‘Culture wars are getting us nowhere’: Florida lawmakers tiring of DeSantis’ ‘war on woke’ – By Carl Gibson (Alternet) / March 09, 2024
Ever since scuttling his presidential ambitions, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has been slowly losing influence in the Florida legislature.
The Sunshine State’s annual legislative session gaveled out this week, with several of DeSantis’ major culture war priority bills failing to advance through Florida’s far-right Republican supermajority legislature. The Washington Post reported that one of the two-term Florida governor’s biggest obstacles was Republican state senate president Kathleen Passidomo, who declined to bring up several hot-button bills for a vote.
One of those bills would have penalized municipal officials in towns that removed Confederate monuments. One speaker at a committee hearing reportedly extolled that bill to “push white culture, white supremacy.” That legislation was praised by DeSantis, who said it was “totally appropriate,” and likened efforts to remove Confederate statues to a “hyper-woke 21st century test.” The bill advanced through its respective committee, but Passidomo never brought it up in the full senate, calling it “so abhorrent to everybody.”
CONITNUE > https://www.alternet.org/culture-war-desantis-lawmakers/
