DeSantis Cements His ‘Maverick’ Image

F lorida governor Ron DeSantis moved on two fronts last week in an effort to clean up public education in his state. On Friday, he suspended four members of the Broward County School Board, the nation’s sixth largest, after a grand jury concluded they had been negligent and incompetent in handling the Parkland school shooting in 2018 that left 17 students and teachers dead.

The grand jury recommended removal of the four board members — and a fifth one who left the board after the report was written — for “neglect of duty” in implementing an $800 million bond issue, approved by voters in 2014, that was designed to renovate schools and upgrade their safety.

Much of the political establishment in Broward, which has 2 million people and includes Fort Lauderdale, has been swept away for its failures in the Parkland shooting. Last year, school superintendent Robert Runcie was indicted on felony perjury charges for lying to the grand jury. The Broward school district’s general counsel also faces felony charges. Broward County sheriff Steve Israel was removed from office by DeSantis for failing to respond properly to the Parkland shooting.

All this turmoil has had political consequences. The suspended school-board members — Patricia Good, Donna P. Korn, Ann Murray, and board chair Laurie Rich Levinson — were registered Democrats. He replaced the dismissed board members with four Republicans who now join another Republican whom the governor appointed to replace Rosalind Osgood, who was elected to the state senate.

Levinson, the board chair, declined to comment about the grand jury’s findings. She claimed she and the others were removed for purposes of “political retribution.” She told the New York Times: “What Governor DeSantis did is un-American and undemocratic. He doesn’t care about democracy and he overturned the will of the voters.”

Florida education has seen a dramatic overhaul in just the last week. The same week as the Broward board members were dismissed, Florida held a quasi-referendum on education policy, as dozens of school-board elections were held as part of its primary.

The results were clear. Conservatives took control of boards in Miami-Dade, Duval (Jacksonville), Sarasota, and Brevard (Melbourne) counties, with a combined population of 5 million people. Smaller counties also saw a shift to the right.

Almost all of the candidates whom DeSantis endorsed won, with 25 of the 30 winning or advancing to a runoff. That’s an 83 percent success rate. Conservatives also won seats on public hospital boards in counties including Sarasota, where voters were furious over arbitrary medical decisions and lack of access for non-Covid patients during the pandemic.

Democrats were not absent from the fight in Florida. They also actively endorsed candidates in the nonpartisan races and handed out contributions to liberal incumbents. In defeat, they ignored those facts and blasted DeSantis for turning school-board elections into “new partisan battlegrounds.”

Combined with conservative victories in Virginia last year, the Florida results show how education issues ranging from “woke” curricula to mask mandates can energize parents to vote for commonsense candidates.

DeSantis joined forces with a new group, Moms for Liberty, that helped candidates with endorsements, donations, and precinct-walking kits. Julie Fancelli, an heiress to the Publix supermarket fortune, contributed $50,000 to Moms.

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice says her group is opening new chapters every day. “The goal is to be able to do this all over the country,” she told the Miami Herald. “We’re just getting started.”

The combination of the removal of the Broward school-board miscreants and the voter revolt against incumbents in Tuesday’s elections means that a third of Florida’s 22 million people have seen their local school boards switch from liberal to conservative control overnight. That could potentially impact policy decisions on everything from school choice to a tougher stance against teachers’ unions.

It also gives DeSantis a highly visible playing card in his reelection race this fall. Political analysts also believe he might run for president in 2024, speculation that has been fueled after his campaign released a new video this week called “Top Gov.” The new movie Top Gun: Maverick has become a cultural icon as over 50 million Americans have made it the sixth-highest grossing movie in U.S. history.

That audience will eat up this clever takeoff with DeSantis wearing a flight suit and using fighter jets as props. All in order to teach a “Top Gov” class on “taking on the corporate media.”

Someone who takes on Big Media, Big Unions, and the “Woke” Education Machine all in one week is operating an effective messaging pipeline that the GOP base in 2024 isn’t going to ignore.