Mark Lane: Confederate statues bill gets rough reception
As the 60-day Legislative session reached its midpoint and things were speeding up, the Senate Committee on Community Affairs met for a long six-hour meeting. Did the proceedings drag into the night because senators were hard at work on vital issues like education funding, building more prison space, or addressing home insurance costs?
Heavens, no. Senators were debating how to protect monuments to the Confederacy (SB 1122).
Earlier that same day, the Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee patiently heard testimony about a bill to ban rainbow flags from schools and other government buildings (SB 1120).
The governor had expressed support for the measure, but the committee adjourned without voting and isn’t slated to meet again. Inaction that likely stalled out the bill this year. See you in 2025!
At the start of the session, some had predicted that perhaps the culture wars had finally run their course in Tallahassee. That after the wheels had come off Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign maybe, just maybe, legislators’ time and attention might shift to, oh I don’t know, basic governance and issues that affect the real-life problems of Floridians.
But no. At the session’s mid-point, there’s still a lot of time devoted to the War on Woke and a lot of cultural grievance bills out there. And with the governor showing every sign of shifting his sights to running for president in 2028, culture warfare shows every sign of preoccupying the Republican legislative majority for the next several years.
This time around, the monuments bill hearing proved contentious, with members of the public supporting the bill talking about concerns such as “the cultural war being waged against White society.” Democrats walked out of the meeting in disgust before the vote.
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White nationalist praise for the bill upset some committee Republicans, too. Not enough to vote “no,” certainly. After all, the bill had already been approved by another Senate committee, had a House companion and the governor’s blessing. Despite this discomfort, the bill easily moved along on a 5-0 vote without committee Democrats.
The legislation they approved would preempt cities and counties from removing any memorial of any kind that had been around more than 25 years old. Meaning anything built at the behest of the Daughters of the Confederacy in a public place during the Jim Crow Era would be protected by the state in perpetuity. Along with any other plaque or statue, a community might develop understandable second thoughts about.
The bill also would authorize lawsuits against officials who vote to remove monuments. Remember back in the days when Republicans used to call for less litigation?
And the bill also would be retroactive, meaning local officials could be punished for actions going back to 2018. In its earlier form, the bill would have given the governor the power to remove any local elected official who dared to move a monument. A power that Gov. DeSantis certainly would have enjoyed exercising since they would primarily be Democratic officials. Officials like Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, who last December had a 1915 monument, “Florida’s Tribute to the Women of the Confederacy,” removed from that city’s Springfield Park, formerly named Confederate Park.
Still, standing along with White nationalists in support of the bill proved discomforting enough for some senators that the next day, Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, noted “problems with the bill” and concerns about “perceptions.”
Coming from the Senate president, that likely means we won’t be hearing anything more about it in the upper chamber. This year, anyway.
One might hope this also would dissuade the House members from giving their version further attention, but you can never be sure. Republicans don’t want to be caught sleeping in the War on Woke, even when it means stirring Civil War emotions.
Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mark Lane: Confederate statues bill gets rough reception
