But instead of sailing through the Republican-dominated legislature, the DeSantis-backed bill died a quick legislative death, making it only as far as one subcommittee.
It wasn’t the only culture war proposal from conservative lawmakers to end up in the bill graveyard during the session that ended Friday. One rejected bill would have banned the removal of Confederate monuments. Another would have required transgender people to use their sex assigned at birth on driver’s licenses — something the state Department of Motor Vehicles is already mandating. A third proposed forbidding local and state government officials from using transgender people’s pronouns.
Some of those ideas have come up in the past and may surface again next year. But the fact that the bills failed, even with public support from DeSantis, marks a change from the days when the GOP supermajority in Tallahassee passed nearly everything the governor asked for.
Florida has firmly cemented itself in recent years as ground zero for the nation’s culture wars. The Sunshine State is the birthplace of conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty, the original law restricting LGBTQ+ discussion in classrooms, one of the strictest abortion laws in the country and legislation that has led to the banning of more books than in any other state in America.
But the pushback is growing.
Parents and others have organized and protested schoolbook bans. Abortion rights advocates gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot in Florida in November. A bill that would have established “fetal personhood” stalled before it could reach a full vote.
Judges are also canceling some of DeSantis’s marquee laws, including the “Stop Woke Act.” A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Monday that the law “exceeds the bounds” of the Constitution’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression.
Even the governor recently admitted the state might have gone too far in trying to remove certain books from school shelves, suggesting laws on book challenges should be “tweaked” to prevent “bad actors” from having too much influence.
Democrats and other DeSantis critics say the laws that the governor has pushed will continue to shape public life in Florida for years to come, and they don’t expect the Republican supermajority in the state House to suddenly abandon conservative causes. But they do sense a shift.
“When his presidential race ended, I think that a lot of his influence and power died at the same time,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a South Florida Democrat. “And I think that people in Florida and across the country, including Republicans, are starting to see that the culture wars are getting us nowhere.”
In the past year, the Florida GOP has been rocked by a sex scandal involving the party chairman and infighting between DeSantis and Trump supporters.
GOP voter registration numbers continued to surpass Democrats, but the party lost two local races they were expected to win: the mayor’s office in Jacksonville, and a closely contested special election to replace a Republican state representative near Orlando.
The legislative seat flipped blue in January when Democrat Tom Keen defeated his Republican rival, a conservative school board member who raised more than twice as much money and promised to fight “the woke agenda.” Keen campaigned on lowering property insurance rates and protecting access to abortion.
DeSantis, who was largely absent from the state while he campaigned for the GOP presidential nomination, has urged lawmakers to “stay…
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