The Florida Capitol Building. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Feb. 28, 2023 by David Silverberg
A bill filed in the Florida Senate today, Feb. 28, intended to decertify the state’s Democratic Party, would have the ironic effect of also decertifying the Republican Party as well, leaving both parties to reconstitute themselves from the ground up.
The bill, The Ultimate Cancel Act, or Senate Bill (SB) 1248, would require the state’s Division of Elections to cancel “the filings of a political party, to include its registration and approved status as a political party, if the party’s platform has previously advocated for, or been in support of, slavery or involuntary servitude.”
Under the bill, once a party is decertified it would have be recertified “by filing a certificate showing the name of the organization and the names and addresses of its current officers, including the members of its executive committee, accompanied by a completed uniform statewide voter registration application as specified in S 97.052 for each of its current officers and members of its executive committee which reflects their affiliation with the proposed political party, and a copy of its constitution, bylaws, and rules and regulations.” It would then have to change its name to be “substantially different from the name of any other party previously registered with the department” and do so within six months of being decertified.
The bill was introduced by state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-11-Citrus, Hernando and Sumter counties). He did not issue a public statement on the bill or its rationale.
Analysis: Unintended consequences
The bill, while alarming on first read, is really a bit of right-wing showboating, rather along the lines of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) transfer of asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard last year.
Ironically enough, while clearly intending to make Florida a one-party state along the lines of North Korea, it would also have the effect of decertifying Ingoglia’s own Republican Party.
Clearly, Ingoglia intended to link today’s Democratic Party to its pre-Civil War predecessor, when it was the dominant party of the slaveholding South.
However, prior to the outbreak of war, the Republican Party also accepted slavery in the states where it existed.
This was clear in the Republican Party’s 1860 party platform when it declared, “That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.”
The Republican Party platform opposed expansion of slavery in territories which were not yet states admitted into the union, like Kansas. But the Party leaders did not want to embrace abolitionism and were willing to leave the institution alone where it was of long standing, i.e., they were “in support of, slavery or involuntary servitude” as defined by SB 1248.
It was not until the middle of the Civil War that President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation—which was not a Party document.
So, far from making Florida a one-party Republican state, which is clearly Ingoglia’s intent, it would in fact make it a no-party state—which might just be an improvement.
In fact, SB 1248 is not a serious piece of legislation. If seriously considered, however, it may prove to be a serious waste of time.
With thanks to June Fletcher for her historical insight.
Liberty lives in light
© 2023 by David Silverberg
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