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A central theme of Ron DeSantis’ reign as Florida’s culture war GOP governor and in his now-defunct presidential campaign has been “parental rights,” a far-right movement that began by empowering right-wing parents’ political and social grievances at the expense of children’s rights to a complete and well-rounded education, while ignoring the rights and needs of children.
Governor DeSantis’ infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law, first launched to include just children up to third grade, then expanded to all public school grades, was just the beginning.
Now, Florida Republicans including Governor DeSantis are moving to take healthcare, food, and workplace protections away from children.
“DeSantis and conservative/Trumpian/MAGA public officials” are “disassembling Florida’s social service safety net,” according to an op-ed by Barrington Salmon at the Florida Phoenix.
They are “refusing to allocate money or enough of it for school lunch programs to feed hungry children; rejecting no-strings-attached federal government dollars to expand Medicaid that would allow the state to enroll 1.4 million people; not prioritizing access to quality healthcare; continuing to siphon off money from traditional public schools to give to church-affiliated and private schools, and passing punishing draconian laws to further alienate and marginalize gay, transgender and LGBTQ children and teens,” Salmon writes.
Indeed, last week, after having already kicked 420,000 children off Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Governor DeSantis sued the Biden administration over a new federal law that requires children be allowed to stay on Medicaid for at least 12 months, regardless of challenges to their eligibility or their ability to pay, Axios reported. The governor wants the ability to remove even more children from the life-saving healthcare program.
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At issue is the federal government’s policy that even if a child’s parents cannot or do not pay, the child cannot be kicked off or denied benefits for at least 12 months.
DeSantis, in his federal lawsuit, says that amounts to a “free-for-all,” but Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, is warning what DeSantis is doing is “harmful.”
“If he is successful, the Governor will ensure that more children in Florida will spend more time being uninsured. He’s not stopping there – he’s seeking to remove the protection for all children in separate CHIP programs that charge premiums. This is harmful and puts children’s health and educational outcomes at risk in both the short and the long term,” Alker said in a statement.
“This comes on top of Medicaid unwinding where Florida has the second worst performance in the country having terminated Medicaid coverage for over 400,000 children. (Only Texas has a worse record.) The new federal protection for children was designed in part to mitigate against inappropriate losses of Medicaid and CHIP for eligible children resulting from red tape and shoddy customer support for families renewing coverage – problems which have been on stark display recently in Florida,” she adds.
The attacks on children and their safety net in Florida continues to expand under DeSantis’ leadership.
“Gov. Ron DeSantis and state administrators have rejected at least $11 billion in federal funds in the past few years, saying there were strings attached, they ‘politicized’ roads or fought climate change,” the Orlando Sentinel reported last month. “The programs affected include an expansion of Medicaid, rebates for energy-saving appliances and upgrades, a program to cut motor vehicle emissions, and summer lunches for children from low-income families. Millions of mostly low-income Floridians could have benefited from the funding, the governor’s critics say.”
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U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) last month in a statement blasted DeSantis for rejecting nearly $250 million in federal funds for summer school lunches for Florida’s children, calling it “cruel and unnecessary,” and “mean and irresponsible.”
“Just last year, 47 percent of Florida parents reported difficulties keeping food on the table for their families — a startling reality that has pushed too many families to skip meals or go an entire day without eating. However, instead of confronting this growing crisis, Governor DeSantis will deprive Florida children of nutritious meals,” Rep. Castor wrote.
Meanwhile, also last week, Florida Republican lawmakers passed legislation greatly reducing workplace protections for Florida’s children.
The Florida House “passed a measure allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to work more than 30 hours a week and as late as 11 p.m. on a school night,” Florida Politics reports.
The bill’s sponsor, state GOP Rep. Linda Chaney, “said the bill merely offered opportunities for teens to work more flexible hours.”
“This bill is about choice and opportunity for families. I trust that our families and our teens will make the right choice for them,” Chaney said, while House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell denounced the legislation..
“This is 2024 this is not the 1900s, this is not the 1800s,” Driskell said. “Just because our kids like to play Minecraft doesn’t mean we should send them back into the mines.”
The Florida Senate has a “more expansive,” bill, “allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to work starting at 5:30 a.m. and until midnight on a school night.” There is also an alternative version “that would bar 16- and 17-year-olds from commercial construction sites while allowing them on jobs with scaffolding, roofs and ladders under six feet.”
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