Political, civic and religious leaders condemn range of actions from Florida Legislature

A dozen Broward elected officials, religious leaders, and activists assailed the direction of Florida under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Legislature, which they said Wednesday are trampling on peoples’ constitutional rights, eroding freedoms and embracing authoritarian rule.

They objected to legislation and policies on a range of issues: reducing access to abortion; increasing access to guns through permitless carry; limiting drag show attendance; curbing diversity, equity and inclusion in schools and universities; limiting what students learn about racism, and further restricting instruction on LGBTQ issues in schools.

“These people are not representing their constituents,” Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, a Democrat, said of Republicans who control state government.

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“There’s this obsession with the Second Amendment. We get it. OK, you can have a gun. But for those students of the Second Amendment, they must have slept through class on the First Amendment,” Trantalis said. “Because the First Amendment talks about freedom of speech, talks about freedom of assembly, talks about freedoms that we, as individuals here in the United States of America, have always counted on that were never going to be interfered with by any governmental agency. But yet what are we seeing today? … We are seeing a government that is looking to stick their nose into your business where it doesn’t belong.”

Michael Anderson, senior pastor of New Missionary Baptist Church in Hollywood, said people in his community are being hurt by the kind of policies that have been unleashed in Tallahassee.

“When will we wake up from this nightmare, which is clearly not the American dream? A gun doesn’t belong at Walmart with a stranger’s child. A trans student belongs more in the kingdom of God than my bigoted racist neighbor with God on his lips but not in his heart. My state deserves responsible adult leadership rather than rogue authoritarianism in fellowship with intentional pettiness peppered with empty scripted talks of thoughts and prayers,” Anderson said.

Trantalis, Anderson and the others were brought together by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz of Weston, Florida’s senior Democratic member of Congress. The group was demographically diverse (female, male, Black, white, straight, LGBTQ) and included elected officials (federal, county, city), clergy (Christian, Jewish) and political activists, including two unsuccessful candidates for state Legislature last year.

Wasserman Schultz decried “the radical extremism taking root right now in our state Capitol. Whether it’s targeting our LGBTQ+ community, stripping away women’s rights, or censoring history and destroying diversity efforts, taken together there’s a threat of hate woven inside all of these cruel legislative assaults.”

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Earlier in the week, she said in a video news conference that Florida “Republicans have embraced fascism” and that “the infection from Florida is spreading across the country.”

Democrats are powerless to do anything but voice their opposition. DeSantis won reelection by 19 percentage points last year and Republicans won supermajorities in the state Senate and state House of Representatives, which mean Democrats don’t even have the votes to slow down the majority.

In Tallahassee on Wednesday, Republicans had a different focus. House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, held a news conference at which he and other Republicans discussed their law-and-order agenda that he said would give more money and tools to police and increase penalties for some crimes.

The bills would increase penalties for repeated firearm thefts, expand offenses that would allow for pretrial detention, reduce the number of jurors required to impose the death penalty and reduce the number of crimes for which offenders could have the terms of their probation reduced.

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Wasserman Schultz said the issues she and other Democrats highlighted Wednesday would attract public attention, and create a backlash at the polls for Republicans next year.

Before last year’s elections, she and other Democrats repeatedly highlighted what Republicans would do if they won big. Those warnings didn’t appear to motivate voters as Democratic turnout collapsed.

In 2024, Wasserman Schultz predicted, the results would be different now that voters are seeing what Republicans are doing in Tallahassee. As an example, she cited former President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection. He began his second term claiming a mandate for policies voters didn’t like, she said, ended up overreaching, and Democrats won control of Congress in the 2006 elections.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com, on Twitter @browardpolitics and on Post.news/@browardpolitics.