In a Biden-DeSantis Race, All Politics Will Be Local.

• Date: 01 April 2023
• Author: Glastris, Paul

In June 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation blocking local governments from requiring that gas stations in their jurisdictions provide electric vehicle charging stations. It was a classic DeSantis move, like his effort to ban certain books from school libraries: aggressively use state power to overturn decisions by local officials that he doesn't like.

Six months later, Joe Biden threw those local officials a lifeline. The $1 trillion infrastructure bill he signed includes billions of dollars in grants for municipalities to build EV charging stations--and, in a major break with past federal practice, it routes those funds directly to local governments, rather than through state departments of transportation. Wayne Messam, the Democratic mayor of Miramar, Florida, is planning to apply for one of those grants. "DeSantis claims that Florida is the free state, but every time you turn around, he's telling us what we cannot do," Messam recently told Washington Monthly editor Will Norris. "Yet you have a Biden administration that has worked hand-in-hand with mayors across this country... I...