The Absurd GOP

[Angrboda]

DeSantis seeks to blame Legislature for street-art crackdown. Lawmakers tell different story.

Faced with backlash over the state ordering cities to remove LGBTQ+ rainbow crosswalks and other decorative street art, Gov. Ron DeSantis has repeatedly cited a new Florida law that he said requires those removals.

But legislators from both sides of the aisle said the law the governor is pointing to contains no explicit language banning roadway art.

DeSantis has defended the state’s removals and orders to eliminate still more asphalt art by pointing to the Florida Legislature, emphasizing that the state Senate unanimously passed a transportation law earlier this year.

The suggestion is that lawmakers are the ones who took the action resulting in the elimination of the rainbow crosswalks and other street art.

It has been DeSantis’ Florida Department of Transportation ordering the removal of such art displays.

Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman, of Palm Beach County, said “it seems to me that he wasn’t expecting the backlash FDOT has received, so now he’s using a bad-faith argument to shift the blame for their actions.”
DeSantis’ remarks

The governor mentioned the Legislature several times this past week while addressing the street-art issue.

“So the Legislature passed a change in law recently which said there’s no street art allowed and the Department of Transportation put out guidance,” DeSantis said Wednesday. “We’re going to follow the law,” he added. “We’re just going to abide by the law.”

On Tuesday, he said, “The Florida Legislature passed a law,” “There was enacted,” “The Legislature passed it,” and “All they’re doing is just enforcing the law that had been passed.”

“There’s laws that are on the books that I enforce that I may not fully agree with, but I took an oath to do it and so that’s the way the cookie crumbles, and so but there was a change in law,” DeSantis said. The governor signed the legislation in question into law, something he acknowledged.

The implication conveyed by the governor’s version of events doesn’t fully align with what happened, according to interviews with state lawmakers in both parties, a review of legislation and staff analyses, and official videos of proceedings in legislative committees and in the full Florida Senate and House of Representatives.

The legislation in question was an omnibus measure that contained many provisions, many of them tweaks to existing state statutes governing a range of Florida Department of Transportation activities.

Most of the 87-page Senate Bill 1662 was mundane, though some aspects weren’t. It required recipients of transportation funding to comply with state energy policy. A provision eliminating some parts of transportation law applying to minority- and women-owned businesses, was the only subject of controversy and debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, and the reason seven House members voted “no.”

Sponsors of the legislation, then-state Sen. Jay Collins and state Rep. Shane Abbott, both Republicans, didn’t say anything about crosswalks, intersections or street art during public committee meetings or full Senate and House debate. Collins was appointed by the governor on Aug. 12 to fill the vacant office of lieutenant governor.

The final transportation package adopted by lawmakers contained no explicit language banning street art.

Florida state lawmakers said the section of the law DeSantis and his Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue are citing for the new crackdown on street art has long existed. One section dealing with removal of “any purported traffic control device” had a minor tweak, with four words deleted and seven words added.

‘None of this came up’

Berman was one of several lawmakers who said the removal of crosswalks and other road painting was “absolutely not” discussed by legislators. “I certainly would have remembered it, and I have no memory of this being discussed at all.”

State Rep. Chip LaMarca, a Broward Republican and chair of the House Economic Infrastructure Subcommittee, with jurisdiction over transportation, said crosswalks or painted streets “never” came up among lawmakers in this year’s legislative session. “It was never brought up or mentioned by anybody,” he added.

LaMarca said he spoke with Perdue “multiple times” about the transportation secretary’s priorities this year and there was “never anything like this” involved in those discussions.

Berman and state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Miami-Dade County Democrat, said if the issue had come up in any way whatsoever, the routine bill would not have easily passed the Senate.

“None of this came up,” Jones said. “It would not have been a unanimous vote if we knew the governor was going to use that language for his political expediency.”