‘This is about power’: DeSantis gets big wins ahead of 2022

TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s special legislative session can be summed up in one phrase: What Gov. Ron DeSantis wants, he gets.

DeSantis called the special session in October to fight the Biden administration’s coronavirus vaccine mandates and after just three days the Florida House and Senate approved four bills that undermine President Joe Biden’s vaccine push.

DeSantis never made an appearance during the special legislative session in Tallahassee but used his huge political sway over the Republican-dominated Legislature to get his bills passed.

One measure gives workers exemptions if they don’t want to get the shot and includes a provision fining small businesses $10,000 and larger companies $50,000 for firing workers who don’t want the vaccine.

“The governor can do anything he wants to do,” state Rep. Ardian Zika (R-Land O’ Lakes) said this week. He spoke on the House floor while Democrats grilled him over a measure giving the governor $1 million to study the state withdrawing from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which wrote the Biden administration’s plan to mandate vaccines for large businesses.

Lawmakers also approved a bill barring the state surgeon general from mandating vaccines during a health emergency and another that keeps hidden from the public complaints filed by employees who weren’t given vaccine exemptions.

DeSantis, though, never commented on the process or publicly stepped foot in the Capitol. The governor is widely popular with Republicans across the country and has an increasingly large platform as he prepares for reelection and a potential 2024 White House bid. As a result, Republicans in the state Legislature both do not want to cross DeSantis for fear it could hurt their own political futures, but also don’t want to do anything to sap momentum from his political ascent.

“Ultimately this is about power, right?” said state Rep. Fentrice Driskell (D-Tampa). “This entire special session was a power play on the governor, so it does not behoove the legislative leadership, who seems to be in lockstep with this governor, to speak out in a way that would be contrary to him.”

It was a common line of attack from Democrats who were outnumbered and could do very little to slow passage of the bills. Democrats also noted that the Republican-led Legislature previously would fight GOP governors’ legislative priorities, including during the tenure of former Gov. Rick Scott.

“I’ve seen this room where the governor calls for something and we bat it down vociferously. … We are now not seeing that,” said state Rep. Nicholas Duran (D-Miami) during a lengthy floor session speech. “We are cheapening the reason for a special session.”

The legislation that got the most attention was the proposal requiring employers to offer vaccine exemptions tied to many factors, including medical conditions and religious beliefs. The bill also gives Attorney General Ashley Moody $5 million to investigate worker complaints.

Anti-vaccine demonstrators at the Capitol said the bill didn’t go far enough because it offered exemptions. Some protesters packed into House and Senate committee meetings to testify about the bill and to offer vaccine-related conspiracy theories. Protesters also held a rally outside the Capitol and held signs that said “Unvaccinated Lives Matter” and “GOD’s Vaccine = Natural Immunity = 99.8% Survival.”

Keith Flaugh, with the conservative Florida Citizens Alliance and who served as a member of a DeSantis transition committee focused on education and workforce development, testified that the bill “provides exemptions, but still allows businesses to mandate vaccines.”

“You all and the governor have the authority under the sovereignty in the 10th Amendment to just say no to the federal government, and we encourage you to do that and do an absolute mandate,” he said.

Another speaker who testified before lawmakers on behalf of DeSantis’ bills, physician Kirk Milhoan, is under investigation by authorities in Hawaii for spreading Covid-19 misinformation, POLITICO reported Wednesday. Officials are investigating whether Milhoan, who lives in Hawaii, backed controversial health treatments like Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

During a Tuesday meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Milhoan testified that the vaccine should not be taken by children.

“Their risk of the vaccine is greater for them than Covid,” Milhoan said.

When the special legislative session started on Monday, there was a sense of preordained outcome. Republicans were eager to hand DeSantis wins ahead of the 2022 midterms, even though some quietly griped that the special session was not needed.

The chatter that DeSantis was dragging lawmakers into a special session they did not want grew so loud that DeSantis and legislative leaders addressed it.

“People said at the time, ‘Well, the governor is doing it because the Legislature, they don’t want to, they are going to do something that won’t be effective,’” DeSantis said last week during a press conference. “That’s not true at all. We have been working both with the speaker and the Senate president to get proposed legislation.”

It was an unprompted comment from DeSantis, who held the press conference to draw attention to the specifics of the special session bills.

“That’s a bizarre question … considering I showed up with the governor at a press conference four days ago,” state House Speaker Chris Sprowls (R-Palm Harbor) said Tuesday when asked if the Legislature was only in session because DeSantis wanted it. “So, I think that was all the indication the members needed as to where I am.”

Sprowls’ chamber got the bills through the House quickly, only assigning them to one committee stop, and at times appeared to rush them through floor sessions. Republican members did not even debate the measure giving DeSantis $1 million to study withdrawing from OSHA even as Democrats implied that Republicans were acting as DeSantis’ political puppets.

“Why are we giving the governor $1 million to do the work of committee and legislative staff?” said Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando) of the OSHA bill.