Editorial: The creeping authoritarianism of Ron DeSantis
The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board
Gov. Ron DeSantis is treading dangerously close to authoritarianism. He should stop -- now.
Copying whole chapters of President Donald Trump's playbook, DeSantis showed his would-be strong-man side last week when he proposed a new law aimed at crushing "disorderly" protests. This unneeded measure's chief feature would create new felony crimes when property is damaged or when people are injured as a result of protests involving seven or more individuals.
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Note that violent protests haven't been a problem in Florida. Note also that the state already has plenty of laws against damaging property or injuring people.
Yet, if the Legislature does approve this law in a special session this fall, the act would no doubt chill peaceful non-violent protest — which is plausibly its real intent, given the potential for massive street demonstrations if the presidential election outcome proves as uncertain and embattled as many now predict. Let's be clear, this is criminalizing freedom of speech — a foundation of our democracy.
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Of course, DeSantis' other intent is to brandish "law and order" credentials to shore up his standing with conservatives while his popularity plunges among almost everyone else over his mishandling of the coronavirus crisis. Let the record show more than 700,000 Floridians testing positive for COVID-19 and 14,000 dead — while the governor denies, deflects, and dispenses bad advice.
But this wasn't DeSantis' only shift toward the autocratic. Also last week, he asked Attorney General Ashley Moody to investigate former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for contributing $16 million to a group paying outstanding fees and fines for freed felons, to meet the requirements of a Florida law that has knee-capped Amendment 4. The amendment, approved by nearly two-thirds of Florida voters in 2018, was meant to end the Jim Crow-era lifetime ban on voting imposed on most people in this state with felony convictions -- despite the fact they've served their time. A ban that has kept more than one in five Black Floridians of voting age off the voting rolls.
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Moody's politically motivated complaint — that Bloomberg is potentially "buying votes" — is cynicism itself, given that part of the state's defense of its law is that if individual felons can't afford to pay outstanding fines, others could do it for them.
Not content with again trying to cripple Amendment 4, DeSantis wielded his authority to slap down one of its authors personally: Desmond Meade, executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. A former drug dealer who was tossed out of the U.S. Army three decades ago, Meade served his time, graduated from law school, made it onto Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people and led the successful voting-rights crusade.
But DeSantis, along with Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, decided Meade wasn't rehabilitated enough for a pardon. As half of the state Board of Executive Clemency, they blocked Meade's request last week. (Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried voted to pardon Meade; Moody recused herself.) They revealed themselves as petty men, unable to recognize real citizenship when it stands before them.
Still, DeSantis was not done flirting with top-down rule. Turning to the pandemic, the governor scolded university officials for threatening to suspend students who defy social-distancing measures. He added that he's willing to consider a college students' "bill of rights" that would prevent state universities from taking actions against students who want to party without the inconvenience of wearing a mask or keeping social distance, deadly virus be damned.
And DeSantis capped off the week Friday by declaring that the state is now in "Phase 3" of its reopening plans, meaning restaurants and bars can operate at full capacity, even as COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to climb. It is as if, by fiat, he could make the dangers of the virus disappear — or at least feel unimportant.
His move makes it harder for South Florida county commissioners or school officials to control their own jurisdictions. For example, they can't entirely shut down businesses such as restaurants or impose fines on people who don't wear face masks.
Protest disparagement, voter suppression, pandemic denial: DeSantis is increasingly operating on the same malign wavelength as his political idol Trump. Like Trump, DeSantis won his election narrowly but governs as if he had a broad mandate. And like Trump, DeSantis has done a woeful job of protecting Floridians from a disaster that has proven far more lethal than any hurricane.
The governor seems desperate to change the subject and to look like a strong leader somehow. The problem is that actions like last week's make him look more like an intransigent bully.