Welcome to the Fascist State of Florida, Part II
What Rights?
“How can I shit on civil liberties today?”
Photo: Politico
If you haven’t read Part I, you should do that.
Otherwise, let’s jump right back into the festivities, because Ron DeSantis is an asshole and I’m not done telling y’all the countless reasons why.
Let my people vote
The governor’s attack on the election process and systematic dismantling of voting rights truly began in 2018.
In November of that year, the Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative (Amendment 4) was supported by 64.5% of Floridians. It was arguably the most significant expansion of voting rights since the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Prior to this, the only way for returning citizens to regain their rights was through Florida’s deliberately inefficient and notoriously rigged clemency process. The clemency board, which consists of the governor and cabinet, meets just four times a year. Though DeSantis removed the mandatory 5-year waiting period implemented under Rick Scott, applications are rarely approved and the current backlog is around 24,000.
Amendment 4 restored rights to approximately 1.4 million disenfranchised citizens upon completion of their sentences, including parole and probation. The language excluded those convicted of murder or felony sexual offenses. It was also intended to be self-executing, with no need for legislative implementation or interference.
Enter SB 7066.
“What amendment?”
Photo: Google
Passed in June of 2019, the bill requires those with felony convictions to pay all court fees, including restitution, in order to regain their right to vote. In other words: This is a poll tax, a measure historically used to disenfranchise poor and minority voters. Constitutional and legal scholars also argue that it directly violates the 24th Amendment, which states:
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.”
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
As with the legal system as a whole, financial sanctions disproportionately affect Black, brown, and low-income people, groups which frequently overlap. DeSantis and the Republicans know this, just like they know it is to their advantage to exploit it. For reasons that are absolutely not obvious, this particular intersection of marginalized people does not tend to vote red.
SB 7066 also applies to fines that have been converted to civil liens. This is a particularly nasty provision, because civil liens are an alternative often used by judges when a defendant cannot pay. When it comes to proof of payment, changes in record-keeping methods over the years and simple human error can greatly limit citizens’ ability to obtain the necessary documentation.
For example, probation in Leon County was administered by the Florida Department of Corrections until around 1995. When a person completed probation, the DOC could provide the clerk of court’s office with a termination of probation notice. That’s if they chose to and they often did not. On top of that, probation records are frequently not kept for more than 25 years and there is no consolidated system for tracking court fees. As a result, many are left with no proof at all that their fines were paid and/or no way to figure out exactly how much they owe.
Oh, and Florida has no idea how to verify voter eligibility.
At all.
The State even admitted that creating a centralized database to track court costs and payments would take around six years. Meanwhile, individuals who unknowingly register to vote while ineligible face third degree felony charges and up to five years incarceration.
In the summer of 2022, 20 people were arrested for illegally voting, the first offerings to DeSantis’s newly-created and completely unnecessary Office of Election Crimes and Security. Research shows that voter fraud is extremely rare and DeSantis himself praised Florida’s election process after the 2020 elections.
To be clear, all those arrested had been convicted of murder or felony sexual crimes, which are not covered under Amendment 4. However, some had also been issued voter registration cards by the supervisor of elections of their respective counties.
Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) executive director Desmond Meade (front) and deputy director Neil Volz (right)
The FRRC works to end felony disenfranchisement and assist returning citizens with re-entry into society. They were instrumental in passing Amendment 4.
Returning citizens did win a small victory in October of 2019, when federal Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that the inability to pay court fines should not prevent a person from voting, the very reason roughly 770,000 Floridians could not cast ballots. The ruling only applied to the 17 plaintiffs and when Hinkle attempted to expand it to include all returning citizens, the measure was blocked by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. A year-long legal battle ended with the Florida Supreme Court also siding with the state, and the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to intervene.
Make no mistake: Nobody should ever lose their right to vote, regardless of whether or not they’ve committed a crime. And while this punishment may seem arbitrary, it serves a very specific, nefarious purpose.
“You mad, huh?” - somebody Uncle Leroy in 1868
Photo: Library of Congress
After the end of the Civil War, many of the defeated Cousin Fondling states enacted felony disenfranchisement laws. They did this because Black men had been granted the right to vote in 1868 by the 14th Amendment, and we can’t have that. Within two years, 28 out of the 38 states had laws on the books that could strip that newly-gained right away.
The laws were designed to be implemented alongside the so-called Black Codes. The Black Codes established harsh penalties for petty crimes, specifically when committed by Black citizens. Vagrancy laws, which were a defining feature of the Black Codes, quite literally criminalized homelessness and unemployment. The whites were particularly anxious because they were outnumbered in many places in the South and therefore firmly in the voting minority.
Florida’s current disenfranchisement law is actually a prewar relic, and was written into the 1838 Constitution. This was seven years before Florida even became a state. The law was so successful that, in 1872, Republican lawmaker W.J. Purman reportedly boasted that he’d prevented the state from becoming “n****rized.”
The good ol’ boys can’t be voted out if they make it to where enough people can’t vote at all.
William James Purman (April 11, 1840 – August 14, 1928): Lawyer, politician, and standard-issue racist.
Photo: Wikipedia
In 2020, HB 5 made it harder for citizens to amend the Florida constitution via ballot initiative, the very process responsible for Amendment 4.
In April of 2021, Republican Senator Dennis Baxley introduced SB 90, which sharply curbs voting access and rights. Among other things, the bill:
limits drop box use during early voting hours by requiring them to be manned at all times, instead of monitored by security cameras. This is true unless the drop box is located in a supervisor of elections office. The working class will be impacted, with blue-collar workers being affected the most, as they typically don’t have the paid leave time or flexible schedules that would allow them to go vote in person.
makes it so that voters dropping off more than two ballots (one for self and one for an immediate family member) now face a first-degree misdemeanor. In the past, Floridians could drop off multiple ballots, as long as they were not being paid to do so. This is one way that SB 90 will directly affect elderly and disabled people, many of whom rely on organizations such as churches to drop off their ballots.
requires vote by mail voters to provide Florida driver license, ID, or last 4 digits of Social Security number, with no provisions for those who have none. Here, the ACLU outlines how cost, lack of access to transportation, and other factors prohibit many racial minorities, disabled individuals, and the elderly from obtaining the necessary identification.
makes it so that vote by mail requests are now only good for two years, as opposed to four. Voters who do not make new requests will be purged from vote by mail lists
creates unnecessary panic by requiring 3rd party voter registration groups to issue warnings about application deadlines and delivery, specifically that their applications may not be dropped off in time
stops election officials from automatically mailing out vote by mail ballots. An affirmative request from the voter is now required
Judge Mark E. Walker, Obama appointee and frequent DeSantis opponent, struck down portions of the bill in March of 2022. In his ruling, he forbade the Florida legislature from making new laws concerning the issues that he overturned without court approval for the next 10 years. In May, however, the 11th Circuit Court granted the State’s request to reinstate the law during the ongoing appeal process.
Gerrymandering, thy name is Ron DeSantis
Unhappy that Florida wasn’t quite red enough, DeSantis presented his own congressional redistricting map in April of 2022, something no Florida governor had ever done. In response, the GOP-controlled legislature proposed two far less partisan maps, both of which the governor rejected. Republicans quickly folded like lawn chairs and agreed to accept any version that Daddy DeSantis proposed.
The map DeSantis drew displays extreme political bias and is possibly illegal under Florida law. Majority-Black districts were cut in half, greatly reducing voting power in what is the nation’s largest swing state.
District 5, which stretched 150 miles from Jacksonville to just west of Tallahassee and contained many of the mostly-Black areas along the way, had been represented by Democrat Al Lawson since 2017. The district was specifically created to increase Black voter representation, and the new map split it into four pieces, incorporating them into surrounding districts that lean heavily-Republican.
Voting rights groups have filed lawsuits, but much of the damage has already been done. Republicans now hold a 20-8 advantage, instead of the previous 16-11. A federal trial to determine the map’s constitutionality is scheduled for September 2023.
A riot is the language of the unheard
In the spring of 2020, this country exploded with protests. The powder keg had been fueled by the deaths of George Floyd and all the other victims of state-sanctioned murder at the hands of police. In the wake, DeSantis began pushing for “anti-riot” (read: anti-protest) legislation.
HB 1, officially titled “Combating Public Disorder”, delivered just that.
Cops “observe” demonstrators protesting police brutality in Hollywood, FL. on June 7, 2020.
Photo: Getty Images
Among other things, the bill enhanced penalties for acts that were already illegal, such as battery committed during a “riot,” and created new felonies related to “violent” protests. HB 1 also makes blocking traffic a 3rd degree felony and allows those arrested while rioting to be held without bond until their first appearance. In addition, HB 1 makes it harder for local governments to reduce law enforcement budgets, a direct jab at growing movements to defund and abolish police forces.
Two provisions of the bill are particularly concerning, given the escalating acts of violence being committed against social justice activists.
HB 1 can reasonably be interpreted to provide civil immunity to:
Drivers who hit protesters during a so-called riot
Those who use force (including deadly force) against suspected “looters“ and persons “impairing businesses.“
This plays right into the hands of those eager to plow through crowds of leftist snowflakes or act out their sheepdog murder fantasies a la Kyle Rittenhouse, under the guise of protecting businesses.
Furthermore, when a perpetrator is acquitted of criminal charges, civil judgments are often the only sort of justice their victims receive.
Mark E. Walker, frequent DeSantis opponent and Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, issued a temporary injunction in September of 2021. His decision rightfully decried the law as vague and overly-broad:
“HB1’s new definition of ‘riot’ both fails to put Floridians of ordinary intelligence on notice of what acts it criminalizes and encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, making this provision vague to the point of unconstitutionality,” the order says. “It requires individuals to ‘speculate as to the meaning of penal statutes,’ at the risk of their liberty.”
This is Mark E. Walker.
When it comes to Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans, he wants all the smoke, all the time.
In March of 2022, an 11th Circuit Court judge accused DeSantis’s legal team of not understanding its own position on HB 1.
Judge Edward Carnes asked Deputy Solicitor General Jason Hillborn: “Doesn’t the fact that you’re having a problem telling me what the statute does, that the common law it amends didn’t do, indicate to you that there’s a problem with your theory?”
In January of 2023, the 11th Circuit asked the Florida Supreme Court to define what type of public disturbance would be punishable under HB 1. Once the court provides an answer, the appeals court will still have the jurisdiction to rule on whether the bill violates the U.S. Constitution.
All that aside, protests are not meant to be peaceful in the first place. They are meant to be disruptive, because that’s what gets things done. At a certain point, the people get tired of not being heard, and if burning shit down is what it takes to open eyes, then so be it.
In his 1967 speech “The Other America”, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said:
“I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.
And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity.
And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay."
Though Dr. King and I do not share the need to condemn riots, we do agree on their causes and cures. Shattered windows are the consequences of shattered hopes. If work is done to fix the societal problems which result in riots, such as poverty and police brutality, there will be increasingly fewer reasons to riot in the first place. If not, the chickens will simply keep coming home to roost.
HB 1 also increased the penalty for “assaulting” a police officer during one of these ill-defined riots. This is ironic given that the real, most senseless violence was being perpetrated by the state terrorists tasked with keeping “law and order.”
The Guardian reported that from May of 2020 through October of 2020, cops in 43 states committed more than 950 instances of police brutality during Black Lives Matter protests, resulting in roughly 1,000 separate violations. Per the article, this includes:
more than 500 instances of police using less-lethal rounds, pepper spray and tear gas
60 incidents of officers using unlawful assembly to arrest protesters
19 incidents of police being permissive to the far right and showing double standards when confronted with white supremacists
five attacks on medics
and 11 instances of kettling (a crowd control tactic in which police trap protesters in a confined space, preventing them from leaving)
Protesters clash with the Chicago P.D. on May 30, 2022.
Photo: Getty Images
In the spring of 2020, my hometown of Tallahassee, Florida, was rocked by three police shootings. In April and May, officers took the lives of three men: Mychael Johnson, Tony McDade, and Wilbon Woodard. Johnson and McDade were Black.
On September 5, a day after a grand jury declined to charge any of the officers involved, everything came to a head. In the shadow of the Old Capitol building, hundreds of personnel, clad in riot gear and representing multiple law enforcement agencies, stood watch. They would soon descend en masse upon a group of vastly outnumbered demonstrators. They were shoved, restrained, and held face down on the pavement, all because they rightfully took issue with a dubious traffic stop. At the time, protesters were on the sidewalk and not blocking traffic. Ironically, they were also protesting the same police brutality that would soon befall them.
Fourteen activists were arrested at the scene, and five more over the following days, eventually earning the moniker the Tally 19. Most faced misdemeanor charges which were ultimately dropped or deferred. One was indicted for resisting an officer with violence, a felony with a maximum penalty of ten years. The charge stemmed from a scratch—yes, a scratch—that reporting officer Cyril Underwood could ultimately not even prove the demonstrator caused. The protester was found guilty of the lesser charge of resisting an officer without violence, and sentenced to probation.
Reproductive Wrongs
During the 2022 legislative session, another HB 5 casually slid a 15-week abortion ban into a bill that was ostensibly intended to reduce fetal infant mortality rates. The ban is the strictest in Florida history and is modeled after Mississippi’s, which triggered the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. In its final form, HB 5 provides no exceptions for incest, rape, or sex trafficking, though the only reason a woman needs for having an abortion is because she wants to have one.
The new restrictions will (once again) mainly impact low-income women, Black women and other women of color, all of whom have historically lacked access to quality health care. Women could face up to five years in prison for abortions after 15 weeks, while doctors could be fined up to $10,000 for performing the procedure.
Over the years, Florida has acted as sort of a sanctuary for those seeking abortions who live in nearby states with stricter laws. Despite this, it already has a parental consent requirement for minors, state insurance plans are banned from covering abortions, and since April 2022, an additional clinic visit is required before undergoing the procedure.
HB 5 also has serious health implications. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation, and per the CDC, about 3 in 5 of those deaths are preventable. Around 700 women die every year due to complications from pregnancy, with severe bleeding, heart disease, and stroke being among the leading causes.
The U.S.’s rate of pregnancy-related deaths more than doubled from 1987 to 2017, while numbers in other high-income countries decreased slightly over the same period.
Black women are the most frequent victims, and are roughly three times more likely to die during or shortly after childbirth than white women. In 2020, the maternal death rate for Black women was 55.3 for every 100,000 live births, compared to 19.1 for every 100,000 live births for white women. That year, the overall rate was 23.8 for every 100,00 live births.
Data has also shown that from 1995 to 2017, women in states with harsh abortion restrictions had significantly higher rates of maternal mortality, even though most of those states had similar rates in 1995.
On June 1, 2022, several plaintiffs filed suit against the State, on the the grounds that HB 5 violated Florida’s Right to Privacy, an amendment enacted in 1980. This added an explicit right to privacy (Article 1, Section 23), stating:
“Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person's private life except as otherwise provided herein. This section shall not be construed to limit the public's right of access to public records and meetings as provided by law.”
Over the years, the Florida Supreme Court has repeatedly interpreted this to mean that the State’s constitution protects abortion rights.
Second Circuit Judge John Cooper ordered a temporary injunction on July 5th, 2022, and the State triggered an automatic stay by immediately filing a notice of appeal. The Florida Supreme Court will have the final say, which means that the conclusion is all but foregone. During DeSantis’s time as governor, the Court has taken a hard right turn, and five of the seven justices are DeSantis appointees.
Two more years?
DeSantis likes to sidestep questions about a 2024 presidential run, but we all know the vibes. His entire tenure as governor has been an audition and his chances of getting the part look good. Trump’s ruthless heir apparent has the Republican party in a chokehold.
And that is terrifying.
A DeSantis presidency would be worse than a Trump presidency, and possibly exponentially so. His politics are just as vindictive, regressive and reactionary, but he’s nowhere near as stupid. On the contrary, he’s quite shrewd, and he knows how to play to his base.
He’s a Harvard Law grad and constitutional scholar, who simply ignores laws that are inconvenient to his agenda.
He graduated from Yale with a degree in history, yet does not want Florida students to learn about the legacy of racism in American’s institutions. In the meantime, his Stop W.O.K.E Act has evolved into full-on book-banning. He has targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and also blocked an AP African American History class being piloted in several states. Though the College Board denied influence by Florida Republicans, many of the components they took issue with do not appear in the course’s final curriculum.
Recently, he directed the state’s 28 universities to report whether they were using public funding for gender-affirming care. The schools were instructed to provide the number of students who had received hormone blockers or undergone surgery and where they’d received the treatment, as well as the number of students diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
The Florida Department of (Mis)Education’s list of objections. No, this is not Photoshopped.
Ron DeSantis is far from unique in his willingness to win at all costs, even human. However, he is singular in that no other American politician has their fan base gripped so tightly by the balls right now. Not even Trump, who is rapidly becoming the right’s bothersome Starter Wife.
Witnessing the ascent of DeSantis is like watching a car crash in slow motion. We don’t know how to stop it and Florida Man is at the wheel. It often feels like the Sunshine State is a microcosm of the nation’s problems, and Ron DeSantis is a very big problem indeed.
