But on Friday, we got word that the overall timeline may be sped up \u2014 at least according to the Senate side<\/a>. Senate President Ben Albritton said he expects a vote right after Memorial Day, which could lead to the budget Special Session wrapping ahead of the scheduled May 29 end date.<\/p>\n Following two straight years of Sessions going long, that\u2019s good news, especially since the hard deadline to wrap the budget is June 30 \u2014 an end date some worried lawmakers would flirt with following a standoff between the House and Senate.<\/p>\n It appears, for now, that we\u2019ll dodge that worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n In a term filled with acrimony between chambers and between branches, we aren\u2019t making Summer vacation plans just yet. But after months of questions, it looks like we\u2019re finally getting good news from Tallahassee.<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019s onto our weekly game of winners and losers.<\/p>\n Winners<\/p>\n Honorable mention: Sydney Gruters. The CD 16 Republican Primary isn\u2019t over. But sometimes if it looks like a coronation and feels like a coronation, it\u2019s a coronation.<\/p>\n Gruters, the Sarasota Republican running to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, had a week that would make any Campaign Manager sleep well. House Speaker Mike Johnson led other members of House leadership, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Conference Chair Lisa McClain, in a joint endorsement<\/a> of Gruters.<\/p>\n Mind you, she already has support from President Donald Trump. Now with the top House Republicans on board, she\u2019s going to have access to a whole boatload of cash and other resources to secure the Republican nomination.<\/p>\n The polling shows she doesn\u2019t need much help. A St. Pete Polls survey<\/a> commissioned by Florida Politics shows Gruters at 49% in a three-way race \u2014 within the margin of error of an outright majority before a dollar of paid media has hit the airwaves. Her two opponents, Navy veteran Ed Pope and Inspiration Academy founder Eddie Speir, sit at 7% and 13%, respectively.<\/p>\n Those results are with voters being informed of the Trump endorsement, a fact which many voters will be well aware of as the Gruters team rolls out ads leading up to the Aug. 18 vote.<\/p>\n Gruters also moved this week to lock down the law-and-order flank, adding endorsements<\/a> from Hardee County Sheriff Vent Crawford and DeSoto County Sheriff Jim Potter. Combined with earlier endorsements from the Sheriffs of Pinellas, Sarasota, and Manatee counties, Gruters now has backing from all but one Sheriff in the district.<\/p>\n Anything can happen. But right now, Gruters is the prohibitive favorite in a seat that, once won, is hers to hold for as long as she wants it. That\u2019s a very good week.<\/p>\n Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Ed Hooper. Sometimes just knowing when to step away is a win.<\/p>\n State Sen. Ed Hooper, a Palm Harbor Republican and Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee who had a busy week hammering out the budget, announced that he will retire from the Senate<\/a> this November, ending a 16-year career in the Legislature.<\/p>\n His current term wasn\u2019t set to expire until 2028. He didn\u2019t have to go. He chose to.<\/p>\n Hooper was elected to the House in 2006 and served for eight years before moving to the Senate in 2018. Before that, he served as a Clearwater City Commissioner. And before any of that, he was a firefighter \u2014 a career that never really left him.<\/p>\n The Appropriations Chair role is where Tallahassee insiders will remember him most. He held it for the past two Sessions, both of which were slogs. The 2025 Session dragged weeks beyond its regular 60-day limit. This year\u2019s budget required a Special Session to finish what the Regular Session couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Through both, Hooper managed the Senate\u2019s finances during a period that included hurricane recovery costs, the tapering of federal pandemic dollars that had softened some hard budget choices, and the persistent friction between the Senate and the House that has defined the Tallahassee power dynamic in recent years. He navigated it with a disposition his colleagues described consistently as even-keeled \u2014 someone who could disagree without making enemies, a genuinely rare quality in a Capitol that has grown more tribal and combative with each passing cycle.<\/p>\n Hooper\u2019s focus on veterans\u2019 issues and tourism policy rounded out a portfolio that was built for results rather than headlines and winning a culture war battle.<\/p>\n Florida produces no shortage of officials who stay too long, cling too hard, and leave only when the voters or term limits make them. Hooper did it differently. He led one of the most powerful committees in the building, finished his work with his reputation intact, and walked out on his own terms to go home to his family.<\/p>\n After a long period of public service, that\u2019s the ending every lawmaker should want.<\/p>\n The biggest winner: Tampa Bay Rays fans. It\u2019s not cause for celebration just yet. But after a period of uncertainty regarding a new stadium deal in Tampa, the news this week was cause for cautious optimism.<\/p>\n Hillsborough County agreed<\/a> to a nonbinding memorandum of understanding (MOU) Thursday with the Rays for a new $2.3 billion stadium, capping the public contribution at $976 million \u2014 which is actually less than the roughly $1.1 billion the team originally sought.<\/p>\n The MOU allows negotiations over the deal surrounding the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough College to continue, with a vote on lease agreements slated for the upcoming week.<\/p>\n The broad strokes<\/a> of the financing: Hillsborough County would provide $796 million. The city of Tampa and the Drew Park Community Redevelopment Agency would chip in $180 million.<\/p>\n The Rays have committed to covering more than half the total cost and absorbing any construction overruns, which county officials made clear early on was a non-negotiable condition.<\/p>\n County Commissioner Joshua Wostal has been the loudest skeptic, arguing that the financing structure has unresolved gaps and that Commissioners are being asked to ratify a $2.3 billion commitment they don\u2019t yet fully understand.<\/p>\n And hovering over all of it is noise about Orlando or another city outside Florida being ready to roll out the welcome mat if Tampa can\u2019t close. Whether that\u2019s genuine leverage or a negotiating tactic is hard to know, but it gives the effort a sense of urgency.<\/p>\n Nothing is done. But for a fanbase that has been told \u201csoon\u201d so many times it stopped believing it, getting to a signed MOU \u2014 even a nonbinding one \u2014 is something, and it keeps the door open for a new stadium in time for 2029.<\/p>\n Losers<\/p>\n Dishonorable mention: Alligator Alcatraz. State contractors have reportedly been notified<\/a> that the facility is shutting down, with the roughly 1,400 remaining detainees expected to be transferred out by June, as total operating costs have now hit nearly $1 billion.<\/p>\n That number may be conservative. Friends of the Everglades, which is suing to close the facility, alleges the DeSantis administration\u2019s internal cost estimate for the full project ran to $1.4 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n The reimbursement picture is a mess<\/a>. Florida publicly requested $608 million from the federal government last year. DeSantis has maintained the money is approved and coming but there\u2019s no clear timeline. The state has continued running up costs in the meantime.<\/p>\n DeSantis will call it a success anyway. He\u2019ll point to nearly 22,000 detainees processed through the facility, and he\u2019s not entirely wrong that the politics worked for his base. But the gap between the politics and the raw results is notable. Florida built a billion-dollar facility in a federally protected wetland, may not fully recover the costs, and is leaving behind an environmental cleanup fight that remains the subject of litigation.<\/p>\n Friends of the Everglades says it has additional claims ready and is heading back to federal district court.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we shut the lights out tomorrow, we will be able to say it served its purpose,\u201d DeSantis said. Sure, but in an era where costs for Floridians continue to skyrocket and are only getting worse amid the war with Iran, someone else will be paying for that purpose for a long time.<\/p>\n Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Alex Otaola. Otaola, the Cuban American YouTube host, limped to Thursday\u2019s petition deadline<\/a> to recall Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava with just 25,715 signatures \u2014 fewer than 40% of the roughly 66,000 he needed<\/a> to force a recall election.<\/p>\n He had 120 days and the entire apparatus of his online media operation at his disposal. He managed to recruit exactly zero elected Republicans to publicly back him. His sole organizational support came from the Miami Young Republicans, which should tell you everything about the sway Otaola has in Miami-Dade.<\/p>\n The fundraising numbers are equally as embarrassing. The Recall Cava PAC raised $950 in the first quarter of 2026. Not $950,000. Nine hundred and fifty dollars.<\/p>\n In Miami-Dade \u2014 a county of 1.6 million registered voters \u2014 Otaola was trying to run a countywide petition drive on a budget that wouldn\u2019t cover a week\u2019s worth of yard signs.<\/p>\n His group\u2019s operation was sloppy from the jump. The initial paperwork was rejected by the county Clerk\u2019s Office over basic errors. He ran a TV ad with a botched disclaimer. Christian Ulvert, who runs Levine Cava\u2019s political operation, called it a \u201csham,\u201d and it\u2019s hard to argue with that characterization.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s before you get to a lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade court<\/a> accusing Otaola of using his online show to publicly identify a 17-year-old who had accused one of Otaola\u2019s former campaign associates of sexual misconduct \u2014 a minor whose identity carried legal protection under Florida law<\/p>\n The 61-page complaint alleges defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violations of Florida\u2019s privacy protections for victims of sexual offenses. The accuser had alleged sexual abuse by Andy Santana Zamora, a former Otaola campaign Treasurer who was arrested in October 2024 on charges that were later dropped after the teen recanted his statements.<\/p>\n These are, of course, only allegations for now. But dealing with a lawsuit back-to-back with such a public failure in the recall effort is not where you want to be.<\/p>\n The biggest loser: Angie Nixon. There\u2019s a version of this week where Nixon gets some benefit of the doubt as a Democrat standing up about a congressional redistricting map that, by most honest assessments, was drawn to kneecap minority electoral power and pad the GOP\u2019s congressional advantage heading into November.<\/p>\n That version has some sympathy built in. But Nixon made sure to throw much of that away.<\/p>\n Nixon was reprimanded this week<\/a> due to a stunt she pulled during Florida\u2019s redistricting Special Session a few weeks back. Nixon took a bullhorn onto the House floor during the vote and started yelling that the map was a constitutional violation, refusing repeated calls to return to order.<\/p>\n Whatever you think of the map \u2014 and there are legitimate constitutional arguments against it \u2014 using a megaphone to blow up a floor vote is not a strategy to make inroads in the Legislature. It\u2019s a strategy to make content as she runs for U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n So this week, the House Rules and Ethics Committee, chaired by Speaker-designate Sam Garrison, formally reprimanded her. Garrison framed the reprimand as \u201cmeasured\u201d and even invoked the language of grace, noting that legislators make mistakes. He could have gone harder. Future violations open the door to stiffer penalties, up to and including expulsion.<\/p>\n Nixon should probably have taken the mild rebuke, kept her head down, and let the redistricting court battles possibly generate a win for Democrats.<\/p>\n She did not do that.<\/p>\n Instead, Nixon issued a seven-paragraph post-hearing statement<\/a> that accepted zero responsibility, pinned the discipline on Gov. Ron DeSantis and \u201chis allies\u201d \u2014 a notable reach, given the ongoing friction between DeSantis and the House \u2014 and declared that \u201cdebating rules and decorum does little to improve the quality of life of constituents.\u201d<\/p>\n She wasn\u2019t done. The morning after her reprimand, Nixon showed up at DeSantis\u2019 Capitol office to join a sit-in<\/a> with roughly two dozen protesters, wearing her now-signature hot pink. She was later arrested<\/a> after refusing to leave.<\/p>\n The Voting Rights Act fight is real. But Nixon burning down her own credibility in Tallahassee during the final months of her House tenure, without actually changing anything of substance, just about sums up her tenure in the Legislature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve got significant movement on the budget. 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