For Florida Democrats, rebuilding begins anew

TALLAHASSEE — On a guided tour of Florida’s Capitol with her new colleagues, Hillary Cassel was all smiles.

The Dania Beach attorney won a very competitive Democratic primary to capture an open seat in the Florida House, where she will represent District 101, which includes Hollywood, Dania Beach and parts of Hallandale Beach and Davie.

Cassel was in Tallahassee this week to be sworn in as one of 41 new faces in the

120-member House, where lawmakers received their laptop computers, access cards, office assignments and tutorials on filing bills and floor debate — and learning the circuitous route to the main committee hearing rooms.

Cassel had just learned that her office would be on the 10th floor of the Capitol tower.

“A lot of my colleagues would like to be here, saying they have an office in the Capitol,” she said. “So put me wherever you want. It doesn’t matter. I still have a card, I have a microphone that works and I press a vote button.”

Cassel likely will press her red button a lot in the months ahead — the one that means “no.”

Republicans hold a supermajority of

85 members in the 120-member House. Democrats will be on defense all the time as the GOP pursues an agenda that is likely to include further abortion restrictions, expanded school choice and an open-carry gun law — ideas that most Democrats strongly oppose. It’s also likely to be a blueprint designed to enhance Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential aspirations.

House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, announced an encouraging new emphasis on hurricane recovery and on finding solutions for Florida’s water supply, water quality, transportation, land conservation and resiliency. (There has never been a state legislative committee devoted specifically to climate change and sea level rise.)

In remarks prepared for delivery at Tuesday’s one-day organizational session, the speaker also criticized “ideologues (who) seek to politicize everything, who treat their ideology as a religion and demand we follow it, no matter the costs.”

“They spend more time defending drag queen story time than actually promoting phonics and the science of reading,” he continued. “In this election, moms and dads sent a clear message to these ideologues: Our children are not your social experiment!”

Those passages may give you a sense of what the next couple of years in Tallahassee

will be like.

Across the aisle, the leader of the

35-member House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, said the minority party’s mission has not changed from previous sessions.

“We will continue to do what we have always done, which is to be a voice for the people and to stand up and be the line of defense as best we can against extremist Republican policies. So nothing changes,” Driskell said. “The election was great for Democrats nationally — not so much here in Florida. We can acknowledge that. But then, having acknowledged those circumstances, to me, it gives us the opportunity for a fresh start, and to rebuild.”

A cornerstone of the rebuild is obviously Broward County, which is home to

10 of the 35 House Democrats. Besides Cassel, who has experience as an advocate for lawyers and consumers in the Capitol, Broward’s other freshman House member is Rep. Lisa Dunkley, D-Sunrise.

The others are all returning veterans, and two were given important assignments on Driskell’s leadership team. Rep. Mike Gottlieb, D-Davie, will be his party’s floor leader and Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, D-Parkland, will be the vote-counting whip. Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton, is the Democratic caucus policy chair.

The Democrats’ downward Florida spiral didn’t happen overnight.

Historians will debate its origins, but a good place to begin is with the nasty intraparty split in the race for governor in 1986 that ended with Steve Pajcic losing to Bob Martinez, the second GOP governor since Reconstruction after Claude Kirk.

Those were the waning days of the so-called Reagan Revolution, and it became fashionable for North Florida Democrats to switch parties. Democrats were still in control in Tallahassee, with power in the state House controlled by what was known as the “Broward Mafia” (it wasn’t meant as a compliment). It wouldn’t last.

In the 1992 redistricting, Black legislators formed strategic but politically damaging alliances with Republicans; the GOP took over the state Senate in 1994, and the state House two years later.

Behind the shrewd and media-savvy leadership of Tom Slade, the Republican Party of Florida was transformed, and the crowning achievement was Jeb Bush’s election as governor in 1998.

Since then, Democrats have repeatedly rebuilt and redefined themselves, and they’ve been “at a crossroads” more often than an Uber driver. Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of Republican hegemony in Florida.