BIG Ron DeSantis Dump Thread

Lying Ron DeathSantis does it again.

Florida fines Leon County $3.5 million for mandating vaccines

by Associated Press Wednesday, October 13th 2021

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida has issued its first fine to a county it says violated a new state law banning coronavirus vaccine mandates and for firing 14 workers who failed to get the shots.

The Florida Department of Health on Tuesday issued the $3.5 million fine for Leon County, home to the state capital, saying the municipality violated Florida’s “vaccine passport” law, which prohibits businesses and governments from requiring people to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination.

“These are people that, presumably, have been serving throughout this whole time and now all of a sudden they’re basically getting kicked to the curb,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference in St. Pete Beach.

Later, the governor tweeted, “No one should lose their jobs because of COVID shots.”

The law took effect last month and can result in a $5,000 fine per violation. It is being challenged in court and conflicts with a Biden administration order that companies with more than 100 employees require their workers to be vaccinated or face weekly testing.

In a statement, Leon County Administrator Vincent Long said the county believes its vaccination requirement is legally justifiable and necessary to keep people safe.

“The governor’s position in this instance unfortunately appears to be less of a public health strategy and more about political strategy,” he said.

Democratic lawmakers from Tallahassee derided the decision to issue a fine, saying local governments should have the authority to protect their residents as they see fit.

“Unbelievable! We don’t need the state bullying our communities or private businesses who are simply trying to serve the people and get on the other side of this pandemic,” said Florida Sen. Loranne Ausley.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Monday barring any entity, including private business, from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on workers and called on state lawmakers to pass a similar ban into law.

At the White House on Tuesday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki compared the actions of the Florida and Texas governors.

“Governor Abbott’s executive order banning mandates and I would also note announcement by Governor DeSantis this morning, essentially, banning the implementation of mandates, fit a familiar pattern that we’ve seen of putting politics ahead of public health,” Psaki said during a briefing.

The decision to fine Leon County comes a day after the Orlando Sentinel reported the state of Florida is investigating dozens of local governments, performing arts centers, the Miami Marlins, a law enforcement counter-terrorism unit and a concert by singer Harry Styles for suspected violations of the law.

Around 120 cases are being reviewed for violations, according to a public records request from the Orlando Sentinel.

In central Florida, the list includes Orange County government; the Orange County Convention Center; AdventHealth, one of the state’s largest health care systems; several performing arts venues; and the Amway Center, which is home to the Orlando Magic and recently hosted a concert by Styles whose tour mandated that attendees either be vaccinated or have a negative COVID-19 test.

“At this point ... the courts have not reached the final decision, but the indication is that the Florida law flies in the face of our Florida Constitution and perhaps in the face of common sense,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings told the newspaper.

In South Florida, those being investigated by the Florida Department of Health include the Marlins, the only major sports team on the list; the city of Miramar; the Plantation Police Department; and several performing arts venues.

Also on the list, around the state, are a Florida Department of Law Enforcement counter-terrorism unit in Jacksonville; the Gasparilla Music Festival in Tampa; and Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe. Several cruise ship companies also made the list despite a federal court order that has prevented enforcement of the law against Norwegian Cruise Lines.

https://weartv.com/news/local/florida-fines-leon-county-35-million-for-mandating-vaccines

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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

According to The New York Times chart on Thursday, Florida’s case rate per 100,000 people over the last week was 13, third only behind Connecticut and Hawaii, which both have a rate of 11 cases per 100,000.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/editorials/os-op-ron-desantis-undeserved-covid-victory-lap-20211029-2jp2ykdeofh3xag3ellf27vqo4-story.html

21,000 deaths later, do-nothing DeSantis takes a COVID victory lap | Editorial
By Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board
Orlando Sentinel |
Oct 29, 2021 at 6:00 AM

Florida’s summer of suffering was also a summer of silence for Ron DeSantis.

The governor had nearly nothing to say about his state’s lengthy run as No. 1 in the nation in COVID cases, No. 1 in hospitalizations and No. 1 in deaths.


Instead, the governor held almost daily news conferences intended to burnish his presidential bona fides among the MAGA crowd, and boost his presidential ambitions.

Through it all, the governor pointedly ignored the elephant in the room: That Florida — his state, his responsibility — was the epicenter for a deadly new COVID outbreak caused by the delta variant.


With numbers finally falling, DeSantis now has the gall, the nerve, to take a victory lap.

“Florida Reaches Lowest Case Rate in the Nation,” trumpeted the headline of a Wednesday news release, which went on to say, “As a result of Governor Ron DeSantis’ leadership and our data-driven approach free of mandates, the State of Florida has one of the lowest COVID-19 daily average case rates in the last 7 days per 100,000 residents in the United States.”


Florida led the nation in case rates for much of the summer, and our governor was silent. Well, not totally silent. He did rail against mask and vaccine mandates, measures intended to prevent people from falling ill.

Now, a governor whose sole contribution to fighting the outbreak was to expand antibody treatments for people after they got infected is taking full credit for the decline in cases.

As others have already noted, it’s like a firefighter tossing a bucket of water on a house that’s already been burned to the ground and then declaring victory.

What a fraud. What a phony.

It’s so transparent, but far too many gullible Floridians and complicit politicians are going to buy and echo DeSantis’ savior rubbish. Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez already has.


Here’s an actual fact: Between the start of July and the end of October, about 21,000 people died of COVID in Florida, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Those four deadly, tragic months accounted for one in every three of the total COVID deaths — nearly 60,000 victims — since the pandemic began 20 months ago.

Compare that to California, a warm-weather state with nearly twice the population of Florida and a governor who believes in public health. California had just 8,600 deaths during that same summer surge, according to Johns Hopkins, representing about 11% of its total COVID deaths since the pandemic began.

Another fact: At one point during the surge Florida had more than 17,000 people hospitalized with COVID. And California, with twice the population? Its peak was fewer than 9,000.

Florida’s hospitals were under siege, prompting the head of the Florida Hospital Association — Mary Mayhew, DeSantis’ one-time secretary of health — to label the surge a “crisis,” with half the patients between 25 and 55 years old.

As we’ve said before, DeSantis was right to ramp up the availability of antibody treatment sites for Floridians. It probably saved lives and prevented some hospitalizations.

But the governor is now trying to draw a direct and dishonest line between those treatments and both falling hospitalizations and cases.

Antibody treatments can be effective at keeping already infected people from falling seriously ill, but they have nothing to do with the plummeting number of positive coronavirus cases.

That’s what’s driving the dramatic fall in hospitalizations, not antibody treatments given to already infected people. Johns Hopkins charts show the rise and fall of cases and hospitalizations are a mirror image.

There’s a lot DeSantis might have done to legitimately claim credit for saving lives and preventing suffering.

He could have made another major push for Floridians to get vaccinated. But he didn’t, possibly because his Republican Party is rapidly aligning itself with the anti-vaxxer movement. Plus, he hired a surgeon general who’s a vaccine skeptic. DeSantis is now hesitating on booster shots, which may account for why Florida ranks No. 33 among states in seniors getting boosters.

He could have given local governments, including school boards, the flexibility to make their own decisions about mandatory masking based on local conditions. But he didn’t, choosing instead to make masks a cultural wedge issue.

He could have at least acknowledged the COVID crisis his state was facing and urged his constituents to act thoughtfully and responsibly. But he didn’t, calculating that ignorance was political bliss.

And now, the do-nothing governor is trying to claim credit for this surge coming to an end.

It is DeSantis’ final and most essential command — to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. How Orwellian.

Well, THIS seems perfectly reasonable, I'm sure all those conservative Libertarians will be totally comfortable with it.

What would any would-be dictator be without his own private gestapo army? Since the Republican playbook is now to pitch a coup whenever they lose an election (which is about impossible, anyway, the way they've gerrymandered the fuck out of everything), it'd sure be handy to have an answerable-to-you militia around to enforce your will.
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Jesus Christ, how hard are conservatives gonna keep licking the boot before they get sick from the taste of it?


https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/politics/florida-state-guard-desantis/index.html

DeSantis proposes a new civilian military force in Florida that he would control
Anchor Muted Background

By Steve Contorno, CNN

Updated 9:47 AM ET, Fri December 3, 2021



St, Petersburg, Florida (CNN)Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to reestablish a World War II-era civilian military force that he, not the Pentagon, would control.

DeSantis pitched the idea Thursday as a way to further support the Florida National Guard during emergencies, like hurricanes. The Florida National Guard has also played a vital role during the pandemic in administering Covid-19 tests and distributing vaccines.

But in a nod to the growing tension between Republican states and the Biden administration over the National Guard, DeSantis also said this unit, called the Florida State Guard, would be "not encumbered by the federal government." He said this force would give him "the flexibility and the ability needed to respond to events in our state in the most effective way possible." DeSantis is proposing bringing it back with a volunteer force of 200 civilians, and he is seeking $3.5 million from the state legislature in startup costs to train and equip them.

States have the power to create defense forces separate from the national guard, though not all of them use it. If Florida moves ahead with DeSantis' plan to reestablish the civilian force, it would become the 23rd active state guard in the country, DeSantis' office said in a press release, joining California, Texas and New York. These guards are little-known auxiliary forces with origins dating back to the advent of state militias in the 18th century. While states and the Department of Defense share control of the National Guard, state guards are solely in the power of a governor.

The proposal from DeSantis comes on the heels of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's directive warning that National Guard members who refuse to get vaccinated against the coronavirus will have their pay withheld and barred from training. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, had requested an exemption for guard members in his state, which Austin denied.

Democrats in Florida immediately expressed alarm at DeSantis' announcement. US Rep. Charlie Crist, who is running as a Democrat to challenge the governor in 2022, tweeted, "No Governor should have his own handpicked secret police."


State Sen. Annette Taddeo, another gubernatorial candidate, wrote on Twitter that DeSantis was a "wannabe dictator trying to make his move for his own vigilante militia like we've seen in Cuba."

The Florida State Guard was created in 1941 during World War II as a temporary force to fill the void left behind when the Florida National Guard was deployed to assist in the US combat efforts. It was disbanded after the war ended, but the authority for a governor to establish a state defense force remained.


"Reestablishing the Florida State Guard will allow civilians from all over the state to be trained in the best emergency response techniques and have the ability to mobilize very, very quickly," DeSantis said during a visit to Pensacola on Thursday.

State guards are typically deployed to respond during a disaster, though governors have found other reasons to call them into action.

In 2015, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott used the Texas state guard to monitor federal military exercises in his state, responding to what was at the time a fast-growing conspiracy theory that the federal government was using Walmart parking lots to prepare for a future state of martial law. Abbott said the guards were just collecting information to keep Texans safe during the multi-week exercises.

Florida law authorizes the governor to maintain a defense force as "necessary to assist the civil authorities in maintaining law and order," meaning DeSantis would have another force to respond to unrest that may erupt in the future. DeSantis swiftly deployed the Florida National Guard to major cities after protests and violence broke out in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota.

DeSantis has also stationed Florida National Guard troops at the Texas-Mexico border and sent them to Washington, DC, to help protect the US Capitol during the inauguration of President Joe Biden.

The announcement on Thursday came during a broader rollout of DeSantis' plan to bolster Florida's National Guard, which included $100 million in funding proposals to establish three new armories, build a new headquarters for the National Guard Counter Drug Program and provide support for Florida National Guardsmen seeking higher-education degrees.

If you want a disaster-recovery team to deal with hurricanes, like a mini-FEMA, that's a different thing than a militia. You don't need armed soldiers to help with disaster recovery. DeSantis is using this an excuse because he wants his own gestapo.

And conservatives will back him up because they're sure this kind of shit will never be turned on them... same as they wanted "the wall," never thinking that it could be used to keep them in, too.

Trusting idiots, always talking about less power to the government, while backing up any fascistic power-upping move one of their own feels like making.

There are supposedly quite a few other states with their own guard force but I've personally never been aware of it. In any case, in the hands of someone like DeSantis it's a purely ominous development.

Lol... nearly half of the states have them. If you don't know why some responders are armed... you have bigger issues than a "dictator".

Go yell at some clouds.

Word is that Don is so frightened of Ron's growing popularity among white supremacist and Republican fascists that he's planning a staged false flag attack on the mansion in Tallahassee. After falsely accusing antifa and BLM for the attack, Don can safely ascend to the leadership of his base again. After stealing the election in 24, Don will declare war against the states that didn't support him to avenge his poor "friend" Ron. The theory is highly touted among QAnon supporters. Merry Christmas Florida.

Surprise...DeSantis has been lying about the stats all along.  He also allowed a million test kits to expire in a warehouse.

Ron DeSantis and dirty dark money are at the center of Florida's real election fraud scandal

Blue Tuesday
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Sunday January 09, 2022 · 10:28 PM CST

Basking in the glory of Donald Trump’s solid victory and the state GOP’s dominating performance down-ballot, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis immediately declared the 2020 election a political and administrative triumph, free of fraud, third-party interference, or other administrative problems that plagued the 2018 election. Celebrating his own victory, however, didn’t comport with the tone of the rest of the Republican Party, which quickly adopted the sore loser denial and deranged conspiracy theories being pushed by Donald Trump and his cultists.

He made a deft pivot. DeSantis maintained that Florida’s election was all clean, but warned that voter fraud presented a very real threat going forward. Having already disenfranchised 700,000 eligible voters before the election, DeSantis happily joined other Republicans in weaponizing Big Lie conspiracy theories to pass unabashedly racist voter suppression laws under the guise of “election security” — live on Fox News.

Ironically, it turned out that Florida’s election hadn’t been entirely without fraud or subversion. In the 2020 election, three Democratic state lawmakers lost tight re-election races to Republicans in large part due to the presence of three “ghost” candidates that did little campaigning but were backed with massive outlays by a mysterious political action committee called Grow United.

Voters were bombarded with ads and flyers touting the supposed strong progressive credentials of the spoiler candidates, at least one of whom had been bribed into playing the patsy by a former Republican lawmaker named Frank Artiles. That candidate, an auto parts salesman named Alex Rodriguez, siphoned off 6,000 votes in a race that the Democratic incumbent, state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, lost by just 32 votes.

Alex Rodriguez pled guilty to fraud charges in August, admitting to accepting over $44,000 for his part in the scheme. Artiles also recruited at least one of the other ghost candidates, as well.

Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez was known for his environmental activism — he wore rain boots to the Capitol in 2018 in an effort to draw attention to rising sea levels and flooding in his South Florida district — and was a vocal proponent of clean energy. So it made sense that he was one of the three Democrats targeted by Grow United, which has deep financial and political ties to Florida Power & Light.

According to an investigation just released by the Orlando Sentinel, FPL helped finance the founding of Grow United and sent millions of dollars to the consultants that run the organization. Grow United’s consultants also communicated with FPL lobbyists about the three elections in which it was supporting the ghost spoiler candidates; in one text message, FPL’s Vice President of State Government Affairs wrote “We are going to charge full speed ahead in all those seats,” which is one of the most unambiguous admissions of guilt that I have ever seen.

Meanwhile, DeSantis, seeking to lead the way in Big Lie boosterism and further burnish his strongman credentials, proposed in November the creation of a special law enforcement agency dedicated to investigating alleged election fraud. Late last month, in the proposed budget he presented to lawmakers, DeSantis earmarked nearly $6 million to staff up his private conspiracy Gestapo, which would include 20 law enforcement officials.

Given his clear disdain for voter fraud, one might think that DeSantis would be all over the ghost candidate scheme and seek to make an example out of cheaters. Election laws are lax in Florida, but in October, the state’s Election Commission still recommended a $20,000 fine and censure for Alex Rodriguez. Yet three months later, DeSantis has yet to act or even comment on the recommendation. It’s a far cry from the live signing ceremony for the voter suppression bill, which he handed to Fox News to carry as an exclusive event.

So why hasn't DeSantis said a word about the Florida Election Commission’s recommendations or any other aspect of the ghost candidate scandal? Acknowledging the crime would invite further questions and scrutiny of the morass of dark money and favor-trading corruption in Florida politics, especially his own deep relationship with Florida Power & Light.

DIRTY MONEY, DIRTY ENERGY
Back in 2018, DeSantis, then a member of Congress, was running neck-and-neck with former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum in the Florida gubernatorial race. In the final few weeks of the campaign, right-wing dark money groups unleashed a torrent of negative, misleading, and often racist advertisements against Gillum, who is Black. One of the more shady campaigns was funded in part by Florida Power & Light, the single biggest political donor in the entire state.

Florida’s very lax laws around campaign donations and PACs make it impossible to know how much money FPL really sank into pushing DeSantis and other Republicans over the finish line in 2018 and 2020. Given the multitude of favors that DeSantis and the GOP-controlled legislature have done for the company, it’s likely to have been a very hefty sum.

“DeSantis accepts hundreds of thousands of dollars from political committees connected with Associated Industries of Florida, an organization funded by FPL,” State Rep. Anna Eskamani, who has been a leading critic of FPL, told me. “Not only does he engage in dark money politics but he signs every bill FPL has sent to his desk, too.”

Eskamani and several other lawmakers have requested that FPL undergo an audit to make sure that taxpayer money did not go toward the ghost candidates. DeSantis’s relationship with the company suggests that will not happen.

In April, DeSantis signed legislation that banned local governments from forbidding utility companies from using dirty fuel sources to generate electricity. It was a clear giveaway to FPL, which relies on natural gas to deliver energy across a state being ravaged by climate change. With the market cornered and municipalities at their mercy, FPL then proposed a massive rate hike. In October, the Public Service Commission, a body overseen by DeSantis, authorized the $1.5 billion rate increase on Floridians over the next five years.

On January 1st, the average Florida family’s monthly energy bill shot up by $20, a terrific burden in a state ranked 49th in the state for income equality. And if DeSantis gets his way, those families won’t be allowed to try to mitigate those costs with renewable energy — the legislature, which starts up again on Monday, is expected to pass a ban on residents with rooftop solar panels selling energy back to their energy company.

FPL is obviously behind that legislation, though it resents being called out in public. Last week, the company launched a website attacking the Miami Herald and its Tallahassee bureau chief for having the temerity to report on its involvement in the proposed home solar panel sales ban.

Don’t expect DeSantis to stand up for the state’s largest newspaper or the First Amendment — he’s busy preparing to silence teachers with a bill that would allow people to sue educators for teaching kids about racism. His proposal is based on the Texas anti-abortion law, so you can thank the Supreme Court for providing him the assist on that one.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/1/9/2073729/-Florida-does-have-a-real-election-fraud-problem-and-Ron-DeSantis-is-right-in-the-middle-of-it?pm_source=story_sidebar&pm_medium=web&pm_campaign=recommended

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DeSantis bills passed:

- Requires law enforcement officers to intervene if another officer uses excessive force, and all officers will have to receive more training to avoid excessive force. Limits chokeholds to situations when an officer believes an immediate threat of serious bodily injury or death to the officer or another person.

- Craft distilleries will be able to expand production from 75,000 gallons a year to 250,000 gallons a year.

- Requires wastewater treatment plans to make plans to eliminate harmful discharges into surface waters by 2032.

- Creates the Office of Continuing Care under the Department of Children and Families to assist people who age out of the child welfare system.

- Prohibits government agencies from responding to public records request by asking a judge for a declaratory judgment.

- Requires school resource officers be trained in mental health crisis intervention. Also requires school IDs from students in grades 6-12 contain phone numbers for national and state crisis and suicide hotlines.

- Enhances penalties for boating while intoxicated, makes it easier for the state to remove derelict boats from waterways and ensures people renting boats are educating on boating safety and requirements.

- Prohibits commercial telemarketers from using automated dialing systems and prerecorded messages.

- Protects communication between a human trafficking victim and victim advocates who help or counsel them.

- Requires the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to create a database available to sexual assault victims so they can track the processing of rape test kits from the day evidence is taken throughout the testing process.

State of the State address Governor Ron DeSantis delivered his last State of the State address of his first term in the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee on Tuesday, January 11, 2022

My recommended budget of $99.7 billion has more than $15 billion in reserve — one of the largest surpluses in state history. Florida’s revenues have exceeded estimates by billions of dollars over the past year. December’s revenues came in at more than $500 million over the latest monthly estimate. And this is all being done with no income tax and the lowest per capita tax burden in America.  
======================  

Florida also leads the nation in business formations, which have increased by 61% since I took office in 2019. In 2021, Florida saw 114,000 more new businesses than second place California — even though California has a population that is 40% larger.   ===========================  

Over the past two years, we have increased the average minimum salary for teachers by more than $6,000. And last year, we provided $1,000 bonuses to every public school teacher and principal in the state. Let’s continue this progress by further increasing teacher pay and by approving $1,000 bonuses for a second year in a row. ===================================  

Florida’s public college and university system is ranked number one in the nation yet again. Higher education must remain affordable for Florida families. I will not support any tuition increases at Florida’s colleges and universities and I oppose cutting Bright Futures scholarships, which have benefitted many Florida families. As proud as we are of the quality and affordability of Florida’s university system, a four-year education at a traditional brick-and-ivy school isn’t the only pathway to success. Over the past three years, Florida has added more than 50 new apprenticeship programs. The credentials earned through our workforce initiatives have paved the way for employment in a variety of fields like aviation, logistics and welding. These are as valuable and as honorable endeavors as attending august universities, and they deserve our support. Florida’s dedicated focus on the skilled trades will help expand the state’s manufacturing footprint. We have already seen businesses move here from other states and we should also be actively encouraging businesses to repatriate production back to America    =============================  

We will not allow law enforcement to be defunded, bail to be eliminated, criminals to be prematurely released from prison or prosecutors to ignore the law. These soft-on-crime policies have been tried in communities throughout the country to disastrous results: crime has skyrocketed, morale for police officers has plummeted and quality of life has been destroyed. We have stood by the men and women of law enforcement. Not only do we reject defunding law enforcement — we enacted $1,000 bonuses for all police, fire and EMTs in Florida. I’m asking the Legislature to re-up these bonuses for another year. They deserve it.

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Right-wingers talking about Ron DeSantis being an agent of freedom must've meant "free dumb," because a lot of what he's doing is just stuuuuuuupid.

I got in a fight this weekend with a guy I know who was claiming Democrats were the side of "tyranny" with their "Cancel Culture" and what-all (not that that's a party platform, but just an effect of the free market -- government ain't endorsing it), and blocking "free speech" and all this blah-blah stuff. I wish I'd remembered that Republicans are trying to pass laws to make it illegal to make white people "feel bad." Like that's even enforceable! "That guy mentioned slavery existed and now I feel guilty! Arrest him!" Yeeee-argh. And they call us "snowflakes."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/free-told-florida-republicans-advance-070046231.html

‘Free to do as you are told’: Florida Republicans advance wave of draconian bills
Richard Luscombe in Miami
Mon, January 31, 2022, 1:00 AM

It has been a long and painful month in the Florida legislature for opponents of the state’s Trumpist governor Ron DeSantis and his loyal band of rightwing Republicans. A slew of bills has advanced attacking everything from diversity rights, abortion protections and free speech in schools, in addition to a proposal that would legally shield white people from feeling “discomfort” over the state’s racist past.

And last Wednesday, an anti-masker physician, hand picked by the governor and apathetic about the value of Covid-19 vaccines, was backed unanimously by a Republican senate panel as the next surgeon-general following a walk-out by Democratic politicians frustrated by Joseph Ladapo’s evasiveness.

To hear DeSantis tell it, the “freedom state” of Florida is merely following the will of a populist citizenry in defying the perceived tyranny of the federal government, determined to protect liberty in the face of a deadly pandemic that has claimed more than 64,000 of their fellow residents, and standing up against the “indoctrination” of children.

Yet as the possible 2024 presidential candidate presses ahead with turning Florida into what critics see as his own conservative fiefdom – a de facto Trumpistan of the south with an “Orwellian-sounding” election police force – DeSantis is finding opposition beginning to harden.

More of the state’s 21 million people, which elected him in 2018 by barely 32,000 votes, appears displeased at the creeping authoritarianism and is keen to show DeSantis – who will be seeking re-election in November – that Florida is not the solidly red state he believes it to be.

Those voices come from parents, doctors, LBGTQ+ activists, proponents of voting rights and others who will be affected if many of the Republican bills, as expected, become law.

“People do not like the authoritarian nature of this governor and the way that he has weaponized fear between his constituents to try to curry favor with his base,” said Brandon Wolf, development manager and spokesperson for Equality Florida.

“And I think you’re going to see that show up at the polls. I know people get concerned that maybe Florida is gone forever. But let me tell you we fully intend to mobilize and show up for our communities in the election cycle.”

Wolf pointed to several areas where he said DeSantis’s moves were gaining little traction.

“Florida is a beautifully diverse state. I live in downtown Orlando, which has folks from all walks of life, different races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, gender identities. We all live in this wonderful tapestry that is central Florida,” he said.

“I can tell you that the things that concern people here are not the conversations that are happening in Tallahassee. That rent went up 29% in 2021, that Florida is leading the country in increases in housing prices, people are concerned the governor has essentially made Covid-19 a political battleground.

“Yet the legislature is singularly focused on legislating as if they won by a margin of 99 to one in 2018, as if they have a total mandate by which they can control people’s lives. It’s disgraceful and disappointing.”

The issues that Republicans see as a priority for Florida are red meat to DeSantis’s conservative base. They include the 15-week abortion ban bill, which received a chaotic hearing on Thursday, and moves to give parents more say over classroom curriculum and control of school libraries. In Polk county this week, education officials went from school to school pulling 16 books flagged by a conservative parents’ group as inappropriate, including Khaled Hosseini’s 2003 bestseller The Kite Runner.

They include bills to strengthen the governor’s fierce anti-immigrant stance by locking out from state or local government business any company involved in the transportation of undocumented migrants.

And two healthcare bills have been introduced in the Republican-dominated Florida legislature that opponents say further vilifies and isolates the LBGTQ community. One, touted as the vulnerable child protection act, would criminalize professionals who provide gender-affirming medical care to minors; the other would allow any medical professional the right to refuse treatment or procedures including gender affirming surgery or abortions on moral grounds.

“It doesn’t deny their right to access that procedure, but also protects the individual who has a conscience reason they don’t want to perform it,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican state senator Dennis Baxley, told the Sun-Sentinel.

The proposal that has caused perhaps the most outrage is the parental rights in education bill, the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill that would prohibit elementary schools from discussing sexuality and gender identity other than in an unspecified “age or developmentally appropriate” settings, and would allow parents to sue.

“It’s going to effectively erase LBGTQ students and families and LBGTQ history by banning classroom discussion,” said Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democratic state representative who opposed the measure vigorously in the legislature.

“If a fourth-grader wants to come into the classroom, they’ve written an essay about their two dads, they want to present that essay to the class to talk about who they are or who their family is, the school is going to shut it down?”

Wolf, meanwhile, sees a straight line from the flurry of reactionary legislative action to DeSantis’s own political ambitions.

“These bills don’t live in silos. It’s easy if you look from the outside to see this scattershot of legislation and see them as individualized, that an abortion ban may not be tied to the Don’t Say Gay bill, which may not be tied to the license to discriminate in healthcare bill,” he said.

“But the truth is they are all connected. And the thing that connects them is the concerted attempt by Governor Ron DeSantis and his allies to push themselves to the right of Donald Trump and set DeSantis up to run for president in 2024.

“In Florida you are free, but only free to do and say as you are told.”

Lauren Book, a state senator representing parts of Broward, Florida’s bluest county, led a walkout of Democratic colleagues at this week’s confirmation hearing for the polarizing Ladapo as Florida’s surgeon general, after he repeatedly refused to say if vaccines were effective in the fight against Covid-19. His views appear to echo those of DeSantis, who has feuded often and loudly with the Biden administration over the pandemic, and banned mask and vaccine mandates in Florida.

“21 million Floridians deserve more than a mouthpiece for the governor, than talking sound bites that sound good and suit a narrative,” Book told CNN. Her criticism was echoed by a group of prominent Florida physicians, who accused DeSantis and Ladapo of “espousing policies contrary to the evidence”.

Jabari Hosey, president of the education advocacy group Families for Safe Schools, said that the actions of DeSantis and Republican allies, particularly in banning Covid safety measures, do not match the wishes of the majority of parents and guardians of Florida’s 2.7 million school-age children.

“He’s representing a small, loud group of parents,” he said. “We feel omitted and it’s kind of a punch to the gut when he’s selecting small, far-right groups of folks that kind of determine his legislative decision making.

“Creating these bills like Don’t Say Gay is a dog whistle, and also a suppression tactic, a way to force us not to talk about these things and therefore not accept them. It’s scary for us, parents who don’t agree with this, and we just really believe we are the majority and we want to move forward, not backwards.”