A running joke among football fans is to name a player on the opposing team their own team's MVP whenever the opposing team's player is so inept, that player's actions lead to multiple points for his opponent.
Right now, Senator Lauren Book's ineptitude as leader of the Florida Democratic Party is making her the MVP... for Florida Republicans. Instead of doing her job, she doesn't bother to show up for work and falls back on her lame excuse of claiming to be harassed by Internet trolls. (I wonder if the FBI is getting sick of the Senator who cried wolf yet?)
If Florida Democrats want to survive the coming red wave, they need a real leader, not a sock puppet for corporate interests and that of her lobbyist dad.
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| Senator Lauren Book, seen here at the latest Senate caucus.... Of wait she was absent. Nevermind. |
If Democrats don’t even show up, what’s the point? | Steve Bousquet
By STEVE BOUSQUET
SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL |
NOV 19, 2021 AT 2:00 PM
TALLAHASSEE — Florida is in trouble. The last line of defense against the extremism of Gov. Ron DeSantis are the 16 Democrats in the state Senate. But it’s a caucus in chaos, and at the worst possible time.
When Senate Democrats are in disarray and bickering with each other — when they bother to show up, that is — everything is so much easier for Republicans and harder for the people of Florida. The just-ended special legislative session on DeSantis’ anti-vaccine agenda provided the latest display of Democratic ineptitude.
Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, took charge of the caucus in April after Democrats ousted her predecessor, Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point, and she vowed things would change.
“It’s time to have a united caucus,” Book said, with redistricting and an election-year session on the horizon.
Seven months later, the caucus still doesn’t have its act together, and Democrats just blew a golden opportunity to derail DeSantis’ dangerous agenda.
Senators were called to a caucus meeting just before decisive floor votes Wednesday on four pro-DeSantis bills, including a sweeping new exemption to the public records law to keep employee complaints secret. The First Amendment Foundation called it overbroad, ill-conceived and likely unconstitutional. The choice was to side with DeSantis or support the First Amendment. It’s an easy call.
A plan was hatched to take a united caucus position against the bill (HB 3B). All 16 votes were enough to defeat it if they stuck together, because passage of a public records exemption requires a two-thirds super-majority (27 of 40 votes). Farmer pushed the idea on the theory that it would put Florida in violation of federal laws protecting confidentiality of personal health information.
The strategy was obviously disruptive, but killing a bill would reaffirm Democrats’ belief in transparency, slow DeSantis’ runaway anti-vax train and make Democrats relevant for once. Even the threat of a caucus position can be effective leverage to extract concessions from Republicans, but only if Democrats are united and willing to fight.
When it came time to decide, nearly half of caucus members didn’t show up. Nine were there, and one, Sen. Darryl Rouson of St. Petersburg, left. But it didn’t matter because Book backed new caucus rules that required a two-thirds vote to take a caucus position.
Besides Book, the absentees were Sens. Loranne Ausley, Randolph Bracy, Janet Cruz, Tina Polsky, Linda Stewart and Annette Taddeo. Farmer remains a polarizing caucus figure, but when the minority party’s only path is to disrupt, Democrats need to act. They didn’t, and what little relevance they had in this slam-dunk session slipped away as their absences blocked a caucus position.
“It’s sad,” said Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, looking at the empty chairs. “I guess some people are not interested.”
Sen. Perry Thurston, D-Lauderhill, anticipating trouble, urged colleagues “not to walk away from this vote.” But that’s what happened, as four Democrats did not vote: Book, Ausley, Randolph Bracy of Orlando and Bobby Powell of West Palm Beach.
Ausley had an excused absence. Bracy and Powell were on the floor, failed to vote and abandoned their constituents. That’s a dereliction of duty. Every time a Democrat “takes a walk,” it enables Republicans.
Two other Democrats, Rouson and Stewart, of Orlando, voted for the secrecy bill as it passed 26-10. Stewart told The Orlando Sentinel she was lobbied on the bill by Disney and FP&L, among others. She voted the wrong way, but at least she showed up.
Book, who also missed floor votes, was out of sight, and sources said she was the target of a cyber threat being pursued by the FBI. An FBI spokeswoman declined to confirm that an investigation was underway. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Senate president’s office declined to comment.
For Senate Democrats, the refusal to play rough with Republicans feeds the dissident narrative that Book and her allies are cowed by the GOP and beholden to big-money donors.
Wednesday’s meltdown wasn’t the first time Senate Democrats discussed DeSantis’ anti-vaccine tactics. They met Tuesday afternoon but didn’t notify the media or the public. That closed-door session ran afoul of Senate rules requiring that legislative discussions between more than two senators “shall be open to the public,” including “political caucuses.”
Ten senators attended a prearranged meeting called by Book’s staff and chaired by Book. A person with direct knowledge said the specific bills were listed on a whiteboard. Farmer called for a united stand against employee and employer secrecy. Sen. Victor Torres, D-Orlando, backed him.
“Gary’s right,” Torres said. “We can kill it.” Another senator warned that the meeting was not noticed. Book refused to recognize Farmer. Talk then returned to the four pending bills — in private.
“There was no discussion about views or stances regarding pending legislation,” said Book’s spokeswoman, Cathy Schroeder. She confirmed that she refused to let Tampa Bay Times reporter Lawrence Mower attend the meeting, and called it “a huge oversight on my part.”
Senators meeting in secret, skipping a caucus, refusing to vote — we expected better from Book. But the caucus is a microcosm of what’s wrong with the Florida Democratic Party. It’s a lack of unity, excessive infighting and too many people out for themselves, not the greater good, in the face of an unprecedented power grab by a Republican governor.
Never has Florida more urgently needed a stronger, more relevant two-party system. Thanks for nothing, Senate Democrats.
Where were all the missing Senate Dems during the caucus meeting earlier this week?
BY: ISSAC MORGAN - NOVEMBER 18, 2021 4:51 PM
Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book was not in attendance Wednesday at a caucus meeting with colleagues. She also was gone when senators debated and voted on special session legislation in the Florida Senate chamber that evening.
It’s still not entirely clear why so many Senate Democrats failed to attend a caucus meeting earlier in the day.
But Book was marked as “excused” during the special session in the Senate chamber Wednesday evening, according to legislative records, when members voted on key initiatives that Republicans approved related to COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates.
The Phoenix contacted her office multiple times, but has yet to receive a response.
In addition, state Sen. Loranne Ausley was excused . She represents several North Florida counties.
Members of the Senate caucus met Wednesday before the special session in the Florida Capitol, with only nine members out of 16 in attendance. The situation was troublesome to some lawmakers who were focused on legislation related to a public-records exemption, which blocks personal information about medical histories and religious views of workers challenging workplace vaccine mandates.
State Sen. Gary Farmer, a Democrat representing part of Broward County, acknowledged Thursday that “historically we’ve had some attendance issues with caucus.” Previously, Farmer expressed frustration about the lack of attendance at Wednesday’s meeting, saying that members should follow rules by requesting an excused absence.
“When there’s major legislation going on, we usually have pretty good attendance,” Farmer said in a phone conversation with the Florida Phoenix on Thursday.
“Unfortunately, we did not yesterday,” he said, adding that he wasn’t aware of any members requesting an excused absence.
State Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democrat representing part of Miami-Dade County, was absent from the caucus because she had “multiple meetings scheduled for Wednesday before the time of convening,” according to a legislative aide. Records show Taddeo casted her vote against COVID-19 vaccine mandate legislation on the Senate floor Wednesday evening.
“The senator was in a pre-scheduled meeting with constituents who traveled up to Tallahassee from our district in Miami during the time that the caucus meeting was called for…we were unable to reschedule when we were notified about the caucus meeting that same morning,” the staffer said in an email to the Phoenix.
Taddeo is a gubernatorial candidate in the 2022 election.
That bill and three others passed and were signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis during what appeared to be a campaign-style press event Thursday, with several GOP members present to tout Republican efforts to block employers and school districts from vaccine and mask mandates.
The Phoenix reached out to other Democratic senators about the situation but only a few had responded as of Thursday afternoon.
At the end of April, Farmer “was jettisoned as Democratic Leader in exchange for Senator Lauren Book,” another Broward County lawmaker, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The two have clashed in the past, and Farmer resigned the leadership role before the end of the regular 2021 session, the news outlet stated.
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