FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. — A school district in northeast Florida must put back in libraries three dozen books as part of a settlement reached Thursday with students and parents who sued over what they said was an unlawful decision to limit access to dozens of titles containing LGBTQ+ content.

Under the agreement the School Board of Nassau County must restore access to three dozen titles including “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s picture book based on a true story about two male penguins that raised a chick together at New York’s Central Park Zoo. Authors Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson were plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the district, which is about 35 miles (about 60 kilometers) northeast of Jacksonville along the Georgia border.

The suit was one of several challenges to book bans since state lawmakers last year passed, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law, legislation making it easier to challenge educational materials that opponents consider pornographic and obscene. Last month six major publishers and several well-known authors filed a federal lawsuit in Orlando arguing that some provisions of the law violate the First Amendment rights of publishers, authors and students.

“Fighting unconstitutional legislation in Florida and across the country is an urgent priority,” Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster and Sourcebooks said in a statement.

Among the books removed in Nassau County were titles by Toni Morrison, Khaled Hosseini, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jodi Picoult and Alice Sebold.

Under the settlement the school district agreed that “And Tango Makes Three” is not obscene, is appropriate for students of all ages and has value related to teaching.

“Students will once again have access to books from well-known and highly-lauded authors representing a broad range of viewpoints and ideas,” Lauren Zimmerman, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in a statement.

Brett Steger, an attorney for the school district, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Overpumping for drinking, farming and bottled water is threatening the health of Florida’s freshwater springs, advocates said this week, lamenting the state’s lack of progress in protecting these fragile resources.

A 2016 law signed by then-Gov. Rick Scott told the Department of Environmental Protection to develop and adopt rules that prevent groundwater withdrawals that are harmful to Florida springs.

Ryan Smart, executive director of the Florida Springs Council, the only statewide advocacy group for springs, said Wednesday that nothing has changed in the past eight years.

“DEP has us in this rulemaking merry-go-round, where they propose a draft rule, withdraw it, say, ‘Hey, we’re still working on it.’ Come back, propose it, withdraw it,” said Smart.

“And because of that, our springs get no protections, and we’ve seen probably billions and billions of gallons that never should have been pumped out of the aquifer if DEP had done their job.”

Florida’s springs are threated by pollution and nitrogen runoff that lead to algae growth and interfere with habitat for manatees, fish, turtles and otters. Another key danger is withdrawing too much water, which has been going on for years.

“Throughout the entire state, our spring flow is down 20-30% overall from just a few decades ago,” said Smart.

“You have to get a permit to pump over 100,000 gallons a day. You’d think that a permit would imply that some people could get denied. But no one is denied for harming our springs. Even when our springs are already suffering significant harm,” he added.

The Florida Springs Council also wants to cut the amount of water that existing permit-holders can pump.

“We put together a team of experts, lawyers and scientists, and we drafted a rule that complies with the law, and that rule is really based on the way that Florida got out of the Tampa Bay water wars,” said Smart.

The Tampa Bay water wars erupted decades ago as municipalities in the growing region developed inland wellfields that ended up draining wetlands. Conflicts over prices for water were also common, until the creation of Tampa Bay Water in 1998.

A key part of the resolution to the water wars was that groundwater pumping from 11 regional wellfields would be gradually reduced, and funding was allocated to develop alternative water supply projects.

“Today, the region is served by a combination of groundwater, river water and desalinated seawater, which has reduced wellfield withdrawals by nearly 50% since 1998,” according to Tampa Bay Water.

Smart said it’s long past time for environmental authorities to act to protect springs in a similar way.

“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We actually know what works. We know how to do it. It just requires the political will and the funding,” Smart said.

“There’s only one way to restore our springs, and that is to pump less water. And there’s only one way to get folks to pump less water, and that’s to reduce the amount of water they’re allowed to pump, and to stop issuing every single permit,” he added.

The DEP noted in its workshop materials that it is tasked with adopting “uniform rules for issuing permits that prevent groundwater withdrawals harmful to the water resources.”

It must also create “a uniform definition of the term ‘harmful to the water resources’ to provide water management districts with minimum standards necessary to be consistent with the overall water policy of the state for Outstanding Florida Springs.”

Any rule they decide upon is expected to affect consumptive use permitting in the Northwest Florida, Suwannee River, St. Johns River and Southwest Florida water management districts.

By holding off from issuing any rule, Smart said the DEP has also avoided any lawsuits.

“What we’re asking DEP to do is adopt a rule. At least have the decency to let folks go to court and fight over it. But the way they’re going now, our springs will be gone by the time DEP does their job,” Smart said.

The Florida Springs Council is holding a rally at noon before the start of a 1 p.m. meeting Thursday at the St. Johns River Water Management District Apopka Service Center, 2501 S. Binion Road, Apopka, FL 32703.

Copyright 2024 WUSF 89.7

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Florida Democrats made bold claims last week about their chances in a state that has steadily grown more conservative in recent years. But so far they have not matched their words with the kind of money it will take to win there.

“Florida is in play,” proclaimed Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former representative from Miami, at the start of a bus tour in defense of women’s reproductive rights in Boynton Beach. Mucarsel-Powell is the choice of Florida Democrats to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Scott for one of a handful of Senate seats the GOP is defending this election cycle.

According to data from AdImpact, which tracks spending on advertising by political campaigns and their surrogates, Republicans have outspent Democrats on Florida’s U.S. Senate race by roughly a 4-to-1 margin through Sept. 11, $12.7 million to $3.2 million. Based on ad spots currently reserved through the general election, that margin is expected to grow.

The dynamics of the Senate race mirror what has happened in the presidential race in a state that used to be hotly contested by both parties’ top-of-the-ticket candidates. Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the launch of the bus tour and has not been to Florida as a candidate since she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for president in the race against Republican former President Donald Trump.

The Republicans’ massive spending advantage may help to explain why Scott scoffs at the claims coming from Democrats about Florida being competitive.

“They are so far from what Florida voters believe in, that they don’t have a chance in the world of winning Florida,” he said in an interview last week. “They don’t have a chance of beating Trump, and they don’t have a chance of beating me.”

Mucarsel-Powell says her side is more in touch with voters on issues such as reproductive rights. She says ballot amendments on both abortion rights and legalizing marijuana will help Democrats turn out voters. She also said the switch from Biden to Harris gave Florida Democrats a burst of fresh momentum.

“This is momentum that has been building for quite some time, and her announcement just was like the tip of the iceberg on the momentum and the energy that was building here around the state of Florida,” Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview.

A national AP-NORC survey conducted in July showed that about 8 in 10 Democrats said they’d be satisfied with Harris as the party’s nominee for president, versus 4 in 10 Democrats in March saying they’d be satisfied with Biden as the nominee.

But Mucarsel-Powell’s task remains formidable. Although some polling shows Scott leading narrowly in the Senate race, national Democrats have yet to invest heavily in Florida’s expensive media markets. Harris, who has proven to be a prolific fundraiser since she became the Democratic nominee, recently allocated $25 million of her own campaign funds to help down-ballot Democrats in November — with only $10 million of those funds going to U.S. Senate candidates. Harris’ campaign did not respond to questions on how these funds were being allocated.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said it has spent money on staffing and digital advertising on the race but didn’t specify how much. In a statement, they did not address plans for spending going forward but said: “Scott’s unpopularity coupled with the strength of Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign makes Florida one of Senate Democrats top offensive opportunities.”

Scott, who has his eye on a Senate leadership position if he wins, said he would welcome a bigger effort from national Democrats.

“I hope they spend a bunch of money and waste it, because they don’t have a chance of winning the Senate in Florida,” he said.

Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried said national Democrats showed their support by starting their bus tour in Florida and sending campaign representatives there to support Democratic candidates. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who is in a strong enough position in her own reelection bid to work on behalf of other Democrats around the country, was one of several Democrats who joined Mucarsel-Powell at the start of the bus tour.

“They could have started anywhere else in the country. They started here in Palm Beach County, in Donald Trump’s backyard,” Fried said. “That shows how important Florida is, and that they are going to continue to watch what is happening on the ground, send surrogates here and making sure that we are in play for November.”

About 150 people attended the bus tour event.

Fried acknowledged that Democrats have been outspent on advertising in Florida, but she said they’re putting their energy into campaigning at the grassroots level. She said 40,000 new volunteers signed up after Harris entered the race and were making an all-out effort to knock on doors and reach out to Florida voters by phone.

This year’s Florida ballot looks different from the one voters saw two years ago, where U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis led the top of Florida’s ticket. The governor had hoped to ride a wave of momentum from his emphatic 19-point victory to national prominence but was unable to loosen Trump’s grip on the Republican Party nationally.

Trump, now a Florida resident, defeated Biden in Florida by 3.3 percentage points in 2020, further diminishing its status as a swing state.

Brian Ballard, a Republican political strategist who was a top fundraiser for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, said the lackluster spending effort by Democrats will make it harder for Mucarsel-Powell to introduce herself to people across the state who don’t recognize her — as opposed to Scott, who was Florida’s governor from 2010 to 2018 and has since then been serving in the Senate.

The lack of spending from the national party, Ballard said, is “usually a sign of a losing campaign.”

“Florida is not in play,” Ballard said. “I hope the Democrats commit and spend a lot of money in Florida on the presidential race. It’ll move the needle not at all. If she’s relying on Democrats spending on top of the ticket, she’s relying on fool’s gold.”

The Florida contest has not drawn much attention from national Democrats, who are trying to hold onto far more Senate seats than Republicans this year. Instead, they have focused much of their energy and resources on defending seats they already hold, including in the red states of Ohio and Montana. Still, the Florida U.S. Senate race was close in late July, just before the Florida Senate primaries, according to a poll of Florida voters conducted by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab.

Scott said in the interview that he isn’t “taking a chance” by treating his own race lightly. And yet he has spent at least some of his time campaigning for other Republicans, including a trip across state lines to battleground Georgia last week for a town hall in Braselton, northeast of Atlanta.

“This is a team sport,” Scott said of his efforts on behalf of other GOP candidates.

Tiffany Lanier, 36, attended the bus tour Tuesday morning in Boynton Beach. Lanier, a Lake Worth civic engagement public speaker, said that although Biden ran on a similar platform to Harris, she thinks Harris’ position and emphasis on abortion rights really excites and motivates people to turn out to vote.

“I think it was more like in my wilder dreams that Florida would be in play for this November,” Lanier said. “I know that we are so very tight in the polls, but I do see that there is an energetic shift. And so, I do see a lot of possibility here.”

___

Chief elections analyst Chad Day contributed to this report.