Tenure
DeSantis signed a 2013 "No Climate Tax Pledge" against any tax hikes to fight global warming. He voted in favor of H.R. 45, which would have repealed the Affordable Care Act in 2013. DeSantis introduced a bill in 2014 that would have required the Justice Department to report to Congress whenever any federal agency refrained from enforcing laws. In 2015, DeSantis was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, a group of congressional conservatives and libertarians.
DeSantis opposes gun control and received repeated "A" ratings from the NRA Political Victory Fund. He has said, "Very rarely do firearms restrictions affect criminals. They really only affect law-abiding citizens."
DeSantis was a critic of Obama's immigration policies, including deferred action legislation (DACA and DAPA), accusing Obama of failing to enforce immigration laws. In 2015 he co-sponsored Kate's Law, which would have increased penalties for aliens who unlawfully reenter the U.S. after being removed. DeSantis encouraged Florida sheriffs to cooperate with the federal government on immigration-related issues.
In 2016, DeSantis introduced the Higher Education Reform and Opportunity Act, which would have allowed states to create their own accreditation systems. He said this legislation would also give students "access to federal loan money to put towards non-traditional educational opportunities, such as online learning courses, vocational schools, and apprenticeships in skilled trades".
In 2016, DeSantis received a "0" rating from the Human Rights Campaign for his voting record on LGBT-related legislation. Two years later, he told the Sun Sentinel that he "doesn't want any discrimination in Florida, I want people to be able to live their life, whether you're gay or whether you're religious."
DeSantis was present before the June 2017 congressional baseball shooting, and the perpetrator asked him whether the players were Republicans. Later that summer, DeSantis proposed legislation that would have ended funding by November of that year for the Mueller investigation of President Trump. He said that the May 17, 2017, order that initiated the probe "didn't identify a crime to be investigated" and was likely to start a fishing expedition.
DeSantis supports a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress, so that U.S. representatives would be limited to three terms and senators to two. He served three terms in the House of Representatives, retiring in 2018 to run for governor of Florida.
DeSantis said that the debate over how to reduce the federal deficit should shift emphasis from tax increases to curtailing spending and triggering economic growth. He is a past supporter of replacing the federal income tax and the IRS with a federal sales tax called the FairTax, by cosponsoring legislation to do so as a U.S. representative. He supported a "no budget, no pay" policy for Congress to encourage passage of a budget resolution. DeSantis endorsed the REINS Act, which would have required that regulations significantly affecting the economy be subject to a vote of Congress before taking effect. He also supported auditing the Federal Reserve System.
DeSantis supported the 2014 Venezuelan protests, calling them peaceful and a result of Venezuela's "socialist" economic policy. He heavily criticized the Venezuelan government's response to the protests, saying its actions resembled techniques used by Cuban leader Fidel Castro. For alleged IRS targeting of conservatives, DeSantis asked for IRS commissioner John Koskinen's resignation for having "failed the American people by frustrating Congress's attempts to ascertain the truth." He cosponsored a bill to impeach Koskinen for violating the public's trust. DeSantis criticized IRS employee Lois Lerner and asked that she testify to Congress.
In 2014, DeSantis introduced the Let Seniors Work Act, the companion of a similar bill introduced by Marco Rubio in the Senate. The bill would have repealed an incentive to retire instead of keep working and would have exempted those above 65 from the 12.4% Social Security payroll tax; he also cosponsored a measure to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits. According to PolitiFact, it is "half true" that DeSantis voted to cut Social Security and Medicare and voted to increase the retirement age, because those votes were on non-binding resolutions that would not have become law even if passed, and because the objective was to stabilize those social programs to avoid steeper cuts later.
Conservative think tank Citizens Against Government Waste named DeSantis a "Taxpayer Superhero" in 2015. DeSantis sponsored the Transportation Empowerment Act, which would have transferred much of the responsibility for transportation projects to the states and sharply reduced the federal gas tax. He opposed legislation to require online retailers to collect and pay state sales tax. He voted for the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
DeSantis opted not to receive his congressional pension and filed a measure that would eliminate pensions for members of Congress.
