Don't allow DeSantis to silence, jail his opponents — Defeat the anti-protest bills | TheHill
By: Micah Kubic (TheHill)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Let's say you are the governor of Florida and are being accused of tragically botching the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. You are also being blamed for the absolute chaos Floridians encountered when they tried to receive desperately needed unemployment benefits, as well as maddening delays in vaccine distribution.
How did this happen? At the outbreak of the pandemic, you chose to follow the lead of then-President Trump Donald Trump Democrats see Georgia as opening salvo in war on voting rights MLB could move All-Star game from Georgia after controversial new voter restrictions Biden fires majority of DHS advisory council members MORE, his reckless denial of science and failure to provide hands-on leadership.
So, what do you do to address this crisis moment in the midst of the worst health emergency in 100 years?
If you are Gov. Ron DeSantis you make your legislative priority for 2021 the passage of a law that will criminalize political protest. You champion House Bill 1/Senate Bill 484 , which will make it child’s play to shut down any protest you don’t like, including those calling for you and your allies in the Florida Legislature to be voted out of office for your failures during the pandemic, among other reasons.
How easy will it be to stifle political protest in Florida if this new law passes? This easy: Under the new law, if a thousand people are marching peacefully to protest the current leadership, all it will take is for a handful of people to decide to throw a brick through a shop window and the entire crowd will be subject to arrest, a felony conviction and a hefty fine if law enforcement deems the peaceful protest "a riot." That brick thrower could be an infiltrator acting to deliberately derail a perfectly legal demonstration.
And to make sure that peaceful protesters can't continue demanding change, they will be denied bail until they see a judge. That's right. You don't have to commit a crime yourself or engage in any disorderly and violent conduct; you just need to be exercising your constitutional right to peaceful protest while someone else — with no connection to you — is engaging in such conduct.
Will police and local elected leaders shut down a protest as quickly as that? There's a good chance they will, and here's why. DeSantis' bill states that if they don't, the city itself can be held liable for any amount of personal injury or property damage. This is a radical change in the law, which currently protects municipalities from such sweeping liability, and it will drive local officials to over-militarize their law enforcement response to peaceful protests in an attempt to avoid costly civil litigation.
But how about if no one throws a brick through a window? How about if people with different political positions just yell at each other on the street? No problem, the DeSantis law takes care of that too. The proposed law: "Creates the crime of mob intimidation, prohibiting a mob from forcefully compelling or attempting to compel another person to do any act or to assume or abandon a particular viewpoint."
In other words, if you and a few friends raise your voices during a political argument with a counter protester you may end up in jail. Who will end up being accused of this? Black people will be disproportionately impacted and arrested. After all, DeSantis first proposed this law in September during the Black Lives Matter protests against the police killings of Black people.
Law enforcement already has laws on the books that impose substantial penalties on people committing such crimes. Those laws were enforced last year against the trivially small number of people who broke the law during protests in Florida. Some courageous law enforcement leaders are already saying as much.
Let's get our numbers straight. As of Mar. 1, 28,933 people had died from COVID-19 in Florida. Not one person died during last year's political protests, 98 percent of which involved peaceful protesters.
No matter what DeSantis says about the purpose of this law, if it passes it will be on the books ready to be used during next year's election campaigns and against protesters calling for him to be voted out of office for his tragic failures during the pandemic. This law will also be used to shut down protests against police violence and failures to confront climate change, or to stifle marches in favor — or opposition — of abortion access and LGBTQ rights. You name it.
Giving those in power the ability to quash dissent is perilous, extremely unwise, and profoundly un-American.
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Talk about cancel culture....
meh, projection and bullshit is what usually flies out of their mouths.
Yet watch the right wing stay silent on this.
The ones that supposedly love freedom sure as hell love to restrict it.
The whole story of Florida's COVID19 data scientist Rebekah Jones "reeks" of Desantis's interference.
They fired her for posting ALL of the COVID Data online instead of editing it to DeSantis's tastes.
They raided her house and took all of her equipment for running her own website for Florida and other states privately.
Then they arrested her for purportedly using the intra state email system once , after her termination, when supposedly she had no access.
It sounds like Russian mafia.
Just for this, I hope the state of Florida gets the pants sued off of them. Her First Amendment rights were violated.
Sickening what he is allowed to get away with.
Add in the fact that he was steering the vaccine shots to his wealthy donors...
In addition to all of the above, this is DeSantis's latest power grab and it's the second time he tried it, the first failed.
Bill aims to strip Florida Cabinet of its power
And of course, he is rejecting the Medicare expansion for the 800,000 Floridians without insurance. But the useless fracking DeSantis and the legislature have never worked a hard day in their privileged lives.
Florida unlikely to expand Medicaid for 800,000 residents, despite offer of more federal money
Why everyone just seems to turn the other cheek and let him keep doing things like that.
Then to think he actually has presidential ambitions...(shudder)
There are a lot of people fighting him every step of the way. He is going to face a tough challenger when he runs for governor again.
He ordered flags at half-mast for Rush Limbaugh and the Agricultural Commissioner, Nikki Fried order all buildings under her control to NOT fly them at half-mast. It looks like she will be running against him.
Much of this will likely be challenged in court. Looking through the House analysis of the bill , it’s clear the government knows they are treading on the edges of the First Amendment.
Some of this is just increased penalties for things that are already illegal, which may be petty, but is their prerogative. Other sections codify existing case law interpreting common law, so those sections really aren’t something new. Some are though, like the mob intimidation law, which is interesting.
I feel like this misrepresents the law a little. Simply yelling at someone doesn’t satisfy the elements of the crime. There must be a use of force or threat of force to compel someone to do an act or abandon a particular viewpoint. It also has to be multiple people doing this together with “common intent.” That’s kind of a lot to prove, and depending on the politics of the perpetrators, I can see a lot of people agreeing with it. Think of the torch-bearing white supremacists in Charlottesville. A lot of people had a problem with their mere presence and found it intimidating.
However, I can still see it being found unconstitutionally vague, and thus imperiling the right to free speech. On the other hand, true threats are already illegal, so it may not be much of a leap.
Then there is this:
If we’re honest, we can see the reason for this one. There were municipalities around the country who refused to step in and help people defend their persons or property from the mob, and refused to arrest people engaged in such activity. This was not universal, by any means, but it did happen in certain places. But can anything be done? From the analysis:
So, I appreciate the sentiment behind this provision, but I’m guessing it’s still unconstitutional.
The tricky thing with any negligence case, is that there must be a breach of a duty. So, do police or municipal governments have a duty to protect persons or property? The Supreme Court has already said police do not have such a duty in the case of Winnebago and Town of Castle Rock vs. Gonzales .
Well, so what? Why is that important? We can’t regulate anything now unless it has killed someone? What a dumb standard! Plenty of people have been injured in protests and many businesses and other property have been damaged or destroyed. There is no good moral ground for defending that. Even though this legislation may cross several constitutional lines, and will likely have to be amended, there is nothing wrong with the goal of trying to bring some peace to peaceful demonstrations.