Ron DeSantis keeps ticking off the boxes for 2028. Having long since established his bona fides as a wokeness warrior, he built up some anti-immigrant cred by funding Alligator Alcatraz last year. Now he is proposing to put CL ideology into the Florida Constitution by dramatically cutting property taxes. The voters will have the ultimate say in November.
The DeSantis amendment has two prongs. The first is a large tax cut which benefits resident property owners and, to a lesser extent, businesses; its clear objective is to force local governments to cut services. The second, and even more obnoxious, prong, prohibits local government expenditures on anything other than core services. This is the part that clearly puts CL ideology into the Florida Constitution.
The concept of “core services” is defined in the legislation but is vague enough to permit plenty of debate about, for example, whether local governments will be required by law to close parks and libraries. There is also uncertainty about how special districts whose funding is limited to property taxes will be able to function; this issue, we are told, will be resolved by the Florida Legislature in some as yet unknown way next year. It is clear, however, that public expenditures on social and cultural services will have to go. Whether it will be practically possible to even maintain the listed kinds of infrastructure is also an open question.
Can DeSantis sell this to 60 percent of the Florida electorate? More than 40 percent of the voters–and that number includes some Trump supporters–can’t stand the man. DeSantis will be hoping that a narrow view of their self-interest will pull the amendment through; he can then use it in his sales pitch to small government ideologues and wealthy business donors when he runs for president. I have my doubts, but we’ll see.