Florida Governor Ron DeSantis visited California last Sunday to give a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. Over 1,300 people were in attendance for the address – ‘The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival’, which is a bestselling book.
The Republican Governor used his time on stage to express that Florida had outperformed other states when it came to governance over the past few years, such as those of California, New York and Illinois. He especially highlighted the fact that while schools were closed in most other states during the Covid-19 pandemic, Florida has kept them open, leading some families to move from the West Coast just so they could access education.
DeSantis also noted how his state had banned vaccine passports (requiring proof of vaccination in order to do certain activities) and this resulted in a record for domestic tourism this year – 22 percent higher than California’s decline from 2019 to 2021. He concluded by emphasizing everyone’s right to participate in society regardless of whether or not they choose to take a vaccine.
“I think if you look over the last four or five years, and you look at the performances of individual states, and you compare Florida versus California, New York, Illinois, some of those other states, we have had a great experiment, a great test in governing philosophies,” DeSantis said. “Because, of course, you know, we approach things much differently in Florida than you guys have out here, much differently in Florida than they’ve done in New York and in Illinois.”
DeSantis did not miss the chance to take a shot at the way Newsom handled the coronavirus pandemic.
“I can tell you, we had families move from the Pacific coast just for the fact that we had schools open in Florida, when you didn’t have them open in many other states,” he said. “We did things like ban vaccine passports in the state of Florida. States said, ‘You want to go stay in a hotel, go to a restaurant, you got to cough up your vax papers on these mRNA shots.’ And we said that’s none of their business. Everyone has a right to participate in society. That’s a personal choice that you make whether to take that or not, and we’re not going to let you be excluded.”
“Now, what ended up happening because we did that, one of the things that ended up happening was in 2021, Florida set a record for domestic tourism,” he said. “If you compare the change in tourism in California from 2019 to 2021, California tourism declined by 22%.”