Daniel TilsonAs most of you know, Florida isn’t considered by political and Election 2014 analysts as a Republican “red state” or a Democratic “blue state,” but rather a politically divided “purple” state…when it comes to the electorate, that is.
Remarkably but understandably enough though, that balance doesn’t reflect itself in the composition of our government, or in the public policies and laws that govern most of our lives.
It’s understandable because elected officials twist our electoral system to their liking. The party in control of the Florida Legislature gets the inglorious honor every decade of designing electoral district maps, a process corrupted and misused to keep them in power and if possible, expand that power.
A limitless flood of corporate cash does the dirty work of funding, propping up and promoting the party in power — in exchange for that party doing its patrons’ dirty work in the public policy and legislative arenas.
That means economic, tax, public education, energy, environmental protection, electoral systems and more, all are built by the party in power principally to benefit super-rich corporate and individual benefactors.
That’s how our great state ended up on the wrong side of every statistic indicating how lower-income and middle-class Floridians are doing.
Our jobs, salaries, household incomes, upward mobility opportunities, public schools, clean energy alternatives and more — they’re lagging behind most of the rest of the country, behind where they’ve been in our past, and way behind where they need to be to achieve shared prosperity and equitable, sustainable economic growth.
But it’s not just the economy.
Whether it’s civil rights, women’s reproductive and other rights, GLBT rights, workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights, prisoners’ rights, or voting rights…the large majority of us who aren’t Christian conservatives know just how far Florida has strayed from a moral public policy path that strives to achieve and protect equality and fairness for all.
All this, because the way the cookie — or democracy — has crumbled in the state, the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) took control of both the governorship and both houses of the Legislature back in 1999.
Almost 16 years later, that dominant control has only been strengthened.
We are in effect now a one-party state. Our government, public policies and laws are deeply entrenched in red Republican quicksand, even though we’re a richly diverse “purple” state electorally.
It’s that awful, destructive disconnect that drives so many disadvantaged, young and other people away from politics, and voting.
But, it doesn’t have to go on this way.
We the diverse people of Florida that make it purple on an electoral map can color it purple in the halls of power, public policy and lawmaking too.
Consider Tuesday “Redemption Day,” a time when even the most disengaged, unlikeliest or cynical of voters steps up to help restore some balance of power to our dangerously imbalanced government.
Daniel Tilson has a Boca Raton-based communications firm called Full Cup Media, specializing in online video and written content for non-profits, political candidates and organizations, and small businesses. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
