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Mark Lane: Confederate statues bill gets rough reception
Mark Lane: Confederate statues bill gets rough reception
Mark Lane
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Sat, February 10, 2024
As the 60-day Legislative session reached its midpoint and things were speeding up, the Senate Committee on Community Affairs met for a long six-hour meeting. Did the proceedings drag into the night because senators were hard at work on vital issues like education funding, building more prison space, or addressing home insurance costs?
Heavens, no. Senators were debating how to protect monuments to the Confederacy (SB 1122).
Earlier that same day, the Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee patiently heard testimony about a bill to ban rainbow flags from schools and other government buildings (SB 1120).
The governor had expressed support for the measure, but the committee adjourned without voting and isn’t slated to meet again. Inaction that likely stalled out the bill this year. See you in 2025!
Sat, February 10, 2024
As the 60-day Legislative session reached its midpoint and things were speeding up, the Senate Committee on Community Affairs met for a long six-hour meeting. Did the proceedings drag into the night because senators were hard at work on vital issues like education funding, building more prison space, or addressing home insurance costs?
Heavens, no. Senators were debating how to protect monuments to the Confederacy (SB 1122).
Earlier that same day, the Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee patiently heard testimony about a bill to ban rainbow flags from schools and other government buildings (SB 1120).
The governor had expressed support for the measure, but the committee adjourned without voting and isn’t slated to meet again. Inaction that likely stalled out the bill this year. See you in 2025!
An 1899 Confederate memorial in downtown Monticello by the Jefferson County Courthouse. "Our fallen heroes" are the words in block capital letters on the other side of the base.
At the start of the session, some had predicted that perhaps the culture wars had finally run their course in Tallahassee. That after the wheels had come off Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign maybe, just maybe, legislators’ time and attention might shift to, oh I don’t know, basic governance and issues that affect the real-life problems of Floridians.
But no. At the session’s mid-point, there’s still a lot of time devoted to the War on Woke and a lot of cultural grievance bills out there. And with the governor showing every sign of shifting his sights to running for president in 2028, culture warfare shows every sign of preoccupying the Republican legislative majority for the next several years.
This time around, the monuments bill hearing proved contentious, with members of the public supporting the bill talking about concerns such as “the cultural war being waged against White society.” Democrats walked out of the meeting in disgust before the vote.
More: Bill would punish anyone removing Florida's Confederate memorials. How many have been removed?
More: Mark Lane: Looking ahead to 2024 and a year of meaner politics
White nationalist praise for the bill upset some committee Republicans, too. Not enough to vote “no,” certainly. After all, the bill had already been approved by another Senate committee, had a House companion and the governor’s blessing. Despite this discomfort, the bill easily moved along on a 5-0 vote without committee Democrats.
The legislation they approved would preempt cities and counties from removing any memorial of any kind that had been around more than 25 years old. Meaning anything built at the behest of the Daughters of the Confederacy in a public place during the Jim Crow Era would be protected by the state in perpetuity. Along with any other plaque or statue, a community might develop understandable second thoughts about.
The bill also would authorize lawsuits against officials who vote to remove monuments. Remember back in the days when Republicans used to call for less litigation?
And the bill also would be retroactive, meaning local officials could be punished for actions going back to 2018. In its earlier form, the bill would have given the governor the power to remove any local elected official who dared to move a monument. A power that Gov. DeSantis certainly would have enjoyed exercising since they would primarily be Democratic officials. Officials like Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, who last December had a 1915 monument, “Florida’s Tribute to the Women of the Confederacy,” removed from that city’s Springfield Park, formerly named Confederate Park.
Still, standing along with White nationalists in support of the bill proved discomforting enough for some senators that the next day, Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, noted “problems with the bill” and concerns about “perceptions.”
Coming from the Senate president, that likely means we won’t be hearing anything more about it in the upper chamber. This year, anyway.
One might hope this also would dissuade the House members from giving their version further attention, but you can never be sure. Republicans don’t want to be caught sleeping in the War on Woke, even when it means stirring Civil War emotions.
Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.
Mark Lane
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mark Lane: Confederate statues bill gets rough reception
Florida Republican lawmaker pivots from banning Pride flags — to protecting Confederate monuments
Jacob Ogles
THE ADVOCATE
Fri, February 9, 2024
Florida building LGBTQ pride Rainbow american flag robert e lee confederate monument
Legislation that would have banned the Pride flag and similar signage from government properties in Florida appears dead this year.
Dubbed by critics as the “don’t display gay” bill, the legislation had advanced through a committee in the House. But the Senate sponsor unexpectedly asked for the bill to be delayed until further notice after supporters made openly homophobic and transphobic remarks to the committee considering the legislation.
Florida Sen. Jonathan Martin, a Republican, amid public testimony decrying the legislation as hateful and anti-LGBTQ, asked for public testimony to be abruptly stopped. He said a scheduling conflict required him to present another bill. The postponement of a first committee vote, halfway through Florida’s legislative session, was widely seen as killing the bill until next year.
“The failure of a Florida Senate bill aimed at banning the rainbow flag—a powerful symbol of LGBTQ resilience against government-sanctioned discrimination—is a significant victory,” reads a statement released by Equality Florida.
“Equality Florida stands proudly alongside all who journeyed to Tallahassee to voice their opposition to this flag ban and the harmful motives underlying the legislation.”
Ironically, Martin abandoned this bill purportedly so he could instead present a different bill widely seen as an effort to preserve Confederate monuments. That bill cleared its Senate committee, but Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo appeared to sideline that legislation the next morning after it attracted open support from white supremacy groups. “I’m not going to bring a bill to the floor that is so abhorrent to everybody,” Passidomo told reporters the next day.
Martin championed both bills in the Senate, and maintained the flag bill was not specifically about quashing LGBTQ support but limiting flags promoting any political viewpoint from being flown on government properties. The legislation would also stop the flying of Trump flags, Black Live Matter flags or those of other nations including Israel.
“I’m not concerned about First Amendment issues because I think the viewpoint display of any flag on government property is something that the courts for years, whether it has dealt with in the past specifically religious flags, they have said there’s no place for that on government property,” Martin said.
He also said his bill didn’t impact matters like painting the Pride flag of Black Lives Matter in road intersections.
“This bill covers cloth, not paint,” Martin said.
But the bill was widely seen by LGBTQ+ Floridians and by homophobic groups as an attack specifically on the Pride flag.
Former Florida Rep. Joe Saunders, one of Florida’s first out legislators and a Democratic candidate for Florida House this year, said it would send a terrible message if gay lawmakers could not fly Pride flags outside their offices.
“At the time I was elected, there had never been LGBTQ people serving in this building in the seats that you sit in,” Saunders said. “There are many now that sit alongside you, both in the House and in the Senate.
“Us hanging a flag that represents our community in one of our offices, one of your offices, would be a violation of the law were this bill to pass, and I can’t square that. LGBTQ people exist in this state.”
Perhaps more influential than pleas from LGBTQ leaders, the committee hearing was also disrupted as antigay speakers voiced support for the bill.
“The idea the rainbow flag is inclusive, it is not inclusive,” said John Labriola of the Christian Family Coalition. “There is no color there for heterosexuals. How is that inclusive? It is a highly offensive flag.”
At one point, Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat, argued with Labriola when he said there was no such thing as transgenderism. He then went on to call the Pride flag a form of sexual “grooming” that, when appearing in classrooms, urged students to become gay or bisexual instead of straight.
“You should stop talking,” Polsky said to applause. “I’m not sure what any of this has to do with flags, but no. I’m done with this person.”
Martin shortly after asked for his bill to be set aside
Fri, February 9, 2024
Florida building LGBTQ pride Rainbow american flag robert e lee confederate monument
Legislation that would have banned the Pride flag and similar signage from government properties in Florida appears dead this year.
Dubbed by critics as the “don’t display gay” bill, the legislation had advanced through a committee in the House. But the Senate sponsor unexpectedly asked for the bill to be delayed until further notice after supporters made openly homophobic and transphobic remarks to the committee considering the legislation.
Florida Sen. Jonathan Martin, a Republican, amid public testimony decrying the legislation as hateful and anti-LGBTQ, asked for public testimony to be abruptly stopped. He said a scheduling conflict required him to present another bill. The postponement of a first committee vote, halfway through Florida’s legislative session, was widely seen as killing the bill until next year.
“The failure of a Florida Senate bill aimed at banning the rainbow flag—a powerful symbol of LGBTQ resilience against government-sanctioned discrimination—is a significant victory,” reads a statement released by Equality Florida.
“Equality Florida stands proudly alongside all who journeyed to Tallahassee to voice their opposition to this flag ban and the harmful motives underlying the legislation.”
Ironically, Martin abandoned this bill purportedly so he could instead present a different bill widely seen as an effort to preserve Confederate monuments. That bill cleared its Senate committee, but Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo appeared to sideline that legislation the next morning after it attracted open support from white supremacy groups. “I’m not going to bring a bill to the floor that is so abhorrent to everybody,” Passidomo told reporters the next day.
Martin championed both bills in the Senate, and maintained the flag bill was not specifically about quashing LGBTQ support but limiting flags promoting any political viewpoint from being flown on government properties. The legislation would also stop the flying of Trump flags, Black Live Matter flags or those of other nations including Israel.
“I’m not concerned about First Amendment issues because I think the viewpoint display of any flag on government property is something that the courts for years, whether it has dealt with in the past specifically religious flags, they have said there’s no place for that on government property,” Martin said.
He also said his bill didn’t impact matters like painting the Pride flag of Black Lives Matter in road intersections.
“This bill covers cloth, not paint,” Martin said.
But the bill was widely seen by LGBTQ+ Floridians and by homophobic groups as an attack specifically on the Pride flag.
Former Florida Rep. Joe Saunders, one of Florida’s first out legislators and a Democratic candidate for Florida House this year, said it would send a terrible message if gay lawmakers could not fly Pride flags outside their offices.
“At the time I was elected, there had never been LGBTQ people serving in this building in the seats that you sit in,” Saunders said. “There are many now that sit alongside you, both in the House and in the Senate.
“Us hanging a flag that represents our community in one of our offices, one of your offices, would be a violation of the law were this bill to pass, and I can’t square that. LGBTQ people exist in this state.”
Perhaps more influential than pleas from LGBTQ leaders, the committee hearing was also disrupted as antigay speakers voiced support for the bill.
“The idea the rainbow flag is inclusive, it is not inclusive,” said John Labriola of the Christian Family Coalition. “There is no color there for heterosexuals. How is that inclusive? It is a highly offensive flag.”
At one point, Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat, argued with Labriola when he said there was no such thing as transgenderism. He then went on to call the Pride flag a form of sexual “grooming” that, when appearing in classrooms, urged students to become gay or bisexual instead of straight.
“You should stop talking,” Polsky said to applause. “I’m not sure what any of this has to do with flags, but no. I’m done with this person.”
Martin shortly after asked for his bill to be set aside
the Miami Herald Editorial Board
Fri, February 9, 2024
Florida lawmakers got a taste of the bigotry their legislation has helped to legitimize in the past two years of warring against so-called “woke” culture.
The latest effort, a bill to prohibit local governments from removing historic monuments, appears to have floundered after a heated Senate committee hearing on Tuesday. The bill would prevent local elected officials from ordering Confederate statues taken down, threatening those officials with fines of up to $1,000 and potential civil lawsuits.
It took one comment from a supporter of the bill to crack the facade that Senate Bill 1122 is merely about preserving history. While some lawmakers might believe that’s what they are doing, they cannot ignore the message they are sending to racists and white supremacists.
The message is that the Legislature will protect the wishes of people who want to celebrate a Confederacy that fought to preserve slavery at the expense of Black Floridians who it see it a symbol of hatred.
During public comments, a bill supporter said the movement to remove Confederate monuments “is part of the cultural war being waged against white society.” The comment, from a member of the audience, made not only Democrats uncomfortable — they walked out of the committee room in protest before a vote — but also Republicans. Another speaker said that if Native Americans found out they had “standing” to take down Spanish statues in places like St. Augustine, there wouldn’t be any left in the state.
“The comments that I heard today... they were bigoted, they were racist,” Republican Sen. Jennifer Bradley said. “And you are the reason I’m vacillating on whether or not to even vote yes. Because it looks like I endorse your hatred, and I do not.”
Nevertheless, Bradley still voted “yes” on the bill, as did every other Republican on the Senate Committee on Community Affairs, including Chair Alexis Calatayud, of Miami, who was taken aback by the “white culture” comment, telling the audience member that other bill supporters don’t agree with his position.
After the committee hearing, however, Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo put the bill’s fate into question.
“There are problems with the bill,” Passidomo said. “More than that, there are problems with the perceptions among our caucus, on all sides... I’m not going to bring a bill to the floor that is so abhorrent to everybody.”
We give Passidomo credit for reading the room, but her actions are more important than her words. Sure, there are problems — a lot of them — with the bill, beginning with its conception. This is not the type of legislation that can be fixed with an amendment. It should be allowed to languish and die.
People have different feelings about taking down Confederate monuments, and certainly some who want to preserve them aren’t white nationalists. There’s a valid debate on how far communities should go in taking down monuments of historic figures who held slaves or abhorrent racist views.
The problem with this bill is that it takes away local governments’ authority to make those decisions based on the wishes of their communities. In December, the mayor of Jacksonville, a city that’s 30% Black, ordered the removal of a Confederate statue from a park. Just months before that, the city was the site of a mass shooting where three Black people were killed because of their race.
Despite tragedies like this (or the 2015 Charleston Black church shooting by a white supremacist who posed for photos with the Confederate flag), Florida lawmakers insist on pushing legislation like SB 1122 or the “Stop WOKE Act,” which limited classroom instruction on racism. Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis has refused to properly denounce neo-Nazi marches that happened in Central Florida over the past two years.
That might not be their intention but the Florida Legislature and DeSantis have emboldened racists. This is what critics have been warning against all along. Now that racism reared its ugly head publicly — and in their faces — perhaps Republicans will understand what they have unleashed.
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