Elie Mystal: Ron DeSantis Goes Full Big Brother on Abortion Rights Supporters

[In It to Win It]

The Nation

Archived: https://archive.ph/0Qwa6

Florida governor and national embarrassment Ron DeSantis has found a new and terrifying way to violate the constitutional rights of his constituents. DeSantis usually aims at the 14th Amendment rights of Florida residents by denying equal protection of the laws to people who are gay, trans, or read books written by Black authors. But now, Governor Rain Boots is taking aim at the First Amendment by using state forces to chill the rights of free speech and free association.

According to multiple reports, DeSantis has been using his Department of Election Crimes and Security—a task force he ordered the Florida legislature to create in 2022 to investigate the false and unfounded claims of voter fraud that Republicans like to make whenever people of color vote in ways that displease them—to accost Florida residents in their homes. The action that triggered DeSantis’s ire appears to be a petition these residents signed to add Amendment 4 to the November ballot. Amendment 4 would codify the right to an abortion in Florida’s Constitution. The amendment seeks to undo what DeSantis did when he signed a six-week abortion ban into law in Florida.

People who have been harassed report that state police officers have shown up at their homes and asked if they signed the petition—and then required them to show state identification before the officers would leave. In at least one case, a person was asked if a family member had signed the petition and warned that the relatives could be the “victim” of identity fraud.

The DeSantis regime has taken other steps to undermine the proposed amendment, including posting a website stippled with misinformation about the amendment and writing a description of the measure—on the ballot itself—that claims, untruthfully, that it will harm the state’s budget. It’s always worth noting that these anti-choice Republicans are happy to force people to give birth against their will but unwilling to do anything to help women pay for the considerable expenses involved in being pregnant for nine months or raising a child for 18 years.

[allegorical oracle]

1. One of the Tampa Bay newspapers reported that police not only

questioned one of the petitioners, but had in hand 10 pages of background information about the signer. It's pure intimidation.

[polichick]

2. So is this cool with "our" doj?

[ScratchCat]

3. Pointed out in another article on this is

The fact that the deadline to challenge petition signatures long passed and nobody did so. Its not even clear that the State has the legal power to conduct such an "investigation" and I am positive nobody is legally obligated to assist or answer any question.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

4. Kamala and Tim need to hold campaign events in Florida.

See if Ronnie D prevents them from doing so.

Florida is in play people.

[Fla Dem]

5. DeSantis is a sniveling low life.