Good morning and happy Friday. Democratic state Rep. ANNA ESKAMANI hopes to become mayor of a city that remains one of the state’s ever-shrinking Democratic strongholds, telling Playbook she wants to prioritize the needs of residents and not just visitors in tourism hot spot Orlando. The mayorship will be open for the first time in 25 years, with BUDDY DYER calling the 2023 election his last. But in that time, the state’s control over local governments has ballooned. Eskamani, 34, has been in the Florida House seven years and said she understands that Tallahassee may try to interfere with her vision for Orlando if she wins. “The Legislature, unfortunately, has had a track record of targeting local municipalities through preemption,” she said. “And it’s nothing new.” In 2023, DeSantis suspended Democrat MONIQUE WORRELL from her role as Orange-Osceola County state attorney. Worrell won her job back in November, but whether she’ll be allowed to stay is an open question. The governor also announced the creation of Florida’s very own DOGE task force, dedicated to “audit[ing] the spending habits of local entities to shine the light on waste and bloat.” In response, Eskamani pointed to DeSantis’ use of state dollars to campaign against amendments on pot and abortion, as well as legal fights over laws he signed and the state’s relocation of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. “It's like, first of all, look in a mirror,” she said. “There's so many examples of your wasteful spending.” The mayoral election isn’t until 2027, which means whoever wins may face an early test on navigating changes to property taxes. DeSantis has said he thinks the legislature should go as far as it can to put a ballot measure before voters during the 2026 election that would eliminate, or at least reduce, the tax. To Eskamani, it’s part of a “larger, more insidious agenda” to consolidate state power and “destroy and weaken local governments.” “It's not a tax break. It is a tax shift, because the dollars have to come from somewhere,” she said. “And obviously you would have to make cuts. But there are just some things that you can't cut. You can't cut police response times. You can't cut fire response times. So it just puts local governments in a really impossible situation.” That doesn’t mean that Eskamani thinks the status quo is working. Instead, she said she would want to work with voters to look at other options, such as using the tourism development tax — largely collected through hotel stays and short-term rentals — for community projects such as public transit. She filed a bill this session that would eliminate the provision that requires at least 40 percent of the tourism development tax to be used solely for advertising tourism in Orange County. Eskamani is seeking Orlando’s top job at a time when the state’s GOP base has swelled. Florida Democrats set out to try to chip away at the Legislature’s GOP supermajority by running through Central Florida in 2024. But it didn’t work; Democrats only gained one of the seats and lost another. When it comes to sustaining Orlando’s Democratic base and working-class identity, Eskamani acknowledged that, for the local Democratic Party, there’s work to be done in building “stronger relationships, especially with younger demographics of voters [and] communities of color.” She said she hopes if she becomes mayor, the city can measure success not only by its GDP, but by whether residents are bringing in higher wages. Orlando is Orange County’s largest city or, as Eskamani calls it, the county’s “anchor.” And the county contributes billions in state revenue, something Eskamani said she hopes the city will be able to leverage. It brings in more than 74 million tourists a year, in large part thanks to major attractions that include Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando Resort, both of which are expanding. “We often get ostracized … because of the political climate, but it's like, you need us to survive,” she said. “We subsidize the existence of other physically constrained counties every year, so we play a very important role in the long-term success of Florida.” — Isa Domínguez Have a tip, story, suggestion, birthday, anniversary, new job, or any other nugget that Playbook should look at? Get in touch at: kleonard@politico.com.
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