Ron DeSantis’ Political Crusade Against Public Safety is Costing Florida Taxpayers

Ron DeSantis is blazing ahead with his agenda to oppose common-sense public safety measures to put an end to the pandemic in order to boost his standing with his right-wing base. Not only is his latest attempt to score political points with Republicans jeopardizing Floridians’ health and safety — it’s flushing their tax dollars down the drain.

In DeSantis’ latest temper tantrum about COVID safety measures, he’s ordering a special session of the legislature to fight the federal vaccine mandate for workers. The session, which started yesterday, has been estimated to cost Florida taxpayers up to $1 million, with past special sessions costing $72,000 a day.

In addition to the cost of the taxpayer-funded special session, Florida could shell out millions more in public dollars in legal fees fighting  the federal government over vaccine mandates. DeSantis has already promised to “exhaust every legal option we have,” to fight the federal government, and apparently couldn’t care less about exhausting public dollars to fund his political games.

DeSantis’ backwards political agenda is already costing the state as his administration deals with legal challenges from local governments, school boards, parent groups, and major corporations over DeSantis’ bans on masking and vaccine requirements.

“Ron DeSantis is playing politics with Floridians’ lives and with their tax dollars,” said DGA Communications Director David Turner. “If he really cared about his constituents, he’d quit campaigning for president and start fighting for Floridians. Instead, he’s wasting public dollars that could be spent on funding education or child care, or lowering costs for working families to fight his own right-wing political battles; his selfishness couldn’t be more apparent.”