Florida Senate women flex muscles
Source: Miami Herald
Posted on Sunday, 04.15.12
Florida Senate women flex muscles
A group of women in the Florida Senate joined together in the past session to kill a number of bills, including the expansion of private prisons and anti-abortion measure.
By Brittany Alana Davis
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- On the final day of the 2012 legislative session, Sen. Paula Dockery worked the Senate chamber, counting no votes on a bill to turn failing public schools into private charter schools.
She and fellow senators mostly women had rallied against the controversial proposal for weeks.
~snip~
By Dockerys count, the bill should go down on a tie vote (there are no tiebreakers in the Florida Senate). But she stood tense at the vote screen, biting a nail. The computer tallied the vote, and her hands swung over her head.
~snip~
The tie was another proud moment for Dockery, a Lakeland Republican, and her ragtag caucus of Senate floaters.
Together, they defeated a massive expansion of private prisons, blocked an omnibus antiabortion bill from debate and prevented unregulated, out-of-state companies from taking over state-sponsored homeowners insurance.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/15/2747137/florida-senate-women-flex-muscles.html#storylink=cpy
toddwv
(2,830 posts)I know that not all of them are free of the conservative bug, but the odds are pretty good.
drm604
(16,230 posts)I wonder how many bills like that are currently flying under the radar in various states. The privatization of schools and prisons, and attempts to limit women's rights make the news (as well they should!) and we all fight and petition against them (as well we should!) but things like that insurance bill get buried in all the hoopla.
I have to wonder how many things like that are being passed, and I have to wonder if some of the other controversial, high visibility issues are being raised partly to draw attention away from things like it.
EC
(12,287 posts)In Florida the state had to take over home owners insurance because the private insurers started refusing to cover or hiking premiums so extreme, no one could afford them. Now it looks as though the state can't afford it either and are looking for some out of state suckers.
Baitball Blogger
(46,576 posts)Thanks.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)I'm happy Florida has some Democratic legislators willing to take on the slide into Hell and fight back.