Cord Byrd, Florida's Secretary of State, details the state's election integrity reforms and mass influx of 1,200 daily newcomers fleeing blue states. He highlights strict enforcement of election codes, permitless concealed carry effective July 1st, and state-level preemption laws centralizing firearm and school security regulations. Byrd argues Florida serves as a vital pressure valve for residents leaving restrictive jurisdictions, asserting that federalism allows states to act as governance laboratories while successfully balancing rapid growth with resource preservation despite Hurricane Ian's impact. [Automatically generated summary]
Sure, so I have an appointed position, which is a little different.
Most secretaries of state are elected.
Florida had an elected secretary until 2002.
Catherine Harris of Bush v. Gore fame was our last elected.
Since then, it's been an appointed position.
So, I'm the state's chief elections officer, the state's chief protocol officer, so I interact with foreign governments, state's chief arts and cultural officer, historical officer.
We have the division of library resources in the Department of State.
And the Division of Corporation, so Sunbiz.
You want to start a business in Florida, you come through me.
So let's talk about the election stuff first, because when I voted just a couple months back, obviously in the midterms and the gubernatorial election here, having it been my first election in Florida, I can't tell you how thrilled I was to show my ID, to sign something, to walk over With a volunteer who clearly showed me where I was going, a piece of paper, dropping it in a box.
It felt legit and real.
And that was in complete stark contrast to what was going on when I was voting for several years in Los Angeles, California.
What have you guys done to tighten up the election situation here?
So I actually started as a young attorney poll watcher in 1998.
I was in Palm Beach County for Bush v. Gore in 2000 and did some legal work behind the scenes.
I spent 12 hours that day watching people vote and listening to people openly joke about, I voted New York, I voted New Jersey, ha ha ha, I'm voting again here.
So we've come a long way.
We were Florida, duh, and everybody thought we were terrible at voting.
There's really only two counties to where we are today, which is the gold standard.
And that's because the Legislature, the last two legislative sessions and under Governor DeSantis's leadership, has continuously worked to improve our elections process to the point where, as you just described, it looks easy, but it's because we are doing this 24-7, 365.
When you're talking to counterparts in other states that it's not going as well, I'm not talking about crazy California, but even a more moderate state, someone that either is a Secretary of State there or is involved in the election process, are they jealous?
Are they asking you for tips?
I mean, it seems like we have a presidential election coming, and I think we're going to see all of the craziness or questions that we had last time.
It doesn't seem like most of the states have done anything.
Right, and you mentioned the Governor's Blueprint, and we are constantly talking to other states, and I was thrilled.
Last week, I had a representative from Wisconsin come down on his own dime to meet with us and says, I want to take back to Wisconsin what you are doing here.
You know, teach us, show us what you're doing.
So, I'm always preaching the gospel about what we're doing and why it works, and there's no reason why other states can't adopt the Florida model.
Yeah, so speaking of the Florida model, I mean, we could just go through some of the greatest hits here, but I'm curious, as you've seen this mass influx of people, last I checked it was about 1,200 people a day, I think almost a million people in three years.
I've asked the governor this, but what challenges does that present for the state?
Are you guys shocked at how well it seems to be working at the moment?
I mean, obviously there's a super majority in the House and the governor's feeling good after the landslide, but just that it really is happening here.
I mean, building is happening fast.
We're fixing roads.
You know, the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, which watching the rebuild has just been unbelievable.
So when you see the governor getting into it with Disney and, you know, the nonsensical, quote-unquote, don't say gay, HB 1557, how does that affect what you're doing as Secretary of State?
When I had Governor DeSantis on last time, just a couple weeks ago, I said, look, I gotta ask you one tough one.
And the one tough one seems to be, you know, something related to house prices, just because of the influx of people.
But as you're looking at it from another office altogether, what are you seeing are the struggles, are the issues, the stuff that you guys wanna fix still?
Sure, so I think that it's a good problem to have, that we have so many new people moving to Florida.
But I think that balance between growth and preserving our natural resources and making sure that we are mindful of all the reasons that we want to live here, from our beaches, to our lakes and rivers, to water quality, and that's been something that the Governor has championed.
And I think that's probably our biggest challenge, but I don't think it's a binary choice where you can either have You know, growth and terrible environment or a pristine environment and five people live here.
And so I think that is our challenge moving forward as a state.
But we have the right people working on those issues and we'll make it work.
As you may or may not know, my folks part-time are down in Sanibel Island, and their place is still in recovery at the moment.
What's the job of the Secretary of State when a natural disaster like this hits, and how much coordination do you do or try to do with the federal government?
It sounds like they were kind of good at the beginning, maybe cut and ran a little bit early, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.
I know we jumped off there, but just jumping back on that a second.
So in states that are Democrat-run that clearly don't want some of these policies put in place, what would you say to just the Republican citizen who is there related to what they can do?
I know we talked about what maybe another Secretary of State that's a friendly can do.
Well, the governor has said in states, you have to use the laws that are in your state and fight fire with fire.
So we're against ballot harvesting.
We've made that illegal in Florida.
But if ballot harvesting is illegal in your state, then you have to use the law where you are.
Because unless you get into the positions of power, whether it's governor or Supreme Court or legislature, you're not going to be able to effectuate the change.
I would encourage those individuals.
Get involved.
Stay involved.
We look at what happened in Virginia.
Virginia's a blue state.
They elect Glenn Youngkin because I know many of the people who got engaged and were at the polling places.
Yeah, are you seeing more and more parents get involved in education down here?
I mean, it seems like that really was the instigator.
I think I saw you speak at one of the Blueprint events a couple months ago.
I know I did.
And, you know, that was about parents just getting on school boards, and the governor was going around the room, and he seemed to know every county, what was happening in every single election, who was getting on, who the superintendents were, etc.
Are you guys ever worried that the more we do it right here in Florida, the more that that focus turns to us and that that could be a problem?
That the federal government basically, which is seemingly screwing up so many things, that at some point it's like they keep looking to Florida going, man, they're doing basically the opposite of everything we do.
It's working.
We are still in the United States and that that's an issue there.
Right, well, we're gonna have three statewide elections in 2024.
My mind is already there.
I'm already working on that.
I know we are going to get a lot of attention in Florida for a whole host of reasons.
But I always go back to, it's the genius of the founders that they gave us a federal system, meaning federalism, where the states can be 50 laboratories of experiment.
We're showing what's right about America.
You know, I'll battle, compare us to California and New York and Illinois any day of the week.
And I think it gives people in those states hope that we're not lost.
We can do this if the right people and the right policies are put in place.
I think a lot about that, but I think that at some point we're going to have to, you know, let blue States be blue States and red States be red States.
And we're going to have to be okay with that.
And, you know, the Supreme court said that in Dobbs, I mean, listen, abortion is not a state, a federal issue.
It's a state issue.
But that means states are going to do things differently.
And then people are going to vote with their feet.
You said 1,200 a day are moving to Florida.
And I tell people, it's like they're voting with their feet.
They're moving here.
And that is an expression of their opinion.
We're gaining people.
The blue states are losing people.
So I think that's an encouraging sign that we still... And that keeps... That's a pressure valve.
It keeps things from getting too far into crazy land.
So I think when people think of Florida, they think, okay, we're leading, you know, obviously we led on fighting COVID lockdowns and mandates and that sort of insanity.
I think they see we're leading on education, which now seems to be exported to Iowa and Arkansas and some of these other states.
What else do you think we're leading on at the moment when the governor talks about that blueprint?
I mean, you know, New business startups, I mean, we can hardly keep up with all of the new business startups in Florida.
We're leading, I mean, the governor just signed a constitutional carry, so we became the 26th state to do that, and my background is as a Second Amendment and firearms law attorney, that's what I did.
So, you know, on so many issues of freedom, so whether it's elections, whether it's business startups, education, we really are, we're leading on just about everything.
I'm from the Jacksonville area in Nassau County, the furthest northeast part of the state.
And there's lots of land, and it's growing, and that brings challenges.
Some of the people that have been there a while, you know, they don't always like all the new growth, but there is plenty of land, plenty of room to grow.
And we just have to do a smart, you know, smart growth is a good thing.
Actually, I grew up in Miami, so I've seen the changes there from the 70s and 80s to today, and it's a wonderful place.
You are kind of constricted between the coast and the Everglades, but there's plenty of places in Florida we have room to grow.
You know, the governor has been obviously talking a lot about ESG and figuring out a way that we can have some of the state's money less invested with these companies that are focused on diversity, equity, inclusion.
Does that involve any of your day-to-day operations?
We're ministerial when it comes to starting new businesses.
I mean, if they file the right paperwork, they do that.
So the CFO's office, Jimmy Petronas, the ESG stuff mainly comes more through the chief financial officer.
But certainly, whether it's the legislature having the power of the purse, whether it's the universities and saying, no, listen, we're spending taxpayer dollars.
We call the shots.
You don't make the policies.
Or whether it's ESG and corporations, we do have the power of the purse and we're exercising it.
So one of the things we talk about on the show a lot is that there seems to be this kind of divergence amongst Republicans right now, like either we will just be small government Republicans and never use the levers of government to do anything, or, as I think we're doing it more so in Florida, we'd prefer not to use the government all the time, but we're gonna figure out the moments to do so.
It's different, and it is amazing when I read what's in the mainstream media.
When I read about things, the words they put in my mouth, things that I've never said, they don't listen.
We put out press releases all the time about people registering to vote.
Get engaged, make sure all of your information is up to date, and all I do is get called a voter suppressionist, and all we're trying to do is prevent certain types of people from voting.
So it's a little frustrating, but it's the environment we live in, and I just always point back to, if we're putting points on the board for the people, they will be our best messengers.
And like you said, people are happy, they're smiling, the state is growing, and the proof is in the pudding.
So, I mean, in essence, this is just permitless carry, so is that really what the fight was about, whether there should be permits or not, as opposed to the concealed carry in and of itself?
So since the mid-80s, the law in Florida was that you had to have a permit, a license from the state, in order to carry a concealed firearm outside of the home.
And the decision was made, and I agree with it 100%, you shouldn't need a permission slip from the government to exercise a constitutional right.
And I would always tell my colleagues, the bad guys don't follow the law anyway.
Criminals, by definition, don't follow the law.
So all we were doing was burdening law-abiding citizens, and now we've given them that opportunity.
to defend themselves when they're outside the home without permission slip from the government.
Speaking of defending themselves, obviously having in the last two weeks this shooting in Tennessee and there have been over the course of years a few shootings, obviously the Orlando Pulse Nightclub one and the Parkland outside of Orlando shooting at the school there.
What are we doing in terms of that?
What can the state do?
Is that up to the cities?
Who decides what's happening in terms of security of schools?
So, in Florida, we have a very robust preemption law.
So, all firearms regulations are at the state level.
There's none at the local level.
So, after the Parkland shooting, the state stepped up and appropriated millions of dollars for school security and put in robust enhancements, which that's happening at the state level.
They're very aggressive to ensure That our schools are secure.
I have an eight-year-old daughter.
I mean, I think about this every single day.
But when you live in a constitutional republic, you have to balance constitutional rights with liberty and freedom and safety and security.
Listen, you put everybody in prison, we can have the safest country in the world.
But that's not the road we're going down.
And every one of these is tragic.
But what I look at is, it's not the guns.
The guns have been prevalent in America.
You used to be able to order guns through the Sears catalog.
You can't do that anymore.
So there's something fundamentally wrong with our culture, and that's what we need to be focusing on, and fixing, and mental health, and we're doing all of those things in Florida.
Yeah, are we doing anything on the mental health side?
You know, I'm always kind of like, when I go back to Cali, you know, you go to Los Angeles, every other billboard is for California mental health, this or that.
And it always seems sort of, I mean, it seems darkly humorous to me, like as if the state of California is gonna be able to help anyone's mental health.
But what do you think the role of the state is for that?
Right, I mean, we should have resources available for people.
We shouldn't stigmatize it.
We should make people say, if you are having an issue, They should seek help, and we should help where we need to.
I mean, if people need financial resources, the state should step up.
But I think it goes back to the way we raise our children.
My parents taught me at an early age, life isn't fair, deal with it early.
We're so protecting our children that we're insulating them from any type of Misfortune when they're children, so they haven't learned the coping skills.
And so when you become an adult and life gets really hard and you've never been told no in your life or had to deal with any adversity, I can understand why people break.
But I don't know that government can fix parenting other than emphasizing and fostering a state and an environment that we emphasize the role of parenting and families and their nurturing role in preparing young people to become citizens.
You know, I keep saying the main thing that I think Florida is exporting right now is competency.
It feels like we have the right people in charge who are balancing that blend of when you use the government, when you don't, how you actually spend properly, where you want to apply the law, etc.
No, and I'm glad you raised the point of competency because I think what I see in DC, and there's a lot of people who get into politics, it's just celebrity by another means.
And they think it's about tweeting and getting on TV, but actually the day-to-day, the mundane job of actually governing and making sure that our elections are working, that you can go file a corporation.
That takes work.
It takes competency.
I have an amazing staff of people who come to work every single day.
Some of those nameless, faceless bureaucrats that we talk about, but they do a wonderful job.
And that's what I would emphasize.
And to your point that that competency matters.
I think the governor's talked about that, that he puts people in place that he can trust to go run an agency.
And make sure that we're delivering for the people of Florida every single day.
And if we're not doing that, he's gonna take us out.
Secretary, probably not the most difficult interview you ever did, but I'm just happy to amplify all the goodness out of Florida because it literally changed my life.