Slate: “For decades, Florida conservatives decried decisions by the Supreme Court of Florida striking down laws that violated the state constitution. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis sounded this note in his January 2019 inaugural address, complaining that Florida “has seen judges expand their power beyond proper constitutional bounds” and promising to end “judicial activism.” DeSantis entered office at the same time that three liberal justices on the Florida Supreme Court were forced to retire due to age limits. He promptly appointed three new justices, creating, in the words of the Tampa Bay Times, “what some conservatives are celebrating as the most conservative state Supreme Court in America.” (Donald Trump later appointed two of those new justices to a federal appellate court, and DeSantis appointed two more justices.)
As the Daytona Beach News-Journal noted, these appointments “raised expectations that an array of red-meat policies would swiftly emerge from the Republican-controlled Legislature,” including several bills that clash with precedent. While, since 2019, the Florida Supreme Court has issued 14 decisions directly or indirectly overturning prior precedents—even lowering the standard for revisiting past decisions—the court has not, so far, receded from precedent that invalidated a specific statute. The Republican Legislature, however, feels confident it will—so confident, in fact, that it has brazenly begun to pass laws that violate precedent of the Florida Supreme Court.”