Editorial Roundup: Florida

Palm Beach Post. July 29, 2023.

Editorial: Florida undermines public education with absurd slavery ‘standard’

Bad enough that Florida already has a reputation for the bizarre, insane and unseemly. But what now passes for state leadership in K-12 and higher education seems determined to push the ludicrous envelope even further. The new standard for teaching slavery is just the latest in a long line of initiatives that have hurt public education.

From making it easy for individuals to ban books, to diverting more public money to unregulated private schools, from thwarting teachers’ unions to restricting college faculty protections like tenure, from curtailing classroom discussion on race, gender and sexual identity to restricting bathroom use by transgender students — state leaders are de-valuing what’s left of a good Florida education. Chipping away at the state’s public school and university infrastructure in the name of cheap, short-term political gains — like elections — has consequences.

Florida education guidelines makes state a laughing stock

Take the way Florida now teaches that enslavement brought “personal benefits” to those who were considered no more than chattel. Such nonsense normally would be unthinkable coming from the Florida Board of Education. Yet, that didn’t stop the board from sullying its intellectual reputation by mandating that absurdity as part of the state’s lesson plans. Pity the poor teacher faced with explaining that bit of indoctrination to students.

“Teachers are very concerned with what’s happening and how we’re narrowing the curriculum,” said Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar in remarks to CNN, striking an overarching theme that extends beyond slavery and Black History. “They’re also concerned that many of our students are no longer seeing themselves in their learning and that’s really important for kids to learn.”

By now Palm Beach County residents know how far state education leaders are willing to go to politicize their institutions. Florida Atlantic University is undergoing a state investigation, after the Florida Board of Governors and the chancellor of the State University System ordered the school to halt its search for a new president, after the presidential search committee named three qualified finalists. The state’s concerns over “anomalies” are vague enough to suggest the committee simply failed to come up with the politically right candidates for the job.

Valid criticism dismissed by Republican leaders as “politics”

Unfortunately, criticism, no matter how valid, is either ignored or labeled as a Democratic talking point by those in leadership who should know better. “This is the same union that brought frivolous lawsuits on the back of their members’ hard-earned dues,” Manny Diaz Jr., the state education commissioner, said of the FEA’s criticism of the slavery standard. “Time after time, we’ve defeated them in court. What are they fighting this time?”

Gov. DeSantis didn’t fare much better when first asked about the controversy. “These were scholars who put that together, it was not anything that was done politically,” he said. That isn’t true.

In the case of the slavery standard, the board of education was doing something “politically” by crafting rules to respond to a law the Governor pushed politically in 2022. It was DeSantis who wanted the Stop WOKE Act to become state law, to protect students and workers from any classroom instructions that might make them feel “guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin.

The same can be said for other controversial state laws, whether it’s the Parental Rights in Education, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics, or the bathroom bill for transgenders. Even a longstanding law governing open records and public meetings can be cited as justification for state interference in the FAU presidential search.

In other cases, local communities are left to look over their collective shoulders as they try their best interpret new laws that give undue influence to a vocal minority when it comes to books and classroom curricula. Considering age-appropriate material wasn’t supposed to turn classrooms and school boards into battlegrounds but that’s where we are in Florida and in a growing number of red states following Florida’s lead.

DeSantis’ legacy: dubious law, controversial standards, harmful change. It’s a cycle hurting the integrity and independence of public education in Florida.

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Sun Sentinel. July 30, 2023.

Editorial: State’s case against recreational marijuana doesn’t hold up

When a Florida public official argues that she’s smarter than just about everyone — including the voters who elected her and the judges she’s trying to convince to stymie those voters — you have to conclude she has a pretty high opinion of herself.

Or that she is, well, high. That’s highly unlikely.

Attorney General Ashley Moody has fired a new legal salvo against a citizen initiative supporting recreational use of marijuana that overlooks the fact that legal marijuana just is not that hard to get in Florida any more. That’s been the reality for nearly eight years, and the parade of horrible outcomes, as envisioned by Moody, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and other opponents of recreational pot, haven’t materialized.

Moody’s arguments might have made sense before Floridians became so thoroughly familiar with this subject. But people understand the implications of expanding access to marijuana, and they deserve to make up their own minds. Moody is wrong to try to sideline their opportunity.

Florida’s pot history

Then again, one symptom of marijuana use is absent-mindedness. Moody seems to forget that the Florida Supreme Court pretty much wrote the script for a recreational marijuana amendment that would pass scrutiny in its 2021 opinions striking down a prior attempt.

Supporters of the proposed marijuana-access amendment clearly paid close attention to that ruling, and have included language that makes it clear their amendment doesn’t change federal law, which still holds marijuana to be illegal under criminal statutes as a Schedule 1 drug with high potential for abuse and no officially authorized medical use.

Moody and her allies also forget — or ignore — evidence that Floridians are capable of doing their own thinking on this issue. The first time medical marijuana made it to the ballot in 2014, it was too vaguely worded, and it fell short of the 60% needed to pass.

Supporters of the medical cannabis initiative, led by trial attorney John Morgan, returned in 2016 with better ballot language and ran a smart campaign featuring the very sick, suffering Floridians who would benefit most from compassionate access to cannabis — and voters said yes.

As soon as access to medical marijuana became legal in Florida, debate shifted to the obvious subject: money. An emboldened industry began pushing at barricades the 2016 amendment set on medical marijuana authorization. Questions like “Do you have cancer? Multiple sclerosis? Parkinson’s?” gave way to “Do you have depression? Anxiety? Stress? Uh … writer’s cramp?”

Now the key question seems to be: Do you have about $250, plus $75 for the state? Cool. Here’s your card.

Voters aren’t dumb

Nobody can blame 2016 voters for that. State agencies and prosecutors could have enforced the narrower provisions. But Floridians now know what it’s like to live with increased access to marijuana. There have definitely been stems and seeds among the flowers: People with the conditions listed in the 2016 amendment say usage is so widespread that they sometimes can’t afford or find enough to alleviate their symptoms. And there’s ample reason to be cynical about the way big-money interests froze out smaller players.

(On that issue, Moody makes a fair point. By limiting legal possession to three ounces, the 2024 amendment could make it difficult for pot users to grow their own. It’s easy to see why cannabis dispenser Trulieve, the deep pocket behind the 2024 amendment campaign, wanted that language.)

The other horrendous outcomes Moody predicts seem unlikely at best. She claims the proposed amendment, by “allowing” recreational use, would blind voters to the possibility that they could be prosecuted under federal law. But voters can see what’s happening in other states, where federal officials stopped prosecuting possession, sale or usage of marijuana to the extent that any state allows it. Floridians also drive constantly past cannabis dispensaries and never see them raided.

That leaves Moody with one argument — that courts, not just in Florida, but in the 38 states that have authorized medical cannabis and 23 states that allow recreational use, all got this one wrong.

That’s a mighty slender thread on which to dangle something as momentous as she’s proposing: That Florida justices toss all their previous decisions, ignore reality and set an impossible standard for future amendment proposals to meet. And that justices should strip from Florida voters the ability to make a decision that they’ve proven themselves perfectly capable of handling.

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Tampa Bay Times. July 27, 2023.

Editorial: Here’s why Florida’s sham felon voting process needs fixing

Doesn’t a constitutionally-enshrined right mean anything?

Florida’s been busy in the five years since restoring voting rights for felons. It created new hurdles for felons casting a ballot, mobilized a special elections police force, further empowered prosecutors and made high-profile (if shaky) arrests. One thing it hasn’t done is create a centralized database to determine if a felon is actually entitled to vote. What was hailed a civil rights breakthrough in 2018 has become a shell of a state constitutional guarantee.

That’s why a new lawsuit, filed in federal court last week by the coalition behind Amendment 4, has so much promise to finally deliver. The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition chronicled in detail the “yearslong campaign of acts and omissions … that have thwarted the aspirations of the citizens of Florida.” It faulted Gov. Ron DeSantis, state and local elections officials, law enforcement agencies and others for creating and perpetuating “a bureaucratic morass” that prevents felons from voting “or even determining whether they are eligible to vote.”

Amendment 4 was intended to allow most people with felony convictions to regain their right to vote. More than 5 million Floridians, or about 65% of those who voted, supported the measure in 2018. Nearly 1.4 million Floridians were thought to be eligible. (The measure doesn’t apply to those convicted of murder or sexual offenses.)

But the year after Amendment 4 passed, DeSantis signed into law a bill requiring felons to first pay all fines, fees and restitution ordered as part of their case. Yet even today, Florida has no centralized database for a person to check on what they owe, if anything. Court clerks across Florida’s 67 counties often have missing or outdated information on a person’s fees and court-ordered financial penalties. The Department of State, which oversees elections in Florida, is hopelessly backlogged in providing advisory opinions, while the Florida Department of Corrections and other agencies have routinely failed to assist felons in determining their eligibility.

“The result is a national embarrassment,” the lawsuit states, noting that Alabama — which has similar felon voting restrictions — has a centralized database that advises applicants within 44 days. “If Alabama can create a process to confirm the eligibility of its voters, Florida should be able to do so too.”

Amendment 4 is a constitutional guarantee the governor is legally required to implement and enforce. Yet the state’s refusal to do so after nearly five years, and the fear it has sowed among the very people it was supposed to help, has rendered the amendment moot for countless Floridians.

DeSantis could end this lawsuit by creating a clear, workable process for reliably informing felons of their eligibility. State and local elections offices already coordinate in policing the voter rolls, so the bureaucratic framework for sharing information is already there. The Legislature could help not only by funding a central data system, but by passing legislation that presumes felons are eligible to vote if their court records are missing or incomplete. The state should not be denying Floridians their rights simply because of the government’s own incompetence.

Floridians passed Amendment 4 overwhelmingly, and they inherently expected their government to carry out the reform in good faith. The courts should not allow another election cycle to pass before ensuring that this right enshrined in the Florida Constitution is no longer denied to eligible voters.

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Miami Herald. July 28, 2023.

Editorial: DeSantis keeps failing the most basic test in politics: denouncing Nazis

Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign recently fired a staffer who reportedly either retweeted or made a video that included Nazi imagery superimposed onto the Florida governor’s face.

Great. That’s a no-brainer. But where’s the denunciation — from a presidential candidate, no less — that surely should accompany that news? We’re still waiting.

It doesn’t matter much whether the staffer, former National Review writer Nate Hochman, made the video, as Axios reported, or just retweeted it on the @desantiscams account. DeSantis’ campaign obviously had to expel anyone pushing something so abhorrent.

In case you’re wondering, this was not a case where the imagery in the video is unclear or open to interpretation. This is awful stuff. The video, first reported by Semaphor, shows DeSantis in front of the Florida state seal that morphs into a red wheel, called a sonnenrad, a symbol that was used in Nazi Germany and, today, by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Silhouetted soldiers march toward DeSantis on both sides.

Even when you know what’s coming, that spinning red wheel is jarring to see, instantly recognizable as a chilling Nazi symbol. So no, this wasn’t a close call.

Hochman’s departure came during a big reduction in presidential campaign staff as DeSantis struggles to regain his footing as the main challenger to Trump for the GOP nomination. Some media outlets reported that Hochman parted ways with the campaign over the video. The campaign told Axios that “Nate Hochman is no longer with the campaign. And we will not be commenting on him further.” There was no response from the campaign when the Editorial Board reached out.

In saner times, Hochman’s firing — if, as reported, that’s what happened — would be the end of the whole shocking thing: The campaign rightly booted someone who promoted ideas that are against everything this country stands for. He slipped through the cracks on vetting. The campaign, in normal political times, would express horror. Case closed.

Except this is the same DeSantis who has repeatedly failed to denounce, in strong and certain terms, the appearances of neo-Nazi demonstrators in his state. In Orlando last year, a group of about 20 people shouted antisemitic slurs while waving Nazi flags near a shopping plaza and then again on an Interstate 4 overpass.

And in Tampa last summer, neo-Nazis demonstrated at a major Republican conference, Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit. They waved flags emblazoned with swastikas and white-supremacist SS bolts, held up placards with anti-Semitic slurs and someone unfurled a “DeSantis Country” flag.

DeSantis’ pulse, apparently, has been barely raised by the reprehensible actions that have happened on his watch. After the I-4 demonstration, it took him days to respond, and then it was mostly to shrug off the behavior, calling the demonstrators “jackasses.” Then he tried to change the narrative: He went after Democrats for trying to “smear” him by asking about it.

We’re still waiting for the loud condemnation this time, too.

Democrats, of course, have seized on the video. Florida Democratic Party chief Nikki Fried said DeSantis has been “given every chance to denounce neo-Nazis and what they stand for, and he refuses to do it.”

More than that, DeSantis isn’t simply a governor anymore. He’s a serious presidential candidate with a shot at the Republican nomination for the White House. He should be on the record, with no equivocation and no weasel words, because it is beyond obvious: Nazis are bad.

What does it tell us that he’s not?

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