In a GOP-controlled Legislature, how can FL’s Democratic lawmakers get bills passed?

Florida Democrat Rep. Fentrice Driskell, Rep. Michele Rayner, Rep. Susan Valdes, Sen. Darryl Rouson, Rep. Dianne Hart and emcee Deanne King at the town hall meeting hosted by the Hillsborough County Black Chamber of Commerce on April 9, 2024 (photo credit: Mitch Perry)

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With Florida Republicans holding a supermajority in the Florida Legislature, Democratic lawmakers must be creative in finding ways to get their bills passed, bring vital projects to their communities, and stop what they consider to be bad policy.

For Sen. Darryl Rouson, representing Pinellas and Hillsborough, the way to provide for his constituents is to get local projects into Florida’s state budget, though some of those projects can get labeled “pork” or “turkey,” or as the phrase goes, “bringing home the bacon.”

Speaking in Tampa at a town hall meeting on Tuesday with area lawmakers, Rouson recalled what former state lawmaker and Congressman Al Lawson told him when he joined the Legislature: “Stop bad policy.”

“Well, when the numbers are 84-36 (in favor of Republicans in the House) and 28-12 (in favor of the Republicans in the Senate), it’s hard to stop bad policy,” Rouson said Tuesday night. “So if you can’t stop bad policy, create good policy. But when the numbers are 84-36 and 28-12, it’s hard to create what your constituents believe is good policy.”

“So if you can’t stop bad policy and you can’t create good policy, learn the budget, because you can sometimes speak through budgeting.”

Rouson said he did just that when he and former Orlando-area Democratic state Sen. Randolph Bracy (he’s is no longer a state senator) were able to get $30 million into the 2021 budget and more than $30 million in the 2022 budget for the African-American cultural and historical grant program funded through the Department of State.

Rouson says that with Democrats in the minority, he decided early on in the Legislature to find common ground and work with Republicans “as opposed to attacking everything that comes down the pike.”

He received strong support from Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and House Speaker Paul Renner this year in getting the Legislature to approve $20 million for the victims of abuse at the Dozier School for Boys and Okeechobee reform school in North Florida this session. That bill (HB 23 ) has to be signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis before it will become law.

House Democratic Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, and Tampa Bay area Democratic Reps. Michele Rayner, Dianne Hart and Susan Valdes also appeared at the town hall meeting sponsored by the Hillsborough County Black Chamber of Commerce.

Driskell said that this “was the session of missed opportunities.” While she praised the Live Healthy Act bill that focuses in part on retaining and attracting health care workers to the state, she said that the GOP-controlled Legislature should have expanded Medicaid — “the one thing that would guarantee health care coverage for nearly a million more Floridians and bring the down the costs of health care for all of us.”

Driskell said she was proud of her sponsorship of HB 7085, which will establish a $10 million grant program to fund community-based projects to expand specialized treatments of sickle cell disease. And the GOP members were supportive, as the measure passed unanimously in both chambers.

“Sickle cell impacts the Black community most,” she said. “And Florida has one of the highest concentrations of sickle cell patients in the nation, and we were able to get legislation passed that creates the first Sickle Cell Disease Centers of Excellence in the country. And a $10 million recurring appropriation for the treatment of sickle cell patients. This is huge and it will be groundbreaking.” That bill also must be signed by Gov. DeSantis before becoming law.

State Rep. Michele K. Rayner.
Credit: FL House of Representatives.

Pinellas and Hillsborough County Rep. Michele Rayner spoke about her involvement as a co-sponsor of HB 1, which called for banning social media platforms for children under the age of 16. It was a top priority of House Speaker Renner, but was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said he had concerns with the proposal’s constitutionality and whether it would infringe on parental rights. The Legislature then amended that legislation to HB 3, which prohibits children under the age of 14 from becoming social media account holders and allows 14-and 15-year-olds to become account holders with parental consent.

“Any bill that starts with 1,2, 3, that is the speaker’s priority,” Rayner said. “That is the bill that he or she is laser-focused on getting it across the finish line and making sure that it gets signed by the governor.”

She said that it was quite unusual for a Democrat to sponsor a GOP Speaker’s bill.

“I can’t remember the last time a Democrat sponsored the (Republican) speaker’s party bill, let alone a Black Democrat sponsoring the speaker’s priority bill,” she said, adding that there were “folks that had issues with me supporting the bill” because it was a priority of Renner, a strong conservative.

When asked what she considered a highlight of the session, Susan Valdes says she was stumped to provide a response.

“I’m going to be honest. I can’t think of anything else. I feel like I’m still in the Matrix. Because that bubble up there is very, very difficult considering the imbalance that there is,” she said.

When Valdes said that there were only 36 Democrats out of the 120 members of the Florida House of Representatives, there were notable groans in the audience of about 60 people.

“Good God,” one voice lamented, when hearing how few Democrats are in the Legislature.

Rep. Hart urged members of the public to come to Tallahassee during the initial committee weeks leading up to the legislation session, saying that the Democrats needed more supporters of their agenda to actively make their voices heard in the Capitol.

The meeting took place in Hillsborough County – which has been one of the Florida Democratic Party’s standout districts over the past decade, but like much of the rest of the state, continues to trend Republican.

Democrats now have just a 1% lead over Republicans in voter registration in Hillsborough County. According to the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections website, there are 289,278 Democrats, or 35% of the electorate. There are now 280,580 Republicans, or 34% of the electorate. Non-party-affiliated and third-party groups total 254,063, or 31%.

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