Florida Democrats Pass Bizarre "Unity" Resolution Aimed at Silencing Party Critics

[TexasTowelie]

Note: The following article is from Miami New Times which is one of the "alternative" publications for the Miami area. The article reports divisiveness within the Florida Democratic Party, but I believe that it also offers valuable information including donations from the GEO Group, one of the companies profiting from the detention of undocumented immigrants.


Florida Democrats are constantly in chaos — but they're even more of a mess than usual lately. Left-leaning voices within the party are furious at leader Terrie Rizzo and second-in-command Juan Peñalosa since Republicans flattened the Dems in statewide races during the 2018 midterm elections. After the losses, critics noted that, among other things, major candidates failed to effectively reach out to Hispanic voters and ignored black and brown voices within the party.

But the party's leadership doesn't appear interested in soul-searching. Instead, Florida Democrats this past weekend passed an absolutely strange "unity" resolution that seems like a middle finger to party members who suggest the leadership is doing a poor job. At least one party member has publicly called the resolution "Orwellian."

There is "ample division in the Florida Democratic Party," the resolution begins, before adding that "'true unity' offers more progress than all other planning combined." The measure then states that "we believe that unity is, in fact, the solution to all of our problems, both real and manufactured."

The resolution came as Rizzo’s critics have (reportedly) been debating whether to challenge her for party chair. Florida Politics first reported yesterday that the "unity" measure passed 845 votes to 138 — and basically served as a fuck you from Rizzo to Miami State Sen. Annette Taddeo, who has recently criticized the party in the press.

Read more: https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-democrats-pass-bizarre-unity-resolution-after-2018-midterm-criticism-11081450

[hay rick]

1. This article misrepresents the private prison issue and omits other relevant information.

The article states:

But the party brass fought to preserve donations from private-prison contractors. Penalosa, the party's executive director, sent internal emails calling the provisions "problematic."

This misrepresents what actually happened. The original resolution called for rejecting donations from private prison companies and also lobbyists affiliated with them and PACs that they help support. Penalosa agreed to rejecting direct donations but objected to the last two provisions and got the author, Juan Cuba, to agree to have the language on lobbyists and PACs removed from the resolution. After some turmoil, the original language was restored and passed.

Predictably, information surfaced after the election that PACs that received money from GEO also made donations to FDP. In another article on the subject Iannelli writes:

There's another group called Truth & Transparency, Inc., which took $40,000 from Book and $40,000 from the Future Democratic Majority PAC. Then, between October 3 and November 4, Truth & Transparency funneled a whopping $279,000 to the Florida Democratic Party in five separate donations.

Book is a lobbyist who represents GEO- and 70 other clients. Future Democratic Majority is a PAC for Democratic State Senators, including Book's daughter- that has taken money from GEO. Iannelli omits some really important information from this tidbit- namely that Clinton mega-donor Donald Sussman donated $300,000 to this PAC during the same cycle- more than enough to account for all the money given to FDP. Money is fungible.

The article notes that "major candidates failed to effectively reach out to Hispanic voters." This is true. Of course, the losing candidates and campaigns have evaporated, leaving FDP as the only available target for recriminations.

The unity resolution was pointless but, again, relevant information is omitted from the story. The meeting was called on short notice and the dissident group, which was also trying to enlist support for a no-confidence vote on Rizzo, released a "Draft Resolution for Florida Democratic Party Operational Excellence" just 3 days before the meeting. The unity resolution was crafted in the brief interval as a substitute.

The affirmative vote on the unity resolution was read as a vote of confidence for Rizzo and the draft resolution was withdrawn. Iannelli called the resolution a fuck you from Rizzo to Taddeo. The resolution could also be read as a vote of no confidence in Taddeo. The Miami-Dade machinations that made Taddeo eligible to run for chair looked like a replay of Stephen Bittel's ascension to the chair just two years earlier. And Taddeo didn't help her cause when, days before the meeting she was quoted as saying, "My goal is not to burn the place down. It's to make the place better. And I do not believe Terrie is capable of that."

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Nothing new, I'm afraid.

No big tent here.