Ron DeSantis fired Andrew Warren for having an abortion. Now he is shooting again.

When the Republican governor of Florida fired the Tampa district attorney general for defying the state’s campaign against transgender people and abortion, Ron DeSantis made it clear that he believed his power as governor superseded that of the electorate.

But now that the attorney general, Andrew Warren, has sued to get his job back, and the twice-elected attorney general told The Daily Beast, this is more than just a fight over his job; It comes down to whether a single strong ruler could remove a democratically elected local official from office.

“Can the governor overturn the election in Florida? If the governor has the power to do that, what is left of democracy?” Warren said in an interview Friday.

DeSantis, who sycophant political ads A pledge of allegiance to then-US President Donald Trump took office in 2019, and he followed in the president’s footsteps and turned Tallahassee into a MAGA hotspot that rejected bipartisanship and waged war on progressives. But he has done so more effectively than Trump, launching a crusade to ban certain books in schools, halt health care for transgender youth, segregate gay children, and target transgender athletes in schools.

It is this relentless conservative crusade that worries Warren, who says DeSantis may feel encouraged by the targeted elected school board members for defying book bans and punitive crackdowns on gay and transgender children.

“There is a lot more at stake than my job. This is a battle to stop the erosion of our democracy. It is to ensure our democracy has meaning, so we have elected officials and not a monarch, so no ruler can steal the people’s votes and silence their voices. No matter which party you belong to,” Warren said. To him, your vote is important.”

This particular battle began shortly after the Supreme Court stripped women of their abortion rights in June, when Warren and other elected attorneys general across the country sought to allay widespread concerns about anti-women crackdowns. Warren signed a joint statement pledging not to “criminalize reproductive health decisions.” DeSantis, who has sparked what he called the “awakened” resistance, announced with great fanfare on August 4 that he would be suspending the Hillsborough County attorney. The executive order Warren was accused of “undermining the rule of law” and “encouraging lawlessness.” Warren lawsuit Two weeks later in federal court.

Things haven’t gone so well for DeSantis so far.

For starters, Warren’s case was brought before U.S. District Judge Robert L. In 2021, Republicans from DeSantis and MAGA attempted to shed the lifelines of Trump and far-right conservatives by passing a law that would prevent any social media company from dropping a political candidate. Henkel was the judge who prevented of them, and a preliminary injunction was eventually upheld on appeal and is currently awaiting input from the Supreme Court.

In the Warren case, the judge already to reject DeSantis management requested to dismiss the lawsuit. On September 29, he issued an injunction saying that Warren could continue to claim a violation of his First Amendment rights when he was fired.

And just last week, Hinkle again sided against DeSantis — and hinted at how the case could play out. The judge issued ranking Reiterate how wrong the governor’s legal theory is, i.e., public servants’ on-the-job statements are not protected by the First Amendment and can be subject to discipline by the employer.

The judge wrote that the law DeSantis’ lawyers are trying to cite “does not apply to the speech of elected officials, who are not subject to employer discipline.” It shows how the judge actually distinguishes here that Warren was an elected official, not an employee of an agency that the DeSantis administration could retaliately target — as she accused of doing to Rebecca Jones, a Department of Health researcher who claims she was pressured to resign when she didn’t falsify COVID-19 data to make Florida look good.

“The judge has clearly ruled that I am not an employee of the Governor, and am accountable to the people,” Warren told the Daily Beast. “If you believe in the principles of conservative government, and local control, why would Tallahassee dictate to the voters in Hillsboro who should be the state’s attorney?”

This isn’t the first time DeSantis and this attorney general have been at odds.

In 2018, when 65 percent of Florida residents approved Amendment 4 to return voting rights to some ex-felons, DeSantis and the Republican Party. scrambled to reduce it the following year. Six months later, Warren Announce a new program It would make the state attorney general’s office a part of the process, demonstrating a commitment more consistent with what voters have already agreed to.

Then in March 2020, just as the new COVID-19 pandemic was It kills 1,000 Americans a day And massive hospitals that still don’t know how to deal with it effectively, Warren cracks down on a priest who spouts the plot, endangering his flock. Rodney Howard Brown kept ignoring new social distancing rules and instead mobilized his major church, where preach about it The threat of the “global agenda” and Donald Trump’s celebration of his claim to resist the “new world order.” The pastor was arrested and Warren’s office initially sued the case for violating public health emergency orders, but DeSantis Comfortable country rules To churches immediately after the arrest, Warren finally dropped the case.

And in 2021, Warren rejected the governor’s ploy to threaten the lives of protesters in the streets. DeSantis signed a so-called “riot control” law that gave angry drivers the green light to run over protesters and denied bail to people arrested in riots. Warren Rose B statement Saying it “tears up the constitution.”

Warren told The Daily Beast that he didn’t think about what actions he would take to confront the DeSantis administration next if he got his old job back, but vowed to keep falling back.

I think he abused his power to further his ambition to run for president. My comment is not the only example. It has attracted other political stunts that smell like political games that do nothing to help Florida residents,” he said.

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