everywhere at the state level. It's dead last. And so just because a state has conservatives in state legislature and in the governorship, doesn't mean they will have religious liberty legislation. We hope our study very much inspires other states to follow Florida's example. Another criticism I hear all the time is, well, aren't conservatives in a place like Florida just concerned with protecting Christians? And the answer is absolutely not. You already heard Kelly say they are routinely litigating on behalf of non-Christian minorities. Some of the Florida protections we look at primarily benefit non-Christians. Let me give you one example. Florida has a law requiring school districts to permit students to have excused absences, students at the K through 12 and college level, excused absences to observe religious holidays. Now think about the school year for a moment. Even though I think most school districts now talk about winter break, we used to call it Christmas vacation. And it conveniently, whatever you call it, allows Christians to celebrate Christmas and related holidays. And how many public schools do you know have school on Sunday? Almost none. So a law requiring excused absences for religious observances will primarily benefit non-Christians. So Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in this fall will occur during the middle of the week. And so Jewish and Orthodox Jewish families can take advantage of this and celebrate those holidays without being punished. So let me mention lastly that this is, we're here to celebrate Florida. This is a day where the report is released. You have physical copies of it. You can go online to and see the entire report online. And I encourage you to do so. Thank you very much. Florida, West Virginia, West Virginia is dead last, unfortunately. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. Welcome. We had rain at the beginning and we're going to have rain afterwards, but as it rains today and you're driving around, I just want you to remember as a supporter and a fan, hopefully of new college and all the great work that's being done here is nobody has made it rain on new college more than this man right here. And I also want to thank our legislators. You guys have been fantastic. I know you get a lot of blowback, but thanks for sticking with us and the fight is absolutely worth it. I also want to thank the First Liberty Institute. We've actually worked with them. When I got chosen by the governor to be secretary of education, I remember sitting down with him and he was like, hey, would you consider doing it? And I was like, okay, well, what are you thinking about education wise? This is going almost seven years back. And he said, here's what I want to do. And he said, I want to take everything that exists that needs to be accomplished to make us a great state. I want to take us to number one on everything so that whoever takes my spot after me has nothing to do. And he's pretty darn close. I mean, there's just no ranking that we're not number one in. It's an amazing feat. But I remember being commissioner of education and right away, we find this, you know, we have a high school athletic association who's saying that two Christian schools who are playing in a competition for football at the end of the season can't have a one-minute prayer led by themselves. And so we joined immediately, worked with the First Liberty Institute, joined, filed litigation, as the governor mentioned, and resolved that. And now the final decision, ultimately, hopefully will be with the Supreme Court here shortly, that'll affect the entire nation in a positive way. But I thank you for that work. Ironically, that same organization, a year later, the governor is saying, we're going to open up schools. Everyone's going to be able to go to school, be educated, and stand in a classroom and be taught face-to-face, which is the greatest instruction that we can have. And we have this same organization saying, fine, you can open up schools, but we're not open up sports. There'll be no Friday night lights in August and September of the year. So I go and I tell the governor, and he goes, give me the names of the people on the board. And so I give him the name and the numbers. And so I give him the names and the numbers. And he goes, step outside, we're going to make a few phone calls. And so I stepped outside. I listened through the wall, though, and all I heard was, hey, this is Governor DeSantis. I need you to open up. Whatever he said worked. I think it was like 13 members on that board. I told them it was six to seven against us. And the final vote, I think, was 12 to one. And I traveled with him to Suwannee County for the opening football game that fall in Suwannee. I actually put it in my book, because we were in the locker room with all these kids, and he just gave a powerful speech about, if you're in California, if you're in Colorado, you're not doing this right now. And you're in a special place, and we're going to protect your liberties and your freedoms. And the whole football team just went crazy. It was a wonderful night. But all that being said, Religious Freedom, that's why I love the name of their institution, the First Liberty Institute, because it's the first liberty in the Bill of Rights. The first liberty enumerated is that liberty of freedom of religion, because if the freedom of religion anywhere in the world historically falls, almost all other freedoms eventually fall with it. And so when you're fighting for religious freedom, what you're fighting for is the future of all freedoms. And the reason I think it's so powerful, and we're so honored to host you guys, is because we feel that same way, and I know the governor has led with this in higher institutions. If you don't have academic freedom, if you don't expose students to a William F. Buckley, and a Gore Vidal, let them see all of the great thoughts, all of the great minds, all of the great debates, whether you agree or disagree, but you expose them to that, you end up with real academic freedom and a real educated populace, which is necessary to survive a self-governing society. And that's what we're doing here at New College. Just like religious freedom, academic freedom, ideological freedom, the governor has fought for that from top to bottom, and it's making a difference, and why we're, again, number one on all different metrics, is because of that fight for freedom. And I'll end with this. As a newly minted president of New College, and looking over the history, and the amazing history of New College, nobody, no single figure, let alone an elected official, a business person, anybody, has done more for New College than Governor DeSantis, and it's going to produce amazing results for decades to come, as we produce great students, great citizens, great leaders, and so thank you for that, Governor DeSantis. You know, when I was listening to Kelly rattle off some of those cases, I mean, and some people are familiar with some of these, but the Coach Kennedy case, so he's a football coach in Washington State, probably doesn't rank very high on your list, I don't know, I know pastors actually move their churches to Florida during COVID because of how they were treated up there, but so he's a coach, they play a game, and at the end of the game, just like you see in NFL, just like you see in college, you know, you'll have folks congregate at midfield, usually, and they just say a prayer, and it's both teams, you have coaches, and so he's there for this prayer, and he lost his job for saying a prayer at midfield. No one was required, like the other players, that they could go or not go, it was just purely doing something that is really standard practice in most football leagues, but just something that he was exercising his own beliefs as an American citizen, and he lost his job for that, and so that went up to the Supreme Court, and he won, and that was, you know, on the one hand, it was a good victory, but on the other hand, it was kind of like the fact that this ends up in the U.S. Supreme Court shows we've got some problems. We've got some big, big problems, and so that's not the way we roll in Florida, and we've made sure that we've provided the adequate protections, but do you have a case for next term? What's your big one next term? Wow, and that came from what circuit? Ruled against you? Wow. Okay, wow, so the Fifth Circuit's considered the most conservative circuit, and so they lost narrowly there, which means, you know, they have their work cut out for them, you know, on the U.S. Supreme Court, but something tells me you guys have found the secret sauce, so that'll be a good one to watch, so best of luck to you on that. Okay, do we have any questions before I beat the rain, get back to Tallahassee? Yes. I don't, because I don't have any information on it. I've heard different reports on it, but I just don't have any information, and quite frankly, you know, you do have some reports that come out of that part of the world that may not be fully verified, so I'm not exactly sure on the facts on that one. Okay, thanks, everybody. God bless you. Appreciate it.