The “reservoir of freedom” that is the state of Florida should give Americans hope about the state of the nation, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says. 

“Florida really should be a source of hope for people, because as all these other problems mounted throughout our country, we were able to get the big things right,” DeSantis, a Republican, said on “The Kevin Roberts Show” podcast on Friday. “We were able to make our state a reservoir of freedom, a place where people went for sanity, and the numbers speak for themselves.” 

DeSantis and host Roberts discussed the attitude of Americans toward the political climate and the unconstitutional administrative state.  

During his 2022 gubernatorial reelection campaign, DeSantis said he was impressed that Floridians overwhelmingly thought the Sunshine State was going in the right direction, while thinking the rest of the country was going in the wrong direction. DeSantis won a second term in a landslide, capturing 59.4% of the vote over his Democratic challenger, former Gov. Charlie Crist.  

“I think people drew the distinction between a state government that was reflective of really solid policies, not indulging in woke ideology and really standing up for them,” the Florida governor said, “and they contrast that with what’s going on in Washington, where you have a rampant bureaucracy and administrative state, woke agenda, and really bad fiscal and monetary policy.”  

He said the courage Floridians show is contagious.  

“People’s satisfaction is high and really all it is, is being tethered to the proper philosophical foundations, understanding the enduring principles that matter, being right on policy, but basically just having a stand against the Left, the media,” he continued. “Show a little backbone. Show a little courage.” 

DeSantis said the administrative state represents a distortion of constitutional government. Congress has failed to hold agencies accountable, he said.  

“What our Founders wanted, they didn’t want any power to be accumulated in one branch, but they definitely would not have wanted power accumulated in part of a branch that was not subjected to accountability,” he said. “We kind of have the worst of both worlds.” 

An unseemly imbalance of federal government power is concentrated within the executive branch, DeSantis said.  

“A Republican can win the presidency right now, and the Left still controls the machinery of the executive branch,” he warned. “That is totally contrary to how the Constitution was designed.” 

DeSantis said he thinks Republicans have the capacity to make a dent in the woke agenda because a lot of businesses that embrace the left-wing agenda do it to protect themselves, not because they believe in it.  

“I think in Florida, just the fact that we’re going against [environmental, social and governance], we took $2 billion out of Blackrock from our pension fund. We have anti-ESG rules and laws that are going to be implemented very soon,” he said. “We’re going after woke banking discrimination.” 

Such measures will give businesses pause before adopting the woke agenda, he said. 

“I do think that the incentives over the last 10 years have been for them to basically bend the knee to the woke mob and try to advance, but ultimately, it’s not good for business or our economy writ large to have basic economic decisions subjected to political calculations,” DeSantis said.  

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post ‘Distortion of Constitutional Government’: DeSantis Says Founders Would Oppose Administrative State  appeared first on The Daily Signal.