Controversial legislation to protect Confederate monuments is on thin ice following a racially charged hearing. A bill to ban flags from government buildings that represent a “political viewpoint” has stalled. A measure that would affect how government employees can use pronouns in the workplace hasn’t even gotten a hearing.
This isn’t what the war on “woke” looked like in Florida during the last couple of years, but it’s where the session is now.
Anti-“woke” policies have been a leading theme of Ron DeSantis’ time as governor. Using the “woke” description as a pejorative against liberal positions or ideas and declaring himself a defender of kids, DeSantis in recent years signed a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ rights measures into law that affected health care, bathroom use and school curriculum. He also tried to quash workplace and school practices on diversity and companies’ embrace of environmental and societal responsibility metrics.
This session, in the shadow of a failed presidential run, the governor has answered questions about his positions on various bills, but he generally seems to be letting the Legislature take the lead. Whereas controversy over a bill wasn’t enough to doom it in recent years, the calculus for lawmakers appears to be different now.