Jesse Scheckner
Orlando Democratic Sen. Geraldine Thompson is pushing back on the “games” she says her Republican colleagues are playing.
Thompson said she is prepared to propose an amendment to a bill (SB 1248) Spring Hill Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia filed last month aiming to eliminate the Democratic Party in Florida.
Thompson’s amendment would nix Republicans instead by banning “any political party that has worked to suppress voting, thereby maintaining the last vestiges of slavery.”
“Voters did not send us to Tallahassee to engage in sophomoric games,” she said in a statement.
Thompson cited a GOP-backed law (SB 90) Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in May 2021 restricting mail-in voting, access to drop boxes and some activities by organizations during elections. In March 2022, a district court issued an injunction after calling parts of the law unconstitutional and part of a pattern of racial bias against Black voters.
A higher court placed a stay on that injunction in May, and arguments over the issue went before an appeals court in September.
She did not mention DeSantis’ new congressional maps, which the Republican-dominated Legislature approved, that eliminated two Black-performing districts before the 2022 Midterms. That issue also is the subject of ongoing legal action against the state.
Thompson noted her challenge of Ingoglia’s bill comes on the 58th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a brutal attack on nonviolent civil rights protesters who marched from Selma to Montgomery on March 7, 1965, to demonstrate the desire of Black Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote.
“Black Americans were beaten, bloodied and killed for advocating for access to the polls in the century after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed,” she said. “One hundred years later and African Americans were still fighting for their right to vote.”
Titled the “Ultimate Cancel Act,” Ingoglia’s bill does not name the Democratic Party. Instead, it would eliminate any political party that once used slavery as part of its platform.
The Democratic Party indeed included slavery as part of its platform between 1840 and 1864.
But the party split during the Civil War, with Southern Democrats favoring slavery in all territories and Northern Democrats arguing it should go to a popular vote.
That rift triggered a long process that saw Republicans shift from being the more liberal party to the conservative GOP we know today. Those changes culminated in the 1960s through the ’80s and were based, at least in part, on the civil rights movement and ideas on government control and intervention.
A century after the Civil War, it was a Democratic President from the South, Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act, with support from many Republicans of the North but none from the South.
Ingoglia has made clear his bill, which would require all Democratic Floridians to re-register with the state under a “substantially different” party name, isn’t meant to hold those who supported slavery accountable. The goal, he said, is to give Democrats a taste of their own medicine.
“Democrats wrote the unwritten rules of cancel culture: No matter what you do today, you should be judged by the sins of your past,” he said. “If you applied the same metric to the Democratic Party, we should be canceling the Democratic Party itself.”
Thompson argued the same should be the case for the Republican Party, but for a much more valid — and significantly more recent — reason.
“(Voters) want Legislators to protect their constitutional rights, including the right to vote,” she said.
“The legislation filed by Sen. Ingoglia does the opposite. It is in line with his and others’ wish to ‘own the libs’ — not protect Floridians’ voices at the polls. I must stress that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation — and nobody owns me.”
10 comments
Paul Passarelli
March 7, 2023 at 11:31 am
The obvious problem here is that people like Thompson are liars.
The GOP doesn’t want to suppress voting, they want to ensure that all votes cast are from *LEGITIMATE* voters!
Of course the Democrats take that important distinction and twist the language and create the sound-bite or talking point that the low-information crowd is supposed to rally behind.
The cancer surgeon always tells the patient he’s going to remove the diseased tissues. Because that’s the critical step in preventing the cancer cells from spreading and reinfecting the body.
Would you trust a doctor that says: It’s only a little gangrene, put some makeup on the sore and splash a little cologne to cover the smell. Then you can go to the party! Because that’s what the Democrats want you to hear.
Mickey Dee
March 7, 2023 at 12:39 pm
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Trust me. No one is risking jail to vote. Its so dumb that .000001 percent of voters will ever do it. What this is is making difficult for minorities to vote by simply making them afraid to do so and put up constantly changing rules that dissuade voters … especially when you then say you have a special unit to arrest them. Its fear mongering plain and simply to make just enough simply give up to allow your team to shave off a enough voted from those you’ve scared off . Its actually pretty cleaver because folks like you don’t even see it or understand it because you historically come from the privileged class who never had to be concerned about their ability to vote
Paul Passarelli
March 7, 2023 at 4:32 pm
you wrote: “What this is is making difficult for minorities to vote by simply making them afraid to do so and put up constantly changing rules that dissuade voters…”
How can someone that is legally entitled to vote be fearful of voting? The stories about convicted felons that did not have their rights restored hardly affects a significant population. Also what rules are you referring to that are “constantly changing”?
Perhaps I am missing *something* because during my lifetime I’ve only had to change my voter registration three times, not counting the first time when I turned 18. But AFAICR, not a single change of registration was even remotely as bothersome as renewing my Driver’s License which I’ve done several more than three times. And that costs money each time, changing voter registration is free!
So again, I’ll call you and your allies out for hyperbole & fear mongering. Considering that people can’t even cash or deposit a paycheck without ID, saying it’s an impediment for voting is just a bald-faced lie.
Rob Desantos
March 7, 2023 at 4:32 pm
The obvious problem here is that Paul Passarelli is a liar.
He’s also very bad at analogies.
Paul Passarelli
March 7, 2023 at 4:52 pm
Does this mean you are breaking in a new Fake Alias? There’s not enough text above to let be conclusively choose between the Elliot Offen or the Joe Corsin alias you usually use. Not that it actually matters.
But I would be curious as to why you even bother?
It's Complicated
March 7, 2023 at 11:48 am
There are zero registered voters in Florida who cannot produce a photo ID at the polling place. That Straw Man argument is insulting and condescending to minority voters… even when repeated by a minority.
Rob Desantos
March 7, 2023 at 4:35 pm
Just another reminder that Blaze Engorgio didn’t graduate from either of the colleges he attended. He’s a phony, and Floridians should be ashamed to have this carpet-bagger representing their state with this amateur political theater.
Paul Passarelli
March 7, 2023 at 4:54 pm
Oh look, name calling. Who do you think you are, Bart Simpson?
Earl Pitts American
March 7, 2023 at 6:33 pm
Good evening America,
What fun we are having in The Great State of Florida listening to the non-sensical drival drooling from leftist mouths! Its really very hard for Florida’s baby killers, groomers, and supporters of high crime to make very much sense when their fool heads are exploding!!!
Hey lefties its time for you to move along. Take your stink selves out to Calafoolnia or up to New Woke City, or up to $hitcago where your kind belong. Florida is not your home any longer. We need your former space for the fine conservative Americans moving to Florida.
Get Out Fools Get Out.
Thank you America,
Earl Pitts American
cassandra
March 9, 2023 at 2:21 pm
Stop the anti-woman hate speech. No one is killing babies. Your misogyny is disgusting and is based in ignorance; It is as offensive as hatred of racial or ethnic groups.
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