For the first time on Wednesday, the DeSantis administration acknowledged that it used opioid settlement money to campaign against a recreational marijuana amendment on the 2024 ballot.
Shevaun Harris, the secretary for Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, made the admission during an appearance before a Senate committee as part of her confirmation to the position.
She was quizzed during the hearing about her leadership two years ago at a different agency, the Department of Children and Families, which spent millions on ads warning about the dangers of marijuana in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
During the campaign, the department paid a Republican-aligned digital media company, Strategic Digital Services, $5.1 million in a no-bid contract for ads about marijuana and abortions. The money for the marijuana ads came from the state opioid settlement.
The Strategic Digital Services contract was part of more than $35 million in taxpayer money the DeSantis administration spent to defeat the amendments, a Herald/Times investigation found last year.
Senate Minority Leader Lori Berman, a Democrat serving on the Health Policy committee vetting Harris’ appointment, asked Harris on Wednesday to walk the panel “through the decision-making process at DCF regarding the launch of this anti-marijuana ad campaign just months before the election.”
Harris’ response is the first acknowledgment from the DeSantis administration on its use of opioid settlement money. It paid for $4 million of the $5.1 million the department spent. No one from the administration has responded to questions from the Herald/Times since the news bureau reported the department’s use of the opioid money last fall.
The Orlando Sentinel reported on Sunday that the state hadn’t answered questions about the spending on the campaign from its own opioid advisory council.
“When the department was allocated funding through the Legislature for the opioid settlement funding, one of the line items was money specifically set aside for a prevention campaign,” Harris said. “The department had a number of different drug classes that we were going to be doing ads on. We started with marijuana, chiefly, because … we are focused on prevention.”
Berman asked Harris twice to disclose the extent to which the department worked with the governor’s office on the campaign. Harris didn’t answer the question, but said the department had worked with the vendor, Strategic Digital Services, on other initiatives.
Harris said the department had seen “numerous examples where that particular drug is a gateway into other drug use.” She said she had seen infant death reviews where “moms who had THC in their system rolled over and smothered their child.”
She added: “So, we had extreme cases, where we felt like education was necessary to clear up any confusion or to provide information on the dangers of that.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis moved Harris last year from the Department of Children and Families to the Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees Medicaid. She is up for confirmation as secretary for the second straight year.
Last year, Harris’ confirmation was held up by Sen. Don Gaetz, as the House and the media investigated Hope Florida and a related charity’s role as a pass-through for $10 million that went from a state Medicaid settlement to a political committee controlled by DeSantis’ chief of staff.
Hope Florida was helmed within the Department of Children and Families. And records show the Agency for Health Care Administration led the negotiations that resulted in Medicaid contractor Centene paying $10 million from a $67 million agreement to the Hope Florida Foundation.
The Health Policy panel gave Harris the nod of approval on Wednesday, and Gaetz, who sits on the panel, voted for Harris’ confirmation.
“I have had the opportunity to work with the secretary on legislation,” Gaetz, a Pensacola Republican, said before voting. “I find her responsive. I find her intelligent and truthful and extremely willing to help and work with the Legislature. I’ll be voting in favor of the secretary’s confirmation enthusiastically.”
Gaetz’s Ethics and Elections committee determines which confirmations will appear before the full Senate for a vote. His support indicates Harris’ confirmation is likely to go through this year, allowing her to remain in the post overseeing the Medicaid agency.
