Democratic congressional candidate Cindy Banyai. (Image: Banyai for Congress campaign)
Dec. 14, 2021 by David Silverberg
In a bid to tighten his control of the Republican Party, former President Donald Trump yesterday, Dec. 13, formally endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) for re-election, a move slammed today by Democratic congressional candidate Cindy Banyai.
“Donald Trump’s endorsement of my opponent can only lead to one thing— the continuation of the Trump administration,” stated Banyai in a message to supporters. “We will not stand for this any longer, and we need to keep our momentum going to show Byron Donalds and Donald Trump that we can defeat them.”
The endorsement was made from the Twitter account of the Trump War Room and stated that Donalds had been “a terrific advocate for the people of Florida and our Country” and had Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement.” (Capitalization as given.)
“Thank you, POTUS Trump, for your ENDORSEMENT and your unwavering support,” Donalds responded on Twitter. “Americans feel the pain of the America Last policies supported by the Biden-Harris administration and undoubtedly miss your America First agenda. I’ll always fight for the forgotten men and women of our nation.”
“I want to put our community first,” Banyai stated. “Byron Donalds is only interested in his allegiances to corporations, and harmful politicians like Trump. We cannot afford to have a representative who proudly posts pictures of himself with someone who has repeatedly damaged our country.”
Donalds and his wife Erika met with Trump during the latter’s nighttime visit to Naples on Dec. 3 and was photographed with Trump and his wife Melania.
The Donalds endorsement was one of a slew of endorsements issued by the Trump War Room yesterday. Trump is reaching down into state and local races to ensure a vise-like grip on the Party at all levels.
In addition to Donalds, Trump endorsed Angela Rigas who is running for Michigan state representative in the 86th District, Jacqueline “Jacky” Eubanks running for Michigan state representative in the 32nd District, and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-13-Texas), who had served as the White House physician from 2013 to 2018 and Assistant to the President and Chief Medical Advisor, a newly-created position, in 2019.
Rep. Byron Donalds, Donald Trump, Melania Trump and Erika Donalds at the Dec. 3 Naples event. (Photo: Office of Rep. Byron Donalds)
Carol Jenkins Barnett in an undated photo. (Photo: Publix)
Dec. 10, 2021 by David Silverberg
Publix heiress Carol Jenkins Barnett, an active funder of conservative political causes, especially in Georgia, passed away on Tuesday, Dec. 7, at the age of 65.
“It is with great sadness that Publix Super Markets shares the passing of Carol Jenkins Barnett, former chair and president of Publix Super Markets Charities,” the company stated in a press release issued the next day. “In 2016, she was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s disease.”
Barnett was deeply involved in the 2020 Georgia campaigns of Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue for the US Senate. The Carol Jenkins Barnett Family Trust gave $100,000 to a super political action committee (PAC) called the Keep America America Action Fund. The super PAC could spend unlimited amounts of money on issues rather than candidates and it pushed hard for a Republican victory in the Jan. 5 Georgia runoff elections.
Both Loeffler and Perdue lost their races in Georgia. Perdue is now running as a Trumpist candidate in the Georgia Republican gubernatorial primary against current Gov. Brian Kemp.
Barnett also contributed $100,000 in her own name to the Georgia Senate Battleground Fund, $10,000 to Purdue Victory Inc., $2,800 to the Purdue for Senate campaign and the same amount to the National Republican Senate Committee, headed by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
In North Carolina she contributed $2,800 to the re-election campaign of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who succeeded in keeping his seat.
Barnett was a daughter of the chain’s founder, George Jenkins. According to the press release she was born and raised in Lakeland, Fla., the company’s headquarters. She began working in the Publix chain in 1972 as a cashier at the Grove Park Shopping Center in Lakeland and later worked in Publix’s corporate marketing research and development department. In 1983, she was elected to the Publix board of directors where she served for 33 years. Her net worth was $2.1 billion, according to a 2020 Forbes magazine estimate.
She was active in philanthropic and charitable work, contributing to organizations such as United Way, Florida Partnership for School Readiness, and Family Fundamentals. She became president and chair of Publix Super Markets Charities, an outgrowth of a charitable foundation launched by George Jenkins in 1966.
A person disembarks from Donald Trump’s airplane at the Naples Airport on Friday, Dec. 3. (Image: NBC2 News)
Dec. 6, 2021 by David Silverberg
Former president Donald Trump made a brief, furtive sortie into Naples on Friday night, Dec. 3, flying into Naples Airport.
In contrast to the hoopla and publicity surrounding his previous appearances while both in and out of office, Trump’s initial destination was kept secret from the public, then revealed as being the Naples Airport. There, an event took place in a hangar on the airport grounds amidst a heavy security presence.
NBC-2 News also reported that Trump visited a private home in the rich Naples neighborhood of Port Royal.
The visit’s purpose was to raise funds. The ultimate recipient of the funds was not publicly revealed by the organizers nor was the sponsoring organization, although arrangements were made by WHIP Fundraising based in New York, a professional event and fundraising company.
Attendance at the event cost individuals $10,000, couples $20,000 and families or groups of four $30,000. Donors were allowed one photo with the former president.
In stark contrast to his fleeting Naples incursion, Trump’s previous visits to Southwest Florida were heavily publicized and he traveled with an extensive entourage. Two were held during his presidential campaign in 2016. He also held a large rally at what is now Hertz Arena in Estero on Halloween, Oct. 31, 2018, and made a campaign visit to Fort Myers on October 16, 2020.
An overview of Southwest Florida congressional districts as proposed by the Florida House Redistricting Committee. (Map: House Redistricting Committee)
Dec. 2, 2021 by David Silverberg
–Updated at 3:00 pm with redistricting timeline.
A large chunk of Cape Coral would move from Florida’s 19th Congressional District into a newly re-named 18th Congressional District according to new draft redistricting maps released Monday, Nov. 29, by the Florida House Redistricting Committee.
The redistricting aims to create congressional districts of equal population throughout the state. The goal is to have 769,221 people in each district if possible. Florida must also accommodate a new 28th Congressional District.
Under existing boundaries, the 19th District is overpopulated by 65,791 people or .086 percent more than the ideal and so must lose population to surrounding districts. The question is: where?
The House proposal contrasts with maps released on Nov. 10 by the Florida Senate Redistricting Committee. Those drafts moved North Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres into the existing 17th Congressional District.
Instead, both drafts released by the House committee (H000C8001 and H000C8003) take a piece of Cape Coral from the 19th and put it in a newly renumbered 18th District.
The new 18th
Cape Coral (left arrow) and parts of Lehigh Acres (right arrow) change congressional districts in new maps proposed by the Florida House Redistricting Committee. Red lines denote existing district boundaries. (Map: House Redistricting Committee; arrows, The Paradise Progressive.)
The new 18th would include Charlotte, Hendry, Glades, Highland, DeSoto, Hardee and Okeechobee counties with pieces of Sarasota and Lee counties—roughly the same territory as the current 17th.
The 18th would also get a chunk of Cape Coral from the Lee County line, down Burnt Store Rd., to SW Pine Island Ln. (Rt. 78) as far east as Del Prado Blvd., North, then to Hancock Bridge Pkwy., stopping just short of Rt. 41 (N. Cleveland Ave.). It then just follows the Caloosahatchee River east to Interstate 75.
In a gain for the 19th, the draft maps give a chunk of Lehigh Acres back to the 19th, although the bulk of it remains in the new 18th.
Collier County lines
Changes propsed for the 19th District in Collier County. Red lines denote existing district boundaries. (Map: House Redistricting Committee)
In the southern part of the 19th District, the 19th gains a bit along Golden Gate but then loses a chunk of East Naples including Lely, Naples Manor and Lely Resort.
It also loses some swampland further south—and the tiny community of Goodland, which would celebrate any future Buzzard Lope contests and mullet festivals in a newly re-numbered 26th District.
That 26th District largely keeps the shape of the previous 25th, spreading across Collier County, encompassing Immokalee and keeping Hialeah, its Cuban-American center of gravity and population.
Analysis: An F grade for the House
The two draft congressional maps from the state House Redistricting Committee have come under fire for their partisan gerrymandering.
H000C8003 (which is identical to H000C8001 as far as Southwest Florida is concerned) was given an overall grade of F from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, which found it significantly biased in favor of Republicans. The FiveThirtyEight.com redistricting tracker found it similarly biased, creating 15 Republican-leaning seats statewide, where before there had only been one.
Much of this bias takes place in the congressional districts on the east coast in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area where there are significant Democratic populations.
As far as Southwest Florida is concerned, cutting out a chunk of Cape Coral is less radically partisan than cutting out minority communities in North Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres. Those changes were in the state Senate draft, which came under fire from Cindy Banyai, the Democratic congressional candidate in the 19th Congressional District.
From a partisan standpoint, the Cape Coral area being moved into a new district in the House drafts is mostly Republican anyway, so moving it into a new, heavily Republican 18th District won’t make that much of a difference.
It needs to be noted that in addition to the Senate and House drafts, there are proposals from individual Floridians who submitted maps, since the process was thrown open to the public.
A map submitted by Curtis Steffenson signficantly redraws congressional districts in Southwest Florida. Red lines denote existing boundaries. (Map: House Redistricing Committee)
A congressional map from Curtis Steffenson (P000C0054), released the same day as the House maps was much more radical in its redrawing than the committee maps, although not necessarily more partisan. It would significantly alter the 19th Congressional District, splitting Lee County in half and putting all of Collier County including Naples and Immokalee into a new 20th District that would go as far east as the county line.
It’s an interesting concept and demonstrates how flexible the lines can be. However, it is very uncertain how seriously the state legislature will be taking this and other draft maps submitted by the public.
All redistricting must be completed and finalized during the Florida legislative session that begins on Jan. 11, 2022 and before the candidate qualifying period beginning on June 13, 2022.
Then-First Lady Melania Trump walks among the White House Christmas decorations in 2018. A hangar at the Naples Airport will be decorated like the Trump White House for a fundraiser with former president Donald Trump on Friday. (Image: White House)
Nov. 3, 2021 by David Silverberg
Former president Donald Trump will be briefly stopping in Naples on Friday, Dec. 3 at 7 pm, for a private fundraising event.
The event will be taking place at a hangar at the Naples Airport and is only for donors, according to Richard Johnson, writing in the New York Daily News.
The hangar will be decorated in the Christmas color scheme that former first lady Melania Trump used at the White House during her tenure.
The location was undisclosed to the general public on the event’s website.
Donors have a choice of three packages for admission to the event. A $10,000 contribution gets a single admission and a photo with Trump. A $20,000 contribution provides admission for a couple and a photo. A $30,000 contribution gets a family or up to four people access to the party and a photo.
The event is billed as an Evening of Celebration. “With sunshine over your head, and presents under the tree, this event will give you a lifetime of festive memories! Tickets are extremely limited,” states the event website.
The purpose and final destination of the funds raised is not provided on the website.
Democratic congressional candidate Cindy Banyai denounces a gerrymandering proposal to NBC-2’s Dave Elias. (Image: NBC-2)
Nov. 22, 2021 by David Silverberg
Cindy Banyai, Democratic congressional candidate for the 19th Congressional District, on Friday, Nov. 19, blasted draft redistricting maps from the Florida Senate that cut Fort Myers in two and moved Lehigh Acres fully into a neighboring district.
“This is gerrymandering,” stated Banyai in a press release. “Most of the people who are no longer in FL19 are minorities, our Black and Latino neighbors. It’s well known that this district has always been a giveaway to the Republicans, but this clear targeting of our communities of color should alarm everyone.”
The 19th Congressional District runs along the coast from Cape Coral to Marco Island and inland about as far as Route 75.
Under new draft maps released by the state Senate Committee on Redistricting, North Fort Myers, the Dunbar neighborhood, the old town River District, Tice and, to the east, all of Lehigh Acres would move from the 19th District to the northern 17th District. (To read a detailed analysis of the draft maps’ impact on Southwest Florida, see “Draft redistricting maps move North Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, into different congressional district.”)
A state Senate redistricting draft map moves North Fort Myers (left arrow) and all of Lehigh Acres (right arrow) into the 17th Congressional District. (Map: Senate Redistricting Committee; arrows, The Paradise Progressive.)
There were four draft maps released by the Committee on Nov. 10: S000C8002, S000C8004, S000C8006 and S000C8008.
Banyai pointed out that all the maps move the urban portions of Fort Myers into a mainly rural district.
“I think there is no doubt that it is absolutely a point to move democratic voters out of Florida 19,” Banyai told NBC-2’s political reporter, Dave Elias, in a report last Friday, Nov. 19. “This district has been sold out and considered a red district and they don’t really care what the voting population of Southwest Florida thinks.”
She raised four objections to the draft maps.
“Including part of Fort Myers and Lehigh in FL17 goes against the concept of compactness, given the size of FL17,” she stated.
“Additionally, the Dunbar community in Fort Myers, and Lehigh have high non-white populations. Lehigh has a 64% minority population, while the City of Fort Myers has a 51% minority population. Moving Lehigh and part of the City of Fort Myers out of FL19 has decreased the Black population of FL19 by a third, from 6% to 4% of the total population, in a district with a Black population that was below the state (15.6%) and county (8.2%) percentages.”
She pointed out: “All configurations of FL19 presented by the Florida Senate Committee on Reapportionment favor the White populations of Southwest Florida, whilst splitting and diluting the power of the people of color.”
Also, she noted, splitting the city of Fort Myers violates a concept of keeping “communities of interest” together. The new boundaries follow small residential roads rather than major thoroughfares and would cut up the city and move cohesive neighborhoods like Dunbar and majority Black neighborhoods surrounding Safety Hill.
“These areas of Lee County should be put into the same Congressional district. Putting coastal Collier and Lee Counties together favors the wealthy, White elite and marginalizes communities of color across Southwest Florida by lumping them into the largely rural districts of FL17 and FL25,” she argued.
She continued: “I encourage everyone to review all maps in this redistricting process and to stand up for your community. We cannot let politicians carve out communities they don’t like and ping-pong them around the state. Black and Brown voices should not be marginalized to score political points.”
When Elias polled people in Fort Myers about their potential new congressman (Rep. Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.)) should they be moved out of the 19th District, none recognized him.
“I’m not aware of the name. I’m in touch with local politics and never heard the name,” Randy Carry, a resident of North Fort Myers, told Elias when he showed him Steube’s picture. “I’ve never even seen his face.”
In his anime video, Rep. Paul Gosar (cartoon figure on the left, holding swords) approaches a cartoon Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (larger figure, right) to attack her. (Image: YouTube)
Nov. 18, 2021 by David Silverberg
The US House of Representatives yesterday voted to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R-4-Ariz.) by a vote of 223 to 207.
All of Southwest Florida’s members of the House, Reps. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-25-Fla.), voted along with the rest of the Republican caucus not to censure Gosar.
Two Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney (R-at large-Wy.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-16-Ill.), voted for the censure. “The glorification of the suggestion of the killing of a colleague is completely unacceptable. And I think that it’s a clear violation of House rules. I think it’s a sad day,” Cheney said to reporters. “But I think that it’s really important for us to be very clear that violence has no place in our political discourse.”
Gosar was censured for posting a Japanese-style anime video showing him attacking and killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-14-NY) and President Joe Biden.
An animated Rep. Paul Gosar (figure on right) prepares to attack Pres. Joe Biden with swords in Gosar’s anime video. (Image: YouTube)
While not explaining his Gosar vote, Donalds posted an altered photo of his own on his Twitter feed blaming Biden for high gas prices: “If the WH is wondering why gas prices aren’t going down, all they have to do is look in the mirror,” it states. The photo purports to show Biden looking in a mirror.
Rep. Byron Donalds’ altered photo of Pres. Joe Biden looking in a mirror. (Photo: Office of Rep. Byron Donalds)
Steube and Diaz-Balart did not issue statements explaining their votes.
Following the vote on House Resolution 789, Gosar was required to stand in the Well of the House while the censure resolution was read to him. He was stripped of his assignments on the Committee on Natural Resources and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, a committee of which Donalds is also a member. (The full text of the resolution is at the end of this article.)
In a statement on the floor of the House, Gosar said that he took down the video and “self-censored” himself when he realized it offended members. (The video remains accessible on a variety of platforms.) He compared himself to Alexander Hamilton, who also faced a censure vote. (The Hamilton censure was defeated.)
“President Trump called me his ‘warrior’ for a reason,” Gosar said in a subsequent statement. “My team created a short anime video that depicts, in literary form, the plague of open borders and the people who promote and support it. It is done in a superhero format with good guys and bad guys. It flies through the air. It moves fast. But it does not incite violence. It does not promote violence.”
Prior to the vote Ocasio-Cortez delivered a powerful, 5-minute speech decrying Gosar’s behavior and a defense of it by Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-23-Calif.).
“This vote is not as complex as, perhaps, the Republican leader would like to make folks believe. It is pretty cut and dry: Does anyone in this Chamber find this behavior acceptable? Would you allow depictions of violence against women, against colleagues, in your home? Do you think this should happen on a school board, in a city council, in a church? If it is not acceptable there, why should it be accepted here?” she said.
“So, Madam Speaker, the question I pose to this body in response is: Will we live up to the promises we make our children, that this is a place where we will defend one another, regardless of belief, that our core human dignity matters? If you believe that this behavior is acceptable, go ahead, vote ‘no.’ But if you believe that this behavior should not be accepted, then vote ‘yes.’ It is really that simple.”
There has been violence and even killing among members of Congress in the past. In 1856 Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina savagely attacked Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts at his desk on the floor of the Senate for a speech he gave denouncing slavery. In 1859 anti-slavery Sen. David Broderick of California was killed in a duel with pro-slavery California Chief Justice David Terry.
RESOLUTION
Censuring Representative Paul Gosar.
Whereas, on November 7, 2021, Representative Paul Gosar posted a manipulated video on his social media accounts depicting himself killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joseph Biden;
Whereas the video was posted on Representative Gosar’s official Instagram account and used the resources of the House of Representatives to further violence against elected officials;
Whereas Representative Gosar issued a statement on November 9, 2021, defending the video as a “symbolic cartoon” and spreading hateful and false rhetoric about immigrants;
Whereas the leadership of the Republican Party has failed to condemn Representative Gosar’s threats of violence against the President of the United States and a fellow Member of Congress;
Whereas the Speaker of the House made clear that threats of violence against Members of Congress and the President of the United States should not be tolerated and called on the Committee on Ethics of the House and law enforcement to investigate the video;
Whereas depictions of violence can foment actual violence and jeopardize the safety of elected officials, as witnessed in this chamber on January 6, 2021;
Whereas violence against women in politics is a global phenomenon meant to silence women and discourage them from seeking positions of authority and participating in public life, with women of color disproportionately impacted;
Whereas a 2016 survey by the Inter-Parliamentary Union found that 82 percent of women parliamentarians have experienced psychological violence and 44 percent received threats of death, sexual violence, beatings, or abduction during their term; and
Whereas the participation of women in politics makes our government more representative and just: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That—
(1) Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona be censured;
(2) Representative Paul Gosar forthwith present himself in the well of the House of Representatives for the pronouncement of censure; and
(3) Representative Paul Gosar be censured with the public reading of this resolution by the Speaker.
President Joe Biden signs the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law on Monday. (Photo: White House)
On Monday, Nov. 15, President Joe Biden signed the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law.
The same day, the Naples City Council voted to repair an aging, sagging seawall running along Gulf Shore Blvd., outside Venetian Village. Its cost is estimated to be $900,000. The city spent a whopping $341,000 in litigation fees denying responsibility for the seawall, only to lose the case in May. On Monday it was presented with four alternatives to repair the wall by engineers and voted to proceed with a hybrid solution using the existing structure but improving it with a new section.
The deteriorating section of seawall along Gulf Shore Blvd. (Photo: City of Naples)
Is there a connection between Biden’s signing the Infrastructure Act and the Naples City Council voting to fix the seawall?
Well, yes and no. There isn’t right now, but there could be.
The Infrastructure Act will be pumping $19 billion into Florida over the next five years. A chunk of that change will be going toward helping communities build resilience against the effects of climate change. That includes things like bolstering seawalls holding back waters rising because of global warming.
Could the City of Naples present its crumbling seawall as a bulwark against those rising waters caused by climate change?
It likely could if it broadened its horizons beyond just Venetian Bay. The whole point of the Biden infrastructure plan is to reach down to local communities like Naples and help them improve the built environment that makes civilized human life possible and efficient.
Of course, the city would have to apply for a grant, presumably from the state, to get the money. That grant application might be rejected. Then again, it might be approved—but the city won’t know unless it tries.
Also, the City of Naples would be doing this in a state that is virtually in revolt against the federal government, led by a governor Hell-bent on rejecting all forms of federal assistance and blocking all efforts to keep Floridians safe, healthy and alive.
But if the City of Naples has the good sense to look beyond the partisan hysteria and sheer bile being hurled at Washington, DC from Southwest Florida’s more primitive residents, it just might find that its seawall problem is part of a much larger, global situation—and that it has a partner in a President and a federal government committed to addressing it.
A Simpsons moment
The Naples situation is reminiscent of an episode of The Simpsons animated TV show called “Last Exit to Springfield” (season 4, episode17). In the episode Homer Simpson’s daughter Lisa needs braces on her teeth. However, Homer’s union is about to give away its dental benefit in exchange for a keg of beer.
As Homer lines up to get his cup of beer, his friend Lenny’s voice repeatedly plays in his head, saying “dental plan!” It’s answered by his wife Marge’s voice saying “Lisa needs braces!”
Homer thinks there might be a connection—but can he make it?
Naples right now might just be the Homer Simpson of Florida, with two voices going through its head.
“Infrastructure plan!” “Seawall needs repair!”
“Infrastructure plan!” “Seawall needs repair!”
“Infrastructure plan!” “Seawall needs repair!”
Can Naples make the connection? Let’s hope the answer isn’t “d’oh!”
Other changes expand 19th District in Collier County
Southwest Florida congressional districts as drafted by the state Senate redistricting committee.
Nov. 14, 2021 by David Silverberg
–Updated at 5:00 pm with Rep. Byron Donalds’ home location.
North Fort Myers, including the River District, the Dunbar neighborhood, and a portion of Lehigh Acres, would change congressional districts under new draft redistricting maps.
Florida’s first four draft maps of new districts were released on Wednesday, Nov. 10, by the state Senate redistricting committee, headed Sen. Ray Rodrigues (R-27-Estero).
For the most part, the new maps leave Southwest Florida’s 17th, 19th and 25th congressional districts largely intact. The districts retain their existing numbering. No local congressmen were redistricted out of their seats or forced into runoff elections. All the districts remain overwhelmingly Republican based on voter registrations.
The big change for the state as a whole is the addition of a new congressional seat, the 28th. It is proposed, as expected, for the center of the state where population growth has been greatest.
While there was widespread trepidation—and expectation—that the new Florida maps would be radically biased in favor of Republicans that proved not to be the case.
When the maps were released, “they were surprisingly unaggressive,” wrote the website FiveThirtyEight.com. “Instead, they largely preserve Florida’s current congressional map, exhibiting only a mild Republican bias.”
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, an impressively deep and thorough examination of redistricting across the country, gave them an overall grade of B, meaning “better than average for the category, but bias still exists.”
This article looks at the four draft maps for three US congressional districts in Southwest Florida and what they mean for voters. Subsequent articles will examine state Senate and House districts and other draft maps.
In all four draft maps released last week (S000C8002, S000C8004, S000C8006 and S000C8008) the boundaries for the 17th, 19th and 25th congressional districts that make up Southwest Florida remain largely the same.
There are, however, some important changes.
Northern borders
The existing 17th Congressional District.
The Florida Fair Districts amendments aim to keep districts as compact and contiguous as possible, following existing boundaries, like county lines. These maps largely do that.
The 17th District, represented by Rep. Greg Steube (R), is a huge, although largely rural, district encompassing Hardee, Desoto, Charlotte, Glades, Highlands, and Okeechobee counties, with chunks of Polk, Lee, and Sarasota counties.
In the new maps the 17th loses all its territory in Polk County, which goes to the newly-formed 28th Congressional District. It also gives up much of its Sarasota County territory to the 16th, although it keeps North Port and the whole town of Venice. But it gains territory in Lee County.
The northern border of the draft Congressional District 17 showing the change in Sarasota County. The red line denotes the existing boundary. (Map: Florida Senate Redistricting Committee)
North Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres
The existing 19th Congressional District.
It is in North Fort Myers that there are big changes proposed as that community shifts from the 19th to the 17th.
The 19th District is represented by Rep. Byron Donalds (R), who lives two miles east of Rt. 75 in the 25th District.
In the new maps State Road 82 becomes the boundary between the 17th and the 19th until it reaches Rt. 75. Then everything—the River District, Buckingham, Tice, Dunbar, Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., as far south as Winkler Ave. and as far west as the Seminole Gulf railway—becomes part of the 17th.
The 19th may be losing a big chunk of North Fort Myers but it picks up Palmona Park across the Caloosahatchee River in Cape Coral.
In the past, most of Lehigh Acres was in the 17th District with a sliver in the 19th. That’s no longer true: the 17th takes all of Lehigh Acres as far south as State Road 82.
The draft map of the northern 19th Congressional District with North Fort Myers (left arrow) and Lehigh Acres (right arrow) moved into the 17th District. The red lines denote the current boundaries. (Map: Florida Senate Redistricting Committee)
Collier County
Since its drawing in 2010, the 19th District has resembled a railroad spike or a mushroom, with a bulbous north and a skinny south along the coast in its Collier County portion.
In the draft maps, that spike or stem widens slightly. Instead of Livingston Rd. in Collier County being the eastern end of the district, this map extends the line to Rt. 75, which makes much more sense as a boundary.
Between Vanderbilt Beach Rd. and Pine Ridge Rd., it also extends the district eastward to Logan Blvd. to include The Vineyards, which are now entirely in the district.
In its southern end, it stops following Rt. 75 and instead makes 32nd Ave. SW its boundary as far as Collier Blvd., where it goes straight south to Rt. 41 and encompasses Marco Island and Goodland as its most southeasterly community.
Where the 19th gains in Collier County the 25th loses, but not by much. The western edge of the 25th, represented by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R) retains Golden Gate and the unincorporated town of Immokalee and more or less keeps its existing shape. More important is the action on its more densely-populated eastern side where it gains population with Opa-Locka and slivers of Miami. However, it keeps its most important community, Hialeah, a Cuban-American stronghold.
Expansion of the 19th District in Collier County. The red line denotes the existing boundary. (Map: Florida Senate Redistricting Committee)
Analysis: Implications
Redistricting—or gerrymandering, if you don’t like the results—is always a delicate art. Drawing the lines can’t help but get partisan as they’re drafted.
In this case, the 19th District was overpopulated and had to lose population somewhere. It so happens that the state Senate drafters chose to take it out by removing minority, working class, somewhat Democratic communities.
Moving North Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres into the 17th means the interests of those suburban communities will be subsumed by the majority rural and agricultural voters further north in Charlotte, Hardee, Desoto, Glades, Highlands, and Okeechobee counties.
In partisan terms, it means they can’t threaten Republican dominance in either the 19th or the 17th. But that was the way the existing lines were drawn anyway.
Assuming that redistricting proceeds smoothly and according to its assigned schedule, next year candidates will be campaigning in the newly drawn new districts. However, it’s difficult to see how the new lines could make much of a difference.
Currently, both the 19th and 17th districts are represented by extreme, radical right-wing Republican incumbent representatives, Donalds and Steube.
For residents of North Fort Myers that doesn’t mean much of a difference in being represented to policymakers in Washington, DC. For Black residents of the affected areas, Donalds not only has no interest in traditional Black concerns like civil rights and voting access, he is actively hostile to them. He has inveighed against critical race theory in schools and is part of the Republican culture wars chorus. He plays to his extreme conservative political action committee donors and a hard-right Trumpist base. Minority voters weren’t getting much representation anyway, so they aren’t losing much if he doesn’t represent them in 2022.
By contrast, his Democratic opponent, Cindy Banyai, is already campaigning vigorously on behalf of those communities. However, she’ll be deprived of potentially supportive voters if the maps change as drawn.
Nor will North Fort Myers residents get any representation if Steube wins re-election again. If anything, Steube is even more extreme than Donalds and would likely completely ignore those communities.
Steube was opposed in 2020 by Allen Ellison, whom he defeated 64 to 34 percent. This year Ellison is running for the US Senate seat of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). To date, Steube has no announced opponent.
In the 25th District, Diaz-Balart is running against Democrat Adam Gentle. Last year Diaz-Balart ran unopposed. Changes in the district lines would not seem to make much of a difference in the demographic makeup of the district.
It’s worth remembering that these are just draft maps. In addition to the state Senate committee’s proposals individuals have submitted proposed drafts. Also, the state House committee is expected to shortly submit its proposals.
People who want to weigh in can contact their representatives and Southwest Florida is fortunate in that Rodrigues, who oversees the whole redistricting effort, is a local state senator. Also, state Sen. Kathleen Passidomo (R-28-Naples) will be serving as Senate president next year and has a disproportionate say in the final redistricting.
A photo of the Capitol taken at sunset the night of the infrastructure bill vote by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart from his office window.
Nov. 11, 2021 by David Silverberg
Over the next five years Florida stands to receive $19.3 billion of the $1.2 trillion in infrastructure funding passed by the House and soon to be signed into law by President Joe Biden.
How much Southwest Florida receives depends on its representatives’ willingness to lobby for its share—but those representatives are dead set against the whole infrastructure initiative.
“The need for action in Florida is clear. For decades, infrastructure in Florida has suffered from a systemic lack of investment,” states an administration fact sheet on the infrastructure bill issued in April. “In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave Florida a Cgrade on its infrastructure report card.”
The bill passed on Friday, Nov. 5. On Monday, Nov. 8, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) dismissed the entire initiative: “So, um, I think it was a lot of pork barrel spending from what I could tell,” he said at a press conference in Zephyr Hills, offering no details.
On Tuesday, his criticism was not that it was a pork barrel bill but that Florida wasn’t getting enough of the pork: “Is Florida being treated well in this?” DeSantis said while speaking at a news conference in Spring Hill. “Or, are they basically funneling money to a bunch of very, very high tax and dysfunctional states?”
DeSantis was referring to potential allocations to states like New York, which may get $26.9 billion or California, which may get $44.5 billion.
Southwest Florida’s representatives were dead-set against the infrastructure initiative from the beginning. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) consistently called it an “inFAKEstructure bill” and inveighed against it in every forum he could.
Two days after the bill passed at 11:24 pm, Rep. Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.), tweeted: “On Friday, in the dead of night, House Democrats passed the $1.2 trillion so-called “infrastructure bill,” where only $110 billion actually goes to roads and bridges. I voted no and will continue to relentlessly oppose these dangerous bills that are destroying our country.”
As the debate proceeded, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-25-Fla.) was in a reflective mood as he watched the sunset over the Capitol and tweeted: “Beautiful night on Capitol Hill. Meanwhile Democrats’ incompetence is on full display as they try to enact their socialist agenda on the American people.”
Given its needs and the formula for meeting them, Florida can expect to receive:
$13.1 billion for federal-aid highway apportioned programs and $245 million for bridge replacement and repairs under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act over five years. This is based on 408 bridges and over 3,564 miles of highway in poor condition. The state can also compete for money from the $12.5 billion Bridge Investment Program for economically significant bridges and nearly $16 billion for projects that deliver substantial economic benefits to communities.
$2.6 billion over five years to improve public transportation options. This is based on Floridians who take public transportation spending an extra 77.9 percent of their time commuting and the fact that non-white households are 3-and-a-half times more likely to take public transportation.
$198 million over five years to support the expansion of an electric vehicle (EV) charging network in the state. Florida can also apply for $2.5 billion in grant funding dedicated to EV charging.
$100 million to help provide broadband coverage across the state, including providing access to the at least 707,000 Floridians who currently lack it. And, under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 6,465,000 or 30 percent of people in Florida will be eligible for the Affordability Connectivity Benefit, which will help low-income families afford internet access. In Florida 13 percent of households lack an Internet connection.
$26 million over five years to protect against wildfires and $29 million to protect against cyberattacks. Floridians will also benefit from the bill’s $3.5 billion national investment in weatherization which will reduce energy costs for families. Over the last ten years Florida has suffered $100 billion in damages from 22 extreme weather events.
$1.6 billion over five years to improve water infrastructure across the state and ensure that clean, safe drinking water is a right in all communities.
$1.2 billion for infrastructure development for airports over five years.
Analysis: The Republican dilemma
Neither DeSantis, nor Donalds, nor Steube, nor Diaz-Balart, nor any other Republican, for that matter, can acknowledge that the Democrats’ Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will make a real, beneficial difference to America.
In part, that’s the job of any opposition party—to oppose, point out flaws and come up with counter arguments.
But now that the bill is passed and about to be signed into law, any responsible elected official is duty-bound to get as many benefits for his constituents as possible.
For Republicans, this is a dilemma.
DeSantis, a protégé of Donald Trump, is approaching infrastructure from a true Trumpist perspective. Under the former president all government functions were transactional, i.e., you had to pay to play. Trump would have used funding like that provided by the infrastructure package as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies and would have demanded a price for his largesse. This is the way DeSantis approaches governing himself, so his inclination is to look for inequities in the program and presume himself and his state to be victims of a mafia-like shakedown.
But Biden’s package hearkens back to a time when presidents governed for the sake of the whole country, like Dwight Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. This initiative follows a neutral formula based on need to provide its benefits.
While DeSantis raised suspicions that Florida was being shortchanged and asked, “are they basically funneling money to a bunch of very, very high tax and dysfunctional states?”—i.e., Democratic states—he overlooked the fact that the second biggest chunk of change, $35.4 billion, was going to Texas, a Republican state with a governor, Greg Abbott (R), who is unremittingly hostile to Biden. The allocations are based on need, not favor.
This is an idea DeSantis seems unable to wrap his head around. The concept that a president could govern for the sake of the whole country and not just his base seems too novel for him to comprehend.
When it comes to local allocations, an area’s congressional representative should be working for the benefit of his district and all his constituents, not just his supporters.
It’s hard to imagine Donalds switching from being a rigid, ideological, warrior and right-wing mouthpiece to an effective representative who actually has an interest in his district and its welfare and is willing to work within the system to get the 19th District its piece of the pie.
(Interestingly, Donalds’ fellow Republican and member of the so-called “Freedom Force,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-11-NY) preferred the more pragmatic course and voted for the bill, bringing down the wrath of the Republican caucus. “I read this bill and it is cover to cover infrastructure,” said Malliotakis on Fox News. “…For an aging city like New York City, this bill was incredibly important.”)
With its growing population, Southwest Florida has plenty of needs and projects that will benefit from infrastructure funding. They range from the planned expansion of Southwest Florida International Airport in Lee County to re-engineering the Immokalee Rd.-Livingston Rd. intersection in Collier County and many more in between. There are the perennial Everglades projects, water purity efforts and the absolute, urgent need to strengthen the area for the impacts of climate change.
The same is true in both the 17th and 25th districts. But all three of the region’s representatives have locked themselves into fanatical anti-Biden poses that will make doing the real work of bringing home the bacon much more difficult, if they even have an interest in doing so.
As much as Republicans, local and national, attempt to incite a hatred of Joe Biden equal to the fear and loathing generated by his predecessor, the fact is that Biden is governing rather than ruling the country and trying to bring its benefits to all its citizens and not just his cultic devotees. If these officials would accept this and try to govern and responsibly represent their constituents in their turn, they could get the benefits to which those constituents are entitled as Americans.
However, that would require responsibility, patriotism and maturity.
The Paradise Progressive 