Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put his signature on what he pitched as the country’s “strongest anti-rioting” legislation on Monday.
DeSantis, surrounded by law enforcement officers, signed House Bill 1, which subjects local government decisions to reduce police funding to state-level administrative review and increases penalties for people who participate in a riot.
“It is the strongest anti-rioting, pro-law enforcement piece of legislation in the country,” DeSantis said at the bill signing, pointing to last summer’s riots and the “defund the police” movement as motivating factors. “There’s just nothing even close.”
The bill, which was approved by a vote of 23-17 on Thursday in the Republican-led state Senate, makes it harder for local governments to strip funding from law enforcement by allowing certain elected officials to file appeals to budget reductions to the state’s Administration Commission, a panel made up by the governor and Cabinet officials.
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“We saw last summer some of the local governments were actually telling, not necessarily in Florida but throughout the country, basically telling these folks to stand, telling police to stand down while cities burned, while businesses were burned, while people were being harmed,” DeSantis said before signing the bill. “That’s a dereliction of duty.”
DeSantis stressed that his goal in signing the bill is to make local authorities more accountable and to prevent Florida’s municipalities from becoming similar to cities in other states that have reduced police budgets.
“These areas that defunded part of law enforcement or just turned their backs on law enforcement — they are paying the bill,” he said. “This law protects Floridians from having that happen.”
The bill also creates a minimum sentence for those convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers and increases the offense severity of other crimes “if committed in furtherance of a riot or an aggravated riot,” such as obstructing a highway.
Democratic state Sen. Jason Pizzo criticized the bill after its passage in the Senate, saying that there are challenges in defining a riot and that people who commit the same crimes in a different environment could have a different standard of justice placed on them.
“It is a fact-specific circumstance on the scene,” Pizzo said.
Pizzo was also critical of the bill’s optics amid both the unrest in Minnesota over the recent fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright and the criminal trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of killing George Floyd last summer.
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Others criticized the bill for allowing the state to participate in local governments’ budgeting decisions.
“Our cities’ budgets are nonpartisan and our city leaders should not face state-imposed political pushbacks that would disrupt our transparent municipal budget process,” Hallandale Beach Commissioner Sabrina Javellana said in a statement. “Last summer’s protests for racial justice and calls to reimagine public safety must be heard and acted upon.”
