DeSantis expresses anxiety about Democratic comeback in remarks to Republican base
Gov. Ron DeSantis appealed to rank-and-file GOP members this week to once again help him out with his feud with Republican leaders in Florida, further escalating it while also revealing a new anxiety about the hold his party has on the state it has controlled for decades.
Unnamed in the roughly 20-minute plea was House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Miami Republican with whom the governor has been sparring since the beginning of the year over issues ranging from immigration-enforcement to tax cuts.
DeSantis’ speech to the Republican Party of Florida on Monday night was delivered hours after he attacked Perez’s proposal to decrease the state sales tax, a maneuver that is estimated to save Floridians $5 billion annually. The next day, he accused Perez’s chamber of “feeding” the media negative information about a charity organization the governor’s wife created.
DeSantis’ multiple strikes this week against the House are a new flashpoint in his feud with Perez. The speaker has shown more resistance than his predecessors against DeSantis, who is reaching the end of his term and is barred from running for his seat a third time under state law. His comments also reveal the Republican divisions go beyond the two men.
The divisions are also about policy, which is how lawmakers message the values of their party. The House and Senate have been run more bottom-up this year and Republican lawmakers are offering bills ranging from targeting processed food to the effects of climate change that break with GOP norms in Florida. It shows how the political values of Republican lawmakers —who can largely pass whatever they want in the Legislature because they have so much control — are changing.
“To have a GOP supermajority, it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, unless they act like a GOP supermajority,” DeSantis told Republican Party members in the governor’s mansion on Monday night. “What I see so far out of the Florida House of Representatives, they’re not trying to step on the left’s throat. They are giving a lifeline to the Democratic Party.”
DeSantis’ comments surfaced as results came in from two closer-than-expected congressional races in safe Republican Florida districts, and a Democratic win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court despite Elon Musk financially backing the Republican candidate.
The base has come to the governor’s defense before in his rift with Perez. Party members accused the House speaker in January of undermining the governor’s authority to enforce illegal immigration programs, for instance.
“You have the right to hold these folks accountable, to be true to what they campaigned on,” DeSantis said. “I see very little energy in the Florida House of Representatives to actually defeat the left… to defeat the Democrats.”
DeSantis said one Republican-backed policy moving forward during the legislative session was about “carbon sequestration” and is from former President “Joe Biden’s playbook.” He went after Republican lawmakers for not championing his proposal to have “open carry” in Florida, allowing people to wear their guns in public. He noted that the House’s champion on insurance reform, Rep. Hillary Cassel from Hollywood, is a former Democrat and a trial lawyer.
“They’re more interested in joining with the Democrats to oppose me than they are in doing what’s right for you, and that is just fundamentally wrong,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis even called out the chairman of the state Republican Party who was standing next to him, throwing up his hands while standing at a podium in his house, for saying he and the Florida Legislature are “on the same team.”
“If you have Morgan and Morgan hanging around you, you’re not on my team. If you’re indulging climate lunacy, you’re not on my team. If you’re blocking great Second Amendment [policies] like open carry, you’re not on my team,” DeSantis said.
He then gave the party members their marching orders. Next time they see their representatives, “particularly in the House,” ask them: “What are you doing to defeat the left this legislative session?”
“What are you doing to make sure that the Democratic Party doesn’t come roaring back in two or four years?” DeSantis said. “That’s the stakes that I see. You know, I’m disappointed in seeing some of this. The reality is, I ain’t budging an inch.”