Florida is so screwed

[Ombligo]

DeSantis is backed by super-majority legislature and conservative supreme court (all seven appointed by GOP governors, four by DeSantis)

This legislative term has not even started, but leadership has already said it will press DeSantis's agenda. The following is already in play

Constitutional carry of firearms
Death sentence just needs a 8-4 vote and judges can overrule the jury
University boards would be disbanded and new boards appointed by DeSantis
Professor tenure removed
No funding for Planned Parenthood at all (abortion care is already banned, this applies to all other activities)
Rename a state highway for Rush Limbaugh
Ban the use of anonymous sources for news media
Media must pay plaintiffs' expenses in libel cases
Lower the standard that public figures must prove for libel
School vouchers for all - including homeschoolers
Drop AP courses
Drop SAT testing
Require all school subjects reflect American exceptionalism
Ban assemblies inside the state capitol that do not reflect the state's interest
Require a state department sponsorship for capital gatherings
Make school board races partisan
Overhaul absentee voting for the 2024 election(despite the supervisor of elections saying there is not enough time)


and the weird and wacky bills have not even been mentioned yet.

[rgG]

Wow, and I thought Kemp, here in GA. was bad.
Sorry you have to live with this.
I truly hope he doesn’t get the nomination for President. What a disaster.

[pdq]

He is a mess.

Ban the use of anonymous sources for news media

Heh. Good luck with that one.

[Lux Interior]

pdq wrote:
He is a mess.

He is willing to leave FLA a smoking mess in order to get to the WH.

[DeusxMac]

For those speculating about how the almost 250 year experiment in representative democracy that is the United States might come to an end…

[steve...]

It's good to see young people speaking up.

ABCnews

Florida students walk out to protest DeSantis race education policies

Hundreds of students across Florida walked out Thursday in protest against Gov. Ron DeSantis and his policies concerning higher education.

Students walked out of their classrooms at the University of South Florida, University of Florida, Florida State University, and more in opposition of his efforts. Some high school students also joined in on the statewide walkout.

[GGD]

Ombligo wrote:
Rename a state highway for Rush Limbaugh

And maybe a few sections of it could be adopted/sponsored by OxyContin.

[Ted King]

The more Trump continues to hold on to enough of his base, the more DeSantis is going to push culture war "wins" he can use to try to persuade them to go with him instead.

A possible silver lining for liberals is that there is a pretty fair chance that this dynamic is going to keep driving DeSantis deeper and deeper into having to fully embrace policies that aren't going to sell very well at a national (presidential campaign) level. If DeSantis does get the nomination he will probably do everything he can to minimize the extreme actions he has taken so as to not lose the moderate suburbs he'll need to win. That minimization will be difficult to do if the Democrats put together even a half-way decent campaign against him - especially because the guy has close to zero charm. Or else he'll go all "Onward Christian Soldiers" if he wins the nomination and lose worse than Trump. It looks like we are in for an especially stormy time and it's going to be bad, but maybe there are some silver linings in those storm clouds.

Edit to add: No silver linings for Florida, though. They are screwed.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

[mattkime]

states are the laboratories of democracy