- The University of Florida has refused to allow three political science professors to continue to serve as expert witnesses in a case that understandably challenges a new state law restricting voting access. UF officials had cited a “conflict of interest” and said it was “adverse to UF interests as a state of Florida institution.”
Whatever the skewed-priority rationales, there are two cut-to-the-chase bottom lines. First, the blindsiding and chilling of academic freedom. It’s as ironic as it is unconscionable that a major public university would be on the wrong side of a free speech, censorship, prior restraint and academic freedom issue. Universities are not mere bureaucratic entities forced to align with whoever just got elected. And it hardly helps that Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida avatar of voter suppression, has some Gainesville allies, including Morteza Hosseini, the head of UF’s board of trustees, a major GOP donor and DeSantis adviser. Second, this is an imperiling affront to democratic ideals that depend existentially on access to voting by “we the people.”
- The state unemployment rate: now at 4.9 percent.
- No surprise that Attorney General Ashley Moody supported Texas’ last-ditch attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It’s what we’ve come to expect from a DeSantis AG. What was rather surprising were reports of staff members who ridiculed her decision and flimsy legal rationales as “weird” and “bat…t insane.” But Pam Bondi would approve.
- Gov. Ron DeSantis recently said—on Fox News—that he wants out-of-state police officers and sheriff’s deputies to help patrol the state. For motivation, they could get $5,000 bonuses to relocate. Sounds like, among other things, a wink-and-nod to cops with a problem getting vaccinated or making their vaxx status known.
- “A heavy-handed mandate never authorized by Congress.” That’s how Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody characterized the U.S. government regulation that requires federal contractors to show proof of vaccination or weekly COVID tests of their employees. The governor and the AG have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over the protocols.
- Earlier this summer, Florida led the nation in new COVID cases—approximately 22,000 a day. Last week it was 1,800—the lowest new-case rate.
- “What’s not going to happen anymore is a Democratic Party that gets its field operation stood up only for each election, that limits its work and hopes in winning blue counties to get us over the top. It starts now.”—Florida Democratic Party Chairman Manny Diaz.