Dubious laws are all about putting on a show

Cuban-Americans weren’t the miscreants our governor had in mind back in April, when, cameras rolling, he signed the Combating Public Disorder Act. He was signaling MAGA constituents that tough-talking Ron DeSantis would not abide the disruptive antics of Black Lives Matter.

Among other transgressions, the bill proscribed an “aggravated rioting” charge against demonstrators who “endanger the safe movement of a vehicle traveling on a public street, highway or road.”

Unhappily for the governor, the first rabble to flout that particular provision of his anti-riot law were not of the BLM kind. Protesters who shut down major roadways in Miami, Doral, Hialeah, Orlando, Jacksonville and Tampa last month were Cuban-Americans, a favored constituency in Florida’s Republican coalition, demonstrating solidarity with anti-regime protesters in Havana.

The only arrests involved two guys in Tampa who assaulted a cop. Otherwise, demonstrators blocked traffic, clogging the Palmetto Expressway for four hours, with no legal repercussions. It added a whiff of hypocrisy to the DeSantis law-and-order aesthetic.

Except no one (other than that Tampa duo) should have been arrested. Not Cubans, Blacks, Proud Boys. At least not for violating a law larded with constitutional defects. Police were right to ignore a law fashioned for a Fox TV news audience, not for judicial review.

The anti-riot law, HB 1, was just another of the spurious bills passed last spring by Republican legislators intent on providing props for showy signing ceremonies.

You’ll recall the ballyhooed Stop Social Media Censorship Act that DeSantis signed May 24 behind a banner that read “Stop Big Tech Censorship.” The bill was supposed to allow individuals who feel that tech companies have unfairly limited their social media ravings — think Donald Trump — to sue Facebook, Twitter and the like. With a special exception for websites owned by theme park operators such as Disney, a generous political contributor.

University of Miami law professor and tech law expert Michael Froomkin told Wired magazine that the law was “so obviously unconstitutional, you wouldn’t even put it on an exam.”

Five weeks after the signing show, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued an injunction, ruling the law savaged the First Amendment and was “riddled with imprecision and ambiguity.”

But the judge missed the point. DeSantis, a lawyer, surely knew all along that his big tech censorship law wouldn’t survive the summer. It was all about entertaining the base and pleasing a certain former president.

Last week, the state’s lawyers missed the deadline to appeal a ruling that knocked down another legal pretense: a new law that limits campaign contributions to committees that gather signatures for ballot initiatives.

U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor — a Trump appointee — issued an injunction last month, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court had already settled the question.

No matter. It was always about the theatrics. Like it or not, taxpayers are also financing the defense of a constitutionally dubious law designed to exploit a divisive cultural issue. The parents of a 13-year-old soccer player are suing to rid Florida of a hateful new law that bans transgender athletes from scholastic sports.

We’ll also be paying lawyers to defend a new election law that restricts the use of mail-in ballots and drop boxes. To give you an idea about who this particular legislation was designed to please, DeSantis excluded state government reporters from a signing extravaganza in West Palm Beach, which took place on Fox News.

Common Cause, the NAACP and the Florida League of Women Voters quickly filed suit in federal court to undo legislation that former League President Patricia Brigham called “undemocratic, unconstitutional, and un-American.”

Forget those niggling legal niceties. The only important function of the new law was demonstrated by Ron DeSantis’s glorious seven minutes, pen in hand, on Fox & Friends.

And forget the inevitable legal bills. Taxpayers will be picking up the tab, along with DeSantis’s other costly tussles (for the benefit of his Trumpsters) with the cruise ship industry over vaccination requirements and local school boards over mandatory masks for students.

Loser lawsuits are the Florida way. Associated Press reported that the Rick Scott regime spent $237 million hiring outside lawyers and another $19 million to cover opponents’ legal costs in a string of unsuccessful lawsuits contesting stuff like gay marriage and Obamacare or defending the obviously unconstitutional docs-versus-Glocks law that forbade physicians from discussing gun safety with their patients.

Winning wasn’t the point. It was about Governor Scott having a showy court fight over hot button issues so he could become Senator Scott. Nowadays, loser lawsuits have to do with Gov. DeSantis imagining a President DeSantis. It’s all about the show.

Fred Grimm