In the News
Florida’s got 99 problems and Ron DeSantis is responsible for every single one
December 2, 2023
Ahead of Ron DeSantis completing his 99 county tour in Iowa, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried and Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart released the following joint statement:
“While Ron DeSantis tries desperately to rev up his sputtering presidential campaign with a 99 county tour in Iowa, he’s left behind at least 99 problems for his constituents back home in the Sunshine State.
“Iowans need to look no further than his abysmal record down in Florida – from his extreme abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest, to his abandonment of hundreds of thousands of Floridians who he’s blocked from getting affordable health care – to know that his extreme MAGA agenda is wrong for our country,” said FDP Chair Nikki Fried and IDP Chair Rita Hart .
Florida’s got 99 problems and Ron DeSantis is responsible for every single one:
1. DeSantis signed an abortion ban without any exception for rape or incest victims to access care
2. He then quietly followed that ban up a year later with an even more restrictive, near-total abortion ban that he announced in the middle of the night
3. DeSantis’ abortion ban also threatens to throw doctors in jail for performing care.
4. Florida’s surgeon general is a conspiracy theorist that has encouraged Floridians not to get the COVID vaccine
5. Since COVID vaccines became readily available, Florida has one of the highest COVID death rates in the country
6. Ron touts ‘medical freedom’ bills, but signs the strictest abortion ban in the country into law – limiting women’s freedom to make their own medical decisions
7. In another law targeted at LGBTQ+ people, DeSantis opened the door for doctors to have moral objections to treating patients and deny coverage
8. As DeSantis travels across Iowa running for President, hundreds of thousands of Floridians were kicked off Medicaid while he refuses to expand coverage
9. DeSantis’ unwillingness to expand Medicaid in Florida has forced up to 726,000 Floridians to remain uninsured
10. Florida also ranks as one of the most expensive states to receive medical care in general
11. Defended changes to school curriculum that taught the “personal benefits” for slaves.
12. He later doubled down on these changes being included because slaves learned skills like “being a blacksmith”
13. He also changed the law to make it significantly more difficult for teacher unions to remain certified, a change currently threatening the largest teachers’ union in Florida
14. He also expanded private school vouchers program to subsidize the cost of private school education for the ultra-wealthy and take more money out of our already poorly funded public education system
15. DeSantis also allowed for education funding to be used on homeschooling expenses like trips to Disney, big screen TVs, and paddle boards
16. Let’s remember that while DeSantis is ripping money away from public schools Florida still ranks 48th in teacher pay and per student funding is still below Great Recession levels
17. Florida leads the nation on book bans with 1,400 titles removed from schools and libraries
18. New law banning classes on gender or sexuality effectively bans AP Psychology in schools
19. Florida teacher shortage hitting record high as DeSantis ramps up attacks on educators with new laws threatening huge fines and jail time
20. DeSantis teams up with Moms for Liberty, unveiling a hit list of school board members he’s targeting in 2024
21. DeSantis’ congressional map was struck down for violating the Florida Constitution by denying minority voters fair representation
22. He also mandated colleges and universities across Florida to survey their students, faculty and staff’ political viewpoints
23. Time and again, Ron DeSantis has refused to condemn neo-Nazis in Florida
24. No really, instead of condemning neo-Nazis demonstrating in Florida, DeSantis’ spokesperson instead pushed conspiracy theories
25. DeSantis campaign aide made a video with neo-Nazi symbols.
26. DeSantis also has criticized leaders for addressing anti-Islamic hatred as Islamophobia rises
27. He signed a permitless carry bill into law despite the majority of Floridians opposing it
28. Ron DeSantis wants to go even further and allow permitless open carry
29. DeSantis banned age-appropriate, medically sound gender affirming care for minors who need it and opened the door for the state to take transgender children away from supportive parents
30. DeSantis vetoed $20 million for a STEM nursing facility in Sarasota after losing the district senator’s endorsement
31. DeSantis auctioned off his leisure time to lobbyists looking to line his political action committee
32. DeSantis’ feud with Disney led them to cancel a $1 billion project in Florida which would have employed thousands of people
33. DeSantis supported Tuberville’s military blockade that threatens national security and harms military families
34. DeSantis used Florida taxpayer dollars to perform a political stunt in shipping migrants in Texas fleeing communism to Martha’s Vineyard.
35. Governor Newsom even threatened DeSantis with kidnapping charges because he repeatedly used Floridians’ taxpayer dollars to dupe migrants onto flights to California to score political points
36. Florida leaves $800 million on the table for disability services
37. Over a dozen property insurers stop writing coverage and leave the state, leaving Floridians struggling to find coverage
38. Instead of acting on the insurance crisis, DeSantis urged Floridians to “knock on wood” and hope that it wouldn’t be a bad hurricane season
39. DeSantis rejects $350 million in Inflation Reduction Act energy efficiency funding that would bring down household costs for Floridians
40. DeSantis signs into law industry-backed bill allowing Florida landlords to charge ‘junk fees’ instead of security deposits
41. DeSantis announces plans to end birthright citizenship in a state built by immigrants
42. DeSantis’ anti-immigration law resulted in worker shortage and supply chain delays in farming and agricultural industry
43. A grand jury put in place by Ron DeSantis proposed a tax on all wire transfers on money overseas, targeting immigrants with family abroad
44. DeSantis harmed Florida farmers by cutting a hundred million dollars in conservation easements which could be used by ranchers and farmer
45. Despite Florida feeling the effects, Ron DeSantis continues to ignore the science of climate change
46. Banned public colleges from spending money on gender studies and DEI initiatives
47. DeSantis belittled a 15 year old for asking if Joe Biden won the 2020 election
48. Signed bills that made it harder for local governments to be able to make clean energy and conservation decisions
49. He has consistently made it harder for Floridians to access the ballot box by making it tougher to vote by mail and limiting the number of ballot drop boxes for his political gain
50. DeSantis also signed a law that would deter outside groups from giving voters waiting in line snacks or wate
51. Made it difficult if not impossible for many transgender adults to access the care they rely on
52. In an extreme power grab, DeSantis blocked private businesses and local communities from protecting themselves from disease
53. DeSantis committed a “political hit job” against Florida’s only Black female state attorney — who just won re-election by a 2:1 margin the year before — without alleging a single violation of Florida law
54. DeSantis appoints Moms For Liberty Co-Founder to Florida Ethics Commission
55. A federal court ruled that DeSantis violated the Constitution by removing the Hillsborough County state attorney for exercising prosecutorial discretion
56. Ron DeSantis militarized the State Guard under his control, forcing out veterans
57. DeSantis signs law to make use of death penalty easier, reducing the threshold from unanimous vote to 8 out of 12 jurors
58. On the campaign trail, DeSantis fudges and misrepresents crime numbers for talking points despite being warned by his own law enforcement officials
59. DeSantis has been pushing for a Muslim travel ban since before Trump took office
60. To avoid public scrutiny, DeSantis changed Sunshine Laws to keep his travel records hidden
61. DeSantis took over a university board in Florida to install loyalists and force conservative ideologies
62. “DeSantis directed the Florida Republican Party leader to fire a party official who had cancer — on that person’s first week back from surgery”
63. DeSantis’ first Secretary of State resigned just weeks after taking the job because a photo showed him dressed up in blackface to look like a Hurricane Katrina victim
64. DeSantis reportedly eats pudding with three fingers
65. Floridians have been left on the hook for more than $16 million defending his culture war bills in courts
66. Ron DeSantis criticizes Democrats for government spending, passes the largest budget in Florida’s history
67. DeSantis spends $8 million of taxpayer money on travel costs to fly him around the country on the campaign trail
68. DeSantis calls two special sessions on property insurance crisis, with no real relief
69. On average, Floridians pay the highest property insurance costs in the country.
70. The average cost of homeowners insurance has more than doubled since DeSantis took office in 2018.
71. Under DeSantis, Florida has also become “America’s inflation hotspot”.
72. “Florida home to 9 of 21 most overpriced US rental markets, FAU study says”
73. DeSantis delayed a one month gas tax holiday until it was politically advantageous for him
74. Car insurance rates rise over 30% in Florida as DeSantis fails to address dual insurance crises
75. Ron appointed a Qanon follower that supported the January 6th insurrection to the State Board of Education
76. DeSantis helped FPL raise rates by nearly $5 billion over four years by stacking the Public Service Commission
77. Championed the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which used overbroad language to keep inclusive teaching out and bully and isolate LGBTQ+ students in the classroom
78. Doubled down on this by signing a second version of the Don’t Say Gay Law that further restricts teaching about sexual orientation and gender in classrooms
79. Allowed the use of ultra-conservative PragerU videos in the classroom — videos that teach skewed or false versions of history to push a narrative onto children
80. DeSantis signed one of the strictest immigration laws in the country that requires doctors to ask about immigration status
81. Florida’s immigration law criminalizes transport of migrants, leads to arrests of undocumented drivers
82. Immigrants leave behind homes and businesses, forced out of the state by anti-immigrant law
83. Construction delays and hurricane relief comes to a halt as anti-immigrant law threatens deportation of immigrant workers
84. New property laws prevent immigrants and new citizens from Cuba and Venezuela from buying property near infrastructure facilities like airports or military bases
85. DeSantis vows to send troops to the border and leave people engaged in drug trafficking ‘stone cold dead’
86. DeSantis banned local cities and municipalities from being able to enact local fertilizer bans
87. DeSantis failed to fully adopt more than 85% of his own Blue-Green Algae Task Force’s recommendations
88. DeSantis signed legislation making it harder to hold sugar harvesters responsible for poisoning the air
89. Despite campaign promises, DeSantis allowed exploratory oil drilling in the Apalachicola River Basin
90. After Hurricane Idalia, DeSantis abandoned Florida while President Biden and Rick Scott surveyed the damage
91. A federal court blocked DeSantis’ new voter registration law that undermines community-based organizations performing voter registration
92. DeSantis’ voter suppression law cancels hundreds of thousands of vote-by-mail requests, forcing voters to re-enroll every two years
93. DeSantis signs bill to create election police unit despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud
94. Supreme Court declines DeSantis request to enforce anti-drag show law
95. Florida lawmaker introduces bill that would expand DeSantis ‘Don’t Say Gay’ laws to prohibit required use of preferred pronouns in the workplace
96. DeSantis signs bathroom bill that makes it a crime for a person to use a bathroom intended for the sex opposite of what they’re assigned at birth
97. Florida county removes LGBTQ books from schools in response to Don’t Say Gay laws
98. DeSantis appoints Liberty Counsel attorney Roger Gannam, with history of attacking LBGTQ+ community, as Sixth District Court of Appeal Judge
99. DeSantis claimed that there was “no need” for the Respect For Marriage Act after Clarence Thomas put marriage equality on the chopping block
