Yesterday, I broke the news that Jae Williams, Attorney General James Uthmeier’s press secretary, sent an email to pro-life groups around the state, trying urging them protest Pensacola lawmaker Alex Andrade’s Health Care Budget Subcommittee meeting on Monday. Williams alleged Andrade was cutting their funding, and the press secretary even suggested the messages to put on protest signs.
The Plot Thickens
The Tampa Bay Times reported that no protesters showed up for the 15-minute meeting and offered more background on the incident.
The Florida Pregnancy Care Network’s director, Rita Gagliano, emailed colleagues Sunday night, assuring them that she had no indication their funding was in jeopardy. She wrote, “Please know that we have it on very good authority that the funding is safe, and we have been specifically asked to convey that assurance to all of you. Sadly, it appears we may have been caught in the undertow of some political crosscurrents.”
Andrade’s committee passed a budget that kept the Florida Pregnancy Care Network’s funding at its current level.
- Irony: The Tampa Bay Times reported that the DeSantis administration tried to strip the Florida Pregnancy Care Network of funding last year because the nonprofit refused his staff’s request to run ads against 2024’s Amendment 4, the ballot initiative that would have overturned Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
Uthmeier’s deputy chief of staff, Jeremy Redfern, initially denied that Williams was asking groups to protest Andrade’s committee. He told the newspaper, “Would be news to Jae or anyone else in our office.”
However, after all the email exchanges were posted on X, Redfern backtracked and tried spin the story against Andrade: “While the AG is on the road and not at the Capitol tomorrow afternoon, we’ve heard from multiple pro-life groups over the past couple weeks who have expressed disgust over Alan Andrade’s law firm taking in blood money from Planned Parenthood.”
- Redfern added: “If members of the AG’s staff are standing strong for life in their free time, we wholeheartedly support it.”
Farewell
Yesterday, Andrade’s Health Care Budget Subcommittee held its final meeting of the 2026 session. In an emotional speech before adjournment, he thanked the House staff and his committee.
- “It’s been sincerely a privilege to work around you, alongside you, learn from you the past two years. It’s been an immense blessing,” Andrade said. “I don’t know, as committee members, if when you were assigned this committee about a year and a half ago, if you expected what you got for the past two years as far as our experience. It’s been an honor to work with you guys to learn alongside you, and I appreciate all the work you guys have put in to trying to instill still some character and portions of what we’re tasked with doing as legislators, like oversight and accountability and follow-through.
The Pensacola lawmaker and his committee challenged the DeSantis administration on several fronts, most notably the Hope Florida Foundation scandal.
“Accountability starts with us,” said Andrade, who has chaired the committee for two years. “It’s not as if we’ve noted any failures here. I hope that if you’ve seen a theme in my commentary, if we identify a failure outside of the legislature, there comes a point where we have to assess whether or not the instructions that we give, which is a core function of our role, are followed.”
He continued, “We instruct the executive that’s our responsibility—to instruct them to do what we tell them to do and then to make sure that they follow through with it. That’s true with the language that we pass in bills and in the budget and with the dollars that we appropriate. “
- Andrade added, “I know I only have a few more weeks here before I turn out, but hopefully you guys can continue to build on that and do a better job than I could have in the last few years. I’m excited to see what everyone here achieves. So thank you.”
