South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Black caucus: ‘We are frustrated’
Members’ protest against map part of larger concerns about governor, treatment in House
The Black caucus takeover of the House chamber Thursday to protest the passage of a redistricting map by Gov. Ron DeSantis that reduces the number of Black congressional seats by half was a long time coming, its organizers said.
“It was really an attempt to disrupt the process, because the process is disrupting the lives of so many people in the state of Florida,” said state Rep. Travaris McCurdy, D-Orlando. “And it seems that the governor’s political ambition ... to be president is always on the backs of Black people. When you talk about the anti-protest bill, when you talk about his mission [against] CRT, it is always a direct attack on black people.”
Their act of civil disobedience didn’t stop the House from approving the map, which DeSantis quietly signed into law Friday morning.
But they hope they got their message across to their constituents, Rep. Angie Nixon of Jacksonville said.
“The demonstration needed to happen. We have to let people know what’s going on,” Nixon said. “We didn’t accomplish our first goal of getting a new map, but we accomplished the second goal to wake up our base and to wake up all Floridians. The governor is attacking us today, it was LGBTQ kids the other day, and teachers. Who’s next?”
State Rep. Kamia Brown, D-Ocoee, the chair of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus, said people aren’t paying attention to what happens in Tallahassee and “how there are continuous bills that attack our Democracy.”
Fo r m o n t h s , B l a c k lawmakers’ frustration had been building over how they felt their constituents were being treated by DeSantis and the Republican leadership. Black House members said they felt put upon, put down, and disrespected over several issues, including last year’s anti-protest law and a voting law that was recently ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.
But having two congressional districts taken away at the insistence of DeSantis was too much, they said.
The map eliminates the Black congressional District 5 that runs across North Florida from Jacksonville to Tallahassee and turns it into a more Republican-friendly district in Duval County.
It also dilutes the number of Black voters in District 10 in Orange County, moving many into a more Republican-heavy District 11 that also includes Lake and Sumter counties.
So McCurdy and Nixon agreed ahead of time to wear black “Stop the Black Attack” T-shirts and stir up some “good trouble,” as the late Congressman John Lewis called peaceful protest.
They didn’t spread the word, but within seconds, other members of the Black Caucus, along with a few of their white and Hispanic colleagues, joined them in front of the dais shouting, “Black votes are under attack.”
The House leadership responded by calling a formal recess, cutting off the mics and state television channel feed and withdrawing from the Chamber.
For the next hour and 10 minutes they occupied the House Chamber, singing “We Shall Overcome,” praying and giving speeches, and taking interviews with reporters huddled in the press gallery a floor above them.
“We don’t know what else to do, we are frustrated and at our wits end. We have followed the rules. We have done the procedure. You see what we are up against and we cannot do it alone,” state Rep. Dotie Joseph, D-North Miami, said to the group. “Sometimes we find ourselves in moments that we did not choose but chose us. When those moments arise you have to meet that moment.”
State Rep. Michele T. Rayner, D-St. Petersburg, told the group that people were phoning and texting, asking what they could do to help.
“Get us a new map,” Nixon shouted.
How it started
The flashpoint that triggered the demonstration seemed to occur when Rep. Erin Grall, a Vero Beach Republican who was running the debate at the time, told Rep. Yvonne Hinson, D - Gainesville, that her time had expired after she started criticizing DeSantis’ “abdicating our constitutional duty and subverting power to him.”
Earlier, Grall had interrupted Rep. Jervonte Edmonds of West Palm Beach for “impugning the reputations” of members who supported the redistricting plan. He had noted that Josiah T. Walls, who was the first Black elected to Congress from Florida in 1871, was the only Black to represent Florida for 119 years, until 1993.
Grall cut him off when Edmonds said voting for the map would set Black representation back decades, “if you feel comfortable in the same history of the people who created the black codes and Jim Crow laws.”
“Tying historical facts to a yes vote on these maps would be impugning members based on the vote we are about to have today,” Grall said.
Shutting down Black members in committee and telling them they are not following the rules is par for the course, Nixon said.
“There’s tons of microaggression that takes place here. If you watch the Florida Channel (the state-run television station) you can hear how they talk to us or ask us questions and how they’re never really chastised,” Nixon said. “But we always get in trouble or the rules are always changing or we have to adhere to the rules.”
For example, during the regular session, in February, Rep. Cord Byrd, R-Neptune Beach, went on an expletive-filled rant aimed at McCurdy.
“I hope you’re [expletive] proud” and then said, “you’re a [expletive] joke.”
Nixon and another Democratic l awmaker heard Byrd utter t he obscenities, which he has not denied. She and McCurdy both demanded that he apologize in public because it violated the House rules of decorum, claiming that if it had been a Black member who said those things, they would have been censured and publicly admonished by the speaker.
But House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, talked privately with both members, a spokesperson said in an email. The matter was considered resolved after Byrd privately apologized to McCurdy.
Nixon said it makes her “uncomfortable every day coming to these chambers to vote on policies that hurt my community, that are racist in nature.
“What we have here is a group of people that are worried and concerned and scared about the browning, about the darkening of our country and want to hold onto power so much that they’re changing the rules,” Nixon said.
The demonstration ended when Sprowls returned to the chambers with the other members, commenting that it was “obvious we have members who decided to hijack the process but we will be finishing our business.”
In quick succession they voted out the redistricting bills and two bills dealing with Disney — one dissolving its special improvement and taxing district, and another removing its exemption from a law that allows folks to sue social media platforms.
Republicans quickly condemned the demonstration, with some calling it an insurrection. Sprowls issued a statement calling their behavior disruptive and a violation of House rules.
“We didn’t lead an insurrection,” Nixon scoffed. “We embraced decorum. We didn’t break anything.”
Brown called it a demonstration of civil disobedience. “But if you look at the past of African Americans and how we were able to move forward in this country, that is what it took for us to be treated halfway as humans.”