Florida Republicans Target the First Amendment
Two bills that directly violate the First Amendment have been proposed by Republicans in Florida
A Republican in the Florida Legislature, State Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-FL10), has proposed what can only be described as a direct attack on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Brodeur filed Senate Bill 1316 last Tuesday, Feb. 28. The bill requires all bloggers who mention an “elected state officer” by name to register with the state and face hefty fines if they do not comply with this authoritarian power grab. Said “elected state officers” would include the governor, lieutenant governor, cabinet officers and members of the Florida Legislature.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis endorsed Brodeur when he first won his seat to Senate District 9 in 2020. Brodeur won in SD10, after redistricting, in 2022, and he still lists DeSantis as a supporter on his website.
If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register with the appropriate office, as identified in paragraph (1)(f), within 5 days after the first post by the blogger which mentions an elected state officer.
Upon registering with the appropriate office, a blogger must file monthly reports on the 10th day following the end of each calendar month from the time a blog post is added to the blog, except that, if the 10th day following the end of a calendar month occurs on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the report must be filed on the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday.
The bill lists a whole host of information that must be reported:
1. The individual or entity that compensated the blogger for the blog post.
2. The amount of compensation received from the individual or entity, regardless of how the compensation was structured.
a. The amount must be rounded to the nearest $10 increment.
b. If the compensation is for a series of blog posts or for a defined period of time, the blogger must disclose the total amount to be received upon the first blog post being published. Thereafter, the blogger must disclose the date or dates additional compensation is received, if any, for the series of blog posts.
3. The date the blog post was published. If the blog post is part of a series, the date each blog post is published must be included in the applicable report.
4. The website and website address where the blog post can be found.
The fine for not complying with the dictate is “$25 per day per report for each day late, not to exceed $2,500 per report.”
The bill has led to justifiable criticism from some Twitter users. Here’s a sampling:
Brodeur is not the most transparent of politicians himself, as Jacob Ogles reported for Florida Politics:
“Brodeur notably has been the subject of frequent criticism in the media in recent years, much of it surrounding the presence of a ‘ghost candidate’ when he first ran for Florida Senate in 2020. He won that election with just 50.3% of the vote, besting Democrat Patricia Sigman while a no-party-affiliation candidate siphoned off thousands of votes.”
As David Knight noted, this is a direct attack on truth seekers as the mainstream narrative whore media is exempt from this tyrant’s rules.
Knight said:
“They’re setting up all kinds of traps for people who report on Gov. DeSantis. ‘You know, maybe you should just not say anything about him, no matter what he does. You should just be quiet.’”
“You want to know who the dictators are? They’re the ones you can’t talk about. Where is DeSantis? Has he come against this yet? I haven’t seen anything yet. Where are the Republican officials in the party? You don’t get a bill introduced like that without having some of the GOP officials know about it. Are they ok with this? Are you ok with this?...”
“This is one of the worst censorship bills I’ve ever seen, very insidious. And it’s coming from those wonderful, freedom loving Republicans in Florida to target independent journalists because they make an exception for the quote-unquote ‘real journalists.’ If you’re with a news organization, newspaper or something like that, the rules will not apply. This is targeted at individuals who tell you the truth because the news organizations won’t…. People who will tell you the truth are the target of this. It’s not going to be for ABC, CBS or NBC. It’s not going to be for the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Not for Fox News or CNN, no, no, because they’re easily controlled.”
I’ve searched from comments from the tyrant Brodeur on the bill. Can’t find much. In fact, the silence from the Conservative, Inc. media is deafening. Had this bill been proposed by any Democrat in any state, we all know they’d have a field day with it.
Searching Brodeur’s Twitter page, as of this writing there’s nothing about this bill. However, I did find this recent Tweet:
Yes, Brodeur is proud that he faithfully submits to the climate cult agenda. In fact, in 2021 he bragged about Republicans taking the “lead in climate, resiliency efforts” in an Orlando Sentinel op-ed.
DeSantis is right there with him in supporting the climate lies. DeSantis, last year, vetoed a bill that would have cut off the taxpayer funded subsidies to the Big Green Energy profiteers.
Renzo Downey noted for Florida Politics in 2021 that DeSantis is two-faced. He’ll say one thing to his base then do the exact opposite. Downey wrote:
“Ahead of his formal budget announcement expected later this week, the Republican Governor unveiled $276 million in proposed state funding for 76 projects as part of the Department of Environmental Protection’s first three-year environmental spending plan. The Governor expected to announce ‘many hundreds of millions more’ in environmental spending soon.”
Suffice it to say, Brodeur’s clear cut proposal to gut the First Amendment should lead to him resigning in shame. Nobody can propose such a shameful bill and be fit for elected office, at any level. But will Conservative, Inc. demand the authoritarian to resign? Don’t count on it.
Florida on track to vote for a draconian “hate crime” law
Nobody in the Florida Republican Party has appeared to comment on Brodeur’s anti-American bill. It was just introduced, so it’s hard to gage the likelihood of it passing.
However, there is another bill targeting the First Amendment that Republicans are cheering on in full force. That is House Bill 269, introduced on Jan. 19. The bill is sponsored by State Reps. Mike Caruso (R-FL87) and Randy Fine (R-FL33) and has 40 co-sponsors. The bill’s synopsis states:
“Public Nuisances: Prohibits distribution of certain materials that lead to littering; prohibits stalking of certain individuals; prohibits willful & malicious defacement, injury, or damage to certain property; removes minimum damage requirement for violation; prohibits projection of certain images onto buildings or other property without permission; prohibits interference with certain assemblies; provides enhanced criminal penalties for persons who commit violations while evidencing religious or ethnic animus; requires certain violations be reported as hate crimes.”
The bill is under the guise of going after “antisemitism” and would create a felony with up to five years in prison for things such as vandalism and littering if the government deems it was done out of hate. Of course, such acts are already illegal, but if the government deems you’re motivated by “hate” you will suddenly become a felon rather than generally face a fine.
Fine, as a sponsor, said:
“If you want to litter, it’s a crime right now, but if you litter and your motivation is a hate crime, it will be a third-degree felony and you will spend 5 years in jail.”
It goes even further. Journalist Chris Nelson Tweeted:
“Am I reading this right? If Florida HB 269 is passed, someone who makes fun of another person’s clothes if they are considered ‘ethnic or religious’ can be arrested & charged with a THIRD DEGREE FELONY AND HATE CRIME! What if it is simply hearsay? What is the burden of proof?”
Nelson spoke to Caruso, which you can see in the video below. As you will notice, as soon as Nelson starts bringing up the First Amendment and the fact this would make it “a felony to litter,” Caruso suddenly had to leave in a hurry.
Chris Menahan wrote for Information Liberation:
“‘The Free State of Florida’ is set to have the most oppressive hate crime laws in America in order to ‘combat anti-Semitism….’”
“The Florida GOP is expected to pass their new hate crime bill this legislative session.”
“If Governor Ron DeSantis signs the bill into law, Florida will have worse hate crime laws than California, New York, Connecticut and every other state in the Union.”
It should be noted that Florida has already approved a bill, HB741, in 2019 that was signed by DeSantis that is dangerously vague that purports to criminalize “antisemitism.” It, too, smacks clearly against the First Amendment setting up any criticism, justified or not, of anyone who happens to be Jewish.
Funny thing is, it used to be that conservatives opposed the very concept of “hate crimes.” But, as Bradlee Dean often says for Sons of Liberty, “today’s conservatives are yesterday’s liberals.”
“Hate crimes” are a relatively new concept. But conservatives have quickly abandoned all principles, as they always do.
Michael Rozeff wrote about many of the problems with “hate crime” laws back in 2006. Here’s his list of seven concerns:
“(1) Proving that hatred is a motivation is costly and difficult.”
“(2) Attributing motivation to a specific emotion can be quite subjective. It allows a jury or a judge to penalize criminals on subjective grounds. This can be a source of injustice.”
“(3) Harm to others than the actual victim is not actually proven. It is presumed, and the criminal is punished for this unproven crime. This is unjust.”
“(4) The externality theory is faulty because all sorts of crimes may intimidate non-victims or potential victims. If people are to be punished using a theory of crime, that theory should be broad enough and accurate enough to be fair over all similar cases.”
“(5) Restitution to victims is typically disregarded by our criminal justice system. Hate crime legislation continues this feature. It adds to it by focusing on added penalties.”
“(6) Over time, as laws and cases multiply, people can eventually be accused of libelous or seditious hate crimes involving vehement speech when they are biased against a group or merely do not like it or its policies. People can eventually be accused of hate crimes when they use hateful speech. Hate crimes laws are a seed that can sprout in new directions.”
“(7) Perhaps hatred as a motivation will eventually be used as grounds for letting the criminal off the hook. Some clever lawyer will argue that the person’s hatred was uncontrollable or instilled by forces beyond his control.”
Rozeff added:
“Hate laws are a veritable Pandora’s Box. They can be used to tack on additional penalties or to gain leverage over suspects by threatening additional charges of ‘hate.’ It is rather easy to fake the appearance of a hate crime, apparently to gain sympathy for one’s group. The number of these incidents is on the rise. Should a columnist write a vitriolic essay against some figure, he might face not only libel charges but also hate crimes charges. Should someone make an obscene gesture toward someone else, the results may be hate crime charges. In one case in Philadelphia, Christians who were preaching to homosexuals at an outdoor homosexual event were arrested under the Pennsylvania hate crimes law. Suppose that Mel Gibson had taken a swipe at an officer, or suppose an officer had said that he had taken a swipe at him. This combined with Gibson’s remarks would have landed him in an even deeper hate-crime mess.”