Tag: Ron DeSantis

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This Republican governor is bucking the trend and expanding voting rights

It’s not exactly a secret that Republican-controlled legislatures and governors have gone all-in on voter suppression as their means to retain power. However, one Republican governor is an exception to the rule.

Governor Phil Scott just recently signed into law a bill that expands voting rights in the state of Vermont. According to Axios:

The new Vermont law requires the state to send mail-in ballots to all registered voters and give voters the option to fix or “cure” a ballot if it’s submitted incorrectly and considered defective. The law will also allow municipalities to send mail-in ballots for local races.

In a statement, Scott said that he believes “making sure voting is easy and accessible, and increasing voter participation, is important.”

The governor actually wants the legislature to go even further than the bill provides. He is asking state lawmakers to expand its provisions to include primaries and local elections. (The bill allows but does not require municipalities to send mail-in ballots for local elections.)

A former Republican stronghold

You may be surprised to hear that the state with Bernie Sanders representing it in the Senate has a Republican governor, but Vermont was actually a Republican stronghold not very long ago. In fact, Vermont voted Republican in every presidential election from 1968 through 1988. Its transition began in 1992 when Bill Clinton was the first Democrat to carry the state since LBJ. That election proved to be a turning point. No Republican presidential candidate has won the state ever since.

Just as the “Solid South” turned from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican, New England has moved in the opposite direction. Vermont is now one of the most Democratic states in the country at the presidential level – although it still elects moderate Republicans as governor. Prior to electing Bernie Sanders, Vermont sent Jim Jeffords to the Senate, a Republican-turned-independent who caucused with Democrats.

Moderate Republicans are nearly extinct

Phil Scott is less of a template and more of a dying breed. As governor, he supported Donald Trump’s impeachment. The only other Republican governor to publicly back impeachment – Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker – is another moderate Republican from New England.

Essentially, Scott and Baker represent entirely different parties from the national GOP – one that is rooted in the party’s past.

The prototypical governor in the Republican Party today looks more like Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Georgia’s Brian Kemp, and Texas’ Greg Abbott. All three either back voter suppression bills or already signed them into law.

Rather than fight an all-but-assured losing internal battle over the soul of the Republican Party – a battle that Trumpists have won decisively – maybe it’s time for moderate Republicans like Phil Scott and Charlie Baker to lead a new conservative party that actually supports democracy?

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Florida is the latest state to restrict voting rights

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a voter suppression bill into law earlier today during a Fox & Friends segment.

The Washington Post reports:

Like similar bills that Republicans are pushing in dozens of state legislatures nationwide, the Florida measure adds hurdles to voting by mail, restricts the use of drop boxes and prohibits any actions that could influence those standing in line to vote, which voting rights advocates said is likely to discourage nonpartisan groups from offering food or water to voters as they wait.

Florida’s law is immediately drawing challenges from nonpartisan voting rights, civil rights, and good government groups. The League of Women Voters of Florida is among those suing the state.

“Senate Bill 90 does not impede all of Florida’s voters equally,” the League of Women Voters argues in a lawsuit that they filed with two civil rights groups. “It is crafted to and will operate to make it more difficult for certain types of voters to participate in the state’s elections, including those voters who generally wish to vote with a vote-by-mail ballot and voters who have historically had to overcome substantial hurdles to reach the ballot box, such as Florida’s senior voters, youngest voters, and minority voters.”

CNN reports that in addition to the League of Women Voters lawsuit, other groups filed their own legal challenges to the new law:

A separate lawsuit filed Thursday morning by Common Cause, Florida branches of the NAACP and a disabilities rights group describes the new law as “the latest in a long line of voter suppression laws targeting Florida’s Black voters, Latino voters, and voters with disabilities.”

Florida’s new voting restrictions come a little more than a month after Georgia passed a similar bill derided as Jim Crow 2.0. The Georgia voter suppression law makes it illegal to give food or water to voters waiting in line. It also limits the use of convenient and secure ballot drop boxes, shortens the window to request a mail-in ballot, and restricts in-person early voting hours.

The assault on voting rights looks likely to continue. Texas and other Republican-led states are considering similar bills. HR 1 (also known as the For the People Act) is necessary to combat these concerted and organized attacks on our democracy.

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Florida anti-protest bill targets 1st Amendment

As a multitude of Republican-led states move to restrict the right to vote, Florida is going beyond voter suppression and targeting the 1st Amendment.

HB1 – which its authors are dubbing an “anti-riot” bill – has the potential to criminalize peaceful protests. According to Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (via The Hill):

How easy will it be to stifle political protest in Florida if this new law passes? This easy: Under the new law, if a thousand people are marching peacefully to protest the current leadership, all it will take is for a handful of people to decide to throw a brick through a shop window and the entire crowd will be subject to arrest, a felony conviction and a hefty fine if law enforcement deems the peaceful protest “a riot.” That brick thrower could be an infiltrator acting to deliberately derail a perfectly legal demonstration.

And to make sure that peaceful protesters can’t continue demanding change, they will be denied bail until they see a judge. That’s right. You don’t have to commit a crime yourself or engage in any disorderly and violent conduct; you just need to be exercising your constitutional right to peaceful protest while someone else — with no connection to you — is engaging in such conduct.

Will police and local elected leaders shut down a protest as quickly as that? There’s a good chance they will, and here’s why. [Governor] DeSantis’ bill states that if they don’t, the city itself can be held liable for any amount of personal injury or property damage. This is a radical change in the law, which currently protects municipalities from such sweeping liability, and it will drive local officials to over-militarize their law enforcement response to peaceful protests in an attempt to avoid costly civil litigation.

But how about if no one throws a brick through a window? How about if people with different political positions just yell at each other on the street? No problem, the DeSantis law takes care of that too. The proposed law: “Creates the crime of mob intimidation, prohibiting a mob from forcefully compelling or attempting to compel another person to do any act or to assume or abandon a particular viewpoint.”

Florida is one of at least 11 states where similar legislation has been introduced that would greatly restrict the right to assemble and protest in the wake of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests.

Image Credit: Mike Shaheen, Flickr