Florida Republicans To Change Law To Let DeSantis Run For President

The laws in Florida prevent a sitting governor from running for President, which could severely hinder Ron DeSantis' plans for the future. But the Republican-controlled legislature is working on a fix that would prevent DeSantis from having to step down from his post in order to run, a clear sign that a run is imminent. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Well, folks, there's some wacky things happening down here in the Florida State legislature that now has Republicans super majorities in both our state house and state senate. You know, prior to this year's midterms, we only had majority Republicans in the House and Senate, but now they've got super majorities so they can do whatever the hell they want. And those of us who don't follow the hard right fascist, uh, political viewpoints of our elected government here, we're at their mercy. But there is one thing that these Republicans with their new super majority in both state houses are already working on, and that is a piece of legislation that would prevent Ron DeSantis from having to step down and resign as governor in order to run for president. I love this job because sometimes even I get to learn things about the law that I didn't even know because I didn't know this was a thing here in the state of Florida, but apparently it is.

Let me explain it. We have a law that says if a politician, like somebody who is sitting in office right now wants to run for a different office that would overlap their current term in office, then they have to resign from their current office in order to run for the other office. DeSantis is our governor until 2026, the next presidential elections in 2024, being sworn in in early 2025. So that would overlap with DeSantis term as governor. So he would be forced under Florida law to resign as governor just to run for president. Not if he gets elected folks, but just to run. He would have to resign from office. And Republicans with their majority looked at that. They said, uhoh, that's bad, right? We don't want this guy to have to step down, and everybody on the planet pretty much knows that Ron DeSantis is going to run for president, so what do we do?

And then they looked around and they realized, holy crap, this is nothing about Republicans here. We can do whatever we want. And for the record, they have actually, made carve outs of this law in the past to help sitting Republicans, um, actually sitting Republican governors, the last two governors, they have created carve outs for those specific individuals. They did it in 2008 for Charlie Christ, who was a Republican at that time, because they thought Charlie Christ was gonna be chosen as John McCain's running mate. So they created a temporary carve out of the law that said, oh, but if it's like, if your term's about to end, then it's totally cool if you do that. Um, but then four years later they got rid of that, but then they immediately had to do another temporary carve out that has since expired because our then governor Rick Scott was running for the Senate seat, which he did win, but they didn't

Want him to resign. So they've done this before, but I think now that they've got their super majority, they're not just looking for a carve out, they're looking to make it permanent. But it is funny how they always come to the aid of these Republicans like, oh no, we don't want them to have to resign, so we're gonna keep them in power. We're gonna skirt our own laws instead of just passing legislation to get rid of the law. I mean, most states, by the way, don't even have that. Listen, I don't want the scientist to run. I would think it would be hilarious if he had to resign, but at the same time, these Republicans are like freaking out. Like, what do we do? It's like, just get rid of the law. It's, it's not like it's, you know, written in stone. You can pass legislation to just overturn it and then it's done.

Then you don't have to freak out. But you're all so stupid that you don't realize that. So you're gonna sit there and try to craft another carve out when all you have to do is pass legislation repealing the piece of legislation that you don't like. And I can say that confidently because I know none of those idiots watch this channel. So I'm just gonna sit back, watch them twiddle their thumbs and freak out because none of them are smart enough to figure out how to get around this law that basically they put in place in the first place.