Choose your battles wisely; after all, you can’t die on every hill. It makes perfect sense. If you fight every fight that is presented to you, eventually, you’ll lose them all. Someone probably should have told that to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis is currently embroiled in several battles, mostly of his own making. He and the Walt Disney Company are in court over the company’s response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and his retaliation against them. DeSantis is battling with former-President Donald Trump and countless others for the Republican presidential nomination. DeSantis is again fighting with the College Board over Advanced Placement tests. But now, Gov Ron DeSantis has picked a fight that didn’t need to be fought.
Last week, DeSantis signed a series of bills, including the largest budget in the history of Florida. One of the bills banned direct-to-consumer car sales in the state, with an exception for Tesla and his friend, Elon Musk.
But the strangest fight that DeSantis picked was with Minor League Baseball players. You heard that right; the Governor of Florida has decided to take on the cast of Bull Durham (1988).
The bill signed by DeSantis was an amendment to the Florida Minimum Wage Act. The bill itself is simple enough. The Federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. In 2020, Florida passed a constitutional amendment that would set the state’s minimum wage at $10 and raise it $1 a year until it hit $15 in 2026.
So, what’s the problem? The new bill signed by DeSantis last week exempted Minor League baseball players from the Florida Minimum Wage Act, meaning billionaire owners of MLB teams will only have to pay their players $7.25 an hour, saving them nearly 50 percent in salary for their minor league teams in Florida, as well as any team that plays a game in Florida.
But why? It seems like an unnecessary fight to pick that will only affect the 12 minor league baseball teams that play in Florida. That is a good question with an even more corrupt answer.
Jason Garcia, a journalist who writes about how businesses influence public policy in Florida, Tweeted the answer:
Major League Baseball hired the lobbying firm owned by one of DeSantis’ biggest Florida fundraisers and that now employs DeSantis’ former chief of staff. One day after this legislation was filed in Tallahassee, Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade whose kids own the Chicago Cubs, gave DeSantis a $1 million donation
There you have it. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is punishing the state’s largest employer and one of its most significant tax sources for speaking its mind and 19-year-old baseball players trying to live out their dreams.
The Disney/DeSantis feud has already ended in District Court; we’ll have to see where this unnecessary battle ends.
We will keep you updated on this news at Disney Fanatic.
