Well, that didn’t take long. 49 minutes. In the midst of one of the biggest oil spill disasters in history, that’s all it took for GOP leaders in Florida to tell voters who want to vote on an oil drilling ban near Florida shores: tough luck suckers! The vote to adjourn the special session without hearings or votes broke along party lines. 67-44.
In other words, it’s business a usual from the Republican Party Of Florida.
As predicted, the Florida GOP controlled legislature rejected Gov. Charlie Crist’s call for a constitutional amendment to ban near shore oil drilling in Florida. They also rejected, again, the will of Florida voters who want the chance to vote on the drilling ban.
A new poll shows that 71% are in favor of having the chance to vote. That doesn’t matter though. The Florida GOP leaders are more interested in sticking it to Charlie Crist and playing politics than they are with paying attention to what voters want even as oil washes up on Florida beaches and threatens the environment, tourism, the fishing industry and the very livelihood of its residents.
The failed session, a rarity in the usually scripted world of legislative politics, occurred 90 days after the BP oil well exploded off the Louisiana coast, polluting the Gulf of Mexico and stretches of Florida Panhandle beaches. Oil drilling is banned in state law, but not in the constitution, which can only be changed by voters.
House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, blasted the governor for playing politics in calling lawmakers back to Tallahassee and said that legislators might entertain a drilling amendment next year for the 2012 ballot – in the “calm after the crisis.” Cretul also told lawmakers they’ll likely be back in September, in another special session, to address financial fallout from the BP spill.
In other words, they’ll wait until AFTER the race for the U.S. Senate seat Charlie Crist hopes to win in the upcoming election. (And then what?) They’ve complained that the special session was called for political reasons. Maybe so, but it’s clear just who is playing politics with this move. This hurts the state and the people the leaders claim to work for. “Maybe next year” plays into the same excuses the GOP is currently giving for doing anything: “This is not the time.” I can’t think of a better time actually, since the BP oil spill and resulting disaster are far from over.
Nope. Sadly the Republicans in Florida would rather play with people’s lives and gamble on so many risks to the state, all for the sake to a political stab in the back of a former party member who chose to reject the GOP. He certainly isn’t the first to do that. I think this guarantees there will be a lot more who will reject the Republican Party after this.
It’s time to vote them out.
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
