Oh, I dunno. I mean, you already know about “America’s Mayor.” A quick google of Mike Carona will give you some insight into “America’s Sheriff.” DeSantis looks to have the makings of an “America’s Governor.”
I hope to God that I never become recognized as “America’s Postal Worker.” I couldn’t bear the inevitable shame.
That would be Louis DeJoy.
Dear God in Heaven.
What would happen if an intelligent, sane, republican ran for president in 2024?
No Republican would vote for them.
I’m hoping he won’t be reelected governor. He’s as bad as Trump with just a veneer of Republican.
As a (reluctant) Floridian, working in an office and in a community where he has broad support, I can’t really think of any measures that DeSantis has taken on behalf of the people of Florida.
Mostly, his administration has taken on culture issues to try to appeal to the Trumpy base, and in so doing has proven rather draconian in it’s handling of free ideas and honest debate.
To be fair, I’m sure our governor does a lot of routine / mundane stuff that benefits Floridians. But so would anyone else in that position.
Example
~Max
Cool! An undescribed .pdf.
It’s an executive order from the governor’s website, his response to the recent cold wave and its effects on the agriculture sector.
~Max
To be fair, Hitler was better looking than Churchill. He was a better dresser than Churchill. He had more hair! He told funnier jokes! And he could dance the pants off Churchill!
The canard is that Mussolini kept the trains running on time (but I think I read that most of the train infrastructure improvements were put in place right before he took power, and they were still sometimes late).
~Max
As to that: Mussolini and On-Time Trains | Snopes.com
Obligatory xkcd link:
I’m bumping this because Ron engaged in more political theatre today by suspending a State Attorney (this is the elected prosecutor- akin to a District Attorney in other states - in this case for the Tampa region) for being derelict in his duties.
As a practitioner who is sometimes in Tampa, it’s not some lawless place; people do get prosecuted.
But Warren had pledged not to prosecute women who had abortions or parents seeking transgender treatment. That was a bridge too far for Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis is scum and these laws are pure evil, but … isn’t this the way it’s more or less supposed to work? DAs aren’t supposed to pick and choose which laws they enforce and more than that county clerk in Kentucky was supposed to pick and choose which couples she’d issue wedding licenses to.
If Warren’s putting his principles over the law, good for him, but he shouldn’t expect to keep his job.
Or do DAs typically have more latitude, and I’m reading this too simplistically?
I think this is different for several reasons:
As you’ve wondered, a State Attorney’s job is to exercise discretion over laws to be enforced. It is inherent to the role, as the vast majority of cases are resolved via plea. At the lower levels, discretion is always under discussion (e.g. “please dismiss this battery charge against my client. It was just a domestic dispute, nobody was hurt, and the cops only got involved because the neighbors were complaining about the noise”; “please agree to stipulate that my client’s blood alcohol concentration is below .15, based on the delay in testing and the margin of error”; “my client didn’t have a valid driver’s license but he has since obtained one. Can we change the charge from no valid license to failure to a traffic ticket for not having it with him when he drove?). Denying Warren this power is denying him his job.
Warren’s argument appears to be based on his own understanding of Florida law - the state constitution provides for a “right to privacy”, so he’s pointing to that to make a decision that enforcing these laws would be unconstitutional. It may be wrong, but he’s pointing to a legal basis.
He hasn’t actually failed to enforce any laws. This action is based on a statement of what he would do in the future - to my knowledge, there aren’t cases where he’s letting people get away with crime following some arrest
His proposal is to apply leniency, which strikes me as different than deciding that the law should be addressed in a way that is more oppressive to people. It’s the equivalent of a clerk saying “even though marriage applications need to be typed, I’ll accept those that are hand written”, as opposed to some clerk saying “I refuse to process a legitimate application”.
Now, it may be that the people of this district don’t agree with this. If so, they can vote Warren out.
But DeSantis doesn’t care about the people’s will; instead, he attended this press conference with people (like the sheriff from Polk county) who aren’t even in Warren’s district and don’t have any real relationship to Warren’s decisions.
Thanks for sharing your much more knowledgeable viewpoint, enhancing both my respect for Warren and disdain for DeSantis.
Here is Warren’s response:
Now, it may be that Warren was being intentionally provocative when he decided to go out on record regarding such controversial issues as abortion and transgender rights. But he was playing to his constituency (Hillsborough county - Tampa - is one of a couple of blue oases in Florida).
He once did something similar when he pledged to not prosecute children as adults. But I’ve seen examples where he made an “exception”, so I don’t see it that Andrew Warren is some sort of rogue public official who is letting crime run amuck on his watch.
More broadly, though, this just reiterates my feeling that Ron DeSantis does not prioritize improving the community, but instead seeks to use government to raise people’s ire and get them riled up (I guess because it mobilizes the base, or gets donations, or something).
It’s notable that he didn’t actually fire Warren, as he doesn’t have that power. He just suspended him. This will end up in court.
My bolding. The photo op was intended, I would assume, to project ‘we support white supremacy and we will enforce it’—a message crucial to DeSantis’ presidential ambitions.
Thank you for posting your excellent analysis, by the way.