Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis capped off three days of hurried lawmaking that limits how businesses and schools can combat the coronavirus — measures passed in a special session criticized for being nothing more than political theater staged to buoy his presidential ambitions — by staging a final act of his own: The Republican leader chose to sign the bills into law in Brandon, Fla., an attempt to play on the latest conservative code for insulting President Biden.
“Today, we lift people up,” DeSantis said Thursday. “We provide protections for people. No nurse, no firefighter, no police officer, no trucker, no anybody should lose their job because of these covid jabs, and that’s what we’re doing.”
But state Rep. Andrew Learned (D), whose district includes the town of Brandon, which is east of Tampa, said the joke is on DeSantis and Republicans because Brandon turned blue in 2020.
“I’d remind the governor that divisive childish politics are what lost former president Trump Brandon last November for the first time in more than 25 years,” Learned said.
He called the special legislative session “a joke” that did nothing for Floridians but impose a “covid tax on small businesses. … The whole … thing is a script for [DeSantis’s] presidential primary announcement.”
Here are four takeaways from the special session, the first in Florida to address a pandemic that has killed nearly 61,000 residents.
What was passed?
One of the bills prohibits employers from requiring workers to be vaccinated and bans school boards from issuing mask mandates or quarantining students who have been exposed to the virus.
Another bill exempts complaints that workers make about vaccine requirements from public records laws. A third paves the way for Florida to remove itself from the jurisdiction of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and create what one lawmaker called “FOSHA.”
The final bill approved takes away the authority of the state surgeon general to order vaccines during a public health emergency.
The anti-mandate bill imposes steep fines — $10,000 per violation for businesses with 100 or fewer employees, $50,000 for larger companies.
But it also offers a raft of options for employers: Workers who don’t want to be vaccinated can be required to wear personal protective equipment such as masks, be tested weekly, provide proof of prior infection, or submit a religious or medical exemption.
If @JoeBiden is going to weaponize OSHA to illegally mandate vaccines, then maybe it’s time for FL to take control of its own workforce safety programs. HB 5B, to explore separation from OSHA, is headed to the House floor for a vote. @GovRonDeSantis @ChrisSprowls @ArdianZika pic.twitter.com/BpOOeZq5p7
— FL House Republicans (@FLGOPMajority) November 16, 2021
State Sen. Danny Burgess (R) said the state needed to make rules now to protect individual rights against federal rules both now and the future.
“This isn’t the 1700s, when there was no treatment available, and there wasn’t PPE,” Burgess said. “There are treatments. And we don’t know what’s down the road. Is there some virus that will wipe out everybody?”
Script flipped, tables turned
Democrats championed the rights of business owners and employers all week, while Republicans sought ways to proscribe how employers can run their businesses during a pandemic.
Democrats proposed an amendment that would have exempted businesses with fewer than 100 employees from the law leveling fines.
“This is a pro-business exemption, so they don’t have to face fines and fees from the broad government overreach in this bill,” state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D) said on the House floor.
“If they follow the law, they will not have to worry about penalties,” state Rep. Erin Grall (R) responded.
The amendment failed.
Democrats also questioned some of bills' funding, including $5 million for the attorney general to cover potential state lawsuits against federal rules.
“We’re asking, ‘What is the $5 million for?’ ” said state Sen. Jason Pizzo (D). “What are you going to do with those tax dollars? We couldn’t get an answer.”
Both parties asked, ‘Why are we here?’
Democrats uttered those four words repeatedly, wondering why they had been diverted by DeSantis from the committee meetings focused on proposals and analyses that are important preparation for the regular 2022 legislative session, which starts Jan. 11. That work is supposed to be wrapped up in early December.
“Why are we here?” Guillermo Smith asked. “I did not want to be here. My constituents did not want me to be here. What they want is for us to be working on the broken unemployment system, skyrocketing property insurance, issues that are important to them. Instead, we’re here at this political theater.”
Republicans posed the question, too, but rhetorically.
“Why are we here?” Burgess asked during the lengthy debate. “The problem we’re addressing today was not caused by us, it was caused by Washington.”
The state needs to stand up to the Biden administration’s vaccination mandates for federal workers and others as a matter of individual freedom, he stressed.
“We’re fighting on multiple fronts,” he said. “We’re the third-largest state, we’re the bellwether state, we’re really a microcosm of the nation standing up to say to the federal government, ‘This is not okay, we’re not going to let you do this.’”
Great to meet with doctors and nurses about the Special Session. They have been working hard throughout the pandemic, many have recovered from COVID, and now their jobs are being threatened by COVID vax mandates. pic.twitter.com/qxLF5FxA5f
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) November 17, 2021
There was some talk of states’ rights — a disturbing echo from another time for state Rep. Geraldine Thompson (D).
“We’ve heard about federal overreach before. The state of Florida seceded from the union over that. Let us not repeat the past,” she said.
‘Basement Boy’ and fealty to the governor
Republicans backed most of what DeSantis wanted — though some of his demands, including stripping businesses of covid-19 liability protection, never made it into the bills.
But at least one member of the governor’s party felt the legislation didn’t go far enough.
“It’s about 25 percent of what I want,” said state Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R), who has already announced his campaign for Congress.
Sabatini had demanded a special session to ban vaccination and mask mandates in August, months before DeSantis raised the idea and during a time when Florida was enduring the deadliest phase of the pandemic to date.
But he lost credibility with other Republicans when he started calling party leaders names. Those earned Sabatini a distant, windowless office in the basement of the Capitol and the taunt of “Basement Boy” among some of his colleagues. On Wednesday, he was shouted down on the House floor when he called Biden “a tyrant.”
State Rep. Fentrice Driskell (D) said Florida Republicans are in lockstep with DeSantis in public, even if they disagree with him in private. “They don’t have the courage of their convictions,” she said.
DeSantis never appeared in the Capitol during the session.

