- An ex-Florida lawmaker said that many in Tallahassee are "terrified" of DeSantis and his team.
- "There's no inner circle because they just chop off heads and move on," they told The Washington Post.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has often talked about his desire to enact conservative policies without needless drama, and during the past legislative session in the Sunshine State, he signed into law countless pieces of legislation that had long been on Republican wish lists.
With a GOP state-legislative supermajority built from DeSantis' 19-point landslide reelection victory, he eagerly pushed through a six-week abortion ban, signed a bill that bans diversity-and-equity initiatives in public universities into law, expanded a ban on the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity through the 12th grade, and is in the middle of reshaping education in the state, among a vast array of additional laws and policies that he has put into place.
But pressure from DeSantis — and the force of his political operation — has made many in the state capital of Tallahassee afraid of the governor, according to The Washington Post.
With DeSantis now in full campaign mode as a 2024 presidential contender, he is touting his "Florida blueprint" as a benchmark for what he would pursue as a conservative in the White House.
However, back in Florida, caution abounds even among his most fervent supporters in the legislature.
The Post reported that after several GOP lawmakers backing DeSantis' presidential campaign met at the Governor's Mansion last month, they refused to speak about anything that transpired at the gathering.
And while DeSantis has struggled to gain the backing of Florida Republicans serving in Congress, he has a lock on support from state legislators — whom he directly deals with and whose political futures he can more easily control.
DeSantis has earned the endorsements of 100 of the 113 Republican state lawmakers in Florida, with 12 remaining neutral and only one backing former President Donald Trump.
A former Republican state lawmaker told The Post that people are "terrified" of DeSantis and his political operation. Many believe that his enforcers could dismantle their careers if they were to go against the governor.
"These guys are not normal politicos. There's no inner circle because they just chop off heads and move on so quickly," the ex-lawmaker told The Washington Post.
When DeSantis has spoken about his no-hold-barred approach to governance, he has left little to the imagination, frequently speaking about "woke" policies and remarking that team members who don't fully embrace his agenda could hit the road. He abhors the sort of palace intrigue that came to define Trump's presidency, even as the then-president's endorsement of his 2018 gubernatorial campaign helped him eventually win the GOP primary and the subsequent general election.
But as The Post detailed, DeSantis sees his gubernatorial tenure as one of action — especially as it relates to cultural issues — with the governor deriding some Republicans as overly passive.
"I'm going on offense," DeSantis said during a Club for Growth retreat in March. "Some of these Republicans, they just sit back like potted plants, and they let the media define the terms of the debate."
"They let the left define the terms of debate," he continued at the time. "They take all this incoming because they're not making anything happen. And I said, 'That's not what we're doing.'"
Insider reached out to a representative of DeSantis for comment.