Senate Bill 956 – The “Cleansing” Begins

SB 956 to be read before Senate today; language to allow top down party control remains.

In spite of RPOF Chairman Greer’s promises to make the party more inclusive during the last round of RPOF elections, Senate Bill 956, which contains language that would “pack” the state parties with appointees chosen by party leadership, was filed on January 26th by Senator JD Alexander and introduced into committee on March 26th. The bill passed out of committee on April 16th, 2009, and is scheduled for a reading before the Senate today.

BACKGROUND: Currently the statutes require that the elections be open and above board and administered by the local Supervisor of Elections.

This last year, we saw the Party bosses seek to further control and restrict the ability of individuals to run for these party posts by requiring an additional party oath to be filed with the local party prior to qualifying with the Supervisor of elections.

This led to many “disqualifications” by opponents to RPOF party boss Greer and his individual county chairmen. These “disqualifications” are being challenged in court in Miami and Orlando and the courts are ruling against RPOF and the disqualifications.

SB956 was introduced on March 26th and would require that all individuals running for party posts give their qualifying papers to the local PARTY chair and NOT the Supervisor of Elections!

This would allow party chairs (such as what happened in Orange) to deep-six the applications and report they never existed, thereby eliminating opposition to the Party bosses.

This is a blatant attempt to control all individuals that seek to become involved in the Party and remove those that do meet with the Party bosses’ approval.

In summary, the bill will:
1) Move the party elected leadership further from the Republican voters in each precinct.
2) Allow unprecedented power in the hands of the party bosses in the local party and statewide.
3) Severely weaken the Party by destroying free speech within the Party.
4) Allow the party bosses to pack each committee with their hand-picked precinct leaders.
5) Take away the rights of Republican voters in Florida to elect their own precinct committee people.
6) Allow the Party leaders to pick people that only support the candidates they support to the exclusion of other candidates.

What you can do:
E-mail all of the Senate committee members at one time with the subject line: OPPOSE THE PARTY BOSSES at NoToSenateBill956@myfloridaroundtable.com and tell them this is unacceptable.

Call and e-mail your Senator:

State Senator Mike Haridopolos:
E-mail: mike@senatormike.com
Phone: (850) 487-5056 or (321) 752-3131

State Senator Thad Altman:
E-mail: altman.thad.web@flsenate.gov
Phone: (850) 487-5053 or (321) 752-3138

The full text of the bill is here; pages 14 & 15 are where the nasty stuff relating to political parties is.