Current state of affairs in Tallahassee is not good

An opinion piece in the April 8, 2023 Miami Herald equates the new voter registration cards proposed in SB 7050 as being like a Monopoly card – the former does not assure you the ability to vote with the latter not giving you the ability to buy real products.

Because our state leadership will not take responsibility for the debacle involving the arrest of 20 individuals who thought they were legally allowed to vote since the state could not tell them otherwise, there will now be a disclaimer added to voter registration cards if this bill becomes law.  This is a feeble attempt to try to cover up the embarrassment by our state officials after creating an unnecessary election-crimes office that has caused more harm than good, at a cost of over 3 million dollars.  How many affordable housing units could have been built with that money?

According to the Miami Herald Editorial Board, “The government told those people with a past felony they could vote.  And then the government arrested them for voting.  Now lawmakers want to make it even easier to prosecute unsuspecting ineligible voters.”

This change, along with many others, is in Senate Bill 7050, where legislators and the public had less than a day to study the bill before the Tuesday committee vote, causing the committee to run out of time to hear from the public in a proper fashion.  Apparently, the bill was rushed through, making for confusion, with even the sponsor Senator Danny Burgess saying some of the sentences needed clarification.

THIS BILL WAS PASSED WITHOUT ALLOWING FOR THE NECESSARY PUBLIC INPUT; WITHOUT THE LEGISLATORS FULLY UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE BILL ENTAILS; AND WITHOUT THE VAGUE LANGUAGE BEING CORRECTED.

The message that came through loud and clear was that the legislators on the committee should trust the people writing the bill to eventually get it right.

Some comments from the sponsor of the bill:  have to look into it some more; maybe some of the supervisors present can help, it is something we can look at, clarifying along the way, and intent is good—the mechanics are something we are trying to work through so more to follow.  Other disturbing comments were made throughout the lengthy meeting.  This bill passed through a committee without anyone on the committee seeming to have a firm grasp on what they were actually voting for, and most did not seem to care.

To view the SB 7050 video for the Ethics & Elections Committee, begin at 22 minutes.  The opposition at the end of the meeting was informative but was basically ignored by most of the senators present.  In some of the opposition, reference was made to the fact that the onus is on the voter as to whether or not they are eligible to vote – a roll of the dice scenario.

This fiasco sounds like a similar situation that occurred a few years ago when the public was told that we needed to have a bill passed before we could find out what it really says.

The Miami Herald Editorial Board went on to say, “That’s a sign of the times in Tallahassee, where bills are seen as done deals before they are even filed, and members are expected to approve them with little debate.”  What our legislators are calling debate is nothing more than an exchange of pleasantries.

This is the legislature that our FAC Legislative Team is encountering in their work/communications.

Opponents of other bills that have nothing to do with our population are running into the same problem:  legislators that do not care about ALL citizens of Florida.

So, whether it is arresting people for voter fraud who have been told by the government that they could vote or adding on to the unconstitutional, current, and punitive 52 registry restrictions, Florida is increasingly becoming a state where citizens can only be heard by their legislators through costly lawsuits.  Something is really wrong here!

At the present time, our Tallahassee legislative committee meetings are a farce.  I would suggest that our legislators be required to: (1) take an American history course to relearn how our founding fathers conducted a legislative session; (2) bring back the art of debate; and (3) refrain from allowing their vote to be bought by their political party.