Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis recently abruptly removed another state attorney, this time targeting Monique Worrell, who’s served in Orange County, which includes Orlando. He earlier pushed Andrew Warren out of office from a similar role in the southern parts of the state. Both Worrell and Warren were elected by local voters, meaning the removals by the governor directly upended the decisions of local residents.
Several Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, including Reps. Maxwell Frost (Fla.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), and Daniel Goldman (N.Y.), are seeking a full committee hearing to examine the situation in Florida, which a recent letter from the trio to panel chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) describes in grave terms.
“Under its current administration, Florida’s executive and legislative branches of government have engaged in a relentless assault on the fundamental rights and freedoms of Floridians,” the Democrats said. “The Florida Governor has continued to force through this repressive agenda by extreme and lawless means and has taken further acts of political intimidation tactics against elected officials.”
A press release from Frost’s office that announced the letter to Comer described what’s been seen in Florida as “state leadership hungry for power and entrenched in modern day fascism and authoritarianism.” DeSantis’s effective removal of opponents even stretches back to the insistence from DeSantis on a Congressional redistricting plan that substantially divided a district in the northern part of the state that had been represented by a Black Democrat.
DeSantis is now running for the Republican Party’s nomination for president, though polling shows that he’s not making much progress against continued front-runner Donald Trump. In his home state, DeSantis’s broader profile first began to emerge as he clamored relentlessly against basic protections against COVID-19 to the point that he berated high school students who showed up with masks to an event featuring the governor. DeSantis has also aligned himself with the GOP position in areas from abortion to LGBTQ+ rights, enacting a strict ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and even signing a bathroom bill that blocks transgender people from using the restrooms corresponding to their gender identity in many public contexts.
