DeSantis’ arrogant abuse of power

A Florida governor’s most essential work often begins after the Legislature has left Tallahassee.

That’s when most of the bills it enacted land on his desk for him to judge what it did for — or to — the people. His veto is the last sure line of defense against the bad ones.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has defaulted on that duty, befouling his early reputation as an environmentalist.

Now it’s up to the people to act. There are ways.

The toll road bill (Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 7068) and the sabotage of the citizen initiative process (House Bill 5) that DeSantis signed into law constitute the most arrogant abuse of political power since the rural cabal known as the Pork Chop Gang was banished in 1968.

The state constitution, ratified that year, entitled the people to amend it themselves by petition. But power to the people has never set well with a certain class of politicians or the special interests who control them.

House Bill 5 is a spiteful, nakedly partisan attempt to hobble, confuse and complicate the citizen petition-gathering process. It is no coincidence that it comes in the face of petitions that are circulating to, among other things, raise the minimum wage, outlaw assault weapons and revitalize democracy in Florida with open primary elections.

This affront to the Constitution deserves an early date in court.

DeSantis comes across as more than a passive participant. Defending his signature, he went on to say that constitutional amendments should be put to referendum only in special elections — where turnouts are always lower than in November. Meanwhile, the bill he signed to paralyze initiatives also requires local sales tax referenda to be at elections.

The toll road bill, Senate President Bill Galvano’s personal pile of pork, is the worst insult to the environment since the ultimately abandoned Cross Florida Barge Canal boondoggle of the 1960s. The three projects it authorizes would despoil vast rural lands in North Florida, as well as between Polk and Collier Counties. It serves the needs of no one who isn’t a land speculator, a highway contractor or a politician contemplating a cornucopia of campaign contributions.

Thomas Peterffy, the state’s richest man and a member of DeSantis’ campaign finance team who gave him $310,000 last year, is the largest landowner in Taylor County, where one of the toll roads would likely go.

Extension of the lightly travelled Suncoast Parkway from near Brooksville to a dead end at the state line is nothing but a real estate venture at public expense. It’s so unrelated to sound transportation planning that Georgia officials weren’t consulted about linking to it. A connection to the Florida Turnpike’s choked terminus at Wildwood makes no sense either.

Neither does a reincarnation of the proposed Heartland Parkway from Polk to Collier, which Govs. Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist both vetoed. The Legislature’s pretext that these roads would aid hurricane evacuation flouts the state’s official advice that residents seek safety on higher ground as close to home as possible.

Although no studies exist to justify any of the roads, the legislation gives the Department of Transportation the authority to build them without a second vote of the Legislature and with barely a nod to Florida’s few remaining environmental safeguards.

But there will be at least two more elections before the DOT is ready to crank up the bulldozers. Public opinion stopped the Barge Canal and it can stop this.

Voters can hold DeSantis and offending legislators to account if they run for reelection and should make them aware of their displeasure now.

Although most of the House Democrats from Broward and Palm Beach counties opposed the boondoggle and Rep. Evan Jenne led a fight against it, the senators were complicit.

Lori Berman, Lauren Book, Oscar Braynon II, Gary Farmer Jr., Bobby Powell and Kevin Rader all voted to give Galvano what he wanted. (Perry Thurston Jr. missed the vote.)

In the House, Republicans Ana Maria Rodriquez, Mike Caruso and Chip LaMarca voted yes, along with Democrats Matt Willhite, Joseph Geller and Richard Stark.

It takes uncommon conscience, we concede, for legislators to buck a Senate president on something he wants so dearly. But this was a time when duty to the public demanded it.

In signing this repulsive legislation, DeSantis squandered the environmental credits he’d earned by purging the South Florida Water Management District governing board, devoting more money to the Everglades and to algae control, and by vetoing the bill to prevent local ordinances that ban plastic straws.

DeSantis ignored a letter that former Gov. Bob Graham signed as chair of the Florida Conservation Coalition, urging against the toll roads and recommending the less costly and genuinely needed alternative of expanding existing highways, such as Interstate 75.

Graham also protested that the toll projects will drain money from highway trust funds if toll projections fall short. Florida already has a bad reputation for that; a Panhandle bridge built to please thenSpeaker Bolley Johnson went into default.

“These hugely expensive road projects and accompanying urban sprawl will devastate habitat for the Florida panther and dozens of other endangered and threatened Florida species,” Graham wrote DeSantis. “They will harm important wetlands, forests, springs, and aquifer recharge areas from Florida Bay to the Georgia border.

“These new transportation corridors will diminish the impact of the billions of dollars the state has committed to address water pollution and Everglades restoration and threaten your administration’s environmental legacy.”

Former Gov. Crist and at least 90 other groups and businesses had also asked for a veto. Tacitly acknowledging its unpopularity, DeSantis signed the bill out of public sight. Galvano’s office issued a triumphal photograph.

As for the initiatives, it remains in the public’s power to overcome what DeSantis and Republican legislators have done. The new law barely affects volunteer petition solicitors. And remember, then-Gov. Reubin Askew depended exclusively on volunteers — principally from the League of Women Voters and Common Cause — for the 1976 “Sunshine” amendment that compels financial disclosure by public officials.

So here’s what you can do. Find one or more initiatives you support, download the petitions and sign them — and take the next step by becoming a volunteer. Here are some contacts:

For the open primary initiatives: https// allvotersvote.org

For the $15 minimum wage: Reachable through its Facebook page, Fair Wages for Florida.

For the assault weapons ban: banassaultweaponsnowflorida.org.