A petition to recall Republican Ron DeSantis from office as Florida governor is gaining momentum. By Saturday afternoon, the petition — which appears to have been started some time ago but only just recently gained serious heft — was nearing a full 75,000 signatures, showing the breadth of DeSantis’s unpopularity. The petition, as could be expected, targets the incendiary Florida governor over his handling of COVID-19 in the state, although unfortunately, there is no provision in Florida allowing voters to recall — meaning vote to remove — governors. Still, the effort shows DeSantis’s relative unpopularity and helps depict the tough trek that he may have in future elections.
Newsweek reported on Saturday that the petition had “doubled its support in 6 days.” Although the effort seemed to have been kickstarted earlier in the pandemic, Cameron White — who made the petition — posted a much more recent update discussing the spread of what’s known as the delta variant of COVID-19 in the state, which has driven substantial hospitalization levels, leaving Florida with the highest daily average of COVID-19 hospitalizations of any state. As White put it:
‘The Delta variant is ravaging Florida and our governor is still putting the lives of Floridians in danger and refusing to follow medical guidance. The responsible citizens of Florida must rise up and do everything in our power to remove our reckless and incompetent governor now. Please share and sign this petition. Let our voices be heard.’
Specifically, DeSantis has resisted basic safety precautions like mandates to wear face masks to the point that he’s rhetorically duking it out with local school officials in Florida over such policies. DeSantis signed an executive order meant to block mask mandates in schools, but certain local education officials in the state have put mask mandates in place. In response, DeSantis and his team have repeatedly raised the specter of some sort of punishment for these local officials. Other Republican governors have undertaken similar steps. In Arizona, for instance, Republican Governor Doug Ducey recently announced plans to keep federal relief money from schools that have mask mandates. (He previously signed a law meant to block such mandates.) Ducey also announced a plan for a grant program giving some of that federal relief money to students at schools with mask mandates who wish to go somewhere else.
