Initially, before a specific date had been decided upon by the Republicans, some Democrats did actively support the idea of moving earlier in the calendar year. That changed when Speaker Rubio announced he wanted to break the Rules of the Democratic and Republican National Committees. Following this announcement, DNC and Florida Democratic Party staff talked about the possibility that our primary date would move up in violation of Rule 11.A.
Party leaders, Chairwoman Thurman and members of Congress then lobbied Democratic members of the Legislature through a variety of means to prevent the primary from moving earlier than February 5th. Party leadership and staff spent countless hours discussing our opposition to and the ramifications of a pre-February 5th primary with legislators, former and current Congressional members, DNC members, DNC staff, donors, activists, county leaders, media, legislative staff, Congressional staff, municipal elected officials, constituency leaders, labor leaders and counterparts in other state parties. In response to the Party’s efforts, Senate Democratic Leaders Geller and Wilson and House Democratic Leaders Gelber and Cusack introduced amendments to CS/HB 537 to hold the Presidential Preference Primary on the first Tuesday in February, instead of January 29th. These were both defeated by the overwhelming Republican majority in each house.
The primary bill, which at this point had been rolled into a larger legislation train, went to a vote in both houses. It passed almost unanimously. The final bill contained a whole host of elections legislation, much of which Democrats did not support. However, in legislative bodies, the majority party can shove bad omnibus legislation down the minority’s throats by attaching a couple of things that made the whole bill very difficult, if not impossible, to vote against. This is what the Republicans did in Florida, including a vital provision to require a paper trail for Florida elections. There was no way that any Florida Democratic Party official or Democratic legislative leader could ask our Democratic members, especially those in the Florida Legislative Black Caucus, to vote against a paper trail for our elections. It would have been embarrassing, futile, and, moreover, against Democratic principles.
Who cares about the paper trail?
Floridians do. Our state has had far too many election controversies. A verifiable paper trail for elections is something Democrats have fought for since the election debacle of 2000. It is a groundbreaking change in a state that has no standardized voting and a long record of disastrous elections. In fact, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) continues to investigate Florida’s District 13 Congressional election in which touch-screen voting machines lost 18,000 ballots in the most Democratic part of the district - putting a Republican in Congress by less than 400 votes, instead of an accomplished Democratic woman who worked her way from bank teller to bank president before running for Congress.
Read the fucking history of the law.
The dems tried and tried to change the primary date back to fit the DNCs requirements. They were shut down by the republican majority in the state house.
