DeSantis was born on September 14, 1978, in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Karen (nee Rogers) and Ronald Daniel DeSantis. He is of Italian descent, as his great-great-grandmother and great-great-grandfather were from Italy. His great-great-grandfather Salvatore Storti immigrated to the United States in 1904, eventually settling in Pennsylvania. His great-great-grandmother Luigia Colucci moved to the U.S. to be with her husband in 1917. DeSantis's mother was a nurse and his father installed Nielsen TV rating boxes. His family moved to Orlando, Florida, before relocating to Dunedin, Florida, when he was six years old. … He was a member of the Little League team from Dunedin National that made it to the 1991 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
DeSantis attended Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School and Dunedin High School, graduating in 1997. He then attended Yale University. DeSantis was captain of Yale's varsity baseball team and joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity … (Ron 2).
At Dunedin High School, classmates knew him as a super jock and a brilliant student.
At Yale, the baseball coach barely hesitated naming the former team captain when an interviewer in 2002 asked if he ever managed someone of presidential material.
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Yale baseball coach John Stuper says he stood out on the field (a four-year starting outfielder and .313 hitter, compared to .230 for another former Yale team captain, George H.W. Bush), and off. Among the many privileged Yalies, DeSantis worked as an electrician's assistant, baseball camp coach, and other odd jobs to cover expenses.
"You look at his transcript his last two years, there wasn't a B on it. How he could work 20 hours a week at baseball, probably that many hours a week at various jobs and still kill it in the classroom like he did is pretty amazing," said Stuper (Smith and Leary 4).
“You don’t need three years for law school,” [Governor] DeSantis, a Harvard Law product, said in Naples Friday …
“Some of these degrees you see. You know, I went to law school; you don’t need three years for law school,” DeSantis divulged. “I mean, seriously, you don’t. You could do it probably in one. Definitely in two. You don’t need three.”
“It’s a waste,” DeSantis continued. “And there’s other degrees where they make you do more years than you need to. We don’t want them toiling for no reason. Get the skills and go out there and put them to use” (Gancarski 1).
At Harvard [Law School], DeSantis began to earn notice in conservative circles through involvement with the Federalist Society, an influential network of lawyers.
"I certainly became introduced to him through that, and I suspect a lot of other people did, too," said Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the group in Washington.
Leo said DeSantis has a rare ability — he likened him to ardent conservative Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and Mike Lee of Utah — to boil down complex, esoteric conservative principles and capture broad public attention.
A cum laude Harvard Law degree is a ticket to virtually any job. DeSantis chose military service, joining the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps while at Harvard.
"You gravitate toward a handful of people and a handful of people end up taking leadership roles. Ron was one of those," said Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, DeSantis' roommate at Naval Justice School in Rhode Island and a Republican candidate for governor there.
DeSantis worked at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, where he met his wife, local television host Casey Black. (They have a daughter and another child on the way.) He served at the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in 2007, he volunteered for and won a coveted and highly competitive assignment with SEAL Team One, deploying to Iraq.
Helping advise the SEALS on rules of engagement, such as when to shoot and whether to go into certain areas, DeSantis deployed to Fallujah as part of the troop surge. He earned a Bronze Star (meritorious service), usually reserved for senior officers.
Outside of his Federalist Society activities, friends say DeSantis' conservatism and interest in politics rarely surfaced in high school, college or his military career. He has said it rose from a lifelong passion for history and studying the Founding Fathers.
The tea party movement was exploding as DeSantis left active duty, and he turned his attention to a political career (Smith and Leary 5).
After exploring a run for state House, DeSantis in early 2012 pivoted to an open congressional seat in the Jacksonville area, joining a crowded Republican primary with better-known candidates.
But DeSantis had powerful factors in his favor: the military record, Ivy League connections and conservative bona fides from a book he wrote in 2011, Dreams From Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama. The book excoriates the president [Obama] as a European-style leftist abandoning the principles of the founding fathers.
DeSantis hawked the self-published book at tea party gatherings, while contacts from Yale and Harvard provided early fundraising.
"He came to my attention because he's a Yalie," said Joseph Fogg, a 1968 graduate who led financial firms and now lives in Naples. Fogg hosted early fundraisers for DeSantis, impressed by his strong views about Obama. "Those of us on the conservative side of the ledger were looking for some bright young people that would be taking the country in a different direction."
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Another Yale connection, former DeSantis roommate Nick Sinatra, provided inroads to Trump. Sinatra worked on Carl Paladino's 2010 gubernatorial campaign in New York alongside Roger Stone, who composed a tweet that Trump fired off on March 20, 2012: "Ron DeSantis, Iraq vet, Navy hero, bronze star, Yale, Harvard Law, running for Congress in Fla. Very impressive."
It was Fox News — advertising, not appearances — that brought DeSantis from obscurity in his first campaign. His team gambled on heavy advertising while DeSantis began to walk neighborhoods and introduce himself to voters.
It began to pay off in polls, and that summer DeSantis was taken to Washington for a round of meetings with conservative groups, including FreedomWorks, Heritage Foundation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Club for Growth.
Crucial to that endeavor was Daniel Faraci, a Washington lobbyist and campaign consultant who helped prep DeSantis and pitched the candidate as rock solid ideologically.
During a sit-down with the Club for Growth, DeSantis impressed with a command of the Bill of Rights and the issues. The book helped, too. "Right off the bat he was scoring positive points with us," said Andy Roth, a club vice president. "It was a no-brainer that we endorsed him and then, as they say, the rest is history."
The first FedEx full of checks provided resources to buy more ads, including attacks on primary rivals, who complained they were misleading or false. The club's wealthy members kicked in more than $100,000 and have since contributed $500,000 to DeSantis' campaigns.
He won the GOP primary by 16 percentage points and easily dispatched a Democrat in the general election (Smith and Leary 4,6-7).
The most memorable part of Mr. DeSantis’s six years in Congress might be the platform they gave him to heighten his profile on Fox News, where he frequently represented the hard-line Freedom Caucus. Later, he would staunchly defend Mr. Trump over the Russia investigation.
“He was a policy wonk with an ability to really identify a few areas within his committees, responsibilities which he knew would give him the political opportunity to get on television,” said Scott Parkinson, who was Mr. DeSantis’s chief of staff in 2018. Mr. DeSantis was appearing on cable TV multiple times a day, Mr. Parkinson recalled.
Mr. DeSantis often slept in his office and walked the Capitol halls wearing headphones, avoiding unwanted interactions. He made few friends and struck other lawmakers as aloof.
A brief Senate run in 2016 proved critical: It exposed him to a national network of wealthy donors he would later tap in his long-shot bid for governor (Mazzei 4).
Much of Mr. DeSantis’s attention in Congress was on terrorism. From his perch as chairman of a national security subcommittee, he delivered attention-grabbing statements that stoked fear of Muslims. Following the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, for example, he speculated that there were “thousands” of potential terrorists on federal watch lists in Florida.
“He’s willing to tolerate and even utilize prejudice to advance his agenda,” said Hassan Shibly, executive director of the Florida Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil-liberties organization (Mazzie and Saul 5).
On January 29, 2014, DeSantis introduced into the House the Faithful Execution of the Law Act of 2014 (H.R. 3973; 113th Congress), a bill that would direct the United States Department of Justice to report to the United States Congress whenever any federal agency refrains from enforcing laws or regulations for any reason. In the report, the government would have to explain why it had decided not to enforce that law. DeSantis spoke in favor of the bill, arguing that "President Obama has not only failed to uphold several of our nation's laws, he has vowed to continue to do so in order to enact his unpopular agenda... The American people deserve to know exactly which laws the Obama administration is refusing to enforce and why."
In 2013, DeSantis signed a pledge sponsored by Americans for Prosperity promising to vote against any global warming legislation that would raise taxes.
On August 24, 2017, DeSantis added a rider to the proposed fiscal 2018 spending bill package that would end funding for the 2017 Special Counsel investigation "or for the investigation under that order of matters occurring before June 2015" (the month Trump announced he was running for president) 180 days after passage of the bill. The amendment would counter a bipartisan bill authored by two Democratic and two Republican U.S. Senators that was meant to limit the president's power to fire the special counsel. The DeSantis amendment would potentially cut off funding for the investigation by November 2017. It was also a response to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's statement that the DOJ, "...doesn't conduct fishing expeditions." Rep. DeSantis said that the May 17, 2017 DOJ order "didn't identify a crime to be investigated and practically invites a fishing expedition."
DeSantis opposed the Iran nuclear deal framework, calling it "a bad deal that will significantly degrade our national security." DeSantis said "the Iran deal gives Ayatollah Khamenei exactly what he wants: billions of dollars in sanctions relief, validation of the Iranian nuclear program, and the ability to stymie inspections."
During a line of questioning, DeSantis told Secretary of State John Kerry that the executive branch had a legal obligation to provide Congress with the details behind any side deals made between world leaders and Iran. DeSantis accused President Barack Obama of giving better treatment of Cuba's Raul Castro and Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei than of Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu.
In 2015, DeSantis introduced the Guantanamo Bay Recidivism Prevention Act, which would cut off foreign aid to countries that receive detainees if they show back up on the terrorism recidivism list. DeSantis opposed President Obama's plan to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, saying "Bringing hardened terrorists to the U.S. homeland harms our national security."
Regarding the formal restart of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba, DeSantis said "Raising the Cuban flag in the United States is a slap in the face to those who have experienced the brutality of the Castro regime."
In 2013, DeSantis introduced the Palestinian Accountability Act, which would halt U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority until it formally recognizes Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and cuts off all ties with the terror group Hamas.
In 2016, DeSantis co-introduced the Non-Discrimination of Israel in Labeling Act, which will defend the right of Israeli producers to label products manufactured in the West Bank as “Israel,” “Made in Israel,” or “Product of Israel.” DeSantis believes that the U.S. Embassy should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
DeSantis is opposed to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He has called for the "full and complete repeal" of the act.
DeSantis was a critic of President Obama's immigration policies; he opposed Obama's deferred action programs (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA)) and accused him of failing to enforce immigration laws. DeSantis opposes "sanctuary cities." He is a co-sponsor of the Establishing Mandatory Minimums for Illegal Reentry Act of 2015, also known as Kate's Law, which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to increase penalties applicable to aliens who unlawfully reenter the United States after being removed.
DeSantis opted not to receive his congressional pension, and he filed a measure that would eliminate pensions for members of Congress. After introducing the End Pensions in Congress Act, DeSantis said "The Founding Fathers envisioned elected officials as part of a servant class, yet Washington has evolved into a ruling class culture." DeSantis supports a constitutional amendment to impose term limits for members of Congress, so that Representatives would be limited to three terms and senators to two terms.
He sponsored the Faithful Execution of the Law Act of 2014, which would direct the United States Department of Justice to report to the United States Congress whenever any federal agency refrains from enforcing laws or regulations for any reason. Speaking about the bill, DeSantis said "You can not have rule of law when people don’t know what the law is." The bill passed the U.S. House in March 2014.
DeSantis introduced a proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution that would provide that "Congress shall make no law respecting the citizens of the United States that does not also apply to the Senators and Representatives."
DeSantis has said that the debate in Washington, D.C. over how to reduce the deficit should shift emphasis from tax increases to curtailing spending and triggering economic growth. DeSantis supports a “no budget no pay” policy for Congress to encourage the passage of a budget. He believes the Federal Reserve System should be audited.
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DeSantis opposes abortion and has denounced Planned Parenthood.
DeSantis was endorsed by the socially conservative Family Research Council Action PAC in 2015. DeSantis agreed with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., saying "This case does not concern the availability or legality of contraceptives, and individuals can obtain and use these as they see fit. The question is simply whether the government can force the owners of Hobby Lobby to pay for abortifacients in violation of their faith."
DeSantis opposes gun control. He received an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association.
DeSantis opposes federal education programs such as No Child Left Behind Act and Race to the Top, saying that education policy should be made at the local level.
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DeSantis proposed an amendment that would halt funding for Mueller’s 2017 Special Counsel investigation probe six months after the amendment’s passage. In addition, this provision also would prohibit Mueller from investigating matters that occurred before June 2015, when Trump launched his presidential campaign (Ron 5-7).
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) today proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to impose term limits on members of Congress. The amendment would limit U.S. senators to two six-year terms and members of the U.S. House of Representatives to three two-year terms.
“D.C. is broken,” said Sen. Cruz. “The American people resoundingly agreed on Election Day, and President-elect Donald Trump has committed to putting government back to work for the American people. It is well past time to put an end to the cronyism and deceit that has transformed Washington into a graveyard of good intentions.”
Cruz continued: “The time is now for Congress, with the overwhelming support of the American people, to submit this constitutional amendment to the states for speedy ratification. With control of a decisive majority of the states, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, we have a responsibility to answer the voters’ call-to-action. We must deliver.”
“Term limits are the first step towards reforming Capitol Hill,” said Rep. DeSantis. “Eliminating the political elite and infusing Washington with new blood will restore the citizen legislature that our Founding Fathers envisioned. The American people have called for increased accountability and we must deliver. Senator Cruz has been instrumental in efforts to hold Congress accountable, and I look forward to working with him to implement term limits.”
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In December, Sen. Cruz and Rep. DeSantis published an op-ed in the Washington Post announcing their intention to introduce a term limits amendment in the 115th Congress (Ted Cruz 1).
Works cited:
Gancarski, A. G. “Ron DeSantis Says Three Years of Law School Is a ‘waste’.” Florida Politics, October 15, 2021. Net. https://floridapolitics.com/archives/465049-ron-desantis-says-three-years-of-law-school-is-a-waste/
Mazzei, Patricia and Saul, Stephanie. “Ron DeSantis, a Trump Ally, Struggles in Florida as Racial Flare-Ups Come to Fore.” New York Times. November 1, 2018. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/politics/ron-desantis-florida-trump-gillum.html
Mazzei, Patricia. “G.O.P. Heir? He’s Certainly Trying.” New York Times, updated August 15, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/us/politics/ron-desantis-republican-trump.html
“Ron DeSantis.” Wikipedia. Net. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_DeSantis
“Ron DeSantis.” Military Wikipedia. Net. https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Ron_DeSantis
Smith, Adam C. and Leary, Alex. “Ron DeSantis: Capitol Hill Loner, Fox News Fixture, Trump Favorite in Florida Governor’s Race.” Tampa Bay Times, updated February 10, 2018. Net. https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/02/09/ron-desantis-capitol-hill-loner-fox-news-fixture-trump-favorite-in-florida-governors-race/
Ted Cruz. “Sen. Cruz and Rep. DeSantis Introduce Constitutional Amendment To Impose Term Limits on Members of Congress.” cruz.senate.gov, January 3, 2017. Net. https://www.cruz.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sen-cruz-and-rep-desantis-introduce-constitutional-amendment-to-impose-term-limits-on-members-of-congress
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