Florida Democratic Party Calls Out Gov. DeSantis and Florida Republicans for Focusing More on Partisan Politics than Helping Floridians
Tallahassee, Fla–- As Florida legislative session comes to a close we can see that the Republicans in the Florida House and Senate and Governor Ron DeSantis are more interested in petty partisan politics than actually helping Floridians.
In response, Florida Democratic Party Chair Manny Diaz released the following statement:
“Rather than governing with the best interests of all Floridians in mind, it is abundantly clear that the Florida Republicans and Governor DeSantis are engaged in bad faith, partisan politics designed to do one thing and one thing only — maintain their 20 year+ total control and power over state government, in spite of whatever damage it inflicts on our residents and our democracy. From making it harder to vote in Florida with blatant voter suppression legislation, to criminalizing peaceful protest, to passing a malicious and discriminatory anti-trans youth bill, Republicans chose to wage a culture war this legislative session, instead of addressing real issues Floridians are facing.
“Every community across Florida is still struggling from this pandemic, our unemployment benefits are still among the lowest in the country, and will still have not expanded Medicaid, but the Republicans don’t care. They are more interested in using their legislative time to protect their power and enact Fox News talking points, than in leveraging our state government to actually help Floridians.”
Here are some of the things Florida Republicans did this session:
- Criminalized peaceful protest
- Passed discriminatory anti-trans legislation
- Made it harder to vote by mail with voter suppression legislation
- Made it more difficult for local Florida leaders govern their communities
- Expanded school vouchers, taking more money away from public schools
Here are some of the things they DID NOT do:
- Fix the broken unemployment system
- Expand unemployment benefits to the level of a living wage
- Expand Medicaid to give more Floridians health care
- Address campaign finance reform
- Pass any significant climate change legislation
- Take the pandemic seriously or help Floridians
