MOE DIMANCHE

Ron DeSanctimonious is an enemy to the Constitution. Time after time, he behaves in a way that the Constitution warns the People about, and he loses at the mere threat of a Constitutional challenge to his actions, over and over again. This has to stop. Florida needs a leader who remembers that he is a servant of the People and is bound by the Constitution, not above it.

Let’s take a look at what makes High Heels DeSanctimonious a repeat-offender of the Constitution, and what we need to do about it once Moe takes office.

the death penalty

On January 12, 2016, in an 8-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Hurst v. Florida, in which the Court struck down as unconstitutional Florida’s capital sentencing statute. At the time of the opinion, Florida death-penalty law required a jury to make a sentencing recommendation – on which only a bare majority of jurors had to agree – to the judge, who would then later “hold a separate hearing and determine whether sufficient aggravating circumstances existed to justify imposing the death penalty.” Under the statute, Fla. Stat. § 921.141(2), the jury rendered only an “advisory sentence” of life or death and did not specify the factual basis for its recommendation. The Court held that the judge-sentencing requirement violated the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to trial by jury, saying: “The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough.

Around the same time, the Florida Supreme Court found this new law unconstitutional under Hurst because of the lack of a unanimity requirement.” The fallout from Hurst prompted Florida Governor Rick Scott to sign SB 280, which passed overwhelmingly. It raised from 10 to 12 the number of juror votes required to sentence someone to death.

So, what went wrong? DeSanctimonious.

In April 2023, Florida’s unanimous-jury requirement was rescinded. The 2023 law requires only an 8-juror majority in order for a death sentence to be imposed. The jury must still first unanimously find that an aggravating factor is present. If at least 8 jurors then vote in favor of a death sentence, the judge may impose death. If fewer than 8 jurors vote for death, the judge must impose a life sentence.

Why back-track on a common sense approach to the administration of the death penalty with so many question around the execution of innocent people?

Why make it easier to kill people?

Why back-track on the Florida Supreme Court’s holding that the lack of unanimity is unconstitutional?

Because DeSanctimonious is an enemy to all things constitutional.

What DeSanctimonious did by lowering the jury votes from 12 to 8 is increase the risk of executing an innocent person by 40%. The death penalty is necessary for those who take the lives of others, and it is especially necessary for child predators who take a child’s innocence. But we’ve gotten it wrong so many times, we owe a duty to those who find themselves facing the death penalty to ensure we reduce the risk of executing the innocent by as much as possible. If a jury of 12 unanimously voted to recommend the death penalty, there is a presumption that the evidence was strong against the accused. But nearly cutting that number in half implies that we could be sentencing people to death with a jury who was not 100% certain about a particular case. And to purposefully trek into what has already been deemed unconstitutional is an abomination. Moe’s administration will ensure that the number of votes required to recommend the death penalty returns to 12, unless the jury unanimously agreed that aggravating circumstances exist, or it is a case involving children.

things he saw on twitter

2020 had to have given DeSanctimonious the cobbly wobbles. Years after the term “Woke” was retired to past trends, DeSanctimonious signed the Stop WOKE Act into law. In true unconstitutional fashion, DeSanctimonious tried to infringe on the First Amendment rights of small businesses by telling them what they can and cannot say in the businesses they built with their own sweat equity.

His disdain for Freedom of Speech resulted in part of his “WOKE” Act declared unconstitutional in a district court, then again in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Fortunately, Floridians still have the right to Freedom of Speech, but it requires taking the governor to court, on a Constitutional challenge.

In Moe’s Administration, Floridians will be free to express themselves as the Constitution envisions. We all have a right to speak freely without fear of reprisal, whether we agree or disagree. It is dreadful to know that expressing yourself in a way that the governor does not agree with could get your business shut down. That is not Constitutional. It’s not even American. It is a foreign concept used by fascist governments.

We shouldn’t have to codify Freedom of Speech, but unfortunately, it is necessary. On Day 1, Moe will permanently prohibit infringement on the Freedom of Expression by government officials and will seek to criminalize it. No Floridian should ever fear expressing themselves.

RETURNING REEDY CREEK TO DISNEY

Moe will be returning Reedy Creek to Disney. Unconstitutional DeSantis was found to have trampled on the First Amendment with part of his “Don’t Say GAY” effort, unsurprisingly. However, Moe’s reasoning for returning Reedy Creek to Disney has nothing to do with the debate on what “Gay” means. DeSantis did some good by ensuring that the topic is out of our schools. At the same time, though, he crossed a line in his fight with Disney that is unacceptable: reprisal.

By sabotaging Disney’s business because they took a side in the LGBTQ conversation, what DeSantis did is no different from the anti-protest laws in Ukraine. It looks exactly like what our history books tell us countries like Russia and Mussolini’s Italy looked like, censorship of the opposing voice.

That is a slippery slope. His successor could easily build on the model of speech suppression built by DeSantis and seize newspapers, podcast studios, social media platforms and even jail journalists who dare to speak in opposition.

Moe does not believe this is a model to follow. Dissenters and critics should be invited to the conversation just like supporters and allies. We have too much in common to fight over what is different about our views. As Americans, we owe it to each other to agree to disagree.

Returning Reedy Creek to Disney is symbolic to Moe. It is a promise to future leaders that the dictatorial approach to governance demonstrated by Ron DeSantis is not the path forward for a better Florida or a better America. We do not destroy lives because someone’s opinion is different from our own.

SQUATTING IN A SUIT AND TIE

In a gross and despicable display of heartlessness, DeSanctimonious decided to address what he calls “squatting” after a video went viral on TikTok. It’s bad enough that DeSanctimonious governs in hasty response to his social media feed, but at first glance, it sounds like he might have been on to something. A Venezuelan migrant went viral for a video he made in New York. Not an issue in Florida, and what’s happening in New York is none of DeSanctimonious’ business, but perhaps his intentions were not as bad this time.

Or maybe they were.

This effort was not heartless because it aimed to put people on the streets who struggled with homelessness. It was heartless for another reason: it was sponsored by probate lawyers.

You’d think a bill like that would be sponsored by victims of elderly abuse, individual homeowners, or even an HOA. Nope. It was the probate lawyers who sponsored that bill because when probate lawyers write themselves into the wills of their elderly clients, sometimes the only person standing in the way of them stealing their clients home is a person who made productive use of an otherwise abandoned property. It becomes the battle of the “squatter” who was a trespasser, or the “squatter” with a law degree. One of them is going to get the house, and the law favors the person who was once a trespasser because lawyers making themselves beneficiaries in the estate instruments of terminally-ill clients was such a public health crisis that every state in the nation enacted a prohibition on it. Florida’s prohibition on lawyers embezzling client assets is perhaps the most straight-forward in the nation.

Many people who have struggled with being unhoused have pursued Florida’s adverse possession process with the hopes of attaining permanent housing. Florida’s adverse possession laws combined with Florida’s laws outlawing probate lawyers from taking windfall profits from the deaths of their clients tilt favor of the law to those people called “squatters”.

So how did the probate lawyers weasel around being disfavored in the eyes of the law? They demonized the “squatters” so that they can embezzle property in peace. And DeSanctimonious lent them a hand. It’s unconstitutional, yet again, because the 14th Amendment prohibits what was intended in that bill, but due process is hardly recognizable, and essentially a thing of the past under the DeSanctimonious administration.

But if the “squatters” who have a better legal claim to these derelict properties are taken out of the picture, the probate lawyers can flip those homes and sell them, after they “inherit” them from their clients through loopholes in Florida’s Trust Code.

The bill hardly served the public. It simply gave the probate lawyers who sponsored it the upper hand over people making productive use of eye sores and derelict properties. Moe will rescind these ridiculous efforts, and bring the Hammer of Justice to the probate lawyers who sponsored the bill, and any of them who went on to leverage it against “squatters” in an attempt to embezzle client assets.

what do you think is unconstitutional?

Trying to pick which actions taken by DeSanctimonious are unconstitutional may feel like asking which witch is which, but if you have identified unconstitutional behavior by this administration that needs to be rectified when Moe takes office, chip in on the fight, and let’s Bring Back the Constitution together.