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Fact Sheet

FACT SHEET: Ron DeSantis: Authoritarian Threat to Our Freedoms

By January 10, 2023No Comments

“DeSantis has made Trump’s lies his own.”

– Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Professor of History at New York University

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was a key figure in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Along with his partners in the Trump administration, DeSantis helped create the conditions that led to the violent attack on our Capitol. He spent weeks spreading lies and misinformation about the election and casting doubt on the vote count afterwards, using his position to promote false claims about federal law enforcement. He even collaborated with the Trump campaign to share false evidence of so-called voter fraud. 

Since 2020, DeSantis has solidified his standing as one of the most authoritarian officials in America. He has continued to nurture far-right conspiracy theories and worked to suppress voters through blatantly unconstitutional means. From gerrymandering a Black-plurality Voting Rights Act congressional district off the maps, to instituting what voting rights experts are calling a “modern-day poll tax,” Governor DeSantis has made it clear that he will stop at nothing to undermine and exploit the will of voters for political gain. His re-election only further solidified his standing as a continued threat to our democracy. Just last year, DeSantis suspended an elected local prosecutor and arrested 20 voters charged with voting illegally after his own administration team told them they were eligible. With an impending court decision on the dismissed prosecutor looming, he continues to defend his actions in court using taxpayer dollars. DeSantis is a dangerous figure embracing an anti-voter agenda right out of Trump’s authoritarian playbook.

Ron DeSantis Has Built a Reputation as an Authoritarian, Anti-Democratic Leader.

DeSantis Is Following An Authoritarian Playbook Inspired By Trump and Foreign Adversaries. Many journalists have drawn parallels between Ron DeSantis’ leadership and authoritarian leaders abroad, such as Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán. According to Vos, DeSantis has “steadily put together a policy agenda with strong echoes of Orbán’s governing ethos,” noting that the Governor’s agenda reflects an aggressive use of state power against his political enemies. As the New York Magazine notes, “in office, he has engineered a series of disturbingly illiberal schemes to entrench his own power, from instituting a poll tax to disenfranchise some million mostly non-white Floridians to punishing firms that dare to oppose his agenda, among many other steps.” DeSantis has embraced a political playbook that shuts down political enemies, and he looms large as a threat to the will of voters in Florida and beyond. [Vox (Opinion), 4/28/22; New York Magazine (Opinion), 7/11/22; Philadelphia Inquirer (Opinion), 8/21/22]

Governor DeSantis Has Cultivated Ties to Far-Right Conspiracy Theories and Extremists. According to New York Magazine, Governor Ron DeSantis “has ignored the slice of Republicans who disdain Trump’s authoritarianism and courted anti-vaxxers, QAnon believers, and insurrectionists. And he has demonstrated repeatedly a ‘no enemies to the right’ strategy that inevitably binds him to the party’s most fanatical elements.” By using his power to target political enemies, DeSantis follows in a long line of authoritarians painting dissent as dangerous. [New York Magazine (Opinion), 7/11/22; Washington Post (Opinion), 11/21/22]

Ron DeSantis Suspended An Elected State Prosecutor In An “Unprecedented Power Grab.” In August 2022, Governor DeSantis suspended State Attorney Andrew Warren for exercising prosecutorial discretion in abortion cases. Legal experts, such as civil rights advocacy group Fair and Just Prosecution, immediately denounced the move as an “unprecedented and dangerous intrusion on the separation of powers and the will of the voters,” violating a longstanding precedent of prosecutorial discretion just weeks before the midterm primary elections in Florida. After his ousting, Warren immediately asked a court to reinstate him, sparking a lengthy legal fight with DeSantis in which the Governor has fought to avoid public deposition to a court that has already begun to expose a months-long back-and-forth political ploy. The case includes more than 100 court exhibits. Though DeSantis was not called to testify about why he chose to suspend Warren, the trial judge has taken longer than anticipated to announce a decision on reinstating the former prosecutor. [Washington Post (Opinion), 10/16/22; Fair and Just Prosecution, 8/4/22; ABC Action News, 10/24/22; Tampa Bay Times, 11/16/22, 1/10/23; Politico, 11/17/22]

Following the Trump Playbook, Ron DeSantis Has Worked to Suppress Voters and Undermine Election Administration As Governor of Florida

Ron DeSantis Fought the Justice Department Over Election Day Monitors Mandated By The Voting Rights Act. On Election Day 2022, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice deployed election monitors to 64 jurisdictions across 24 states, including three Florida counties, in a routine activity required under the Voting Rights Act that has been conducted since 1965. This year, however, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration refused to admit Justice Department monitors, announcing that the Florida Department of State would send its own monitors to the three counties instead, falsely claiming that DOJ monitors intended to enter polling places and disrupt voting, and repeatedly claiming without evidence that voter fraud and election interference were imminent problems. [The Hill, 11/8/22; CNN, 11/8/22; Business Insider, 11/8/22]

DeSantis Has Worked To Undermine Voter Representation Through Gerrymandering. During the decennial redistricting process this year following the 2020 census, Ron DeSantis did everything in his power to reduce the voting power of racial and ethnic minorities by gerrymandering Congressional districts: 

Governor DeSantis Arrested 20 Voters For Voting Illegally – After His Administration Told Them They Could Vote. In August 2022, Florida police arrested 20 people charged with casting ballots illegally – even though the state had told them they were eligible to vote. In response, DeSantis declared: “That is against the law, and now they’re gonna pay the price for it,” prompting concerns that his response would intimidate thousands of voters, uncertain of their own eligibility, into staying home rather than risk getting arrested or reincarcerated. These illegitimate indictments have been largely rebuked by judges, and at least three of the voters’ charges have since been dismissed. [NBC (Opinion), 11/12/22; Governor Ron DeSantis Press Release, 8/18/22; Philadelphia Inquirer (Opinion), 8/21/22; NPR (WLRN 91.3 FM), 11/5/22; Reuters, 10/21/22; AP News, 12/24/22]

  • DeSantis Ignored A Voter-Approved A Voting Rights Ballot Initiative, Disenfranchising Unincarcerated Floridians With A 21st-Century Poll Tax. In November 2018, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment reinstating the voting rights of unincarcerated Florida residents with completed felony convictions. Shortly after the initiative passed, Ron DeSantis refused to restore the voting rights of unincarcerated Floridians with felony convictions who still had unpaid fines – though a host of voting rights groups immediately decried the effort as a thinly-veiled effort to limit the re-enfranchisement of otherwise-eligible citizens and a modern-day unconstitutional poll tax (given the racial disparities present in formerly-incarcerated populations), and challenged his policy in court. Ultimately, the GOP-appointed Florida Supreme Court sided with DeSantis and a Trump-appointed Appeals Court affirmed the ruling. DeSantis’ attacks on voting rights have only escalated since. [Brennan Center for Justice, 8/10/20, 9/11/20; ACLU, 8/7/20]

Ron DeSantis Proposed and Approved Numerous Highly-Restrictive Election Laws Creating Barriers To Ballot Access in Florida. In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, Ron DeSantis proposed a host of changes to restrict voting rights in Florida. He called for eliminating ballot drop boxes, as well as limiting mail-in voting by mail by requiring that voters re-register every year and creating hefty signature verification standards for mail-in ballots. Since the 2020 election, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has worked to impose targeted restrictions on voters. Under his purview, Florida has become significantly harder to vote in, surpassing five other states since 2021 according to the Cost of Voting Index. In April, DeSantis signed S524, adopting a grab-bag of new requirements containing criminal penalties for state election administrators. The law created an “Office of Election Crimes and Security” tasked with preserving so-called election integrity, and requires local election administrators to purge voter registration rolls much more frequently, though voter fraud is exceedingly rare. The law also criminalizes certain voters by outlines new criminal penalties for ballot witnesses. [Associated Press, 2/20/21; Tampa Bay Times, 4/13/21; States United Democracy Center, 8/1/22; Election Law Journal, 9/16/22; Florida Senate Bill 524, 4/25/22; NBC (Opinion), 11/12/22; Brennan Center for Justice, Accessed 11/18/22]

Ron DeSantis Stood With Trump’s Lies Throughout the 2020 Election Cycle

Ron DeSantis Has Embraced Debunked Voter Fraud Conspiracies. Long before the 2020 election, Ron DeSantis prepared investigations into so-called voter fraud. In September 2020, Ron DeSantis instructed Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to investigate allegations of voter fraud months before Election Day. During and after the election, he stood by Donald Trump’s claims and continued to promote conspiracy theories about the election. [The Independent, 9/23/20] 

DeSantis Rallied Support for Fake Electors To Overturn the 2020 Election. After the 2020 election, DeSantis refused to concede that Joe Biden won the presidential election legitimately and even floated a plan for state legislatures to appoint illegitimate, pro-Trump slates of electors in order to negate the official results. DeSantis took to Fox News to promote his plan, telling constituents to call their state lawmakers “especially if you’re in those states that have Republican legislatures like Pennsylvania and Michigan” in order to promote Trump’s fake elector scheme: “Under Article 2 of the Constitution presidential electors are done by the legislatures and the schemes they create and the framework. And if there’s departure from that, if they’re not following law, if they’re ignoring law then they can provide remedies as well.” [New York Magazine (Opinion), 7/11/22; AP News, 11/14/20; Herald Tribune, 11/6/22] 

Governor DeSantis Still Refuses to Answer Whether the 2020 Election Was Rigged. Months after Jan. 6, Gov. DeSantis continued to give credence to false claims about the 2020 election. During a June 2021 interview, DeSantis refused to answer whether he believed the 2020 Presidential Election was rigged against former President Donald Trump, pointedly moving on to a different question. [WFLA News, 6/17/21]