It seems that we are now living with the most "conservative" government Florida has ever had
We've had back-to-back Republican governors for nearly 25 years now.
1) Ron DeSantis is probably the most conservative governor we've had in a long time, or ever. From my point of view, it seems that each governor was more conservative than their predecessor. Ron DeSantis is more conservative than Rick Scott, and Rick Scott was more conservative than Charlie Crist. Our governors keep getting more and more right-wing.
2) Republicans gained a supermajority in the Florida Legislature in 2022. The current Repubican supermajority is more conservative than the previous Republican majorities. They have more members that are more right-wing now than in previous Republican majorities.
3) Also, considering that we haven't had a Democratic governor since 1999, all of the Democratic judicial appointees are largely gone. Only a few remain. Our judiciary is mostly filled with Republican appointees.
The circuit court judges that obtained their office by appointment were appointed by the Republican governors.
I believe there are about 70 active judges on the appellate courts, the DCAs, in Florida. I think there are 3 judges left out that pool of about 70 appellate judges that were appointed by the last Democratic governor we had.
Since 2019, our state supreme court has been 100% filled with Republican appointees. I believe that was a first. I don't think we've ever had a supreme court with 100% Republican appointees in Florida before 2019. Justice Jorge Labarga, a Charlie Crist appointee, was the moderate on the Florida Supreme Court when there were Democratic appointees on the court. Now, everyone else on the court is more conservative than Justice Labarga. Justice Labarga often voted with the Democratic appointees on the court creating a majority.
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The transformation to the most conservative government that Florida's ever had was a gradual shift. It happened in a way that I feel went largely unnoticed by the general population until it was too late.
When all of your governors are Republican, it may be a little difficult to tell that each new governor was more of a Republican ideologue than the last; and that newer "more Republican" governor would appoint more Republican judges to the bench; and those "more Republican" judges would uphold more Republican legislation from the "more Republican" legislature.
This is a transition that could have been cut off at the knees in 2018 just by flipping one office - the governorship. When people say "this is the most important important election", that couldn't have been more true for Florida than in 2018. In my opinion, the election of 2018 was the most important election for the people of Florida - even more than 2022 and will be more than 2026.
The 2018 midterm election was to Florida what the 2016 presidential election was to the nation. Everything was literally on the line. Every issue you could possibly imagine was on the line; abortion, voting rights, redistricting, state supreme court picks, rights in criminal justice, future political power... everything!
In 2018, there were three Democratic appointees on the Florida Supreme Court. These three Democratic-appointed justices were the last remaining firewall to the constitutional protection of abortion, redistricting, defendant rights in criminal justice, and many other issues. They had reached the mandatory age of retirement. The candidate that would go on to win the 2018 gubernatorial election would get to appoint their successors.
Obviously, the country was about to undertake a new census in 2020 and redistricting would follow. The candidate that would go on to win 2018 gubernatorial election would have the opportunity to veto redistricting maps, not only congressional maps but maps for state legislative districts as well. It would have given Democrats a seat at the redistricting table for the first time in 20 years. I'm (maybe, naively) assuming that Republicans wouldn't have tried to handicap the incoming governor in 2018 if that person were a Democrat. Even if they did that, that Democratic governor would have appointed three people to the state supreme court, who would have had the opportunity to strike down the maps.
A Democrat winning the governorship in 2018 probably wouldn't have given Republicans the numbers advantage they have now. It likely would have prevented a lot of America's biggest crybabies from flocking to Florida over the last 2 or 3 years.
A Democrat winning the governorship in 2018 means there would have been no threat by the state government to rob former felons of their voting rights. A state supreme court that still had three Democratic appointees would likely have not allowed such an egregious thing to take place.
Republicans winning the governorship in 2018 set them on the path to getting a supermajority in the Legislature in 2022. It set them on the path of having that "red wave" in 2022.
In my view, every loss Democrats have had in Florida thus far in this decade can be traced back to that one statewide photo-finish loss in 2018. I'm sure everyone recalls Republicans gutting the felon re-enfranchisement amendment from 2018. Something that is less known is that Republicans also wanted gut the minimum wage amendment from 2020. That possibility would not have existed if a Democrat won in 2018.
The midterm of 2018 is the text book scenario for "elections have consequences." The 2018 election really cemented Republican power in Florida more than any election before it, and maybe for the rest of this decade. There is no other recent election in Florida had that high of stakes for creating a seismic shift in political power for Democrats. The circumstances made it so that everything was on the line in that year.
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Every election counts. Florida's most significant elections happen in midterm years. Every election from this point on is about getting a small piece of what we could have gotten if we had won the governorship in 2018. Republicans will have done a lot of damage from now until the next election. If Nikki Fried can pull us out of our rut and we miraculously win power by 2026, it will be difficult to undo a lot of it unless we win and keep winning.
Justice Labarga is considered the last remaining "liberal" justice on the Florida Supreme Court. He will reach the mandatory age of retirement just after the 2026 gubernatorial election, and Justice Canady will reach it in 2029. If both justices don't retire during Ron DeSantis' term, the next governor will get to appoint their successors. Since justices usually don't lose their retention elections, we're probably going to be stuck with the DeSantis appointees for a really long time. If the Florida Supreme Court strips the state constitution of its abortion rights, a Democrat appointing justices to these two seats won't mean much in that regard... but it's a step in the right direction.
Every election from this point on may not create the huge shift in power that 2018 could have, but winning each election is one small step in right direction out of this forest of Republican fuckery that we find ourselves in.
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