From the death penalty to gender identity to abortion, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has established himself as a conservative standard-bearer in the run-up to his 2024 presidential proclamation.
With the help of the GOP’s supermajority in the statehouse, the Republican was able to advance an aggressive agenda that underpins his White House run, which he made official in a Federal Election Commission filing on Wednesday.
Here is a look at some of the policies:
miscarriage
DeSantis has signed into law a bill that would ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, but it will not go into effect unless the state’s current 15-week ban is upheld in an ongoing legal challenge to the state Supreme Court, which is controlled by conservatives.
A six-week ban in Florida would deal a devastating blow to abortion access in the South, as neighboring states Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi have banned the process at all stages of pregnancy. Georgia and South Carolina banned him after detecting heart activity, which is nearly six weeks.
Critics, including some Republicans, have criticized the six-week law as extreme, given that most women don’t realize they’re pregnant in that time frame.
“don’t say like me”
The DeSantis administration expanded a controversial law that critics call “Don’t Say Like Me” to all grades, banning classroom teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
The move came after DeSantis signed into law a bill last year banning such lessons through the third grade, a policy he has championed as a way to protect children from sexual exploitation.
This year, the DeSantis administration put forward a proposal before the state Board of Education to expand the policy to grades 4 through 12, unless it is required by current state standards or as part of reproductive health education that students can choose not to accept. The council, which was appointed by DeSantis, approved the proposal and the legislature put it into law.
DeSantis education officials said the goal of the policy is to make it clear that teachers must adhere to the state education curriculum.
pronouns
DeSantis has signed a bill that would prevent school staff or students from requiring them to refer to people with pronouns that do not correspond to the person’s gender.
The law also prohibits school staff from asking students what pronoun they are using and prohibits staff from sharing their own pronouns with students if they do not correspond to the gender of the staff member.
In addition, the law states that it is the policy of every public school that “a person’s sex is an established biological characteristic and that it is wrong to assign to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to that person’s sex.”
The death penalty
DeSantis has signed two major death penalty bills this year.
The first ends the requirement for jury unanimity in sentencing the death penalty, allowing the death penalty with a jury recommendation of at least 8-4 in favor of execution. Only three of the 27 countries that impose the death penalty do not require unanimity. Alabama allows a 10-2 decision, and Missouri and Indiana allow a judge to decide in the event of a split jury.
The change was in response to a ruling that saved the life of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter, who killed 17 people in 2018.
Another death penalty bill signed by DeSantis allows for the death penalty in child rape cases, despite a US Supreme Court ruling banning the death penalty in such cases.
The law aims to force the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court to review a 2008 ruling that found it unconstitutional to use the death penalty in child sexual abuse cases.
Florida is among the few states that have existing laws that allow the death penalty in child rape cases but have not used the penalty. Given the Supreme Court ruling. The Florida Supreme Court also ruled against the use of the death penalty in sexual battery convictions.
DeSantis said he believes the Supreme Court’s decision was “wrong.”
guns
Florida residents will be able to carry concealed weapons without a permit under a bill DeSantis signed this hearing.
The new law would allow anyone who can legally own a gun in Florida to carry one without a permit. This means that training and a background check will not be required to carry concealed weapons in public. It goes into effect on July 1.
Nearly 3 million Floridians have a concealed weapons permit. While a background check and a three-day waiting period will still be required to purchase a gun from a licensed dealer, they are not required for private transactions or gun exchanges.
DeSantis said he believes Florida should go further and allow people to carry guns openly. While some lawmakers have pushed for an open carry, it doesn’t look like the legislature would pass such legislation in this session.
However, the Governor strengthened the law, issuing a statement that he “carried the Constitution on the books” after he signed it into law.
diversity
Another new law prohibits colleges from using state or federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, a consistent goal of DeSantis.
Such initiatives, sometimes referred to as DEI, have come under increasing criticism from Republicans who argue the programs are racially divisive.
The law comes a year after he signed into law a law dubbed the STOP WOKE Act, which restricts certain race-based conversations and analyzes in schools and businesses. Last year’s law bans instructions that say members of one race are inherently racist or should feel guilty because of past actions by others of the same race, among other things.
Disney
DeSantis also continued his long-running feud with Disney this year.
The company came under fire for criticizing the so-called Don’t Say Like Me law last year.
As punishment, DeSantis dissolved the Disney World Autonomous District and appointed a new board of supervisors to oversee municipal services at the sprawling parks. But before the new board could come along, the company pushed through an 11-hour agreement that stripped the new supervisors of much of their power.
Disney sued DeSantis in federal court in a case that said the governor launched a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” after the company took issue with the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Act.
DeSantis has since signed bills to strengthen state oversight of the resort’s monorail line as well as reneging on agreements Disney’s board made before the state took over.
