DeSantis Rejects Controversial Florida Blogger Bill
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) made clear Tuesday he does not support a bill that would require political bloggers to register with the Sunshine State if they intend to produce content covering state officials — including himself, the lieutenant governor, and members of the state legislature — for which they are compensated by a third-party.
The bill, which was introduced by Republican state Senator Jason Brodeur, would require bloggers to disclose the “individual or entity that compensated the blogger for the blog post,” as well as “the amount of compensation received from the individual or entity,” and impose fines on those who did not comply with the law and register.
“There’s articles with my face on the article, saying that ‘Oh, they’re going to have to, bloggers are going to have to register for the state’ and it’s like attributing it [the bill] to me,” said DeSantis at a press briefing. “That’s not anything that I’ve ever supported, I don’t support [it].”
“The Florida legi-, 120 of them in the House and however many, and 40 in the Senate, you know, they have independent agency to be able to do things. Like I don’t control every single bill that’s been filed or amended,” he continued.
#BREAKING: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slams reports that he supports bloggers having to register with the state. pic.twitter.com/GJfOrwn2FH
— Forbes (@Forbes) March 7, 2023
A number of media outlets and personalities went out of their way to tie DeSantis to the bill despite the dearth of evidence to show that he supported it. On Sunday, historian Michael Beschloss alleged on MSNBC that DeSantis had “tried to turn himself into sort of a local Mussolini in Florida,” citing “the book banning and the brutal tactics” as well as “this suggestion that bloggers have to register with the state for the honor of writing about the governor” as evidence that he resembled the Italian dictator.
Similarly, the same network’s Ari Melber compared the bill to a Russian law implemented by Vladimir Putin while putting up a side-by-side of the dictator and governor on air. Fellow host Chris Hayes and novelist Gary Shteyngart then joined Melber for a discussion of the bill with the deceptive chyron “DeSantis Eyes ‘Putin’ Tactics With Crackdown on Media” emblazoned beneath them.
Others engaged in a similar, if less egregious, two-step in an effort to tie the controversial legislation filed by a local legislator to DeSantis. A number of outlets, including NBC News, Insider, and Mother Jones used pictures of DeSantis as their featured image. The last of which, speculated that Hungarian President Viktor Orbán might have inspired the legislation, arguing that he had “already served as a template for Ron DeSantis.”
The attacks didn’t only come from the left, however, as failed congressional candidate and Donald Trump disciple Laura Loomer also weighed in, submitting that it served as evidence that “ DeSantis is a TYRANT & anti-free speech.”
DeSantis, who is expected to launch a campaign for the GOP presidential nomination in the coming months, is neck-and-neck with Trump in most polls of a prospective primary contest between the two.
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