Florida GOP Screwing Democrats — and Iowa

The Florida Democratic Party just can’t catch a break. First, Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature passed a bill to move the state’s primary to January 29, 2008, in violation of agreed-upon national political party rules. The Democratic National Committee then announced that if Florida went ahead with its plans, it would be stripped of its delegates to the DNC.

The state Democratic party appealed to moderate Republican Gov. Charlie Crist hoping he’d veto the bill, but Crist signed it. At a DNC scheduling meeting, Howard Dean reiterated the national party rules and told Florida Democrats that they must hold a caucus event on or after February 5, 2008, or they would lose their delegates to the convention.

Florida Democrats opposed the move from the moment they heard the DNC’s threats (at least superficially), but the state GOP once again forced their hand by getting a constitutional referendum lowering property taxes onto the January 29 ballot. Moving the Democratic nominating contest to a different date would result in lower Democratic turnout on January 29, and Florida, where referenda have earned citizens constitutional rights to a prohibitively expensive monorail system and non-caged pregnant pigs, doesn’t need a constitutional right to lower property taxes. (Florida does not have a state income tax, so property tax is the only non-regressive form of revenue generation for its already underfunded government programs.)

So Florida Democrats will hold their primary on January 29, and they will lose their delegates to the national convention. No candidates will make public appearances before the election, and no campaign will be doing GOTV to boost Democratic turnout (although I’m sure there will be clever work-arounds devised by 527s advocating for candidates).

Under the pretense of increasing Florida’s influence in the nominating process, the Florida GOP just cost its state all of its influence on the Democratic side.

Meanwhile, the national GOP and early state party leaders remain conspicuously silent, circulating no “four state pledge” letters. Are they all on board for a Republican scheme to keep Florida red by further tarnishing the Democratic Party’s brand in the state and preventing Democrats from campaigning there until after the primaries? It’s not outside the realm of possibility, and it could work. Have state party leaders in the early states sold out their local candidates in the interests of winning the Presidency?

(John Deeth has done a great job covering this story at Iowa Independent.)