We’re tired of paying for Florida’s pointless fights over drag shows | Opinion

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lost another round in court last week when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to reinstate the state’s anti-drag show law, on hold pending a court case. But you know who else lost? We did — the taxpayers of this state.

Because every time DeSantis uses our hard-earned taxpayer money to defend another one of his ill-conceived and self-serving laws — the ones he had hoped to ride all the way to the White House — that’s money and time the state won’t be spending on important issues that might do some actual good in the world. By the end of 2022, the state had spent at least $17 million in legal fees defending culture-wars laws, and the 2023 budget included almost $16 million just for litigation.

Real challenges

Meanwhile, real problems go begging for attention. Like fixing our insurance crisis so middle-class homeowners aren’t forced out of the state. Or helping us prepare for climate change so we don’t get swamped with every storm.

Those topics aren’t the stuff of catchy campaign slogans. DeSantis’ favorite — “Florida is where woke goes to die” — is no longer resonating with voters but it’s unlikely it’ll be replaced by something like, “Florida is where insurance costs won’t force you out of your home anymore.”

Even if that ever came true, which is looking highly doubtful at the moment.

Haven’t we caught on by now? The culture wars that DeSantis has specialized in and Republican lawmakers have flogged endlessly are about politics, but not about governing. They’re about getting voters riled up — but not solving actual problems. And whom does that serve? Here’s a clue: Not us.

Also, last we checked, the whole idea of representative government was that we elect someone to go to the state capital or the nation’s capital to help solve the problems of the people back home. But that’s not happening much anymore. Instead, we allow the politicians running this state — and hoping to run the country — to take our hard-earned dollars and waste them by passing laws that divide us, that aren’t needed and then by defending them in court, when they are rightly challenged.

We let our “representatives” act as though we sent them to Tallahassee or Washington to build their careers, not serve the people. We should expect so much more.

Obscenity laws

In the latest legal development in Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court did the right thing (though it was a 6-3 vote) by refusing, at least for now, to let the state enforce a law that targets drag show performances under the guise of protecting children. The law, which bans children from “adult live performances” such as drag shows, is being challenged in lower court, and a federal judge had stopped the state from enforcing it — on First Amendment grounds — until the case is heard. An Orlando restaurant, Hamburger Mary’s, which hosts drag performances, sued the state on constitutional grounds, saying it would result in a loss of business.

The law was bad from the start: It’s an overreach by state government, an intrusion on free speech and, if that weren’t enough, it even runs counter to yet another much-touted, culture-war state law about parental rights. It gives the state power to decide what performances children can attend, rather than parents. And, as U.S. District Judge Gregory A. Presnell noted, existing obscenity laws already protect children from obscene shows or exhibits.

The case will proceed through the courts, as it must. But it remains yet another embarrassing example of Florida’s misplaced priorities under a power-hungry governor and Legislature with no conscience when it comes to the way they spend our hard-earned tax dollars.

When are we going to say we’ve had enough?

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