(The Center Square) – Health care giant Centene’s $10 million gift to nonprofit HOPE Florida has drawn a hearing from the House of Representatives criticized by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The second-term Republican went on the offensive against the chamber. House members, led by Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, are calling on the return of that money, which they say was used by DeSantis to fund two political groups opposed to a pair of unsuccessful ballot initiatives that would’ve codified recreational marijuana and abortion into the state constitution.
One of those groups was run by Attorney General James Uthmeier, who is running for a full term in 2026 after being appointed to replace new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Proponents of the two ballot initiatives raised a combined $261 million.
HOPE Florida is a state initiative launched in 2021 by Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis that works as a direct support organization with the state Department of Children and Family Services. It is intended to help struggling families become more self-sufficient and get off of direct assistance programs.
The governor didn’t back down in his criticism of the Republican majority House.
“You got a cabal of them in the leadership,” DeSantis said. “They are colluding with liberal media and the Democratic Party in Florida to try to manufacture smears against HOPE Florida, against me, against the first lady. To have Republicans in the Florida House leadership colluding with these people, when they’re doing that and they’re not cutting your property taxes, they’re not fixing the condo crisis, they’re not doing the things that voters want them to do, make no mistake about that. They are stabbing you in the back. They are refusing to do their jobs.”
The House Health Care Budget Subcommittee took up the issue at a hearing Tuesday morning, with members hitting HOPE Florida officials about the nonprofit’s lack of required financial statements, such as the required IRS Form 990.
HOPE Florida foundation President Joshua Hay told the committee that the group had made mistakes due to a lack of staffing and oversight, but was working to correct them. He also said he and the foundation’s general counsel, Jeff Aaron, saw nothing odd about the $10 million grant.
Andrade asked Hay if the donation, which was used for political purposes, was an appropriate use of the grant.
“Well, thankfully because of our Florida elections database we do know what that money was used on,” Andrade said during the hearing. “Do you believe that donating the money to the Republican Party of Florida, donating it to Governor DeSantis’s Florida Freedom Fund PAC or paying for legal services and advertising are proper uses of those funds out of Hope Florida Foundation’s account?”
Hay, who says the foundation has no staff and he serves on a volunteer basis, said it could potentially claw back the funds if they were used inappropriately, but he also said that he didn’t want to provide a “personal opinion.”
Hay says the foundation’s board will meet on Thursday in a public meeting online to discuss the needed changes, and within 10 days, release the foundation’s financial statements.
“In recent weeks, the public reporting has made evident that mistakes were made,” Hay told the committee. “I have been gathering and reviewing all of the foundation’s bank statements. When complete, we will release this information to the public and to this subcommittee.”
After the hearing, Andrade told a gaggle of reporters he was “stunned, but it does sound as if Jeff Aaron is working to back date, backlog documents to cover up what they did.”
Andrade added that the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida might want to investigate.
Asked about Hay’s responses during the hearing, Andrade said, “My heart goes out to him. I don’t think he was fully informed, and I think he got bad advice from Jeff Aaron.”
