Florida’s Republican lawmakers are just whistlin’ Dixie
.......................................... Rick Christie ..................................... Tony Doris
THE PALM BEACH POST EDITORIAL BOARD mission is to articulate the issues of the day, advocate for policies for the betterment of the community and encourage a civil and robust exchange of ideas. The Board consists of Executive Editor Rick Christie, Editorial Page Editor Tony Doris and Editorial Writer Douglas C. Lyons.
Every legislative session produces a grandstanding bill or two that send crowd-pleasing signals, rather than changing anything important in Florida law.
That’s especially true in election years, when state lawmakers appeal to selected segments of the folks back home by showing how tough on crime, or how dedicated to education, or how fiscally conservative they can be. Liberals and conservatives alike do it, just to generate some favorable news coverage in their districts.
With Republicans holding solid majorities in the House and Senate, the conservatives get to flaunt their virtues more often. The Democrats tilt at their own windmills, like Medicaid expansion and gun restrictions, but instead of bragging about legislative trophies back home, they usually wind up telling their voters, “Well, we tried – and if you reelect me, we’ll try again!”
And sometimes, one side will toss out an idea just to get the other side on record, for or against it, so the roll call on a hot topic can be used in campaign advertising. For the session starting next month, a couple of Republican legislators have produced a pair of race-related proposals that may generate some heat, whether they pass or not.
Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, proposed a constitutional amendment (SJR 582) that forbids the state or any local government from paying reparations for slavery. Rep. Dean Black, R-Jacksonville, wants “protection of historical monuments and memorials” – so his bill (HB 395) forbids removal of statues, plaques and other public markers honoring great figures of Florida’s past.
It doesn’t take keen political insight to see what Dean is driving at. This bill is meant to stop cities and counties from uprooting monuments to Civil War generals and other prominent Old South leaders.
“It is the intent of the Legislature that the state not allow a historical monument or memorial to be removed, damaged or destroyed. Accurate history belongs to all Floridians in perpetuity,” Black’s bill states.
History aside, the measure is an annoying example of the Legislature’s appetite for preempting power from cities and counties. What if a town or county wants to change the name of something, or remove a sculpture? Why have mayors or county commissions anyway, if local matters have to be run past Tallahassee? Black’s bill will probably hit headwinds when the Legislature convenes in January. The Republicans might not want to look any more redneck than they already do, with some of the redistricting, education and voting-rights restrictions enacted in recent years. And with so many Floridians being retirees and refugees from Northern and Midwest states, or from Cuba, Florida has never romanticized the Confederacy.
Gov. Jeb Bush, for instance, removed a Civil Warera state flag from the Capitol grounds without much controversy more than 20 years ago.
Ingoglia’s reparations ban would need more votes as a constitutional amendment – plus 60% voter support at the polls next November – but it might be just the kind of thing the GOP wants in an election year. Nobody is seriously proposing payments to descendants of people who were enslaved in Florida. But California has a study commission working on a plan lately estimated to cost something like $800 billion.
And the Democratic National Committee next summer will almost certainly saddle its presidential nominee with a reparations proposal in the party platform. The Republicans might try for platform language promising to prevent any form of slavery reparation, and having Ingoglia’s amendment on the Florida ballot would help with voter turnout.
The Florida Politics news site reported that polling by the Pew Research Center indicated about twothirds public opposition to cash payment of reparations. Ingoglia, a former state GOP chairman, has a taste for partisan mischief. Last year, he sponsored a bill that would have effectively disbanded the Democratic Party by barring any political organization that had once advocated slavery – no matter how long ago, or how fervently such an organization might have repented.
The bill never got anywhere. But it was a fun way to twit the opposition, which – if nothing else – is what the monuments and reparations legislation would accomplish next year.
Bill Cotterell is a retired Capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. ©2023 The News Service of Florida.
Men of goodwill must end Gaza carnage
I’m not a Jew, Christian or Muslim. I’m a human being who is disgusted with the political system in Israel and our own country that allows the carnage in Israel and Palestine to continue. What happened on Oct. 7 was awful, many innocents were murdered and taken hostage, about 1,200.
But, what happened since was even worse: At last count,15,000 Palestinian men, women, children, UN workers, and doctors have been killed in the indiscriminate bombing unleashed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
How many pounds of flesh will it take to appease him?
As Sen. Bernie Sanders has said, on Nov. 30, our country has the power to use its leverage to force a cease fire and begin a process of negotiation that can lead to peace, justice and political accommodation for Jews, Christians, Muslims in their holy land. Humans have the capacity for compassion, brotherly love and compromise for the common good. Will our leaders use their power to bring this atrocity to an end or are we seeing the failure of our politic and impending Armageddon?
Eric Veltri, West Palm Beach
Shouldn’t politics take a break for Christmas?
Unfortunately, in what could have been a wonderful, festive evening watching the North Palm Beach Boat Parade, it was marred by a boat making a political statement.
I don’t think I need to mention the political statement because we all by now how this “cult” has destroyed civility in our body politic and unfortunately ruined the holiday spirit last Saturday evening. How sad that these people feel a need to fill a void in their
When it comes to bizarre demands for government intervention in trivial matters, US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is the gift that keeps on giving.
Try as I may to tear myself away from watching the slow motion train wrecks of her ideas and cast my gaze on similar weirdness from other politicians, she just tops everyone else on a regular basis and I can’t resist the temptation to talk about her again.
This time, it’s sandwiches.
Yes, really.
And not in the vein of the misogynous “make me a sandwich” meme. In point of fact, she just might be the last person on the planet I’d delegate sandwichmaking duty to.
Not because I assume she wouldn’t be good at it — she contributed several supposedly Cherokee-related family recipes to a cookbook in the 1990s, after all! — but because I know that no matter what I asked for, I’d end up with whatever Elizabeth Warren thought I should eat.
“We don’t need another private equity deal that could lead to higher food prices for consumers,” Warren tweeted (or whatever) on November 26. “The @FTC is right to investigate whether the purchase of @SUBWAY by the same firm that owns @jimmyjohns and @McAlistersDeli creates a sandwich shop monopoly.”
Such an FTC investigation would presumably take life by imposing political views during a holiday celebration. Shame on them.
Bob Liebler, North Palm Beach
This is what I’d tell Trump
Being a resident of Palm Beach County, I occasionally wonder what I would say to “45” if I saw him in person. “What a waste,” I might say to him. How much time, effort, and attention does our country waste on this fraudster and the many others like him. They have infested our government and our media, producing incessant and dangerous lies. Our streets are vulnerable to violence by their supporters. Their absurd defenses have to be taken seriously in our courts so that criminality doesn’t become normalized. A huge waste of resources takes us away from addressing real issues of our country and world. Fraud has been tacitly approved by almost half of the U.S. electorate. The costs are calculable. Someone smarter than me needs to do the math before 2024.
Debbie Shapiro, Boynton Beach
Don’t trust Do Not Call lists
I am on both the federal and the state “Do Not Call” lists. Yet, I am being bombarded with phone calls from Medicare Advantage representatives trying to sign me up for their respective plans. It has been my understanding that there are only three exemptions to said lists: political action committees, charitable organizations, and companies with whom one has done business in the past 18 months.
These private Medicare Advantage entities do not fit any of these criteria; hence, why is this torturing form of harassment allowed to continue year after year?
Kathy Peler, West Palm Beach