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Takeaways from Tallahassee — Preorder now!

The hot new item for your Easter basket.

Fans and haters alike soon can have a 7-inch Gov. Ron DeSantis nodding on, overlooking their desk in their work-from-home office.

On Friday, the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum unveiled its design for the 46th Governor of the Free State of Florida’s bobbling buddy as part of the “Protect the Heroes” COVID-19 fundraiser. Bobblehead aficionados can preorder the DeSantis figurine for $25 after customers on both sides of the aisle piled on requests for the HOF and Museum to add DeSantis to its fleet of Governor bobbleheads.

“After taking a bit of a break from Governor bobbleheads, we started to get more requests for a bobblehead of Gov. DeSantis,” National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum co-founder and CEO Phil Sklar said. “A lot of those requests came from people who approve of the Governor while some came from people who think DeSantis is a ‘bobblehead.’ Regardless, we wanted to add Gov. DeSantis to the collection and give people the opportunity to have a bobblehead of Florida’s Governor.”

However, don’t purchase it as a present for the holidays. The bobblehead won’t ship till February. Shipping will be a flat $8 rate.

Faith Based Events
DeSantis’ bobblehead design features him standing at a lectern, a familiar scene during the pandemic.

DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are the latest Governors to join the store’s line of bobbleheads. Preceding them were 13 Governors from both sides of the aisle, as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, 35 different Essential Hero professions and more.

Every bobblehead sold equals a $5 donation to the Protect the Heroes fund to help health care providers purchase personal protective equipment like masks for their health care workers. The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum has raised more than $300,000 for the fund through its bobblehead sales.

Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, former New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Cuomo, the only Governor on the list who is no longer a Governor, comes in three versions: “original,” sitting and standing.

Like medical professionals and essential workers, Governors have been instrumental in the fight against COVID-19, according to the HOF and Museum, “often making difficult decisions and taking bold actions to keep their citizens safe from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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Coming up, the usual assortment of tidbits, leftovers and not-ready-for-prime-time moments by Peter Schorsch, Drew Wilson, Renzo Downey, Jason Delgado, Christine Jordan Sexton and the staff of Florida Politics.

Take 5

The “Takeaway 5” — the Top 5 stories from the week that was:

Florida sues Biden administration over vaccine mandate — Brandishing the nearly 500-page stack of papers comprising the federal vaccine and testing mandate, DeSantis on Thursday vowed to protect the livelihoods of the unvaccinated and defeat the emergency rules in court. The move came just hours after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration unveiled its much-anticipated plan. The Governor added that the federal government is seeking input on how much further it can go with mandates. “I just want to warn people, as far-reaching as this is, this is only the beginning for what they’re contemplating doing going forward,” DeSantis said.

State web systems crash, marooning government processes — Most state government websites and links are back online as state officials working with vendors labored to overcome hardware issues that first crashed the system last Friday and reportedly continue to cause problems. The Governor’s Office said Tuesday that the vast majority of the affected state government computer servers were working and online. Meanwhile, sources close to the project say the system continues to crash and that the Governor’s Office is overly optimistic. The breadth of the outage and recovery efforts, and the impact on public and intergovernmental services, isn’t entirely clear. The original outage affected approximately 1,100 servers and took down pages like DeSantis‘ homepage, FLGov.com, and the state portal, MyFlorida.com.

Republicans flip Florida on voter registration — Republicans have taken the lead in Florida voter registration for the first time in history — a landmark day, Florida Republicans are declaring Friday. RPOF Chair Joe Gruters called it a “monumental day.” DeSantis says that’s because the rest of the nation sees how free and safe Florida is. “It’s good for us, but honestly, we would’ve probably won the New Jersey Governor’s race, but all the Republicans moved to Florida from New Jersey ‘cause they get so frustrated,” he said. But Democrats say not so fast. They’re disputing the numbers and saying the RPOF and the Florida Division of Elections have interpreted electoral roll rules in a way to manipulate the numbers. Democrats, the Florida Democratic Party insisted Friday, still hold an advantage of 79,429 more eligible, registered voters than Republicans.

Fuchs reverses professor gag order — After a week’s worth of bad publicity, a slam by a federal judge, and calls for alumni to cut off donations, University of Florida President Kent Fuchs on Friday ordered the university to reverse its decision to block multiple professors from testifying in a high-stakes voting rights case against the state. An attorney representing some of the professors said their First Amendment rights and academic freedoms remain at risk while the policy stays in place. Civil rights and voting rights groups are challenging a new election law restricting mail-in ballots and drop boxes.

DeSantis plans election police office in integrity package — The Governor hopes to create an election-fraud investigation office as part of another proposed election law package, the follow-up to the elections bill that’s currently under fire (read above). Also, on his wish list is increasing the penalty for breaking the new “ballot harvesting” law from a misdemeanor to a third-degree felony. “If somebody brings a sack of ballots and they’re stuffing them in a Dropbox, you have a place that will field these complaints and will immediately be able to investigate and hold them accountable,” DeSantis said. Additionally, he wants to impose time limits for Supervisors of Elections to “clean their voting rolls.”

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