South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Basic freedoms under constant attack in ‘free’ Florida
Florida developers are famous for naming subdivisions after the wildlife they chased away (“Turtle Run,” “Heron Pointe”). In the same vein is Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hideously hypocritical claim that “freedom lives here.”
If DeSantis and the Legislature have their way, Florida will be where freedom went to die.
They are subverting everything in the First Amendment except religion, and that’s only a matter of time. The governor’s defamation legislation is a thunderous “Shut up!” not just to the media but to every citizen, all 22 million of us, who might ever want to criticize some political or corporate abuser of power.
A woman’s freedom of choice will end at six weeks, before many know they are pregnant. Academic freedom is to be banished from universities so they can become echo chambers of right-wing politics, as with New College in Sarasota. Teachers face more restrictions on what they can say about sexual topics, and doctors will be criminals for providing gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers to transgender children.
Public employee unions (except those in law enforcement and corrections) will be denied payroll deductions for their dues. This union-busting nastiness (SB 256 and HB 1445) is aimed mostly at the teacher unions that Republicans love to hate.
More limits are in store on the people’s right to amend their own constitution.
Closed courthouses
The Florida Constitution requires the courts to be open to all “without sale, denial or delay,” but so-called “tort reform” — a propaganda phrase that should never appear without quotation marks — has the potential to slam the courthouse doors to all but the rich and the powerful.
And there is already less freedom to protest any of that. A fiat imposed by the DeSantis administration prohibits demonstrations inside and even outside the Capitol building unless they align with some state agency’s “mission” — that is, what pleases one man.
This legislative session is a drum roll for DeSantis’ flourishing if undeclared presidential campaign. It’s pitched to MAGA Republicans and to the special interests agitating for “reforms” to protect them from the legal system.
The silent majority of other voters can see in Florida what DeSantis would do to the nation.
The worst of the worst
There are too many bad bills to describe them all here. These are among the worst:
HB 999, SB 266. They ban anything related to critical race theory, diversity or inclusion from universities’ curricula as well as from their budgets. University trustees (mostly the governor’s political pals) could appoint new professors and purge present ones regardless of tenure. Faculty recommendations would no longer matter. The bills also dictate an idealized version of American history based on the Declaration of Independence, a perspective that slights the influence of slavery. The system deserves to be disaccredited if this legislation becomes law.
HB 359. Another “sit down and shut up” bill. The winning side in a lawsuit over challenges to a local comprehensive plan or amendment would be entitled to attorneys’ fees and costs from the loser. It would be just another cost of doing business for the developers who most often figure in such cases, but a grave threat to citizen activists and neighborhood associations without equivalent deep pockets.
HJR 129, SJR 1410. Another assault on the freedom of voters to amend their constitution, without the Legislature’s consent, through ballot initiatives. These two proposed constitutional amendments would raise the threshold for voter approval of future amendments from 60% to 66.67%. Successful propositions that would have flunked include the Fair Districts anti-gerrymandering initiatives of 2010, the Marsy’s Law victim’s rights amendment of 2018 and the $15 minimum wage in 2020. It’s your arrogant, uncaring Legislature at work.
HB 991, SB 1220. These would distort defamation laws, allow suits for “false light,” which were banned by the Florida Supreme Court, waive existing protections for journalists, grant attorney fees to the winning side, redefine “public figure” to mean essentially only an elected official, and create a presumption that anonymous sources are false. It stacks the law in favor of those who sue. The intent is to provoke the U.S. Supreme Court to erase its precedents favoring press freedom.
It’s a threat to anyone who might post criticisms of anything on social media — the government, a business or a neighborhood nuisance. Developers already use existing laws to attack their critics. Maggie Hurchalla, a Martin County environmentalist, went to her grave last year owing a $4.4 million judgment won by a developer who accused her of “tortious interference” with his government contracts because of emails she sent to county officials. Santa Rosa County activist Wallis Mahute is without a lawyer in the face of a builder’s defamation suit over her Facebook posts. Florida hardly needs to make it easier to silence them and many others.
If the Legislature passes these bills, it will only continue the assault on freedom in the so-called free state of Florida.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.