Small Wins: Petition Calls for Tennessee Speaker's Resignation; Stop Woke bill in Florida Courts

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/04/will-political-victories-in-tennessee.html

There will be political successes down the road for Democrats, including in parts of deep red states, for which credit can be given to the "Tennessee three." Tennessee's house speaker, Cameron Sexton, took the opportunity provided by a protest that descended on the state capitol building to try to expel three Democrats from the already veto-proof state house of representatives. What he and his fellow Republicans did will go down in history as one of the most politically stupid moves they could have made.

Their attempted expulsion of the three Democrats did more, politically, to advance the cause of common sense gun control than any Democrats in the legislature have been able to do. Expelling the two young, black men, but not the white woman, made them look pitifully racist. The lack of any acknowledgement or denial of that, especially on Sexton's part, was a huge political mistake. Trying to equate the protest at the capitol in Nashville with the violent, rebellious insurrection in Washington on January 6, 2020 was laughable. And trying to shift the focus away from the pressure put on the Republicans in the legislature for Tennessee's lax, virtually non-existent gun control laws, which were responsible for the deaths of six people on a Christian school campus in Nashville, was about as unsuccessful as possible as a political move.

Both of the young, African American gentlemen expelled by the Republicans from the legislature are back, at the overwhelming request of their respective local authorities. I would say they both are guaranteed re-election, if they choose to run again. They succeeded in making speaker Cameron Sexton, look very bad in terms of both being against what people want with regard to gun control and in what turned out to be an ugly, racist event in expelling two black men from the legislature. Likewise, Florida educators have successfully blocked "Stop Woke" temporarily, in the courts, on its way to appellate courts which Desantis says will be more sympathetic to his perspective. But these "wins" are not enough.

[lees1975]

1. Protests work, in combination with increased voter turnout.

I was looking at some figures from Florida and Tennessee from the 2022 mid-terms. In some of the deep red counties, more than three fourths of the registered Democrats did not vote. Three fourths! And in some of those same counties, 55% of the population over 18 and eligible to register are not registered! This is the problem. We had a great outcome in the midterm elections but what if just 1% more of the registered Democrats in 5 California and 5 New York districts had turned out and voted for the Democrat running in their district? We still underperformed our registration compared to the GOP.

The GOP holds better than a ten point advantage in Tennessee. However, over half of Tennessee's eligible voters are not registered and among the African American population, it gets close to two thirds. Whether the combination of the dripping, snide racism exhibited by the GOP in their expulsion of two young black representatives, while not expelling the third white, female representative along with the school shooting basically on GOP turf, will be enough, I don't know. But the votes are potentially there if Democrats want them and are willing to do what it takes to go after them.