The Amoralists: Ron DeSantis, Part Four; Battling with Trump

 

Eyeing a possible White House bid, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declined on Monday to weigh in on one of the most divisive issues in the GOP: Could then-Vice President Mike Pence have “overturned” the 2020 presidential election?

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that Pence could have changed the outcome of the election by upending the congressional certification of the results, overturning President Joe Biden's win. On Friday, Pence rebutted his former boss, saying Trump was "wrong" to suggest he had the authority to change the outcome of the election.

Asked Monday with whom he sides, DeSantis wouldn’t say.

“I’m not. I … ,” DeSantis told reporters at an immigration-related media event at the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora in Miami before he cut himself off.

Pressed by a reporter, DeSantis changed the subject to say he had a “great working relationship” with the Trump administration during the two years his administration overlapped with it. And he then criticized the Biden White House for obstructing his agenda.

Trump remains the odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination if he runs again in 2024. DeSantis is a distant second, according to early primary polls, which show him leading the pack if Trump doesn't run. Pence, who is also laying the groundwork for a presidential run, comes in third place in a crowded field that also includes Trump allies like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Although talk of a DeSantis-Trump feud has ebbed and flowed for months, both men say they have a good relationship — underscored by DeSantis’ reticence in crossing Trump on the issue of Pence's power to interfere in the Jan. 6, 2021, tally. Polls indicate that a significant proportion of GOP primary voters nationwide believe the election was stolen — despite numerous audits, investigations and court cases that found that no widespread fraud occurred to prevent Trump's victory (Caputo 1).

For months, former President Donald J. Trump has been grumbling quietly to friends and visitors to his Palm Beach mansion about a rival Republican power center in another Florida mansion, some 400 miles to the north.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, a man Mr. Trump believes he put on the map, has been acting far less like an acolyte and more like a future competitor, Mr. Trump complains. With his stock rising fast in the party, the governor has conspicuously refrained from saying he would stand aside if Mr. Trump runs for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

“The magic words,” Trump has said to several associates and advisers.

That long-stewing resentment burst into public view recently in a dispute over a seemingly unrelated topic: Covid policies. After Mr. DeSantis refused to reveal his full Covid vaccination history, the former president publicly acknowledged he had received a booster. Last week [January 2022], he seemed to swipe at Mr. DeSantis by blasting as “gutless” politicians who dodge the question out of fear of blowback from vaccine skeptics.

Mr. DeSantis shot back on Friday, criticizing Mr. Trump’s early handling of the pandemic and saying he regretted not being more vocal in his complaints.

The back and forth exposed how far Republicans have shifted to the right on coronavirus politics. The doubts Mr. Trump amplified about public health expertise have only spiraled since he left office. Now his defense of the vaccines — even if often subdued and almost always with the caveat in the same breath that he opposes mandates — has put him uncharacteristically out of step with the hard-line elements of his party’s base and provided an opening for a rival.

But that it was Mr. DeSantis — a once-loyal member of the Trump court — wielding the knife made the tension about much more.

At its core, the dispute amounts to a stand-in for the broader challenge confronting Republicans at the outset of midterm elections. They are led by a defeated former president who demands total fealty, brooks no criticism and is determined to sniff out, and then snuff out, any threat to his control of the party.

That includes the 43-year-old DeSantis, who has told friends he believes Mr. Trump’s expectation that he bend the knee is asking too much. That refusal has set up a generational clash and a test of loyalty in the de facto capital of today’s G.O.P., one watched by Republicans elsewhere who’ve ridden to power on Mr. Trump’s coattails.

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… Mr. Trump has made no secret of his preparations for a third run for the White House. And while Mr. DeSantis, who is up for re-election this year, has not declared his plans, he is widely believed to be eyeing the presidency.

Mr. Trump and his aides are mindful of Republicans’ increasingly public fatigue with the drama that trails Mr. Trump. The former president’s false claims about fraud in the 2020 election — which Mr. DeSantis has not challenged — and his role in the events leading to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol have some Republicans looking for a fresh start.

Mr. DeSantis is often the first name Republicans cite as a possible Trump-style contender not named Trump.

“DeSantis would be a formidable 2024 candidate in the Trump lane should Trump not run,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. “He’s Trump but a little smarter, more disciplined and brusque without being too brusque.”

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Mr. DeSantis has $70 million in the bank for his re-election, a war chest he stocked with help from the Republican rank-and-file and donor class, alike. He has raised his profile in the same spaces Mr. Trump once dominated. The governor is ubiquitous on Fox News, where he is routinely met with the sort of softballs that once arced toward Mr. Trump. And he frequently mixes with the well-tanned Republican donor community near the former president’s winter home in South Florida.

It was not always this way.

Mr. DeSantis was a little-known Florida congressman in 2017, when Mr. Trump, who was then the president, spotted him on television and took keen interest. Mr. DeSantis, an Ivy League-educated military veteran and smooth-talking defender of the new president, was exactly what Mr. Trump liked in a politician.

It wasn’t long before Mr. Trump blessed Mr. DeSantis’s bid for governor and sent in staff to help him, lifting the lawmaker to a victory over a better-known rival for the party’s nomination.

Mr. DeSantis survived the general election and has often governed in a style that mirrors his patron, slashing at the left and scrapping with the news media. But that alone doesn’t placate Mr. Trump. As with other Republicans he has endorsed, the former president appears to take a kind of ownership interest in Mr. DeSantis — and to believe that he is owed dividends and deference.

“Look, I helped Ron DeSantis at a level that nobody’s ever seen before,” Mr. Trump said in an interview for a forthcoming book, “Insurgency,” on the rightward shift of the Republican Party, by the New York Times reporter Jeremy W. Peters. Mr. Trump said he believed Mr. DeSantis “didn’t have a chance” of winning without his help.

The former president’s expectation of deference from Mr. DeSantis is a reminder to other Republicans that a Trump endorsement comes with a price …

At times, Mr. Trump has sought to kindle his relationship with Mr. DeSantis. He has suggested the governor would be a strong choice for vice president. Similar courtship has helped win deference from other potential rivals. But Mr. DeSantis has not relented (Martin and Haberman 1-4).

Longtime Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone is dumping on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as an Ivy League 'fat boy' – in the latest sign of split between DeSantis and Trump.

Stone, who has known Trump for decades and advised him informally during the 2016 campaign – then got a presidential pardon following a long legal saga amid the Russia probe – tore into DeSantis following a report the former president considers the potential rival 'dull.'

'Trump sometimes President Donald Trump hits it right on the nose. Ron DeSantis Yale Harvard fat boy can’t get out of his own way,' he wrote.

'Not smart. Not honest and not going to be president,' Stone wrote on social media.

He called DeSantis, 43: 'An unknown congressman with a bad haircut and an ill-fitting suit until Donald Trump made him governor' ...

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The attack came days after Trump addressed a rally in Arizona and stoked conspiracy theories about Jan. 6th – as he positions for a potential run to reclaim the White House in 2024.

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Trump is said to have branded DeSantis a 'dull' charisma free-zone as rumors swirl the former president is angry the popular Florida governor hasn't said that he won't challenge Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Sources close to the former president who have recently talked to him about DeSantis said Trump has grown increasingly irked by DeSantis in recent months, with Trump beginning to voice his frustrations to those in his inner circle.

'In the context of the 2024 election, he usually gives DeSantis a pop in the nose in the middle of that type of conversation,' said a source who recently spoke to Trump about DeSantis.

'He says DeSantis has no personal charisma and has a dull personality,' the source told Axios.

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The root of Trump's ire towards DeSantis appears to stem from the fact that the Florida governor 'won't say he won't run [in 2024]. ... The others have stated pretty clearly they won't challenge him,' the source went on to say.

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When Trump was president, DeSantis was a frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private club in Palm Beach. The two would often dine together when Trump was in town (Earle and McNulty 1-2).

But DeSantis has … been careful to avoid direct confrontation with Trump, especially given the fact that he’s facing reelection this year and needs to maintain the support of the former president’s loyal voter base. In the interview with “Ruthless,” DeSantis dismissed the notion that his relationship with Trump had soured, blaming the media for fueling such rumors.

“You cannot fall for the bait,” he said. “You know what they’re trying to do, so just don’t take it. Just keep on keeping on. We need everybody united for a big red wave in 2022. We’ve got to fight the left, and not only fight, but beat the left. And that’s what we’re doing in Florida.”

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… DeSantis’s appeal among Republicans — including Trump’s base — is clear. Ford O’Connell, a Florida-based GOP strategist and former congressional candidate, said the governor has been successful in taking aspects of Trump’s political brand and making them his own, especially amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“What he’s done is he’s taken Donald Trump’s America First playbook and crafted it as a Florida First playbook,” O’Connell said.

“If you had told me that Ron DeSantis would display more political courage than Greg Abbott, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he added, referring to the Republican governor of Texas. “The idea that DeSantis gave all the other Republicans a backbone and cover to do what’s best for their states is why conservatives are rewarding him now.”

One Republican consultant with ties to Florida said that part of the interest in DeSantis as a future presidential candidate stems from the perception among many in the party that the Florida governor is effectively “Trump without the baggage.”

“He’s a little more polished, I think. He’s got the Harvard credentials, he served in the military, he’s the governor of the third largest state, but he can still speak the language of the MAGA crowd,” the consultant said. “With Trump, there’s still a lot of drama, so I think it probably worries him that there’s this other guy who’s getting a lot of attention” (Greenwood 1).

Trump holds sizable margins in pretty much every poll you can find, but some of the numbers are tightenng. Last week, the polling firm Echelon Insights published a raft of data on the Florida governor. It found that Trump’s lead over DeSantis among G.O.P. voters, which, according to its own poll, was 62 percent to 22 percent of respondents in October, had shrunk to 57 percent to 32 percent as of late January. Perhaps the most compelling bit of information Echelon found was that while 54 percent of Republicans thought “Trump was a great president and should remain the leader of the Republican Party,” 22 percent said Trump “was a great president but it is time for the Republican Party to find a new leader” and 18 percent said Trump “was not a great president and the Republican Party would be better off without his influence.” Which means that 40 percent of G.O.P. voters are at least open to the possibility of someone new.

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DeSantis’s recent rise to national prominence has come from his handling of the pandemic — he has become the loudest anti-lockdown voice in the national conversation and can point to his repeated refusal to shut down his state. This might be a popular stance in 2022, but it’s hard to imagine how it will play in two years. If Covid is shutting down schools and businesses in two years, we will most likely be looking at a vastly different country. If we have returned to some semblance of normalcy, it’s quite possible that nobody will really care how DeSantis handled the pandemic (Kang 1-2).

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis chastised a group of students wearing face masks on Wednesday, saying, “Honestly, it’s not doing anything and we’ve got to stop with this Covid theater.”

“How much of a [expletive] do you have to be to yell at a bunch of high school students who are just trying to be safe?” Seth Meyers said. “They’re actually doing the right thing and you’re scolding them for it; you’re like an old man who sees a bunch of innocent teens walking by and screams, ‘Hey, you kids get on my lawn!’”

“Also, what the hell is Covid theater? Those plays where all the actors have to stand six feet apart? [imitating theatergoer] ‘I just saw the Covid theater production of “Les Mis” — the stage was the size of a football field!’” — SETH MEYERS (Bendix 1)

Florida feels like a state running a fever, its very identity changing at a frenetic pace.

Once the biggest traditional presidential battleground, it has suddenly turned into a laboratory of possibility for the political right.

Discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity prohibited in early elementary school. Math textbooks rejected en masse for what the state called “indoctrination.” Schools and employers limited in what they can teach about racism and other aspects of history. Tenured professors in public universities subjected to new reviews. Abortions banned after 15 weeks. The creation of law enforcement office to investigate election crimes. A congressional map redrawn to give Republicans an even bigger advantage.

And, perhaps most stunning of all, Disney, long an untouchable corporate giant, stripped of the ability to govern itself for the first time in more than half a century, in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. conversations with young schoolchildren.

“It does have this feeling of, ‘Oh, what the hell just happened?’” said Kristen Arnett, a novelist and Orlando native who now lives in Miami. “It’s overwhelming.”

Florida has transformed over the past two years as Gov. Ron DeSantis has increased and flexed his power to remarkable effect, embracing policies that once seemed unthinkable. That has made the Republican governor a favorite of the party’s Fox News-viewing base and turned him into a possible presidential contender (Maxxei 1-2).

Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed on Friday [April 30, 2022] that he would make Florida a so-called constitutional carry state, which would allow people to publicly carry firearms without permits.

"The legislature will get it done," DeSantis said during a news conference in north Florida. "I can't tell you if it's going to be next week or six months, but I can tell you that before I am done as governor, we will have a signature on that."

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For DeSantis, successfully ushering a constitutional carry measure into law would be another conservative victory as he builds a resume that could appeal to Republican primary voters if he decides to run for president. …

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Responding to DeSantis' announcement on Twitter, US Rep. Charlie Crist, ... running for governor as a Democrat, said, "The last thing Florida needs during a gun violence epidemic is a governor who wants dangerous people carrying guns on the street without so much as a background check."

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Though DeSantis has voiced support for constitutional carry in the past, Friday's declaration was his most vocal assurance to gun rights groups that he intends to make it a priority. If it's approved, Florida would become the second-largest state to allow permitless concealed carry of guns. Texas Gov. Greg Abbot signed a bill last year that allows people to carry guns most places without licenses or safety training.

A permit is not required to carry a handgun in 23 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (Contorno 1-2).

Works cited:

Bendix, Trish. “Seth Meyers Roasts Ron DeSantis for Berating Teens.” New York Times, March 4, 2-22. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/arts/television/ron-desantis-kids.html

Caputo, Marc. “DeSantis Refuses To Take Sides in Trump-Pence Clash as 2024 Speculation Grows.” NBC News, updated February 8, 2022. Net. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/desantis-refuses-take-sides-trump-pence-clash-2024-speculation-grows-rcna15185

Contorno, Steve. “DeSantis Vows Florida Will Allow People To Carry Firearms without Permits 'Before I Am Done as Governor'.” CNN, April 29, 2022. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/29/politics/desantis-concealed-firearms/index.html

Earle, Goeff and McNulty, Matt. “'Ron's a Yale Harvard Fat Boy, Not Honest and Not Going To Be President': Roger Stone Sides with Trump in Rift with De Santis.” Daily Mail UK, updated January 18, 2022. Net. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10412149/Roger-Stone-calls-DeSantis-Yale-Harvard-Fat-Boy.html

Greenwood, Max. “Trump-DeSantis Tensions Ratchet Up.” The Hill, January 18, 2022. Net. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/590071-trump-desantis-tensions-ratchet-up/

Kang, Jay Caspian. “Does Ron DeSantis Really Have a Shot against Trump?” New York Times, February 3, 2022. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/opinion/desantis-trump-republicans.html

Martin, Jonathan and Haberman, Maggie. “Who Is King of Florida? Tensions Rise between Trump and a Former Acolyte.” New York Times, January 16, 2022. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/16/us/politics/trump-desantis.html

Mazzei, Patricia. “How DeSantis Transformed Florida’s Political Identity.” New York Times, April 28, 2022. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/us/politics/ron-desantis-florida-politics.html

The Amoralists: Ron DeSantis, Part Three; Extreme Right Wing Legislation

For DeSantis, the pandemic offered the opportunity to distinguish himself from Trump. In January [2022], Jonathan Chait described his strategy in New York magazine:

Where Trump was tiptoeing around vaccine skepticism, DeSantis jumped in with both feet, banning private companies like cruise lines from requiring vaccination, appointing a vaccine skeptic to his state’s highest office, and refusing to say if he’s gotten his booster dose.

DeSantis “may or may not actually be more delusional on Covid than Donald Trump,” Chait wrote, “but it is a revealing commentary on the state of their party that he sees his best chance to supplant Trump as positioning himself as even crazier” (Edsall 2).

[Here are some of the far-right bills that DeSantis has championed to become Florida law.]

Intimidating University Students and Faculty

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed legislation into law on Tuesday [June 2021] that requires students and faculty of public Florida universities to report their political views to the state starting this July. [It] … requires university students and faculty to fill out a survey from the government about their political beliefs in what Gov. DeSantis has called an effort to monitor “intellectual diversity” on campus. Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson (R), echoing the Governor’s sentiments, said that there was a “great risk” that the state’s universities had become “socialism factories.”

Democrats and university faculty have attempted to get answers from state Republicans on how these survey results will be used, as the bill provides no guarantees or protections against partisan targeting of campuses and staff and does not protect student confidentiality. The move to “diversify” campus speech comes just a few days after Gov. DeSantis publicly supported the banning of critical race theory and announced he would campaign against any school board members who promote teaching the history of racism in America to Florida students.

Moment of Silence Bill

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed [June 2021] a new law mandating that public schools in the Sunshine State have a daily moment of silence.

The bill, which DeSantis signed into law on Monday, requires teachers to set aside at least one minute each day in the first period of school for a moment of silence.

Teachers are prohibited “from making suggestions as to the nature of any reflection that a student may engage in during the moment of silence,” the law states.

DeSantis spoke about the new law in religious terms when signing it on Monday, saying it allows students to “reflect and be able to pray as they see fit,”according to local television station WJXT.

The governor, a close ally of former president Trump, signed the bill at a Jewish community center while behind a placard that read “protect religious liberty,” the local outlet reported (Oshin 1).

Anti-Riot Bill

The legislation is one of many attempts to monitor and silence dissent that Florida Republicans have passed into law this year. In April [2021], Gov. DeSantis signed HB 1 into law, an “anti-riot bill” that Democrats say will stifle First Amendment rights to protest and is purposely written broadly to allow police significant leeway to arrest and convict protesters (Florida 1).

Florida's new "anti-riot" law championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as a way to quell violent protests, is unconstitutional, and cannot be enforced; a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The 90-page decision by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee found the recently-enacted law "vague and overbroad" and amounted to an assault on First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly as well as the Constitution's due process protections.

People engaged in peaceful protest or innocently in the same area when a demonstration turned violent could face criminal charges and stiff penalties under the law, the judge said.

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DeSantis said during an appearance in New Port Richey that the state will take its case to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. …

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The lawsuit was filed against DeSantis and other state officials by the NAACP Florida conference, Dream Defenders, Black Lives Matter, Alliance Broward and other groups who argue the law appears specifically aimed to halt protests by Black people and other minorities.

The measure was passed earlier this year by the GOP-led Legislature and signed into law [2021] by the governor. It was a reaction to demonstrations around the country following last year's killing by Minneapolis police of George Floyd, a Black man, that stirred passions nationwide under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement (Associated “Judge” 1).

Anti-Sanctuary Cities Bill

On September 22, 2021, a federal judge ruled that sections of a 2019 Florida immigration enforcement law were racially motivated. The law generally banned so-called sanctuary cities, which is a city, county, or state that limits its cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in order to protect low-priority undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in 2019 as one of his administration’s priorities. His administration said it would appeal the ruling.

U.S. Southern District of Florida Judge Beth Bloom struck down portions of SB 168 that bans local and state officials from adopting “sanctuary” policies for undocumented immigrants and requires law enforcement agencies and officers to “use best efforts to support the enforcement of immigration law” when actively performing their duties. She also blocked a provision that enables local and state agencies to transport detainees to federal custody outside of their jurisdiction.

Judge Bloom repeatedly said that the law was racially motivated and that its supporters provided no evidence that such law was necessary to lower crime. Additionally, she said anti-immigrant hate groups such as Floridians for Immigration Enforcement guided the bill, citing numerous correspondence between the organization and staff members of State Senator Joe Gruters, who sponsored the bill.

The case began after the city of South Miami, the Florida Immigration Coalition, and other organizations filed a lawsuit against Gov. DeSantis in order to void the law. The plaintiffs’ witnesses testified that more people were victims of domestic violence because they were afraid of being deported if they involved the police. Others said undocumented immigrants did not access social services or healthcare clinics because of the same fear.

According to data from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and federal data on ICE arrests, which was presented by the plaintiffs, approximately 73 percent of ICE arrests in Florida between 2015 and 2018 involved individuals with no criminal history or a record of minor offenses.

On the other hand, only 0.4 percent of these arrests involved individuals with serious criminal offenses, such as sexual assault and murder. Therefore, the bill sponsors’ claim that the law would improve public safety and reduce crime rates are not supported by statistical data, despite the increase in undocumented immigration (Hubbs 1-2).

Anti-Mandate Law Protecting Workers and Children’s Parents

Today [November 18, 2021], Governor Ron DeSantis was joined by Florida Speaker Chris Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson to sign legislation that will protect Floridians from losing their jobs due to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and protect parents' rights to make healthcare decisions for students. The bills were passed through a Special Session of the Florida Legislature and are effective upon the Governor's signature. The legislation signed today is the strongest pro-freedom, anti-mandate action taken by any state in the nation.

✓ Private Employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates are prohibited.

✓ Employers who violate these employee health protections will be fined.

✓ Government entities may not require COVID-19 vaccinations of anyone, including employees.

✓ Educational institutions may not require students to be COVID-19 vaccinated.

✓ School districts may not have school face mask policies.

✓ School districts may not quarantine healthy students.

✓ Students and parents may sue violating school districts and recover costs and attorney's fees (Florida 1-2).

“Don’t Say Gay” Bill

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed legislation on Monday [March 2022] that prohibits classroom instruction and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in some elementary school grades, a law that opponents have called “Don’t Say Gay.”

“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, said from a classroom at a charter school in Spring Hill, Fla., north of Tampa.

The law, titled “Parental Rights in Education,” has drawn national criticism from L.G.B.T.Q. organizations that fear it will have a chilling effect among teachers and young students.

Workers at Disney, one of the state’s major employers and corporate political donors, staged walkouts in protest after the bill passed the Legislature, even after the company’s chief executive had apologized to employees for not taking a stronger stand against the legislation and paused contributions to political campaigns. On Monday, Disney released a statement condemning the new law and urging lawmakers to repeal it or the courts to strike it down.

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“DeSantis is attempting to censor and exclude an entire community of people from our public schools for his own political gain,” State Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat and the state’s first openly gay Latino lawmaker, said in a statement. “This law doesn’t solve any problem that exists.”

The uproar did little to move the governor or lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Legislature, who spent much of their annual session passing legislation to put Florida at the forefront of the nation’s culture wars, including a 15-week abortion ban, while avoiding pressing issues such as the state’s lack of affordable housing and shaky insurance market.

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“If those are the types of people that are opposing us on parents’ rights, I wear that like a badge of honor,” he [DeSantis] said at the bill signing. “I don’t care what corporate media outlets say, I don’t care what Hollywood says, I don’t care what big corporations say. Here I stand. I’m not backing down” (Mazzei 1).

Hospital Visitation Bill

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a COVID-19-linked bill requiring health care centers to allow in-person visitations, as the Republican announced he approved dozens of other measures passed during this year’s legislative session.

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The visitation bill requires that health care facilities, including nursing homes, allow in-person visits during end-of-life situations and in most other cases.

DeSantis and other state health officials said the measure was inspired by hospitals limiting visits during the coronavirus pandemic (Associated “DeSantis” 1).

No CRT in the Classroom Bill

Florida lawmakers on Thursday [March 2022] passed a bill that would limit how educators discuss certain racial issues in classrooms.

The bill, known as HB 7/Individual Freedom, was passed by the Senate along party lines Thursday and now goes to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was expected to sign it into law.

DeSantis and Republican lawmakers in the state have pushed for legislation to prevent Critical Race Theory instruction in schools, with the governor proposing a "Stop W.O.K.E. Act" last year to take aim against CRT in schools. The acronym stands for "Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees."

Proponents said the bill simply states that teachers and businesses can't force students and employees to feel they are to blame for racial injustices in America's past.

Opponents said the legislation was designed to create racial division and would have a chilling effect on the discussion of injustices past and present.

The bill reads in part, "A person should not be instructed that he or she must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress for actions, in which he or she played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex."

Critical race theory is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. It was developed during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what scholars viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society (Florida Senate 1).

Anti-Abortion Law

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law on Thursday [April 2022] a Mississippi-style anti-abortion measure that bans the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy without exemptions for rape, incest or human trafficking.

The bill, which goes into effect July 1, does allow exemptions in cases where a pregnancy is "serious risk" to the mother or a fatal fetal abnormality is detected if two physicians confirm the diagnosis in writing.

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Previously, Florida had allowed abortion through the second trimester of a pregnancy, making it one of the most permissive states for abortion in the southeast. Abortion advocates said many women from neighboring states often traveled to Florida for the procedure, meaning changes to Florida's law could be felt all throughout the region.

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"We are here today to defend those who can't defend themselves," DeSantis said Thursday on a stage surrounded by several female lawmakers, anti-abortion advocates and children. "This will represent the most significant protections for life that we have seen in a generation."

The signing of the bill comes days after a Tallahassee circuit court judge ruled that Florida can require a 24-hour waiting period to get an abortion, ending a seven-year legal battle over another contentious anti-abortion measure (Contorno 1-2).

DeSantis Wants Stronger Gerrymander Bill

Republican legislative leaders in Florida say they're going to give up trying to redraw the state's new map of congressional districts and instead consider one offered by Gov. Ron DeSantis during a special session next week [April 2022].

DeSantis, a potential Republican presidential aspirant, has been pushing a map that's considered more advantageous to his party.

The announcement on Monday by state Senate President Wilton Simpson and House Speaker Chris Sprowls came two weeks after DeSantis vetoed a map that had been approved by the legislature.

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Florida is one of just three states with more than one congressional district that hasn't yet finalized its new map, according to FiveThirtyEight.

The state could prove crucial to determining control of the U.S. House.

Thanks to massive population growth, Florida gained a congressional seat as a result of the last U.S. census, for a total of 28 districts (Hernandez 1).

Stop Woke Act

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation on Friday that aims to regulate how schools and businesses address race and gender, the state’s latest effort to restrict education about those topics.

The law, which has become known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” prohibits workplace training or school instruction that teaches that individuals are “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously”; that people are privileged or oppressed based on race, gender, or national origin; or that a person “bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” over actions committed in the past by members of the same race, gender, or national origin. The law says such trainings or lessons amount to discrimination.

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“No one should be instructed to feel as if they are not equal or shamed because of their race,” DeSantis said in a statement on Friday [April 22, 2022]. “In Florida, we will not let the far-left woke agenda take over our schools and workplaces. There is no place for indoctrination or discrimination in Florida.”

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“This dangerous law is part of a nationwide trend to whitewash history and chill free speech in classrooms and workplaces,” Amy Turkel, interim executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement. “It will infringe on teachers’ and employers’ First Amendment rights and chill their ability to use concepts like systemic racism and gender discrimination to teach about and discuss important American history.”

…

… it prohibits lessons or trainings in schools and workplaces that teach that individuals “should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion,” an apparent reference to affirmative action policies, which traditionally benefit Black and Latino students or employees in an effort to offset centuries of racial discrimination. They may also not advance the idea that concepts like merit or racial colorblindness “were created by members of a particular race, color, sex, or national origin to oppress members of another race, color, sex, or national origin” (Reilly 1-2).

Works cited:

Associated Press. “A Judge Has Blocked the 'Anti-Riot' Law Passed in Florida after George Floyd Protests.” NPR, September 9, 2021. Net. https://www.npr.org/2021/09/09/1035687247/florida-anti-riot-law-ron-desantis-george-floyd-black-lives-matter-protests

Associated Press. “DeSantis Signs Hospital Visitation Bill, Other Legislation.” Local 10, April 8, 2022. Net. https://www.local10.com/news/florida/2022/04/08/desantis-signs-hospital-visitation-bill-other-legislation/

Contorno, Steve. “DeSantis Signs Florida's 15-Week Abortion Ban into Law.” CNN, April 14, 2022. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/14/politics/desantis-signs-abortion-ban-florida/index.html

Edsall, Thomas B. ‘”We Want People That Are Going To Fight the Left,’ Says the Man Out-Trumping Trump.” New York Times, March 16, 2022. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/opinion/ron-desantis-is-gambling-on-out-trumping-trump.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Florida Health. “ ICYMI- Governor Ron Desantis Signs Legislation to Protect Florida Jobs.” Florida Health, November 18, 2021. Net. https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2021/11/20211118-icymi-legislation-protect-florida-jobs.pr.html

“Florida Senate Passes Race Education Bill, Goes to DeSantis for Signature.” NBCMiami, March 10, 2022. Net. https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/florida-senate-passes-race-education-bill-goes-to-desantis-for-signature/2710663/

“Florida Students Must Register Their Political Views with the State.” Democracy Docket, June 23, 2021. Net. https://www.democracydocket.com/alerts/florida-students-must-register-their-political-views-with-the-state/

Hernandez, Joe. “Florida Lawmakers Let DeSantis Draw a Congressional Map after He Vetoed the Last One.” NPR, April 12, 2022. Net. https://www.npr.org/2022/04/12/1092290277/florida-lawmakers-let-desantis-draw-a-congressional-map-after-he-vetoed-the-last

Hubbs Law Firm. “Federal Judge Rules Florida's SB 168 Was Racially Motivated.” Hubbs Law, October 15, 2021. Net. https://www.hubbslawfirm.com/blog/2021/october/federal-judge-rules-floridas-sb-168-was-racially/

Mazzei, Patricia. “DeSantis Signs Florida Bill that Opponents Call ‘Don’t Say Gay’.” New York Times, March 28, 2022. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/28/us/desantis-florida-dont-say-gay-bill.html

Oshin, Olafimhan. “DeSantis Signs Law Mandating Daily Moment of Silence in Florida Schools.” The Hill, June 15, 2021. Net. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/558563-desantis-signs-law-mandating-daily-moment-of-silence-in-florida-schools/

Reilly, Katie. “Florida’s Governor Just Signed the 'Stop Woke Act.’ Here’s What It Means for Schools and Businesses.” Time, April 22, 2022. Net. https://time.com/6168753/florida-stop-woke-law/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc&utm_campaign=newsletter+brief+default+ac&utm_content=+++20220425+++body&et_rid=207222382&lctg=207222382