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      DeSantis’s $13.5m police program lures officers with violent records to Florida

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      Numerous police officers lured to new jobs in Florida with cash from Governor Ron DeSantis’s flagship law enforcement relocation program have histories of excessive violence or have been arrested for crimes including kidnapping and murder since signing up, a study of state documents has found.DeSantis, who is expected to launch his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination this week, has spent more than $13.5m to date on the recruitment bonus program, which he touted in 2021 as an incentive to officers in other states frustrated by Covid-19 vaccination mandates.“This will go a long way to ensuring we can have the best and the brightest filling our law enforcement ranks,” Florida’s Republican attorney general, Ashley Moody, said in April last year as DeSantis announced one-time $5,000 bonuses for new recruits.However, among the almost 600 officers who moved to Florida and received the bonus – or were recruited in state – are a sizable number who either arrived with a range of complaints against them, or have since accrued criminal charges, the online media outlet Daily Dot has discovered.They include a former trainee deputy with the Escambia county sheriff’s office charged with murdering her husband; an officer with the Miramar police department fired for domestic battery and kidnapping; and a former member of the New York police department (NYPD) who was hired by the Palm Beach police department having once been accused of an improper sexual proposition.That officer, named by the Daily Dot as Daniel Meblin, was also part of a $160,000 settlement by the NYPD for violence at a 2020 protest against the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in which officers were accused of beating Black males without provocation.A Palm Beach police spokesperson told the Daily Dot that Meblin – who had complaints against him including abuse of authority and sexually propositioning a teenager – had disclosed his background during the hiring process, according to the NYPD watchdog 50-a.org.He has been an “exemplary” officer since he was hired in October 2022, the same month he left the NYPD, the spokesperson said, while denying a request to allow Meblin to be interviewed.The Daily Dot compiled its report from state records it obtained from the Florida department of economic opportunity through a Freedom of Information Act request. The undated document lists payments of more than $8.8m split between 1,310 newly hired officers, with most receiving $6,693.44 from the signing-on and additional bonuses.In a press release earlier this month, DeSantis announced the program had since grown to more than 2,000 officers, with a parallel rise in cost to more than $13.5m.“To date, 595 law enforcement recruits from 49 states and US territories have relocated to Florida, including more than 215 recruits from California, Texas, New York, and Pennsylvania,” the statement said.For its report, the Daily Dot matched information from the 50-a and NYPD databases, as well as published media reports, to officers’ names listed by the state.It says it uncovered “an exodus” of officers to Florida law enforcement agencies from the NYPD in the wake of a backlash against the department for its brutal handling of racial justice protests in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.Among them were at least two dozen officers whose names matched those on the NYPD’s civilian complaint review board database, including some who, according to those complaints, “unlawfully pepper sprayed, assaulted, and pointed their firearms at suspects, as well as used chokeholds and offensive language regarding race and ethnicity”.A civil rights lawsuit filed in 2018 against former NYPD sergeant Haitham Hussameldin alleged the officer used physical violence against a teenager on her way to school. Hussameldin, now employed by Florida’s Manapalan police department, accrued six formal complaints, including “multiple allegations of abuse of authority and overuse of physical force” in New York, the Daily Dot said. All the complaints were withdrawn or unsubstantiated.Another former New York officer now employed in Florida was involved in two deaths, one of which led to a $100,000 civil settlement, the Daily Dot reported. And in October 2022, the Apopka police department hired as an officer Justin Burgos, 19, the son of a retired NYPD deputy inspector, who a year earlier was charged with reckless endangerment, reckless driving and obstruction of governmental administration for driving his car into protesters in Manhattan calling for the firing of an officer accused of beating a Black suspect.None of the police agencies contacted for comment responded, other than the Palm Beach department, the Daily Dot reported. DeSantis’s office did not return a request for comment from the Guardian. More

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      NAACP says Florida is ‘actively hostile’ to minorities and issues travel warning

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      The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has issued a travel advisory for the state of Florida, calling the state “actively hostile” to minorities as Florida’s conservative government limits diversity efforts in schools.In a Saturday press release, the civil rights organization better known as the NAACP said the travel warning comes as Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, “attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools”.“Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color,” the advisory said.Under DeSantis, Florida’s department of education has restricted classroom material covering race, gender, sexuality and other identities. The state’s education department has also prohibited mathematics textbooks and other material for a range of reasons, including alleged inclusion of critical race theory.DeSantis last week signed legislation banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in public colleges and universities.In January, Florida rejected an advanced placement (AP) course in African American studies by the College Board, the company that oversees AP classes that can be used for college credit and standardized testing in the US. DeSantis said the proposed course violated Florida’s ban on “critical race theory”, signed by DeSantis last year, and “lacked educational value”.Critics say that such laws supported by DeSantis are discriminatory and a threat to democracy.“Let me be clear – failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all,” the NAACP’s president, Derrick Johnson, said in the advisory.Prof Kimberlé Crenshaw is a leading voice and scholar of critical race theory, which explores systemic racism within US legal institutions. Crenshaw was one of several authors and academics edited out of the College Board’s AP African American studies course amid Florida’s rejection of the course.Crenshaw told the Guardian in a March interview that laws against Black history in Florida and elsewhere were the “tip of the iceberg” of conservative efforts to roll back progressivism and push the US towards authoritarianism.“Are [schools] on the side of the neo-segregationist faction? Or are [they] going to stick with the commitments that we’ve all celebrated for the last 50, 60 years?” asked Crenshaw, referring to progress made on equal opportunities since the 1960s.“The College Board fiasco, I think, is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of interests that have to make this decision,” she said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther groups have also warned against travel to Florida. Equality Florida, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, issued a travel advisory in April because of laws targeting LGBTQ+ rights, the Washington Post reported.In a separate advisory, the Florida Immigrant Coalition said “traveling to Florida is dangerous”, warning that people of color, international travelers and those with an accent faced a higher risk of racial profiling and harassment.The NAACP previously issued travel warnings in 2017 for Missouri over the death of a Black man in a jail and racist threats going unchecked on college campuses in that state, Time reported. Black drivers in Missouri were also stopped 75% more than white drivers, according to a 2016 report from the state attorney general’s office that the advisory referenced.The Guardian could not reach a DeSantis spokesperson for immediate comment.But DeSantis’s press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, responded to the NAACP travel advisory announcement on Twitter, the Post reported.Redfern replied to the announcement with a gif of DeSantis saying: “This is a stunt. If you want to waste your time on a stunt, that’s fine. But I’m not wasting my time on your stunts. OK?” More

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      DeSantis Avoids Talk of Abortion Ban on the Trail

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      The Florida governor is reluctant to talk about the restrictive law he signed as he seeks to attract support from across the Republican Party.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida could not have asked for a friendlier venue to highlight the sweeping six-week abortion ban he signed last month: an annual gala hosted by a deeply conservative Christian group that welcomed him with a sustained standing ovation and provided a bagpiper in full Highland regalia playing “Amazing Grace.”But instead of taking a victory lap on Saturday, Mr. DeSantis breezed through his remarks on Florida’s abortion law, one of the most restrictive in the nation. His rhetoric was far less soaring than that of other speakers, including one who compared abortion to slavery, suggesting it was an evil that should be totally eliminated.“We believe that everybody counts, everybody is special, and our Heartbeat Protection Act shows that we say what we mean and we mean what we say,” said Mr. DeSantis, referring to the law, which he was initially slow to back.He then pivoted to familiar talking points, including his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, his opposition to defunding the police and his signing of a law prohibiting gender-transition care for minors.During the primary, Mr. DeSantis will need to court conservative voters without alienating centrists — all while fending off allegations from Republican rivals who could argue he is too extreme on abortion. Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. DeSantis’s brief comments on abortion underscore his general hesitancy to speak about the issue in visits to key states ahead of his upcoming presidential run. On the trail, his remarks about the ban are usually limited to a single line in his roughly 45-minute stump speech, placed alongside a laundry list of his other legislative accomplishments.The reluctance to highlight abortion — even when speaking on his home turf to grateful Christian conservatives — reflects a careful calibration that could be crucial to his campaign for the Republican nomination.Although many evangelicals and hard-core party activists favor abortion bans like the one he signed in Florida, moderate Republicans are less inclined to support them. During the primary, Mr. DeSantis will need to court those conservative voters without alienating centrists — all while fending off allegations from Republican rivals who could argue he is too extreme on abortion. He will also need to avoid delivering any sound bites to Democrats that could become fodder for attack ads in a general election. Other Republican contenders for president, including Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, have offered less strident views on abortion. Ms. Haley has declined to support a federal abortion ban at a specific number of weeks of pregnancy. And Mr. Scott, who is expected to declare his candidacy on Monday, has said he would back a 20-week federal ban. Former President Donald J. Trump, who is fighting to retain the backing of the anti-abortion movement, has criticized Florida’s six-week law without saying what restrictions he might support, leading Mr. DeSantis to punch back over his reluctance to take a position. The comments, one of his most direct public challenges to the former president so far, demonstrated how Mr. DeSantis could use his record, which anti-abortion activists praise, to distinguish himself.“He’s giving us action, and that’s what I’m interested in,” said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, the nonprofit group that hosted Mr. DeSantis’s speech on Saturday. “He’s been stellar and historic.”Democrats ran heavily on abortion rights in last year’s midterms with unexpected success. That has left some Republicans unsure of how to address the issue in 2024.As Mr. DeSantis is hitting the trail and visiting early nominating states, he is talking little about his abortion legislation. When he does, he does not explicitly tell audiences that the law prohibits the procedure after six weeks.“We enacted the Heartbeat Protection Act to promote life,” Mr. DeSantis said without elaborating as he addressed a crowd of voters in Iowa earlier this month. He sandwiched his comment between brief statements on his tax relief efforts and a law that allows Floridians to carry concealed weapons without training or permits. Speaking at Liberty University, another friendly setting, the day after he signed the ban, Mr. DeSantis almost entirely avoided the subject.And during a discussion with state lawmakers in New Hampshire on Friday, the governor did not mention abortion at all. Privately, lawmakers from the moderate state, which limits abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy, said they thought Mr. DeSantis’s abortion law was too extreme for voters in New Hampshire. Many women do not realize they are pregnant at six weeks.Last spring, Mr. DeSantis and Republican lawmakers in Florida limited access to the procedure after 15 weeks, with exceptions for fatal fetal abnormalities or to save the life of the woman. That legislation is being challenged in front of the Florida Supreme Court.The six-week ban, which includes additional exceptions for rape and incest, is not yet in effect and will hinge, in part, on the court’s decision over the existing law. Women in Florida have suffered serious complications from dangerous pregnancies since the 15-week ban was passed, according to news reports. The state previously prohibited abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy.For many conservatives, the governor is fulfilling a mandate from voters after a nearly 20-point re-election in November.“His leadership helped push that through,” Chris Jessee, a Florida pastor who came to Orlando to hear Mr. DeSantis address the Florida Family Policy Council, said of the six-week ban.Still, Mr. Jessee noticed that the governor did not seem to adjust his usual script much for the event, even though the group’s annual gala was its first since Roe v. Wade was overturned.“I really felt like I’d heard that speech before,” he said.Bret Hayworth contributed reporting from Sioux Center, Iowa. More

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      Ron DeSantis’s Use of Private Jets From Wealthy, Sometimes Secret Donors

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      As the Florida governor hopscotched the country preparing to run for president, a Michigan nonprofit paid the bills. It won’t say where it got the money.For Ron DeSantis, Sunday, Feb. 19, was the start of another busy week of not officially running for president.That night, he left Tallahassee on a Florida hotelier’s private jet, heading to Newark before a meet-and-greet with police officers on Staten Island on Monday morning. Next, he boarded a twin-jet Bombardier to get to a speech in the Philadelphia suburbs, before flying to a Knights of Columbus hall outside Chicago, and then home to his day job as governor of Florida.The tour and others like it were made possible by the convenience of private air travel — and by the largess of wealthy and in some cases secret donors footing the bill.Ahead of an expected White House bid, Mr. DeSantis has relied heavily on his rich allies to ferry him around the country to test his message and raise his profile. Many of these donors are familiar boosters from Florida, some with business interests before the state, according to a New York Times review of Mr. DeSantis’s travel. Others have been shielded from the public by a new nonprofit, The Times found, in an arrangement that drew criticism from ethics experts.Mr. DeSantis, who is expected to formally announce his candidacy next week, is hardly the first politician to take advantage of the speed and comfort of a Gulfstream jet. Candidates and officeholders in both parties have long accepted the benefits of a donor’s plane as worth the political risk of appearing indebted to special interests or out of touch with voters.But ethics experts said the travel — and specifically the role of the nonprofit — shows how Mr. DeSantis’s prolonged candidate-in-limbo status has allowed him to work around rules intended to keep donors from wielding secret influence. As a declared federal candidate, he would face far stricter requirements for accepting and reporting such donations.Mr. DeSantis has been traveling the country testing his message. He and his wife, Casey DeSantis, met this month with local Republicans in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times“Voters deserve this information because they have a right to know who is trying to influence their elected officials and whether their leaders are prioritizing public good over the interests of their big-money benefactors,” said Trevor Potter, the president of Campaign Legal Center and a Republican who led the Federal Election Commission. “Governor DeSantis, whether he intends to run for president or not, should be clearly and fully disclosing who is providing support to his political efforts.”Representatives for the governor’s office and for Mr. DeSantis’s political operation declined to comment or provide details about who has arranged and paid for his flights.Mr. DeSantis has aggressively navigated his state’s ethics and campaign finance laws to avoid flying commercial. And he has gone to new lengths to prevent transparency: Last week, he signed a bill making travel records held by law enforcement, dating back to the beginning of his term, exempt from public records requests.Mr. DeSantis is still required to report contributions and expenses in his campaign finance records, but the new law probably prevents law enforcement agencies from releasing more details, such as itineraries, flight information or even lists of visitors to the governor’s mansion. (Mr. DeSantis says he is trying to address a security concern.)In February, Mr. DeSantis traveled to Newark on a jet owned by Jeffrey Soffer, a prominent hotel owner who, according to several lawmakers and lobbyists, has sought a change in state law that would allow him to expand gambling to his Miami Beach resort.The February trip and others were arranged by And To The Republic, a Michigan-based nonprofit, according to Tori Sachs, its executive director. The nonprofit formed in late January as Mr. DeSantis was beginning to test the national waters and quickly became a critical part of his warm-up campaign. It organized nearly a dozen speaking events featuring the governor in at least eight states.Ms. Sachs would not say how much was spent on the flights or who paid for them.Navigating the LoopholesIt is unclear how Mr. DeSantis will account for the trips arranged by the nonprofit without running afoul of state ethics laws. Florida generally bars officeholders from accepting gifts from lobbyists or people, like Mr. Soffer, whose companies employ lobbyists — unless those gifts are considered political contributions.But both Ms. Sachs and a person involved in Mr. DeSantis’s recent travel said they did not consider the trips political contributions or gifts. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. The group’s practice “is to provide transportation for special guests,” Ms. Sachs said, “in full compliance with the law.”Florida ethics rules, however, give politicians plenty of loopholes. In some circumstances, for example, officeholders can accept paid travel to give speeches as part of their official duties. The state ethics commission has also allowed officeholders to accept gifts from lobbyists if they are channeled through third-party groups.Since taking office in 2019, Mr. DeSantis, who has worked in public service his entire career and reported a net worth of $319,000 last year, has steadily leaned on others to pick up the tab for private flights.His political committee has accepted private air travel from roughly 55 wealthy, mostly Florida-based contributors and companies associated with them, including the heads of oil and gas companies, developers and homebuilders, and health care and insurance executives, a Times analysis of campaign finance records shows.Additional travel donations were routed to the Republican Party of Florida, which Mr. DeSantis often used as a third-party pass-through.A half dozen lobbyists and donors who spoke with The Times said they became accustomed to calls from the governor’s political aides asking for planes — in at least one case, for a last-minute trip home from out of state and, more recently, for a flight to Japan.The Japan trip, which was part of an overseas tour that gave Mr. DeSantis a chance to show off his foreign policy chops, was considered part of the governor’s official duties and was organized in part by Enterprise Florida, a public-private business development group. But Mr. DeSantis’s office would not disclose how it was paid for or how he traveled. Enterprise Florida did not respond to requests for comment.DeSantis supporters at his election-night event last year, as he coasted to re-election.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis’s office rarely releases information about nonofficial events. (In February, when he traveled to four states in one day, his public schedule simply read, “No scheduled events.”) And Mr. DeSantis has brushed off past criticism of his travel. In 2019, The South Florida Sun Sentinel revealed a previous flight to New York on a plane owned by Mr. Soffer. Mr. DeSantis said he had followed proper procedures.“It’s all legal, ethical, no issues there,” he told reporters.A spokeswoman for Mr. Soffer declined to comment.The Warm-Up CampaignSoon after winning re-election in November, the governor turned to building his national profile. He began traveling the country to visit with Republican activists, dine with donors, speak at events and promote a new book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.”Some of his travel was paid for by Friends of Ron DeSantis, a Florida political committee that supported his campaign for governor and reports its donors. The committee had more than $80 million on hand as recently as last month — money that is expected to be transferred to a federal super PAC supporting his presidential run.Since November, that committee has received 17 contributions for political travel from nine donors. They include Maximo Alvarez, an oil and gas distributor, and Morteza Hosseini, a Florida homebuilder who has frequently lent his plane to the governor and has become a close ally.But trips paid for by the nonprofit group, And To The Republic, do not appear in state records.The group is registered as a social welfare organization under Section 501(c)(4) of the federal tax code, meaning its primary activity cannot be related to political campaigns. Other prospective and official presidential candidates also have relationships to similar organizations, often called dark money groups because they are not required to disclose their donors.The nonprofit’s founder, Ms. Sachs, said it was formed to promote “state policy solutions that are setting the agenda for the country” and described Mr. DeSantis as one of the first elected officials to “partner” with the group. Another of those officials, Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, has appeared at the group’s events in her home state — alongside Mr. DeSantis.And To The Republic has hosted Mr. DeSantis at events in South Carolina, Nevada and Iowa, all key early primary states. Some of those events were promoted as “The Florida Blueprint,” borrowing from Mr. DeSantis’s book title.The arrangement has made tracking Mr. DeSantis’s travel — and its costs — difficult. The Times and other news outlets used public flight trackers to verify the governor’s use of Mr. Soffer’s plane, which was first reported by Politico.Other trips arranged by the group include the Feb. 20 stops outside Philadelphia and Chicago and the return trip to Tallahassee, on which Mr. DeSantis flew on a plane registered to a company run by Charles Whittall, an Orlando developer. Mr. Whittall, who gave $25,000 to Mr. DeSantis’s political committee in 2021, said that he uses a leasing company to rent out his aircraft, and that he did not provide it as a political contribution.In March, he traveled to Cobb County, Ga., on a plane owned by an entity connected to Waffle House, the Georgia-based restaurant chain. The company did not respond to a request for comment.Other potential DeSantis rivals have made headlines for their use of private jets. Both as South Carolina governor and as ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley faced criticism for flying on private planes owned by wealthy South Carolinians.In 2020, The Associated Press reported that donors gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in private air travel to Donald J. Trump’s fund-raising committee. The donors included Ben Pogue, a Texas businessman whose father later received a presidential pardon.Still, Mr. Trump — who owns his own plane — has repeatedly sought to draw attention to Mr. DeSantis’s travel, claiming the private planes were effectively campaign contributions and “Ron DeSantis is a full-time candidate for president.”Shane Goldmacher More

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      Is Ron DeSantis failing before he’s even started? – podcast

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      This week, Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that would exempt him from Florida’s ‘resign-to-run’ law, so he won’t have to give up his office in order to run for president. He also continued his attack on teachers, signing into law a ban on the state’s public colleges and universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
      Jonathan Freedland speaks to Democratic state senator Shevrin Jones, the first LGBTQ+ black person to serve in the Florida legislature about the likelihood of a DeSantis run in 2024. Plus, teacher Don Falls explains why he’s suing the governor over the Stop-Woke Act

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      DeSantis Signs Tall Stack of Right-Wing Bills as 2024 Entrance Nears

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      The Florida governor is making a grab for national attention ahead of his expected presidential campaign rollout.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, an all-but-declared presidential candidate, has stepped up his headline-hunting travel and events ahead of an official announcement, traversing the state and trying to hoover up national attention as he signs the sharply conservative legislation he believes can propel him to the Republican Party’s nomination.On Wednesday, Mr. DeSantis signed a slew of measures that hit all the culture-clash notes his base has rewarded him for, including bills banning gender-transition care for minors, preventing children from attending “adult live performances” like drag shows and restricting the use of preferred pronouns in schools.“We need to let our kids just be kids,” Mr. DeSantis said at a Christian school in Tampa. “What we’ve said in Florida is we are going to remain a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy.”It was his third consecutive day of holding public bill-signing ceremonies across the state. The ceremonies, which he hosts in his official capacity as governor, allow Mr. DeSantis to promote his political message in settings that he carefully stage-manages as a veritable M.C., calling up additional speakers and then thanking them for their contributions. These events sometimes take on the feel of political rallies.Such a platform gives Mr. DeSantis an advantage over his potential rivals for the presidency — many of whom are either out of office or hold legislative roles — as he sprints toward declaring his candidacy, which is likely to happen by the end of the month.On Monday, his signing of a bill defunding diversity and equity programs at public colleges and universities drew a robust round of news coverage — as well as loud protesters. He and other Republicans who shared the stage mocked the demonstrators, many of them students at New College of Florida, a public liberal arts school in Sarasota that the governor has sought to transform into a conservative bastion.The signing of bills aimed at the L.G.B.T.Q. community on Wednesday was “an all-out attack on freedom,” Joe Saunders, the senior political director of Equality Florida, an advocacy organization, said in a virtual news conference. He noted that Mr. DeSantis had already signed a six-week abortion ban as well as bills that allowed physicians to decline to provide care based on moral or religious grounds.Mr. DeSantis sees freedom “as a campaign slogan in his bid for the White House,” Mr. Saunders said. “The nation should be on high alert, because, today, we are all Floridians.”Some centrist Republicans say the way Mr. DeSantis has pushed Florida to the right on social issues is a potential weakness in a general election. Representatives for Mr. DeSantis did not immediately respond to requests for comment.As he travels the state, the lines between Mr. DeSantis’s roles as governor and potential presidential candidate can sometimes seem blurred.On Tuesday, after he signed several bills near Fort Lauderdale aimed at curbing human trafficking, an issue that the right has tried to weaponize in national politics, Mr. DeSantis received a boost from Florida’s two top Republican legislative leaders, Kathleen Passidomo, the Senate president, and Paul Renner, the House speaker.After the signing concluded, Ms. Passidomo and Mr. Renner stepped up to a lectern — embossed with Florida’s state seal, rather than the “Stop Human Trafficking” sign that the governor had used moments earlier — to endorse Mr. DeSantis for president, an office he is not yet formally seeking.Katie Betta, a spokeswoman for Ms. Passidomo, said that the endorsement was a matter of convenience because the governor and legislative leaders had not been together since the lawmaking session ended on May 5. “It was a good opportunity to answer a question they have both been getting from the press since the day they were sworn in last November,” Ms. Betta wrote in an email, referring to Ms. Passidomo and Mr. Renner.On Wednesday, the main super PAC backing Mr. DeSantis unveiled endorsements from nearly 100 state lawmakers. Behind the scenes, the governor’s allies and political operatives have been jostling with former President Donald J. Trump’s team to secure those pledges. At the federal level, members of Florida’s congressional delegation have swung heavily for Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis has now held an official event on every weekday this month. He spends his weekends on political travel, including to the crucial early-voting state of Iowa last Saturday.Since winning re-election in a rout in November, Mr. DeSantis has regularly faced questions at state events about his national political ambitions. For months, he usually fended them off with quips about how he was not interested in petty infighting and how it was too soon to be talking about future campaigns with the annual lawmaking session pending.No more. On Tuesday, Mr. DeSantis jumped at the chance to call out Mr. Trump for dodging a question about abortion. The former president had criticized Florida’s six-week ban as too harsh while remaining noncommittal about what restrictions he might support.“I signed the bill. I was proud to do it,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters. “He won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.”This time, it was the swipe at Mr. Trump that made headlines. More

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      Florida school district sued for violating first amendment rights with book bans

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      PEN America, a non-profit US organization that works to protect freedom of speech, along with publishing company Penguin Random House, and individual parents, have filed a lawsuit against a Florida school district for implementing book bans.The suit argues the removal and restriction of access to books discussing race, racism and LGBTQ+ identities violates the first amendment. It comes after rightwing groups have sought to remove books from libraries and schools in the US – often ones that address issues of racism or sexual identity.The book ban movement, led by conservative groups – some of whom aren’t even currently parents of school children – gained special traction last year, spearheaded by groups like Moms For Liberty and No Left Turn in Education.In an interview with the Guardian, Nadine Farid Johnson, the managing director of PEN America Washington and Free Expression Programs, said Florida’s Escambia county school district in particular, was at the heart of the recent book ban movement.“Looking at the landscape of what is happening and recognizing Escambia county, in particular, and its efforts to restrict and remove these books – it is time now to challenge this for the unconstitutional act that it is,” she said.The district first began banning books by placing them in restricted sections of the district’s school libraries and only granting access to students who had parental approval. Some of the books placed in the restricted sections include Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.Other books were flat out banned like And Tango Makes Three, a story about two male penguins who created a family together, and All Boys Aren’t Blue, a memoir about growing up Black and queer in New Jersey written by George M Johnson.“It’s important that these books go back on the shelf so that student can access the books, as is their first amendment right,” Johnson said.“I think the important point here is ensuring students have access to books on a wide range of topics expressing a diversity of viewpoints. It really does implicate a core of public education, which is preparing students to be thoughtful and engaged citizens. And our supreme court has made clear that the government cannot be censoring books just because officials disagree with ideas they contain and that’s what’s happening here. And that’s why we are taking this action.”PEN America began tracking book bans in schools across the country in the 2021-2022 school year. During the first half of the 2022-23 school year, it found 1,477 instances of individual books banned, affecting 874 unique titles.States with the most book bans are Florida, Texas, Utah, Missouri and South Carolina.In a statement, PEN America’s CEO, Suzanne Nossel, said: “Children in a democracy must not be taught that books are dangerous. The freedom to read is guaranteed by the constitution. In Escambia county, state censors are spiriting books off shelves in a deliberate attempt to silence pluralism and diversity. In a nation built on free speech, this cannot stand. The law demands that the Escambia county school district put removed or restricted books back on library shelves where they belong.” More

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      Democrat Donna Deegan Wins Jacksonville’s Mayor Race in Florida Upset

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      Donna Deegan is only the second Democrat to be elected mayor of Florida’s biggest city in the past three decades.MIAMI — Donna Deegan, a Democrat, was elected mayor of Jacksonville on Tuesday, shaking up the politics of Florida’s largest city, where Republican mayors have been in power for all but four of the last 30 years.Ms. Deegan, a former television news anchor, defeated Daniel Davis, a Republican endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had been seen as the likely favorite in the traditionally Republican stronghold. In recent years, Jacksonville had been the most populous city in the country with a Republican mayor, Lenny Curry, who is term-limited; that distinction now goes to Fort Worth, Texas.Ms. Deegan’s victory is a rare bright spot for Florida Democrats, whose losses have mounted in recent elections to the point that the party has little sway in the State Capitol and a thin candidate bench.But while Florida has become decidedly more Republican — and while many have viewed Mr. DeSantis, a likely 2024 presidential contender, as all-powerful in state politics — Jacksonville has emerged as a swingy corner of the state. A majority of voters in Duval County, which shares a consolidated government with the city of Jacksonville, voted for the Democratic nominee for governor in 2018, for the Republican mayor in 2019, for President Biden in 2020, for Mr. DeSantis last year, and now for Ms. Deegan, who will be the city’s first female mayor.“We made history tonight,” Ms. Deegan told cheering supporters Tuesday night after Mr. Davis conceded.Mr. Davis, the chief executive of the local chamber of commerce, out-raised Ms. Deegan by a margin of four to one and seemed like the sort of business-friendly Republican that has long dominated elections in Jacksonville.Corey Perrine/The Florida Times-Union, via Associated PressMs. Deegan campaigned as a change candidate, leaning into the relationships she had made in the community as she overcame breast cancer three times while working on television and as she later created the Donna Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps people diagnosed with breast cancer.“I made a decision when we got into this race that, no matter what happened, no matter what the landscape was like, we were going to lead with love over fear,” Ms. Deegan said Tuesday night. “We would not go with division. We would go with unity.”Mr. Davis, the chief executive of the local chamber of commerce, out-raised Ms. Deegan by a margin of four to one and seemed like the sort of business-friendly Republican that has long dominated elections in Jacksonville, a Navy and shipping town. Mr. Curry, the outgoing mayor, was previously the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.Mr. Davis was known as more of a moderate when he was a state lawmaker, and as the leader of JAX Chamber he supported positions such as protections for the L.G.B.T.Q. community. But as a mayoral candidate, he campaigned from the political right, promising to promote causes espoused by the conservative group Moms for Liberty, which is closely aligned with Mr. DeSantis. He also pledged to be tough on crime in a city that has struggled with stubbornly high crime rates for years, including under Republican leadership.In advertisements, Mr. Davis and other Republicans cast Ms. Deegan as “radical” for backing demonstrators after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 — though Mr. Curry and other local Republicans also supported the protests at the time.On Tuesday night, Mr. Davis said he would be willing to help Ms. Deegan for the good of the city. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Mayor-elect Deegan is successful in making Jacksonville the best Jacksonville it can be,” he said. The city has a strong-mayor form of government, giving the mayor broad administrative powers.Mr. DeSantis, who won Duval County by an 11 percentage-point margin in November, did not endorse Mr. Davis until late March — after Mr. Davis had already been forced into Tuesday’s runoff against Ms. Deegan.Beyond his lukewarm endorsement, which took place via Twitter on a Friday afternoon, Mr. DeSantis offered Mr. Davis little support. The governor did not visit Jacksonville to campaign, unlike one of Florida’s other top Republicans, Senator Rick Scott, who spent last weekend knocking on voters’ doors.In 2020, Ms. Deegan lost a congressional race by 22 percentage points. On Wednesday morning, unofficial results showed she had won about 52 percent of the vote, compared with Mr. Davis’s 48 percent, a difference of about 9,000 votes. Turnout was about 33 percent.Though 39 percent of Duval County voters are registered Democrats, compared with 35 percent registered Republicans and 24 percent registered without party affiliation, Republican voters outnumbered Democratic ones by about 3.5 percentage points on Tuesday — meaning that Ms. Deegan won independents and crossover Republican votes.Five other Jacksonville Democrats were elected on Tuesday, one as property appraiser and four to the City Council.Ashley Walker, a political consultant for Ms. Deegan, said that campaigning on local issues and with a candidate who connected well with voters were key to flipping Jacksonville from red to blue.“Democrats in Florida have to eat the elephant piece by piece,” she said. “We have to go win in these local areas that are purple and get down to the base of some local campaigns to have any chance of coming back statewide.”Nicholas Nehamas More