State reps file protest crackdown measure
TALLAHASSEE — As Congress returned to the U. S. Capitol on Wednesday night after a mob incited by President Donald Trump stormed the building, Florida lawmakers were filing a bill to crack down on violent protests in the Sunshine State.
The legislation, which would impose stricter penalties for protesters who engage in violence, is a top priority of Gov. Ron DeSantis for the legislative session that begins March 9. He unveiled the proposal in September, after a summer in which some Black Lives Matter protests in cities across the country devolved into riots.
At the time, he cited the measure as a way to clamp down on protests by left- wing activists and prevent them from getting out of hand, but he also cited the breach of the Capitol in Washington as a reason to press for the stricter measures.
“I hope maybe now we’ll get even more support for my legislation because it’s something that needs to be done,” DeSantis told reporters Thursday. “You can have strong views, you can be disappointed in the election, you can be
disappointed in whatever, but you can’t just go in and ransack public places like that.”
DeSantis, a key ally of President Trump, did not accept any blame for what happened, even though he was the first governor to call for state legislatures in swing states to overturn the vote for Biden in their states.
“What I’ve said is you can file suits; [ there are] political ways to do it,” DeSantis said. “In no way have I have supported any type of lawlessness or anything like that.”
Republican legislative leaders also condemned the violence in the Capitol and suggested it was further evidence of the need for the bill.
“This isn’t a peaceful protest. It’s an act of domestic terrorism. It’s a tragic, cowardly and un- Ameri can spectacle,” House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R- Palm Harbor, said in a statement released after the bill was filed. “Together we are taking immediate action in Florida by filing the Combating Violence, Disorder and Looting and Law Enforcement Protection Act.”
The bills, SB 484 and HB 1, would require state approval for cities seeking to cut funding for police departments; makes local governments civilly liable if they “obstruct or interfere” with a police department’s ability to restore order during a civil disturbance; and makes it a first- degree misdemeanor for any mob harassing people in a public space, such as a restaurant.
It also imposes a mandatory minimum jail sentence of six months for anyone convicted of battery of a police officer; makes destroying a memorial or statue a second- degree felony; and bans the practice of blocking roadways, a tactic of some Black Lives Matter protests last year.
Democrats denounced the proposal when DeSantis unveiled it in Septemb e r, s a y i n g i t was a draconian crackdown on mostly peaceful protests, especially in Florida, which did not see the rampant looting and chaos in cities that had incidents of police killings of unarmed Black men, such as with the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“( DeSantis) i s trying to re- write history & say his anti- protest bill is in response to what happened ( at) Capitol Hill,” Rep. Anna Eskamani, D - Orlando, wrote on Twitter. “Lies. It’s about scoring political points off racial tension & consenting to uneven application of law based on skin color. Maybe focus on COVID- 19 instead?”
DeSantis conducted two news conferences Thursday highlighting his attempts to get vaccines to more sites and ramp up inoculations.
The disparity between how police handle protests and riots led by non- white people and how the mostly white crowd of Trump supporters was handled in Washington still upsets Democrats, though, who worry about how the new bill will be used by police if it becomes law.
State Rep. Dotie Joseph, D - North Miami, highlighted a Twitter post from Trump back in July, during the height of the Black Lives
Matter protests.
“Anarchists, Agitators or Protesters who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings of our Cities and States, will be prosecuted under our recently re- enacted Statues & Monuments Act. MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it!” Trump stated.
But as his supporters swarmed the Capitol, defacing doors and furniture, he struck a different tone even as he called for an end to the violence.
“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us,” Trump said in a short video posted to Twitter that has since been taken down. “But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order.”
“So go home, we love you, you’re very special.”