After the Tampa Bay Rays worked with the New York Yankees to focus their social media postings during their game on gun violence, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has once again used his political power to punish a private entity for exercising free speech.
According to WTSP CBS-10 Tampa Bay, DeSantis used his line item veto to cut $35 million in state funding for a baseball facility in Pasco County that would serve as the Tampa Bay Rays’ spring training facility, as well as a park for community organizations.
This isn’t DeSantis’s first time wielding this cudgel. He ran a legally-dubious bill through the legislature that would revoke Disney’s self-governance provisions allowed by state law to punish Disney for speaking out against the DeSantis-ordered “Don’t Say Gay” bill.