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Ron DeSantis on Government Reform |
Ron DeSantis: I would just remind people that is not how he governed. He didn't even fire Dr. Fauci. He didn't clean up the swamp. He said he was going to drain it. He did not drain it. He said he was going to build the wall and have Mexico pay for it. We don't have the wall. He did say in 2016 he'd have the largest deportation program in history. He deported less than Barack Obama did when Barack Obama was president. Some of these policies he ran on in '16, I was cheering him on then, but he didn't deliver it. Here's what I can promise people. 100% of the things I promised as governor, I delivered on those promises. That's what I'll do for you as president. I will go in and wreak havoc on this bureaucracy. You will see people fired and we are going to bring a reckoning for how this government handled COVID-19 and the lockdown.
Cato Institute "Zuckerbucks" explanation 9/12/22: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's foundation provided grants to local election offices around the country to aid in administrative tasks & voter communication--a program nicknamed Zuckerbucks.
Cato Institute "Ballot Harvesting" explanation 5/12/22: Ballot harvesting happens when one person gathers absentee/?mail ballots from many voters--bundling, you might say--for submission at a mail or drop box.
ACLU-Florida testimony in opposition, 2/9: To expand OSP's jurisdiction and increase the already significant resources allocated to that office risks that returning citizens [those exiting prison after serving their sentences] will continue to be arrested, prosecuted, and ensnared in the criminal legal system for honest mistakes about their eligibility. It also risks intimidating returning citizens who are eligible to vote.
Legislative Outcome: Passed Senate 27-12-1 on Feb/8/23; passed House 77-33-9 on Feb/10/23; signed by Governor Ron DeSantis on Feb/15/23.
DeSantis continued into early December 2020 to say he was encouraging Trump to "fight on." In mid-December 2020, after the Electoral College ratified Biden's victory, he said: "The College voted. What's going to happen is going to happen."
Summary by Brennan Center (4/30/21): The 48-page law makes a slew of changes to Florida elections, including making voter registration more difficult, modifying rules for observers in ways that could disrupt election administration, and restricting the ability to provide snacks and water to voters waiting in line.
Legislative outcome: Passed Senate 23-17-0 on Apr/26/21; Passed House 77-40-3 on Apr/29/21; Signed by Governor Ron DeSantis May/6/21
Organizational Self-Description: U.S. Term Limits, the nation`s oldest and largest term limits advocacy group, announced that 14 new signers of its congressional term limits amendment pledge have been elected to the 114th Congress. The group includes five new senators, eight new House members and one House incumbent who signed the pledge for the first time this cycle. The pledge calls for members to co-sponsor and vote for a constitutional amendment limiting House members to three terms (six years) and Senators to two terms (12 years). The USTL President said, `The American people are fed up with career politicians in Washington and strongly embracing term limits as a remedy. Gallup polling shows that 75% of Americans support term limits.`
Opposing legal argument: [ACLU, Nov. 7, 2014]: In U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton (May 22, 1995), the Court ended the movement to enact term limits for Congress on a state-by-state basis. The Court held that the qualifications for Congress established in the Constitution itself could not be amended by the states without a constitutional amendment, and that the notion of congressional term limits violates the `fundamental principle of our representative democracy `that the people should chose whom they please to govern them.``
Opposing political argument: [Cato Institute Briefing Paper No. 14, Feb. 18, 1992]: Several considerations may explain political scientists` open hostility to term limitation:
Excerpts from press release on Term Limits Caucus: Two U.S. Term Limits pledge signers, Republican Rep. Rod Blum (IA-1) and Democrat Rep. Beto O`Rourke (TX-16), have announced the formation of a Term Limits Caucus, which will work to build bipartisan support behind a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on Congress. `The root of this problem is that politicians are incentivized by the system to care more about retaining their position than doing what is best for the country,` Blum said. `Our founding fathers never intended for public service to be a career, rather, serving in Congress was designed to be a temporary sacrifice made for the public good.`
The new working group will marshal pro-term limits members together to pursue common ground. One of its most important duties will be building consensus around the U.S. Term Limits Amendment of three House terms and two Senate terms, to which both Blum and O`Rourke have pledged their exclusive support.
Supporting argument: (Cato Institute): We should limit members to three terms in the House and two terms in the Senate. Let more people serve. Let more people make the laws. And let`s get some people who don`t want to make Congress a lifelong career. Some say that term limits would deprive us of the skills of experienced lawmakers. Really? It`s the experienced legislators who gave us a $17 trillion national debt, and the endless war in Iraq, and the Wall Street bailout.
Supporting argument: (Heritage Foundation): The only serious opponents of term limits are incumbent politicians and the special interests--particularly labor unions--that support them. Special interests oppose term limits because they do not want to lose their valuable investments in incumbent legislators. Many are organized to extract programs, subsidies, and regulations from the federal government--to use the law as a lever to benefit their own constituencies or harm their rivals.