Gov. Ron DeSantis has made no secret of his contempt for drag shows, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise last month when the Florida Republican signed a measure empowering the state to penalize businesses that allow minors to attend drag performances.
As The New York Times reported, the new state law is facing judicial scrutiny — and it’s not faring well.
A federal judge in Florida temporarily blocked a new law allowing the state to penalize businesses that admit children to “adult live performances” such as drag shows. Judge Gregory A. Presnell of the Federal District Court in Orlando issued a preliminary injunction blocking the new law, which went into effect last month.
“Florida already has statutes that provide such protection [from obscene performances]. Rather, this statute is specifically designed to suppress the speech of drag queen performers,” Presnell wrote.
The setback in court comes months after DeSantis’ administration sent undercover police officers to look for evidence of improprieties at a Christmas drag show in Orlando. When the officers said they didn’t see anything that ran afoul of the state’s decency laws, DeSantis’ administration went after the Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation for hosting the event anyway.
Friday’s ruling was an injunction that blocks Florida from enforcing the drag restrictions, but the underlying case challenging the legality of the new state statute is still ongoing.
The Republican governor/presidential candidate denounced the injunction as “dead wrong” and vowed to appeal, but stepping back, it’s hard not to notice that DeSantis has struggled quite a bit in the courts lately. NBC News reported:
On Wednesday, another judge struck down a Florida rule and a statute that banned state Medicaid payments for transgender healthcare. That same judge on June 6 partially blocked Florida from enforcing its recent ban on people under 18 receiving gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Those were just last week’s setbacks. DeSantis also lost when a court blocked Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act”; his anti-protest measure was also blocked by a federal judge; the Republican’s law to regulate social media companies was blocked by a different federal judge; and the cases brought by his elections police unit have largely fallen short.
This list might yet grow, with a variety of other high-profile cases — including litigation stemming from the governor’s Martha’s Vineyard fiasco and his weird crusade against Disney — still pending.
There are a few relevant angles to all of this. The first is that DeSantis likes to tout the Sunshine State as a “citadel of freedom,” but he keeps signing measures into law that curtail Floridians’ rights.
The second is the financial costs he’s imposing on Florida taxpayers, who are footing a hefty bill to cover the legal expenses surrounding DeSantis’ culture war. I’m reminded of something Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, told The Miami Herald late last year, reflecting on the fact that DeSantis almost certainly knows that many of his policies won’t withstand judicial scrutiny. “He does not care if he wins or loses,” Jarvis said in December. “In fact, if he wins, he can say, ‘See, I was right.’ And, if he loses, it’s just as good as winning because then he can say, ‘There’s a liberal conspiracy and we have to get the libs out.’ “But when your goal is not to win or lose, and you have a blank check from the taxpayers, then really it’s all about: ‘Will this lawsuit generate headlines? And will this allow me to control the narrative?’” Jarvis added. All of which leads us to the third angle: Will GOP primary voters be impressed? On the one hand, it’s easy to imagine rank-and-file Republicans applauding the far-right governor for “fighting” to advance an agenda they agree with. On the other hand, these same voters might notice that DeSantis’ accomplishments start to look like failures as he loses, over and over again, in the courts. “Vote for me because judges rejected many of my favorite achievements” might not be the pitch the party base is looking for.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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