Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis acquired his ticket punched within the Iowa caucuses. Then he took that ticket and rode it straight to a departure from the Republican presidential primaries simply 5 days later. With DeSantis dropping out and shortly endorsing Donald Trump, it would look like a sullen silence would fall on the Sunshine State.
However that might not be the case. Florida is one in all 44 states the place the governor has an influence not given to presidents: a line-item veto over spending. On Friday, the Florida Legislature ended a contentious session, passing a $117 billion state funds. Nevertheless, DeSantis has already introduced his intention to “trim” that quantity.
The query now could be whether or not DeSantis will use his authority to punish state legislators who didn’t line up behind his failed presidential bid.
As Politico studies, over a dozen Florida legislators had the MAGA-scented gall to endorse Trump whereas DeSantis was nonetheless within the race. Now these legislators get to attend and see if their pet initiatives—and their hometowns—endure because of their eagerness to clamp on that purple hat.
As he repeatedly demonstrated in his struggle with Disney, DeSantis is nothing if not vindictive. He’s prepared to slap those that oppose him regardless of the associated fee to his state. Whether or not it’s universities or cruise strains, DeSantis enjoys flexing his energy to make individuals, organizations, and corporations fall in line.
“I hope the priority is invalid,” one Trump-supporting legislator informed Politico. “I want to consider that the governor goes to do one of the best factor for the residents of our state it doesn’t matter what.” Nevertheless, she in all probability ought to have reviewed how DeSantis handled the COVID-19 pandemic earlier than expressing that perception.
Whether or not or not DeSantis chooses to indulge his apparently infinite supply of petty vindictiveness might boil right down to what he thinks goes to occur this November.
Due to a 2023 invoice handed by the state Legislature particularly to profit DeSantis, the governor was capable of run for president whereas nonetheless holding onto his throne in Tallahassee. Now DeSantis can stay in that chair till the top of 2027. That might place him nicely for a second shot on the White Home when the following time period rolls round.
However, ought to Trump win in 2024, he can be able to regulate the faucets on issues like emergency help to a state that’s more and more battered by hurricanes. Trump won’t have a line-item veto that may permit him to immediately punish DeSantis, however he would have the following smartest thing. And actually, when somebody has already declared their need to be a dictator, it won’t make a number of sense to do one thing to piss him off … except you assume he’s going to lose.
If DeSantis breaks out the veto pen and begins drawing a line although bridges, roads, and different initiatives championed by Trump-endorsing Florida legislators, it’s an honest sign that he thinks Trump is doomed to stew at Mar-a-Lago (the place DeSantis can all the time work out some strategy to torture him). If DeSantis shies away, it could be not less than partly out of concern that Trump may deliver him to heel.
Now we simply want to sit down again and wait just a few days for DeSantis to sign which means he thinks the wind is blowing.
We’re recapping all of Tuesday’s major evening motion on this week’s episode of “The Downballot”! Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard go coast-to-coast, setting the desk in Texas’ Senate race and selecting aside the massacre within the state Home. Then it is on to North Carolina, the place GOP extremists dominated in any respect ranges of the poll—and the place one infamous election fraudster is now on his strategy to Congress. We wrap with California, whose troublesome top-two major system made its quirks felt in an entire bunch of races, from Senate on down.
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