Florida lawmakers are ready to follow President Donald Trump’s agenda

Florida: Recently, Florida legislators have shown their readiness to carry out President Donald Trump’s agenda by taking a number of actions. After a contentious dispute with state Republicans, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently approved a number of immigration measures intended to assist Trump in carrying out his ambitions for mass deportations.

The new rules include a new state felony for entering Florida after entering the country illegally and the imposition of the death sentence for illegal immigrants found guilty of a serious offense, such as murder or child rape.

Political science assistant professor Sean Freeder of the University of North Florida told Newsweek that the hard-line immigration bills’ passage shows “a desire of state Republicans to demonstrate fealty to Trump in an area of policy key to his reelection, to increase the odds that they will be able to remain in office or get promoted to a more desirable one.”

“Doing so means aligning with his aggressive approach toward immigration, which they do in terms of the volume of spending and the nature of new legal provisions,” Freeder said.

The regulations, according to DeSantis, are the “strongest legislation to combat illegal immigration of any state in the entire country.” The new legislation include removing instate tuition for students without documentation and providing almost $300 million to state and local governments to support federal immigration enforcement.

Florida’s proposal to apply the death sentence to undocumented immigrants who rape children is “questionable” and might encounter legal obstacles, according to Freeder. He pointed out that the statute is in “direct contradiction” with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana, which held that the death sentence is unconstitutional for offenses other than murder.

“This will likely be shot down by a later court case, but the goal of such a provision is again to demonstrate aggressiveness, not withstand legal scrutiny,” Freeder said to the media report.

“Of course, it is also possible that state Republicans want the case to reach the Supreme Court so that precedent on such matters could possibly be changed, à la Dobbs on abortion.”

The Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down Roe v. Wade’s guarantee of access to abortion, has often been attributed to Trump. Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, three of the five conservative justices who voted to overturn the historic abortion ruling.

After facing significant opposition, DeSantis had to engage in negotiations with the Republican-led Florida Legislature before signing the immigration laws into law.

Prior to the governor’s bid against him in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, DeSantis was a loyal supporter of Trump.

On January 27, Florida legislators advanced their own legislative package, rejecting DeSantis’ requests for a special legislative session to advance the governor’s immigration initiatives.

The majority of DeSantis’ plans were rejected by state GOP legislators in their Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy (TRUMP) Act.

On February 13, the governor signed the comprehensive set of immigration legislation after weeks of discussions in which DeSantis seemed to temper his criticism of the legislators who disagreed with his proposals.

As he approaches his last two years as governor and thinks about his political future, DeSantis suddenly seems to be trying to realign himself with Trump and the fervently pro-Trump Florida Legislature.

DeSantis swiftly embraced the president’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America while also promoting pro-Trump immigration policies.

In an executive order issued on January 20th, DeSantis referred to the body of water as the “Gulf of America” when outlining the state’s reaction to a winter storm.

James Uthmeier, DeSantis’s former chief of staff, was sworn in as Florida’s attorney general on Monday. During the event, Uthmeier said that he is ready to implement some of Trump’s policies in his position, including eliminating diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and going after drug cartels.

“We will champion an America First agenda, and we will fight back against the cartels, the gangs, and the traffickers that have wreaked havoc on our country for far too long,” Uthmeier said.

“The left’s attempts to infiltrate our institutions and utilize the legal system to brainwash our children will not be tolerated. We will oppose those who want to undermine our lawfully passed legislation, undermine our constitutional system, and damage unborn children.

When the 2000 presidential contest between Republican Texas Governor George W. Bush and Democratic Vice President Al Gore almost came down to a few hundred votes in the Sunshine State, Florida was once thought to be the most significant swing state in the nation.

Florida has now become into a more powerful conservative state, and in the 2024 election, Trump defeated former Vice President Kamala Harris by a margin of 13 points.