It’s now clear it was Gov. Ron DeSantis who ordered Florida TV stations to stop airing ads for an abortion-rights initiative.
The cease-and-desist letter to TV stations was signed by the state health department’s top lawyer, who has since resigned and now says he was coerced to sign the letter by the governor’s staff (read story here).
That letter threatened criminal sanctions against the TV stations if they kept airing the ad. The health department argued the ad is “false,” but given they acted on the governor’s orders, it’s really DeSantis who decided the ad is “false.”
That’s not his decision to make. Or the health department’s. Government at any level, whether federal, state, or local, isn’t allowed to regulate or censor political advertising. That’s a clear violation of the First Amendment.
“The State cannot coerce television stations into removing political speech from the airwaves in an attempt to keep their abortion ban in place,” said the director of the initiative campaign, which is suing the state. She’s right, and there can be no doubt what the lawsuit’s outcome will be.
DeSantis, a Yale-educated lawyer with a Harvard law degree, knows better. He acted not only unconstitutionally, but also unethically. In theory he’s accountable to voters for his behavior in office, but in practice he’s term-limited and can’t run for governor again, although voters should remember his disdain for constitutional rights if he ever runs for a public office again.
Meanwhile a complaint to the bar association, and a lawyer disciplinary proceeding, seems appropriate. Lawyer take an oath to uphold the law, and there’s hardly any greater disrespect for law, or more serious violation of that oath, than misusing the authority of public office to infringe on citizens’ constitutional rights. With his attitude, DeSantis should be neither a public official nor a lawyer.
Florida’s Ron DeSantis, caricatured above, arguably is America’s most grotesque governor