Florida ‘anti-protest’ bill would enact racist, state-sanctioned power grab
Don’t mess with … Florida?
Tuesday, March 2, marked the first day of the 2021 Florida legislative session. Rather than speak to Florida’s broken unemployment system or discuss a detailed plan for vaccine distribution, Gov. Ron DeSantis instead opted to borrow from a Merle Haggard song in his State of the State address that afternoon: “When you mess with the men and women of law enforcement, you are walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.”
Of course, the governor was referring to his signature bill package (HB 1/SB 484), dubbed by the SPLC Action Fund and other advocacy organizations as the “anti-protest” or “censorship” bill, which has loomed over this session since it was first announced by DeSantis last September while he was surrounded by a phalanx of law enforcement.
The proposed legislation would put people at risk of being criminally prosecuted simply for exercising their First Amendment right to protest police brutality and other actions of state government.
If passed, the bill would enact a racist, state-sanctioned power grab unlike anything modern-day Florida or any other state has ever seen – and during a pandemic that is still ruthlessly ravaging the people of this state. To date, over 30,000 Floridians have died of COVID-19, millions have suffered economic losses including jobs and housing, and there is a budget gap of almost $3 billion due to the loss of tourism and sales tax revenue.
Yet, our governor and his allies prefer to focus on the fiction of violent street riots as an excuse to wage war on Black and Brown protesters who simply seek the recognition of their constitutional rights during a time that will forever be branded by the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks, as well as all those who died of COVID-19 amid a tepid state response.
A few hours after the governor made his State of the State speech, hundreds of activists from around Florida converged on the Capitol building to peacefully protest the anti-protest bills as unconstitutional. There was no rioting, no mobs, and no damage to anybody or anything.
And the very next day, the bill passed by partisan lines out of its second House committee, with the chair of the committee seeming more preoccupied with enforcing a strict, one-minute time limit on members of the public who came to speak against the bill than any actual consideration of the salient points raised. At the 6 o’clock hour, the committee was adjourned right on time amid the grins of representatives heading off to dinner plans and the palpable frustration of advocates wondering what to do before the next and final committee, which will almost inevitably send the bill to the House floor.
To be clear, there is good stuff in the works here in Florida, too. Our juvenile justice reforms proposed by the No Place for a Child Coalition have legs, and we expect SB 274 – the juvenile record expunction bill – will land on one or both chamber floors. Thousands of children would be spared the trauma of adult jail or prison under SB 474, which would raise the age for direct file.
Four criminal justice bills were in committees this first week of session that were either drafted by the Campaign for Criminal Justice Reform or backed by that coalition, and all four advanced, with one moving to its final committee stop. We’ve so far stalled some bad voting rights, anti-LGBTQ, and other bills by working inside strategies.
However, the showdown over HB 1/SB 484 and resulting outcome will have far-reaching consequences to the people of Florida one way or the other and set the tone for the remainder of the DeSantis administration. However, this is no country song: the real lives of real people will be shaped by our state government’s actions – or inactions – for years to come.
Photo by Orlando Sentinel/Getty Images
