Amid protests from Black lawmakers, and after shutting down the legislative chamber for a time, Republicans in the Florida House of Representatives passed a heavily gerrymandered congressional map proposed by the governor.
Probably too close to the election to fix the problem.
The courts will do nothing, even if given the chance.
This is going to make keeping the Dem control of the House a hell of a lot more difficult, which is just what the GQP want.
Cowards… the goobers are afraid of an honest fair election where every vote is counted because they might lose.
Andrew Gillum won 10 of these districts in 2018.
Trump won 6 of them with less than 53% of the 2020 vote.
Don’t throw me in that briar patch, Br’er Ron.
It’s roll-up-your-sleeves time. And if it does not animate us, it would surprise me a great deal. I have always said that we should have taken more advantage of the Second Reconstruction. It put in place things which helped everyone.
4 7 m ·
What’s fun about this Disney World stuff is that Republicans are going to have to say “gay” to their kids when they explain why they can’t go to Disney World.
Florida is becoming “America’s Hungary”, and Texas has, for many years, been “America’s Turkey”.
And Arizona, … well …
I guess I’m stupid but I don’t understand the utter disregard the Republicans have for the law and how they get away with the things they do. Democrats would never get away with any of this. Jared Kushner is obviously in a corruption ring as he benefits from the Trump presidency and all the media talks about is Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The midterms should be all about this – standing up to the bully. Mallory McMorrow has shown Democrats the way. If Republicans want to run exclusively on culture wars and voter suppression, let the games begin.
IOKIYAR
DeSantis is the Dan White of governors.
These special districts have been created before in a number of communities in Florida. It’s largely by the folks fearful of change who want to carve out their own hamlet adjacent to a larger entity.”You know the browns are moving in so we need to create our own special taxing district, Del Boca Vista estates”.
This will need to be done on a campaign-by-campaign basis. We don’t have a propaganda network, and we can only hope that other Democrats will see the kind of reaction she’s generated and follow suit. The best part of her speech? “Being different does not build roads, address healthcare costs, etc. …” That is powerful stuff.
Hmmm. Walled Castle towns under siege?
We don’t need a propaganda network. We need “earned media.” We need to make a stink and get these issues covered the same way fires, car chases, and p-grabbing are covered in local and national news.
So many people, especially white folks, believe that they’ll be fine no matter who’s in office and if some “different folks” they don’t know fall by the wayside, c’est la vie. I see a huge amount of indifference among my fellow citizens in Arizona.
ETA. I should add, that what seems to awaken them out of their torpor of indifference is if they’re inconvenienced. Masks, vaccines, gasoline prices, etc. perhaps Dem “messaging” needs to assert that, “As Dems, we won’t inconvenience you.”
Yep, the indifference is what’s killing us. Young adults in particular are tragically cynical these days (with good reason of course). All by design.
Except that things are getting crazy now. The disregard for the law is blatant and constant. This is not okay. This is getting literally apparently out of control. Rule of law my foot.
I’m against capital punishment. But the thought of DeSantis sitting in Old Sparky…
But sometimes it is for a legitimate purpose, like when property owners in a resort area agree to tax themselves to fund a convention center hotel which will provide an attraction for thousands of business travelers.
Or to fund a drainage district in flood prone areas and provide for pumps, tractors, and equipment to dig drainage ditches.
Or, like with Disneyworld, it can be a case of a massive business property that spans several local government jurisdictions, and for whom a special government district would be the best means by which services such as police, fire safety, water, sewage and building inspections could be provided in a timely and equitable manner.
Looks like National Review disagrees with DeSantis
“This escalation represents an ugly and ill-conceived mistake, a blemish on DeSantis’s otherwise mostly excellent gubernatorial record,” writes Charles C. W. Cooke at National Review.
Those who have defended the move argue that sticking it to Disney in this matter demonstrates that the Republican Party is willing to “fight” and will thus represent a victory for conservatism. But this is silly. Admirably, Governor DeSantis has already fought Disney, and he has already won. The policy about which Disney chose stupidly to complain is now Florida law. It passed both houses of the state legislature; it was signed by DeSantis, who had been correctly defiant in the face of Disney’s gripes; and it enjoys the support of broad majorities of Floridians. There is no need for the Republican Party of Florida to salt the earth here; it has prevailed in every particular.
A good question to ask in politics is, “And then what?” And so it is here. I have no doubt that, if they really want to, Governor DeSantis and the Republican majorities in the state legislature can revoke Walt Disney World’s special status, and I have no doubt that, in the short term, they might profit politically from doing so. But then what?
Does the curriculum bill become even more the law? Of course not. In all likelihood, all that happens is Florida’s zoning policy gets a little worse, the legislature elects to tie itself up for years in extremely complex and costly litigation meant to untangle the state from Disney, and other large businesses note for the record that Florida’s heretofore-admirable commitment to solving big and complicated problems should henceforth be regarded with an asterisk.
That’s not “fighting.” It’s a tantrum.