Gov. DeSantis puts Florida on scary path to authoritarianism
Democracy isn’t inevitable. It can slide into authoritarianism when leaders are allowed to consolidate power, capturing or marginalizing independent centers of thought and dissent that could challenge their authority.
There’s a formula “wannabe authoritarians” follow: Reduce the Legislature to a rubber stamp (Check that box in Florida!); secure control over schools and universities (Who would have thought that a Florida governor would dictate what can be said — and not said — in a classroom or read in a library?); limit media oversight by blocking access to information; curtail protests.
However, securing control of the courts is the most significant step. American democracy depends on an independent judiciary to check executive and legislative powers — to be, in no small part, guardians of minority rights.
We are experiencing a legal revolution in Florida in which constitutional values that have been taken for granted are being trashed. These changes could last for years. I don’t think we are prepared for what’s coming.
Given our state Constitution’s guarantee of privacy, previous legislative efforts to restrict access to abortion were “presumptively unconstitutional,” as one former Florida chief justice said. But the Supreme Court now is considering a 15-week abortion ban, with a sixweek ban ready to be imposed in Florida depending on the court’s decision.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, echoing the arrogance contained in U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion overturning the 50-year precedent of Roe v. Wade, told the court that all previous Florida abortion decisions were “clearly erroneous.”
Moody and anti-abortion zealots have urged the Florida Supreme Court, reshaped by Gov. Ron DeSantis, to reinterpret the meaning of privacy to protect only “informational privacy” — limiting personal information that government collects and distributes.
If that happens, women will lose control over decisions to continue or terminate a pregnancy, and everyone will lose protection against an intrusive government given a green light to invade our personal lives, subjecting us to a variety of surveillance technologies or inquiring about books and magazines or anything we possess in our homes. And we will have less control over medical decisions, including end-of-life care.
By 2010, Floridians had enough of the Legislature’s manipulation of elections and added the Fair District Amendments to the state Constitution to end partisan and racial gerrymandering. The Constitution now prohibits drawing legislative and congressional district maps that “diminish the ability (of racial or language minorities from electing) representatives of their choice.”
But following the 2020 census, DeSantis pressured the Legislature to adopt a redistricting plan that diluted the Black vote in two congressional districts. Diminishing the ability of Black voters to elect representatives of their choice was DeSantis’ whole point. Nevertheless, the court looked the other way and allowed use of the gerrymandered map during the legal challenge.
The people didn’t change their Constitution; DeSantis changed the membership of the Supreme Court.
Other matters will test the newly appointed DeSantis judges’ fidelity to principle over allegiance to ideology and fealty to the governor. Will a reshaped judiciary permit gagging teachers from mentioning the existence of gay people and gay couples or censoring discussion of America’s racial past?
It’s not looking good: The governor suspended twice-elected Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, claiming that he neglected his duty and displayed incompetence. Following a trial that reviewed all the evidence, a federal judge found that to be a pretext for DeSantis’ opposition to Warren’s efforts to bring greater fairness, and especially greater racial fairness, to the criminaljustice system.
Within the past few days, the DeSantis-reshaped Florida Supreme Court didn’t merely rule against Warren’s petition for reinstatement; it used a procedural hook to deny him a hearing — denying the Hillsborough voters the right to choose their chief law enforcement officer.
When judges are appointed because they are willing to discard precedent or agree to figure out how to make terrible policies legal, the effect is consolidation of power in the executive branch.
We’ve seen this movie before. Hungary’s Viktor Orban created his “illiberal democracy” by consolidating power through gerrymandering the legislative branch and securing control over the courts. Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to capture control of Israel’s Supreme Court.
There are strategies to resist — none now more important or urgent than getting petitions signed to put an explicit right to abortion on the ballot. But we need to be honest: The forecast for human rights in Florida is distressing and likely to last for a long time largely because of the governor’s remaking of the courts.
Howard L. Simon is president of the Clean Okeechobee Waters Foundation. He was executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida from 1997-2018.