Citing threats and online ‘trolls,’ Florida lawmakers call for civility in politics

Florida’s agriculture commissioner and his family received “violent threats” during the bruising two-week fight with Gov. Ron DeSantis over immigration enforcement, the state’s Senate president said Tuesday.

Republican Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, his wife and children and other state workers were threatened, Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, told lawmakers.

Who was responsible for the threats wasn’t announced. Simpson’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

But Albritton blamed people with “keyboard courage” who “intentionally inflamed the public and incited violence against a good man and his family.”

“They are grotesque and out of line,” Albritton said of the threats.

The announcement comes a day after legislative leaders and DeSantis reached a deal on immigration enforcement, ending a vicious dispute over who should be responsible for carrying out President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Two weeks ago, Republican leaders, who have long bristled at DeSantis’ heavy-handed approach, defied his request for a special session to address immigration.

Instead of giving money for DeSantis to fly migrants to other countries, they stripped him of nearly all his enforcement powers and gave them to Simpson, who has a frosty relationship with the governor.

DeSantis and his staff responded by vowing to veto their bill. They took to the bully pulpit, assailing Republican lawmakers online and on Fox News for defying him. DeSantis questioned Simpson’s commitment to immigration enforcement, calling it “the fox guarding the henhouse.”

He sent text messages to Florida voters with some lawmakers’ personal cellphone numbers, encouraging them to contact their senators and representatives.

His spokespeople and other state officials openly feuded with Republican lawmakers on X, with backing from a horde of anonymous accounts.

House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, told his colleagues last month to hold strong in the face of “a lot of paid bots on social media trying to gaslight you.”

Sen. Randy Fine, R-Melbourne Beach, threatened on X to force one of DeSantis’ former spokespeople, Christina Pushaw, to testify in a committee about “what they do all day.” Pushaw now makes $160,000 per year as a “senior management analyst” in DeSantis’ office, records show.

Fine said Tuesday that he “absolutely” planned to make good on his vow to investigate the governor’s spokespeople.

“If we learned anything from Ron DeSantis’ political campaign, about the only thing he did right was build a massive troll army,” Fine said Tuesday. “It has absolutely fanned the flames in an unproductive way, and it continues to do that.”

DeSantis’ spokespeople did not respond to emails requesting comment.

Perez told lawmakers Tuesday that over the last month, “we have seen some of the uglier aspects of politics, including deranged online trolls issuing death threats.”

Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Miami, said that lawmakers themselves should try to lower the temperature online.

“A lot of you are amplifying it and feeding it,” Pizzo said.

Herald/Times Tallahassee bureau reporter Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.