A Leon County commissioner just told the governor of Florida to go ahead and fire him.
And Florida's new law is about to give DeSantis exactly that power.
Commissioner Bill Proctor heard the warnings – lose $16.8 million in grants, get removed from office – and said "so be it."
What Florida's Law Actually Does to These Commissioners
SB 1134 doesn't slap local governments with a fine and move on.
It makes violating the DEI ban a personal career-ending event.
Any commissioner who votes yes on an official action related to DEI "commits misfeasance or malfeasance in office and is subject to removal."
DeSantis doesn't need a court hearing to pull the trigger.
Under the Florida Constitution, the governor issues an executive order and the official is immediately suspended from their seat.
The only appeal goes to the Republican-controlled Florida Senate – which holds a 28-12 supermajority.
DeSantis has done this before.
He suspended Tampa State Attorney Andrew Warren in 2022 for refusing to enforce state law.
He suspended Orlando State Attorney Monique Worrell in 2023 for soft-on-crime policies.
The Florida Supreme Court upheld his authority both times.
These Leon County commissioners aren't staring down a hypothetical.
https://twitter.com/ByMattHoffmann/status/2044207797080826090?s=20
They're staring down a governor with a documented track record and the courts behind him.
The Rename That Won't Save Them
The architects of this measure think they found a workaround.
Dr. Bruce Strouble stripped out the words "slavery," "DEI," and "reparations" from the language entirely.
Commissioner Nick Maddox told the public three separate times – in the same speech – that he is not voting on a race or gender-based program.
"I am not voting on DEI," Maddox said.
The proposal is now titled the "Proposed Charter Amendment on Persistent Disparities Resulting from Historic Public Policies."
It would create a community restoration fund to audit historical government policies and build a remediation plan – with no individual cash payments, which is how they're distinguishing it from Evanston, Illinois, where the city handed $25,000 checks to Black residents and promptly got sued for racial discrimination.
Here's what they're missing.
SB 1134 bans "funding, promoting, or taking any official action related to DEI."
A fund built specifically around remediating racial disparities is related to DEI whether you say the word or not.
https://twitter.com/ByMattHoffmann/status/2044188497355919712?s=20
The county's own attorney warned in February there would be "severe limitations" if this moves forward.
Commissioner Carolyn Cummings made the calculation out loud: she supports addressing past wrongs, she said, but won't risk losing state and county funding over it.
That's a Democrat conceding the law is working exactly as designed.
This Is What Happens When States Actually Enforce the Rules
The Proctor faction is gambling that DeSantis sees Leon County as too small to bother with.
That's a miscalculation.
SB 1134 was built precisely because Florida counties had been spending taxpayer money on DEI for years without consequence – Sen. Clay Yarborough cited Broward County spending roughly $900,000 on DEI training since 2020 and Hillsborough County paying $572,000 for outside contractors to teach employees about "unconscious bias" when he introduced the bill on the floor.
This law was designed to make the consequence personal, not just financial.
https://twitter.com/TLHReports/status/2028472837871136843?s=20
Previous anti-DEI measures could be absorbed as a budget hit.
This one puts the commissioner's seat on the line, which changes the math entirely.
Proctor is betting his career that DeSantis won't move on a county commissioner over a community restoration fund.
Every local Democrat in a Republican-governed state is watching to find out.
If DeSantis pulls the trigger the moment that vote is cast, city commissions and county boards across the country will understand exactly where the line is – and that someone will actually enforce it.
That's not a side effect of this law.
That's the point.
Sources:
- Joshua Q. Nelson, "Florida officials warned to avoid reparations-style effort as state gears up to restrict DEI even further," Fox News, April 17, 2026.
- Mitch Perry, "Florida Legislature passes bill banning local government DEI initiatives," WLRN, March 10, 2026.
- Mitch Perry, "Florida Senate votes to ban local governments from spending on DEI," Florida Phoenix, March 5, 2026.
- Florida Senate Bill Analysis, CS/SB 1134, Florida Senate Community Affairs Committee, February 10, 2026.
- Marc Caputo, "Ron DeSantis suspends second elected prosecutor as his 2024 campaign struggles," NBC News, August 10, 2023.
