Jacob Ogles
Will the push by state officials to push construction projects in state parks put its electoral votes and Senate race in play this Fall?
Florida Democratic Party officials told reporters that a proposal for lodging and golf courses in state parks is turning voters of all ideologies against Republicans.
“Here in Florida, we have also seen the consequences of such extreme policies, like the state’s near total abortion ban, book banning, ‘Don’t Say Gay’ and plans to build golf courses and hotels in our precious state parks,” said Jasmine Burney-Clark, Florida Director for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign.
“As we’ve ramped up efforts from Pensacola to Key West, it’s clear that while Donald Trump takes Florida for granted, we are just getting started. So, we’re reaching out to every voter, and we mean every voter.”
The Department of Environmental Protection spurred mass protests this weekend after announcing its Great Outdoors Initiative, which involved installing more active uses in nine state parks.
The outrage prompted the Tuskegee Dunes Foundation to abandon plans it apparently backed for multiple golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park.
But the state continues to pursue other plans, including up to 350 lodging rooms at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park and at Anastasia State Park.
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, said Floridians want a different approach to preserving the state’s conservation lands.
“Let’s envision a state where coastal communities and our fisheries, our state parks, are not just protected, but they’re flourishing,” she said.
Mucarsel-Powell in November will challenge U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Naples Republican. Scott’s campaign scoffed at the idea the issue will hurt the incumbent.
“Only a partisan hack would try to launch a political attack on one of the few issues we actually agree on. We are glad Debbie agrees with Senator Scott that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection must listen to Floridians, ensure their voices are heard, and make decisions accordingly,” said Scott spokesperson Will Hampson.
“Senator Scott was proud to work with Senator Rubio, Representative Mast and his colleagues to urge the state to allow a more substantial public comment period, and we’re glad they listened. We’re also glad to see Debbie join the fight and make a rare trip outside of Miami – but we’re not sure she has the capability to do anything more than be a partisan hack.”
Democrats framed the parks plan alongside several cultural war issues, driving home a message that emerged at the Democratic National Convention, that Florida is a testing ground for Project 2025.
“Floridians have been those lab rats for Project 2025 and have experienced firsthand what happens when you give extremism a permission slip in our state,” said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried.
Project 2025’s chapter on the Department of Interior (DOI) calls for opening much of 500 million in federal lands to energy exploration.
“No other initiative is as important for the DOI under a conservative President than the restoration of the department’s historic role managing the nation’s vast storehouse of hydrocarbons, much of which is yet to be discovered,” the plan states.
30 comments
Dont Say FLA
August 27, 2024 at 1:30 pm
Project 2025: Convert state parks into golf courses
Project 2026: Turn those golf courses into fracking fields. Nobody gives a shit about golf courses, so it’ll be an easy sell with the public
Ron Ogden
August 27, 2024 at 1:45 pm
Apparently you do not know the definition of the old phrase, “Grasping at straws” or you would have used it.
Try this for a headline: “Democrats pick up the pickleball bat as a weapon against Republicans.” It’s apt.
JustBabs
August 28, 2024 at 12:34 pm
We all know Scott and Rubio will lie and pretend to care about this issue, as they grab attention in the media. But in reality, they really would back such development when it happens and assist Desantis to do it quietly, completely breaking those Sunshine Laws. It means more money in their pockets and more donor money from those who buy our politicians.
Natalie Arter
August 28, 2024 at 2:47 pm
I totally agree with you and do not trust Scott or Rubio. This outdoors initiative will be DeSantis’s undoing and I love how it is galvanizing people in Florida against him.
ELVIS [FKA EARL]
August 27, 2024 at 2:30 pm
Actually this exact scandal was the reason the Dook 4 Brains Left set this entire scam up.
And it would have worked had not I, Elvis [FKA Earl], not caught wind of their scammy scam and busted it wide open by Nipping It In The Bud
I thank myself and will likely receive the Presidental Medal Of Honor for my Sage Work. [Yes America The Same Medal Trump Gave To RUSH.
Once again I thank myself for My Sage Wisdom,
ELVIS, FKA EARL
FLPatriot
August 27, 2024 at 3:33 pm
Another good reason to vote the GOP out.
Destruction of Environment Program
August 27, 2024 at 3:35 pm
Most conservatives I know actually believe in conservation. It’s this modern day mutation of politicians on right and left seems to think it has to be one extreme or the other and forces people who care about common sense approaches to environmental and public health AND economic health into making Sophie’s choice. The younger GOP better wise up. Same with the far left with their endless mandates. This DEP takeover seriously pissed me off and you better believe I will retaliate with my vote. Florida’s DEP has always been the Destruction of the Environment Program. So egregious I just don’t even have words. They’re not gonna stop until the whole state looks like one giant ugly strip mall no one can afford to shop at. It’s almost as if they’re just trying to be @$$h013$.
Ocean Joe
August 28, 2024 at 12:07 pm
Not sure why this story has “legs” but the state government assault on local rule doesn’t.
Miami Beach residents battled for years to protect the world famous Art Deco district…the state essentially abolished the protections for developers. Key West voted strongly in favor of limiting the size and frequency of giant cruise ships and the dock owner donates 1.1 million, and the state blocks the will of Key Westers. This goes ignored. A few profit from it, and we face paradise lost.
Josh Green
August 27, 2024 at 10:40 pm
Rough week for Ron DeFascist. Good.
F*ck that swine.
Ocean Joe
August 28, 2024 at 11:58 am
He’ll blame it on somebody else, like he did with Randy Fine.
ELVIS [FKA EARL]
August 28, 2024 at 6:57 pm
Close, my Besty Lefty OJ, but not on target. What we are looking at is an inside job in one of our State Agencies. Much like that State employee in The Dept of Health, (the one putting out Fake Covid Statd) whose name we will not use to make her “FAMOUS” by being mentioned by me, ELVIS, one of America’s most reliable “Political Prognistagators”.
Anyway this has all the hallmarks of a “Vast Left-Wing Conspiricy”.
Thanks my Besty Lefty OJ,
ELVISV[FKA EARL]
Natalie Arter
August 28, 2024 at 2:54 pm
I think DeStupid has stirred a hornets’ nest. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
tom palmer
August 27, 2024 at 10:52 pm
This does sound like something Donald Trump might propose, but whether there will be any effect on the election is a bit speculative.
Bill Rhyne
September 4, 2024 at 9:54 am
Oh slo now Trump is to blame? Ha ha. Trump doesn’t have any say so in it nor has he any knowledge or commitment to this project 2025 the dems use as powder for their cannons. I guess I’d be desperate as well if Kackly Harris was the best I could put up. Ha ha.
LexT
August 28, 2024 at 8:19 am
I do not think that this issue will weaken the Republican Party in Florida, but if the Republicans do not fix this fast, it could. Right now there is pretty clearly bipartisan denousing of this project. If this project has merits, I’m open to hearing them, but no one is singing the praises. If you were to say for every acre used for a hotel or golf course, five new acres are being reserved somewhere else, maybe you could justify this. Even then, you need to look at the areas specifically. Anastasia State Park abuts a suburban area. The proposed 350-room lodge would be about 100 feet from the existing largest hotel in St. Johns County. I do not see why you need to invade a state park to put a hotel there when one already exists.
Cindy
August 28, 2024 at 9:17 am
Capitalism that is why Florida is a congested growing State
Natalie Arter
August 28, 2024 at 2:56 pm
You mean crony capitalism. That’s DeSantis’s middle name.
Delusions
August 28, 2024 at 10:22 am
They all care. So why is 44 million and bumber to bumber pollution traffic moving in
JD
August 28, 2024 at 10:27 am
This is Socializing the Losses, and Capitalizing the Profits incarnate.
Don’t scream about communism and do this, because that is what it is.
JD
August 28, 2024 at 10:28 am
Correction: This is Socializing the Losses, and Privitizing the Profits incarnate.
Ocean Joe
August 28, 2024 at 11:55 am
Haven’t heard much about the golf simulator gifted to the governor lately. When they bulldoze our parks at least he will have a place to show off his skills.
This little show of disunity within the GOP ranks suggests they will all be ordered to attend a goosestepping clinic once the dust settles.
Cs
August 28, 2024 at 2:18 pm
Is it just me or didn’t Rick Scott propose a very similar scheme when he was Florida governor?
Victoria A Olson
August 28, 2024 at 8:03 pm
Rick Scott tried to do this 11 years again & it failed then & now he is pretending to care!? Interesting that Scott almost collapsed Fl. Environment when he was Gov. Now Ron DeSatan try’s with the same results, why is it in Fl. bad idea’s Never die.
Makes Sasse’s funneling of millions in public money to friends look normal!
August 29, 2024 at 10:46 am
Another example of people liking DeSantis until they meet him. He now has more Republican enemies than Democratic ones. Richly deserved!
rick whitaker
August 29, 2024 at 11:15 am
you can bet ron desantis never met will rodgers.
Bill Rhyne
September 4, 2024 at 9:59 am
And you know his enemies how? Or it it your mind wants it like that so you go to bed sucking your thumb sleeping peacefully thinking that.
jean solomon
August 29, 2024 at 10:46 am
that TUSKAGEE FOUNDATION doesn’t exist..it IS a ‘plan’put out by a retired military guy in MICHIGAN; HIS golf course in Michigan has the same name…IMO, it is meant to sucker black people into supporting it..
Making no sense
August 29, 2024 at 6:19 pm
Goes to show one person’s values are not everybody’s.
So let’s stop treading on what people value in.
370H55V I/me/mine
September 2, 2024 at 10:03 pm
Right. Just like the marijuana and abortion initiatives as well (both of which appear to be falling well below the 60% threshold required).
Here’s some news: the Florida GOP has just opened a one million vote registration edge over the Dems. That lead has grown monotonically since the GOP overtook the Dems back in 2021. Florida is not in play, and will not be for the foreseeable future.
JD
September 3, 2024 at 8:41 am
Oh, congrats on that voter registration edge—just don’t mention how the GOP’s been busy purging Democrats from the rolls while leaving Republicans untouched. Real fair play there. And let’s not forget the 2.7 million independents in Florida who aren’t exactly lining up to join the MAGA parade. Voter registration is one thing, but Florida’s still very much in play, despite the GOP’s best efforts to rig the numbers.
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