Florida lawmakers are frustrated by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ absence overseas as they come down the wire on the legislative session and while one of the state’s largest counties deals with a historic flood.
“As a representative for the majority of the district impacted by this one in a thousand-year flood, I called Gov. DeSantis to ask where he was with his white rain boots,” State Rep. Hillary Cassel, D-Dania Beach, said in Tallahassee on Monday. She said she received no response.
DeSantis was in Japan Monday, meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for the first stop in a world tour that will take him to South Korea, Israel and Great Britain.
The governor’s office said the trip was to further cement the trade relationship and “strategic partnership” between Florida and Japan, but questions about his potential campaign for president against former President Donald Trump followed him across the Pacific.
“I’m not a candidate, so we’ll see if and when that changes,” DeSantis said, smiling with his head bobbing as he replied when asked about his drop in the polls to Trump.
“We really appreciate what a great ally Japan has been to the U.S. for many, many decades,” DeSantis said. “We understand it’s a tough neighborhood out here … and we really believe that a strong Japan is good for America, and a strong America is good for Japan.”
Back in the U.S., South Florida continues to recover from the historic flooding on April 12 that dropped 25 inches of rain on Fort Lauderdale. DeSantis still has not toured the affected area in Broward County and only asked the federal government for disaster funds on Saturday.
“It took the governor over a week to ask for federal assistance, and he has yet to visit the district,” Cassel said. “It is more important to him to run a campaign, go overseas and literally leave the state high and wet.”
Cassel said she knows firsthand as a property insurance attorney that insurers are not going to cover the claims filed by her constituents because the damage is the result of flooding and they are not in a flood zone. She said they need the state and federal government to step in and assist them.
House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa said it was particularly galling that part of the governor’s entourage on the international trip includes the head of Enterprise Florida, which the Legislature has targeted for elimination.
“I wonder at the level of hypocrisy,” Driskell said. “I guess we’ve gotten used to it.”
The Republican-dominated Legislature has one constitutional duty — to approve a balanced budget by session’s end on May 5.
They also have a number of outstanding bills of their own to push through, including an insurance accountability measure, but they have been preoccupied with getting the bills that reflect the governor’s agenda approved first.
“There are murmurings, there is a dissatisfaction of certain measures,” said Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton. “Republicans are getting tired of carrying the governor’s water, you hear it in the hallways.”
One measure that has Republicans divided would eliminate a Gov. Rick Scott administration rule that allowed the children of undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition.
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The governor’s weeklong foreign travel comes as DeSantis has plummeted in the polls against Trump, his prospective opponent in the GOP primary. The FiveThirtyEight polling average showed Trump more than doubling DeSantis’ numbers with 50.5% of the vote to DeSantis’ 25.2%.
DeSantis has also seen 11 House Republicans endorse Trump. U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, who dined at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago on Thursday along with the other congressional endorsers, called out Republican legislators for caving to DeSantis.
“Sad to see the Florida House and Senate, two bodies I had the honor to serve in, carrying the water for an unannounced presidential campaign,” Steube wrote. “To my fellow elected officials serving in Tallahassee, your constituents voted you into those positions to represent them, not to kowtow to the presidential ambitions of a Governor!”
Trump again mocked DeSantis on Monday on his social media site, writing that DeSantis backers were realizing “there is no personality or people skills there.”
Trump also suggested DeSantis receive “an emergency personality transplant.”
During an interview on the Full Send Podcast on Friday, Trump was asked if he saw DeSantis as a potential running mate.
“I mean, I don’t see it,” Trump said. “We have a lot of great people in the Republican Party [who] it could be.”