Florida Has Already Wasted Over $700k Of Taxpayer Funds Defending Its Unconstitutional Content Moderation Bill
from the and-more-to-come dept
We’ve already talked about how Georgia looks to be moving forward with its clearly unconstitutional content moderation bill. Back when Florida signed its content moderation bill into law (which actually put in a few things to pretend to appear more constitutional, unlike Georgia’s…), we noted that the state was going to waste a ton of taxpayer funds before losing. And, that’s exactly what’s happened. Florida’s bill was tossed out as unconstitutional, fairly easily. While an appeal on that ruling will be heard soon, all this is doing is racking up Florida’s expensive legal bills.
CCIA has a post up effectively warning Georgia not to go down this same path, and in the middle of that post it notes that, via some public records requests, Florida has apparently already spent somewhere around $700,000 of taxpayer dollars defending the law in court. And that’s even before the appeal is heard — meaning that it’s quite likely that Florida will set over a million dollars of taxpayer money on fire in an attempt to violate the 1st Amendment rights of internet websites.
As states around the country continue to pass these kinds of laws, it makes me wonder at what point supposedly “small government” elected officials who are “concerned about the budget” will realize that wasting taxpayer funds on a quixotic attack on the 1st Amendment just isn’t worth it? Or do they not care, since it’s not their money that’s being spent?
Filed Under: 1st amendment, content moderation, florida, taxpayer funds, wasting money
Comments on “Florida Has Already Wasted Over $700k Of Taxpayer Funds Defending Its Unconstitutional Content Moderation Bill”
As states around the country continue to pass these kinds of laws, it makes me wonder at what point supposedly “small government” elected officials who are “concerned about the budget” will realize that wasting taxpayer funds on a quixotic attack on the 1st Amendment just isn’t worth it?
When someone they don’t like does it and not one second before, followed immediately by them going back to wasting taxpayer dollars on whatever PR stunt they are doing since after all they’re not the ones stuck with the bill in the end.
What do you mean?
They managed to shrink the government by almost $1M already. Just imagine how many teachers you can fire for that (after all, you don’t need the hours for sex education anymore since that has been prohibited).
Courts
How is the state using money to Pay for backing this bill.
Who are they paying off?
What billboards are they using.
Who are they trying to convince, Bribe?
Would like the list.
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“records requests reveal that just one Florida state agency has already wasted nearly $700,000 to defend the unconstitutional new law.”
Thats a part, but dont say much.
The Thing I see, as is mentioned, this is political, this is personal, it has noting to do with the state as a law or to fight for it. Its 1 group that should be paying for it, not the state.
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“How is the state using money to Pay for backing this bill.
Who are they paying off?”
Taxpayers by default fund what they do, and unfortunately I don’t believe there’s a “our governor is an idiot so we won’t fund X” exception.
Unfortunately, as much as I’d like to claim a grand conspiracy for the second part, the most likely explanation is that true believers in one of the sillier conspiracies to have emerged in recent years aren’t being blackmailed, they’re just stupid and there’s always lawyers who will take the money from idiots if they believe they can bill the hours and get paid.
The grander conspiracy is that this is to chum the waters for people still dumb enough to think that the 2020 election was “stolen” and keep them angry enough to vote in a mid term where Democrats are typically less likely to vote, but that doesn’t require people to pay the right to do it.
“Who are they trying to convince, Bribe?”
Again, there’s midterms coming up, and an ignorant and angry R base is more likely to vote than an apathetic D base that is historically less likely to vote outside of presidential races. Keep the “election was stolen” headlines active despite all the factual and logical reasons that obviously wasn’t the case, and they might claw back more power.
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Not so much in Florida. There are three branches of government, all run by the same political party, and pretty much along party lines. Even the judiciary, as you rise up the levels, tends to be fairly strongly ``business-oriented”, toward the same businesses that fund the party which has been in power for the past couple of decades.
(preview still broken)
This is just the start
The recent “parental rights” law is already being challenged in court for being overly vague (and horrendous) and they’ll likely spend a shit ton of money defending this one as well. As far as small government goes, the current Florida administration and senate have been pursuing a campaign of removing all local governments ability to make decisions on everything from zoning, pandemic measures, zoning and pretty much anything that the state GOP thinks are bad. They have absolutely no actual principles except power.
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Do racism and self-enrichment count as principles?
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Aren’t those a subset of power?
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More like familiars. They are drawn to it because it gives them strength, and narrow its purpose.
Re: Re: Re:2 As a note aside:
Hey, nested quote levels work in markdown now! That’s pretty much the biggest payoff from the WordPress migration I have been yearning for. I mean, I am German. We love nesting things, as Mark Twain already remarked in “The Awful German Language”.
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What a pleasant surprise!
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An interesting thing about the “Parental Rights” law in the news recently, is how the teachers have stood it on its head.
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… eh, I should have added that that came out on the first, so take it with a grain of salt.
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Oh how very glorious, thanks for the schadenfreude-fueled laugh.
‘The leopards weren’t supposed to eat my face!’
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Sadly, the opposition seems to have been released on April 1st, so it may be more of a case of a joker pointing out the obvious flaws in the plan than an actual opposition to it.
At least, that’s my understanding. I would hope that teachers stand up to this, but it’s more likely that the underpaid and under-appreciated staff quit or buckle under in the knowledge that it’s only the kids that would suffer either way.
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Possible, as completely believable as it would be it could just be a mockery of hypocritical bigots with a joke, but hopefully it’s accurate and the date is just a coincidence.
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Even if it isn’t accurate, someone could easily make it a reality by using that template. Malicious compliance is the best. 😁
You answered your own question.
They don’t care because it’s not THEIR money being spent to defend these unconstitutional laws.
I’d imagine if THEY had to pay for the defense they would think twice before passing clearly bad laws that they will then be obligated to fiance the defense of.
once the appeal will be heard in how many days the court will be reach a decision on the appeal
i don’t know about the courts so i have a question once the appeal will be heard in how many days the court will be reach a decision on the appeal ?
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Broken English aside, a ruling from an appeals court can come anywhere from days to months later, once the case has been presented. And… typically, months.
For instance, one site reports that the 11th circuit had an average 3 month time from initial brief to oral arguments, and about a 10 month time from oral arguments to decision. The 9th circuit, by contrast, had average times of 16 and 25 months respectively. Those are, I should point out, averages.
Electing shitheads who enact shit laws has its just reward for the dumbass voters who put them there.
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I’m always uncomfortable with that attitude for various reasons. One is that gerrymandering and other tricks are used to ensure that the votes of many people aren’t counted and it’s possible for a minority to win despite having been outvoted. The other is that I don’t think a population should lose rights because they’re surrounded by idiots. If the vote was 49.5% vs 50.5%, the former group don’t deserve what they get.
Hey, that’s $700k they could have spent persecuting gay or transgender people!
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There will be always enough funding for essential services, like bigotry and election sabotage.
But are they really wasting money??
Think about how much they saved by not counting the number of covid deaths in the state.