Alfie Oakes announces that he will seek re-election at an April 4 event at his restaurant, Food & Thought 2.
June 16, 2024 by David Silverberg
Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, the prominent pro-Trump grocer and farmer and a central figure in Collier County politics, has not qualified for the Republican state committee seat he was seeking to retain.
Oakes is currently a Republican state committeeman and announced in April that he would run to keep his seat. Because he is disqualified, his name will not appear on the August 20 Republican primary ballot.
Qualifying forms for all candidates were due at noon on Friday, June 14. Oakes did not file his form until after the noon deadline.
As a result, “Pursuant to Florida Statute 99.061 the candidate qualifying documents that were received in the Supervisor of Elections office were not properly filed. Therefore, you did not qualify for the Republican State Committeeman position,” Collier County Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier stated in a two-sentence letter to Oakes.
According to one source, Oakes misfiled his forms, submitting a form for county commissioner and not correcting the mistake until 12:04 pm.
Efforts to reach Oakes by publication time were unsuccessful.
There will still be two candidates for the state committeeman seat.
Douglas Rankin will be attempting a comeback. A practicing Naples attorney specializing in elder law, Rankin began his Party activism with the Young Republicans in 1984. From 2008 to 2020 he was a Republican state committeeman until pushed out by Oakes for being insufficiently pro-Trump and anti-mask amidst the COVID pandemic.
Frank Schwerin, who will also appear on the ballot, has served as Chair of the Collier County Republican Executive Committee.
A State committeeman or woman represents his or her county on the leadership team of the Republican Party of Florida and serves a four-year term.
The proposed resolution by the Collier County Board of Commissioners. (The full resolution is below.) (Document: CCBC)
June 10, 2024 by David Silverberg
Tomorrow, June 11, the Collier County Board of Commissioners is poised to consider a resolution expressing opposition to Amendment 4, a proposed state constitutional amendment guaranteeing a woman’s right to choose abortion, which will be on the ballot in the general election on Nov. 5.
In unusual wording for a county resolution, it expresses opposition in the first person, using the article “I;” meaning that it expresses a single individual’s opinion but puts it forward as the opinion of the entire county.
As quoted by the proposed resolution, the language of Amendment 4, formally titled “Limiting government interference with abortion,” states that “Except as provided in Article X, Section 22, no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
The proposed Collier County resolution then goes on to state:
“WHEREAS, I believe that the language of the proposed amendment is vague, deceptive, and overbroad, and would strike already enacted protections instituted by the State of Florida by broadening the definition of healthcare providers to those not medically licensed, eliminating parental consent for minors, and allowing the life of the unborn to be taken right up to the moment of birth; and
“WHEREAS, the Board believes that the passage of Amendment 4 would be detrimental to the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Collier County and the State of Florida.
“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, expresses its strong opposition to Amendment 4.”
Commissioner Chris Hall (R-District 2) currently chairs the Collier County Board of Commissioners and is expected to introduce the resolution.
Collier County residents can express an opinion on this matter by writing or calling their commissioners. The resolution is listed as agenda item 10B and residents who sign up in person the day of the meeting can speak before the Board for 3 minutes. The Commission meeting is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.
Rep. Byron Donalds at the Philadelphia “Congress, Cognac, & Cigars” event, stating that black families were stronger during the Jim Crow era. (Image: Office of Rep. Byron Donalds)
June 7, 2024 by David Silverberg
Not all gaffes are equal—some are major, huge, and potentially career-ending.
Perhaps when Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) said on Tuesday, June 4 that Jim Crow practices in the South kept black families together, it shouldn’t be counted as a gaffe, which is generally considered a mistake or a misstatement, usually of an impromptu nature. After all, it was clearly something he had considered and he expressed a genuinely held thought.
However, politically, it was much worse than a gaffe—it was a blunder.
The setting
Donalds was in Philadelphia, Pa., for a Donald Trump-related outreach event to black conservatives. Dubbed “Congress, Cognac, & Cigars” it was held at a club called The Cigar Code, which seeks to provide “a relaxing atmosphere where you can kick back and enjoy our high-quality cigars” along with drinks and food.
Organizers invited attendees to “Immerse yourself in the world of politics, premium cognac, and fine cigars. Enjoy a conversation about the Black Male vote, Leadership, and how Black Men will impact the 2024 vote.”
Donalds (who has sponsored legislation exempting premium cigars from tobacco regulations) was on stage with Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-38-Texas), a fellow black conservative Republican.
In keeping with the tenor of the evening, Donalds, cognac and premium cigar in hand, was clearly relaxed—and it’s at such times that he often provides his most truthful—and damaging—revelations. Like the time in 2021 when he admitted he had been drinking prior to addressing a press conference in the Capitol denouncing masking and President Joe Biden’s stimulus and pandemic relief bill.
This time his statement causing the uproar was this: “You see, during Jim Crow, during Jim Crow the black family was together. During Jim Crow more black people were not just conservative—black people were always conservative minded—more black people voted conservatively. And then, HEW, Lyndon Johnson, and then you go down that road and we are where we are.”
(HEW is the former Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which was changed in 1979 to the Department of Health and Human Services after creation of a separate Department of Education. Jim Crow refers to a character in 19th century minstrel shows that came to stereotype black people and then stand for the entire culture of racial segregation, discrimination and intimidation in the southern United States.)
When Donalds’ statement was reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, it created an uproar. The Biden-Harris campaign posted a 28-second clip on X with the offending statement and the notation, “Trump VP contender Byron Donalds claims life was better for Black Americans ‘during Jim Crow.’”
Donalds hit back, claiming in his own post that “1. You lied. I never said better. 2. Don’t clip my words. Play the whole thing. Let me help you.”
“I grew up with my Mom. My Dad and my Mom, things didn’t work out. As an adult, I look at my father and say ‘Bro, I don’t know what happened, but you’re my father and I love you. I don’t know what happened!’ I wasn’t there. But I’m going to tell you this: Growing up, one thing I wanted to do—and this is not about my father, this is about what I wanted to do—is I wanted to be a father to my sons.
“And so one of the things that’s actually happening in our culture, which you’re now starting to see in our politics, is the reinvigoration of black males with younger black men and black women and that is also helping to breed the revival of a black middle class in America.
“You see, during Jim Crow, during Jim Crow the black family was together. During Jim Crow more black people were not just conservative—black people were always conservative minded—more black people voted conservatively. And then, HEW, Lyndon Johnson, and then you go down that road and we are where we are.
“What’s happened in America the last ten years, and I say this because it’s my contemporaries, your contemporaries, you’re starting to see more black people be married, in homes, raising kids, because when you’re home with your wife raising your kids, and then you’re looking at the world, you’re saying: ‘Now wait a minute, time out. This does not look right. How can I get something to my kids?’ It goes back to the conversation about generational wealth. Not just a job, generational wealth. I’m looking at my kids be on my shoulders when they take off in life. That’s what’s happening.”
The reaction
House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries denounces Rep. Byron Donalds on the House floor. (Image: US House)
Whatever Donalds intended, the reaction was swift and severe.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-8-NY), the House minority leader, took to the floor of the House of Representatives to angrily denounce Donalds’ statement in a 1-minute, 4-second speech.
“Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that a so-called leader has made the factually inaccurate statement that black folks were better off during Jim Crow. That’s an outlandish, outrageous and out-of-pocket observation. We were not better off when a young boy named Emmett Till could be brutally murdered without consequence because of Jim Crow, we were not better off. When black women could be sexually assaulted without consequence because of Jim Crow, we were not better off. When people could be systematically lynched without consequence because of Jim Crow, we were not better off. When children could be denied a high quality education without consequence because of Jim Crow we were not better off. When people could be denied the right to vote without consequence because of Jim Crow.
“How dare you make such an ignorant observation. You’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself.”
The Biden-Harris campaign didn’t just slam Donalds on X.
“Donald Trump spent his adult life, and then his presidency undermining the progress Black communities fought so hard for — so it actually tracks that his campaign’s ‘Black outreach’ is going to a white neighborhood and promising to take America back to Jim Crow,“ Biden-Harris spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.
The Donalds statement blazed across the media landscape like an uncontrolled wildfire, with almost all headlines negative and emphasizing Donalds’ support for Jim Crow: The New York Times, “Byron Donalds, Trump V.P. Contender, Suggests Jim Crow Era Had an Upside;” The Washington Post, “Rep. Byron Donalds says Black families were stronger during Jim Crow era;” Politico: “Byron Donalds expresses nostalgia for the Jim Crow era, when ‘the Black family was together;” NBC News: “Trump surrogate Byron Donalds hearkens back to Jim Crow era when ‘the Black family was together;’ The Hill: “Donalds suggests Black families were stronger during Jim Crow era.”
Innumerable anonymous responses on X were far more extreme, pointing out, among other things, that Donalds would have been lynched for marrying—much less courting—a white woman during Jim Crow.
Donalds has tried to respond and clarify his remarks but his efforts have been comparable to trying to fight a firehose with a squirt gun.
Analysis: Twisted history
Byron Donalds and history don’t mix.
Whether it was the moment in 2021 when he said that Potemkin villages were invented by the East Germans to hide their side of Berlin from the West, to his rage about being sent a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to this latest misstatement, it is clear that history is not his strongest subject.
Perhaps he’s right that there’s a discussion to be had about the strength of black families down through the ages.
But as Jeffries pointed out, during the Jim Crow era, the point of segregationist and discriminatory law was not to strengthen the black family. The negative impact of southern oppression on black families is more than amply chronicled in both fact and fiction.
But going beyond the argument over the impact of Jim Crow on families there’s Donalds’ assertion that black voters “were not just conservative—black people were always conservative minded—more black people voted conservatively.”
That’s just factually wrong.
Ending slavery was a radical cause in the United States before the Civil War and ending discrimination after it was part of the liberal agenda. After they gained the right to vote through the 15th Amendment black voters responded and were overwhelmingly not conservative, but Republican. “Conservatism” at the time meant returning to the situation during enslavement or something like it.
Although President Abraham Lincoln ended slavery, after emancipation white southerners tried to segregate the races, i.e., establish a Jim Crow society in the South. The Republican Party opposed and worked against Jim Crow laws and southern racial discrimination, winning black voters’ loyalty.
In contrast, the post-Reconstruction South was solidly segregationist Democratic and white politicians and racists did everything they could to suppress and deny black voting rights. Restoring and protecting those rights was a liberal cause, not a conservative one and politically active blacks responded accordingly.
Where blacks could not express their discontent in political activity or at the ballot box in the South they voted with their feet, resulting in a vast migration northward where there were jobs and far less overt discrimination. They were hardly “conservatively minded.”
After World War II and the victorious fight against Fascism, the wall of racial segregation began to crumble but not before southern politicians did absolutely everything they possibly could to stop civil rights for black citizens. In 1948 then-Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina led a walkout of southerners from the Democratic Party to form his own, segregationist Dixiecrat Party and run for president. In 1964 he switched allegiance to the Republican Party—after President Lyndon Johnson, the president whom Donalds denigrated, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination. In 1968 President Richard Nixon launched his “southern strategy” to position the Party to pick up the allegiance of segregationist voters previously loyal to Gov. George Wallace of Alabama and position the Republicans as the party of disaffected white southerners.
The overwhelming majority of black voters were never “conservative minded” when conservatism meant maintaining Jim Crow, nor did they vote conservatively. Their clear and obvious interest was in moving society forward toward integration and non-discrimination. Indeed, Rev. Martin Luther King excoriated those moderate liberals who did not do enough toward this end in his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”
So Donalds has virtually all of his history wrong. But that’s hardly anything new.
Analysis: The political fallout
As though to provide icing on a very sour cake, Donalds’ latest statement comes two weeks after the century anniversary of the 1924 Fort Myers lynchings, another feature of the Jim Crow South and something that occurred in his own district, no less.
But it also comes at an extremely sensitive time politically.
It comes when history in Florida is being officially re-written to teach school children that before emancipation, “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” thereby justifying bondage as beneficial to those enslaved. When Donalds argues that Jim Crow strengthened black families, he appears to be seeing advantage in a time when official discrimination and prejudice were the norm.
Step by step, school by school, library by library in Florida, Donalds, his Trumpist allies and cultural crusaders are normalizing social situations that existed back when America was supposedly “great.” One has to wonder where this leads. Was America great when women didn’t vote? When alcohol was banned? When lynchings were common? When race riots went unpunished?
“The Apprentice” redux
On another front, there is Trump’s reprise of his “The Apprentice” reality show in picking his vice presidential running mate and the role of Donalds’ remarks in his bid for the job.
The remarks come when Trump, who has made no secret of his racial prejudices, is threatening to make them the law of the land if he is elected president again. Is Donalds attempting to curry favor with a man who says that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America and all Mexicans are “criminals” and “rapists?” Are these the kind of policies Donalds will pursue in the White House if he attains it? Does he believe that if he is elected Trump’s vice president he will promote Jim Crow policies to “strengthen” the black family?
All the candidates, no matter how remote their chances, are under greater scrutiny than usual (although nothing compared to what the winner will receive). Every gaffe, stumble and indiscretion is magnified and blasted across the media landscape.
They are also competing for the favor of a mercurial, unpredictable felon facing jail time.
Donalds is making his bid by showing his loyalty and spewing out a torrent of pro-Trump statements and postings. He traveled to New York to stand by Trump at the trial, he spoke as a passionate Trumper in the Bronx and he’s served as a surrogate for Trump elsewhere, which is why he was in Philadelphia.
But as the Trump vice presidential candidates are learning, unthinking and unblinking loyalty is not enough. The reality show is now in a phase where the wrong statement, the wrong move, an irritable moment or a passing gaffe is enough to disqualify a contestant. For example, when South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) revealed to the world that she shot an innocent puppy, she probably disqualified herself no matter how much Trump might approve.
Will Donalds’ seeming longing for what he regards as the family-friendly days of Jim Crow disqualify him from the Trumpstakes? Only Trump can know for sure. But even Trump, who no doubt himself longs himself for the days of Jim Crow, may experience a moment of hesitation given the strength of the reaction to Donalds’ statements.
However this plays out, it is another expression of Donalds’ sometimes incredible ineptitude as a politician. He may be able to fool some of the people in Florida’s 19th Congressional District all of the time, and he may be able to fool all Americans some of the time, but increasingly he is proving that, as Lincoln noted, he cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
Rep. Byron Donalds and Rep. Wesley Hunt enjoy cognac and cigars at the Philadelphia event where Donalds discussed Jim Crow. (Photo: Brakkton Booker /Politico)
The motto on the West Pediment above the entrance to the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DC. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
June 3, 2024 by David Silverberg
On March 5, 1770 eight British soldiers opened fire on a threatening mob in Boston in what was then the Massachusetts Colony. Three people in the crowd were killed instantly, eight were wounded and two died later.
The incident is known in American history as the Boston Massacre.
It was an important event in America’s march toward revolution. But almost as important as the incident itself was its aftermath, when American colonists, intending to demonstrate to the world that they were capable of administering impartial justice in their courts, put the British soldiers on trial.
The man who stepped forward to defend the soldiers was John Adams, a prominent lawyer, patriot and no lackey of the king. But Adams fully understood that America, to be credible as a self-governing entity, had to show that whatever the political passions of the moment, law had to prevail over all.
Adams capably defended the soldiers. Six were acquitted; two were convicted of manslaughter and given reduced sentences of having their thumbs branded. The commanding captain, Thomas Preston, was tried separately and acquitted since he had not given an order to fire.
Adams faced intense criticism for his willingness to defend the soldiers but he understood the principle he was defending and its importance to America.
“The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough,” he wrote on its third anniversary. “It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country.”
The Boston Massacre was an important step in America’s march to independence; but the Adams defense was almost as critical in laying the cornerstone for a nation and a new society founded on the principle of the rule of law.
So important is that principle that it is engraved on the pediment above the entrance to the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DC: “Equal justice under law.”
Law and its impartial administration is both the roof protecting the United States from above and the absolute foundational bedrock sustaining it below, enabling a functional, rational, democratic society.
Now law itself—and everything that John Adams and the founding patriots worked to achieve—is under attack because of a verdict in a court case in New York that found former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.
During the trial Trump lambasted and insulted the judge, the judge’s family, the prosecutor and the court system itself for a variety of what he considered sins. He, his attorneys, and his witnesses dripped with contempt for the whole proceeding and those conducting it. But when it was over and he had resoundingly lost and been found guilty, he attacked the trial as “rigged.”
Trump has always attacked anything that hasn’t gone his way as “rigged” and illegitimate—like elections. There is no surprise there.
The Florida enablers
But it’s not just Trump trying to bring down the very notion of law and justice. An army of sycophants, serfs and supporters are taking up his chorus and are seeking to discredit, overturn and destroy the rule of law—and Florida elected officials, including those from Southwest Florida, are in the front ranks.
Last Friday, May 31, eight United States Republican senators issued a statement.
The senators pledged not to vote for any increase to domestic appropriations or spending bills that “funds partisan lawfare;” they will not vote to confirm any political or judicial appointees; nor will they allow any “expedited consideration and passage of Democrat legislation or authorities that are not directly relevant to the safety of the American people.”
The reason for this stubborn refusal to do the nation’s business? As they put it: “The White House has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways.”
Included among the eight were both of Florida’s senators: Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
This is richly ironic on a number of levels, most prominently because they are taking these steps precisely because President Joe Biden and the US justice system are defending the rule of law and the nation’s politics from un-American crimes by Trump and his minions.
It’s also ironic that what these senators term “lawfare,” a favorite term of Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) cultists, is the simple administration of justice. This supposed “lawfare” is applied to just one man—Trump.
(These protestations are also ironic coming from Rubio, who was so humiliatingly savaged by Trump in the past.)
The statement is a transparent and hypocritical attempt by these politicians to curry favor with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and the MAGA base. But it’s also an expression of the weird, circus-mirror world of Trump, where the application of law is “mockery” and an effort to enforce the rules and punish criminality is “un-American.”
The same impulses and hypocrisies appear to have driven Southwest Florida’s congressmen to similarly denounce the New York verdict.
Upon the announcement of the verdict Rep. Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) immediately stated on X: “A disgrace to our judicial system and constitutional protections of equal justice for all. Americans see right through the Democrats’ scheme. This is nothing but election interference. President Trump will get justice on appeal.”
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.), usually the most sober and moderate Southwest Florida representative, similarly fell into line.
“The case against former President Trump is an obvious and blatant travesty of justice and a political witch hunt,” he wrote on X. “This is a direct threat to our democracy. This case should never have seen the light of day.”
In a lengthier statement he denounced the trial as “a tactic commonly used by dictators against their political adversaries” and accused the Biden administration and New York prosecutors of “focusing on bringing down a former president and GOP candidate for president. It is clear that this political sham of a trail [sic] has been centered on destroying a candidate rather than fighting actual crime.”
But of Southwest Florida’s representatives, none was more voluble—or extreme—than Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.). He’s been sending out a torrent of propaganda on X and speaking on every media platform that will host him to firmly establish himself as a leading Trumper. In Trump’s vice presidential replay of his television show “The Apprentice,” Donalds clearly hopes that he’s still a candidate so he’s been trying to firmly establish his unthinking and unblinking loyalty to the now-convicted felon.
“What happened in NY is disaster verdict by a crooked judge and a crooked prosecution. Donald Trump is innocent. To hell with what the jury said,” Donalds stated on X immediately after the verdict.
He followed up in a later post: “What happened in NY is a TRAVESTY. Biden’s FAILED as president & rogue prosecutors are now persecuting his chief political opponent. This is not about Republican or Democrat. This is about the political weaponization of our courts, our future as a nation & the American people. America, this is what a political prosecution looks like. Remember in November!”
“You CANNOT respect this legal process when it was rigged from the jump,” he raged the day after the verdict. “REMEMBER: They could not even identify the underlying crime. This legal process was not fair to President Trump & did not protect his constitutional rights.”
Donalds’ denunciations were particularly interesting given his direct attacks on the American justice system: statements like, “To hell with what the jury said” or “You CANNOT respect this legal process” or his charge that the trial “did not protect his constitutional rights,” when Trump could have testified in his own defense and declined to do so.
But all this is especially ironic given Donalds’ reaction to the Trump mob’s invasion of the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when Donalds was in the building.
“We are a nation of laws that have governed this exceptional Constitutional Republic for more than two centuries, and no amount of anger should ever compromise that,” he wrote then. “Our party has always been a party that respects our brave law enforcement, the Rule of Law and the institutions that make America the greatest country to ever exist.”
Apparently three years later those truths don’t apply when it comes to Donald Trump—at least as far as Donalds is concerned.
Analysis: Past and future
This is not the first time in recorded history that a prominent politician has been charged with crimes he disdained and had his followers argue he is above the law.
In 49 BCE Julius Caesar was charged by the Senate with violating Roman law and ordered to return to Rome alone to face charges. However, he felt that his victories and his “dignitas,” his sense of self-worth, put him above the law.
Instead of obeying, he crossed the Rubicon River with his legions and marched south, captured the city and ultimately made himself dictator for life. At that point the only way he could be deposed was by death and he was assassinated in 44 BCE.
It was an example—and a warning—of where societies go when the rule of law is usurped.
But last week’s Trump trial, the verdict and the reverberations can be put into a much larger context.
Why does a world that seemed so stable, so invulnerable and so established now seem in such a deadly and uncertain flux?
The world being attacked is the one that emerged victorious from the defeat of Fascism in 1945 and the fall of Communism in 1991. That world was a rule-based, American-led, democratic, egalitarian, inclusive global order and culture protected by the military might and power of the United States.
But any order has its malcontents. Three individuals in particular led an assault to overthrow this global culture and the Pax Americana.
Osama Bin Laden attacked it with terror and tried to replace it with a Muslim theocracy. Vladimir Putin used the forces of the Russian Republic to try to topple American dominance and re-establish the Soviet Union. And Donald Trump tried to tear down the US Constitution, the US Congress, a US election and overthrow American democracy to assert his absolute dominance.
Today Bin Laden is dead and his movement shattered. Putin is bogged down in Ukraine and the outcome of his reconquest is in doubt. And Trump was stopped by the institutions emplaced to prevent a dictatorship, has been tried in accordance with the American judicial system and has been declared a felon by a jury of his peers.
All the politicians—whether in Southwest Florida or not—and enablers, sycophants and coconspirators disparaging the American system of justice, arguing that this man should have complete immunity from any kind of restraint, are trying to throw off the equality of all people before the law and are picking away at the bedrock foundations of the American edifice.
They know better but they do it nonetheless for petty, short-term gain.
What is worse, they seem to have no understanding of what will follow if they succeed in toppling the justice system they so hate. As noted before, the rule of law is like a sturdy building that protects its occupants from above and below. If it comes crashing down there will be nothing but rubble; no protection from any winds that blow or storms that follow.
What is more, these politicians will be every bit as vulnerable as everyone else—indeed more so. They will achieve equality but an equality of vulnerability amidst a hurricane of chaos. If they succeed in putting Donald Trump in power as a dictator, as they are ultimately trying, they will be even more subject to his whims, his rages and his retribution—and he always lashes out first at those closest to him.
President Joe Biden put it best in remarks he made the day after the verdict.
“The American principal that no one is above the law was reaffirmed. Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself,” he said. “And it’s reckless, dangerous, irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict. Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years. It is a cornerstone of America, our justice system. The justice system should be respected. We should never allow anyone to tear it down. It is as simple as that. That is America. That is who we are. That is who we will always be, God willing.”
A lone American flag flies over a devastated Fort Myers Beach in the days after Hurricane Ian. (Photo: U.S. Air National Guard /Jesse Hanson)
May 29, 2024 by David Silverberg
As has been well publicized by now, this year’s hurricane season, which officially begins Saturday, June 1, is predicted to be an especially active one.
There are already reminders in various media for storm preparation: buy batteries, flashlights and water, make a plan and know your evacuation zone, among other measures.
But it also makes sense to plan to vote despite any hurricanes that hit—because this year there’s so much at stake and every vote counts, whether in primary or general elections.
What’s more, in Florida there’s an extremely important primary election on Aug. 20—the date when the hurricane season traditionally kicks into high gear.
“Now, storms can get going before Aug. 20, but this is typically about when they start,” Philip Klotzbach, a famous hurricane forecaster at Colorado State University told the Christian Science Monitor in 2011.
This primary will be a “closed” primary, meaning that only registered members of a particular political party can vote for the party’s candidates. But there will also be important “universal” races at stake, where all voters can make a choice and some of the races may be decided at that point. All voters, regardless of party, should be registered and eligible to vote on these universal ballot measures. (The universal measures will be covered in a later posting.)
This article will provide links and information to check your registration and apply to vote by mail in Collier, Lee and Charlotte counties. It will then provide some historical background regarding elections and hurricanes in Florida.
Bottom line on top: Voting by mail is your best option. Make sure you do what’s necessary. Now.
Registration and vote-by-mail applications
To vote in the Aug. 20 primary, you must be registered to vote by July 22.
Check to make sure you’re properly registered. This is worth doing because there have been allegations in the past of misregistrations. To check, click on the links below and fill out the forms:
The deadline to request a mail-in ballot for the Aug. 20 primary election is Aug. 8 at 5 pm (and that hourly deadline is very important! Nothing after that will be accepted.)
There are several advantages to voting by mail, especially in hurricane-prone Florida.
One is that you don’t have to vote by mail once you have the ballot. You can mail it back, put it in a drop box or take it to a polling station and hand it in there.
This is especially useful if voting is disrupted by weather. It gives you the flexibility to return your ballot several different ways and over a longer period of time.
Another advantage is that once you receive the ballot in the mail, you have the time and leisure to research and ponder items that you may not have previously considered, like judicial elections, amendments or more obscure, down-ballot races.
Also, by and large, voting by mail is reliable. You usually receive your ballot in the mail in a timely fashion and you can reliably return it and be confident that it will be received and properly counted—and you can check online that it has been received.
Even if storms strike, even if mail delivery is disrupted by a storm, voters can get their ballots into the system. The US Postal Service (USPS) makes strenuous efforts to deliver mail even in the wake of severe disasters.
Indeed, there have been times after disasters when the arrival of a USPS delivery truck or mail carrier on foot was the first indication of recovery and a return to normal. This dedication is a much-underappreciated aspect of USPS operations.
The Lee County Supervisor of Elections makes the point on his website that under a new Florida statute that went into effect in April, mail-in ballots will not be forwarded to an address other than the one on the voter’s registration.
(So, in other words, if you’ve requested a mail-in ballot and you’re away from your Florida address when the mail-in ballots go out, you will not receive it at any other address.)
This applies statewide.
Voting by mail only became controversial in 2020. That year it provided a safe way for people to vote despite the COVID pandemic. Then-President Donald Trump went to great lengths to disparage it as “rigged” despite no evidence that it encouraged fraud or tampering. Ironically, in prior elections, voting by mail had actually favored Republicans in Florida since so many were seasonal residents and voted from second homes in northern states. While the Republican Party tried to conceal or contradict Trump’s discouragement of mail-in voting, he created a deep suspicion of the practice that lingers to this day. So far this year he is encouraging voting by mail.
The storms of August
There are plenty of historical examples of hurricanes striking on or around Aug. 20.
As bad as August can be, even the general election on Nov. 5 is not immune from the influence of hurricanes. For example, in 2018 Hurricane Michael struck the Florida panhandle on Oct. 10, just before that year’s midterm elections and disrupted voting. Then, just two years ago in 2022, Hurricane Ian made landfall in Southwest Florida on Sept. 28, a day short of a month before early voting began in the general election.
In both cases, voting was disrupted as people tried to dig out and recover. No doubt voting was far from their minds in the immediate aftermath of the storm. A study of Hurricane Michael found that after the storm voting rates dropped the further voters had to travel to reach operable polling places.
In the event of disasters the governor can authorize special voting arrangements like mobile polling places and emergency election stations. Following Hurricane Ian, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) issued an executive order to officials in Sarasota, Charlotte and Lee counties giving them authority to open polling places wherever feasible.
Given the threat being predicted for the 2024 hurricane season, it’s time for everyone to start preparing. We’re not just protecting our homes and communities; this year like no other, we also need to protect our democracy from all threats foreign, domestic— and climatic.
The African-American neighborhood of Fort Myers in an undated photo.
May 24, 2024 by David Silverberg
This is a revised and updated version of an article first posted on May 22, 2019.
This Saturday, May 25th, marks 100 years since two African-American teenagers were seized by a white mob and lynched in Fort Myers, Fla.
The anniversary comes amidst a rise in hatred and racism in the United States and serves as a stark reminder of where bigotry ultimately leads. It’s also a demonstration of what happens when the rule of law breaks down.
It can happen here—and it has.
It’s also worth remembering; history does not have to repeat.
What happened
This account draws from two sources: One is an article in The Fort Myers News-Press on the event’s 90th anniversary. That article, “Lynching history spurs call for closure, 90 years later” by reporter Janine Zeitlin, was published on May 21, 2014. The account drew on people’s recollections and the work of Nina Denson-Rogers, historian of the Lee County Black History Society, who pieced together fragmentary information on the incident.
The other is the original, unbylined article that appeared in the Fort Myers Press on May 26, 1924, headlined, “Negroes pay penalty for horrible crime committed yesterday.” (Referred in this article as the “1924 account.” The article is posted in full below.)
According to Zeitlin, on Sunday, May 25, 1924 two black teenagers, R.J. Johnson, 14, and Milton Wilson, 15, (his name also given as “Bubbers” Wilson and the other victim is named as Milton Williams in the 1924 account) were spotted by a passerby swimming with two white girls on the outskirts of Fort Myers, then a segregated city of about 3,600 people. Lee County was home to about 15,000 people.
“The lynchings happened after R.J. and Milton went swimming at a pond with two white girls on the outskirts of town,” according to the Zeitlin article. “They were said to friends with the girls, maybe more. Perhaps they were skinny-dipping. There were rumors of rape, though one girl and her brother denied it.
“The two boys and girls lived near each other, were long familiar and played with each other as children, states Zeitlin. The swimming was reported by someone as a rape. The 1924 account simply states that the boys “attacked two young Fort Myers school girls.”
The black community first learned that something was amiss when evening church services were canceled. Just before sunset the rape report resulted in white residents on foot, horseback and in cars gathering at a white girl’s residence. From there they began invading black homes and yards in a search for the two boys. During the evening, chaos spread through the city as the search continued. At one point a gas truck was driven into the black community with the intention of burning it down if the boys weren’t found.
Lee County Sheriff J. “Ed” Albritton in an undated photo. (LCSO)
At some point R.J. Johnson was found. According to the 1924 account, he was arrested by Sheriff J.E. Albritton and put in the county jail.
“Hearing of this the armed citizens went to the jail and demanded the prisoner. The request being lawfully refused by the sheriff, he was overpowered, the jail unlocked and the negro led out,” states the 1924 article.
According to that article, once seized, Johnson was “taken before one of the girls” where he was identified and confessed. According to Zeitlin, however, one of the girls and her brother denied that there had been any rape.
In the Zeitlin account, Johnson was taken to a tree along Edison Avenue, hanged and shot. According to the 1924 account “his body was riddled with bullets and dragged through the streets to the Safety Hill section.
“The search then continued for Wilson, who was found at 4:46 am the next morning by a railroad foreman, hiding in a railroad box car on a northbound train. He was taken from the box car, hanged, castrated and shot multiple times. His body was then dragged down Cranford Avenue by a Model T.”
“It was like a parade, some evil parade in Hell,” according to Mary Ware, a resident who was quoted in a 1976 article in the News-Press. The crowd broke up when the sheriff and a judge appeared.
The headline in the Fort Myers Press.
On Monday the afternoon edition of the Fort Myers Press was headlined “Negroes Pay Penalty for Horrible Crime Committed Yesterday.”
On the same day a jury convened and absolved the sheriff, attributing the lynchings to “parties unknown.”
“That the rape had taken place, the black community definitely felt never occurred, that it was prefabricated by this white man who came across them swimming,” said resident Jacob Johnson in a late 1990s interview with the Lee County Black History Society, quoted by Zeitlin. “Everyone felt … these boys had just been killed for no reason, other than they were there with these white girls.”
In the United States, however, it evokes a particular idea: a racially-based, mob-conducted, illegal, unpunished hanging driven by hatred, prejudice and rage, usually based on unfounded accusations.
The era of American lynching is considered to have lasted from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, often known as the Jim Crow era. If one wishes to put specific dates on it, it arguably lasted from the Plessy vs. Ferguson Supreme Court decision of 1896 that enshrined segregation of the races as “separate but equal” to 1954’s Brown vs. Board of Education when the Supreme Court ended segregation in education.
But these are debatable dates. There were lynchings before these dates and after. They didn’t all involve hanging.
What’s more, not all lynchings were racially motivated. In the western United States, cattle rustlers and other accused criminals were strung up by posses on the spot regardless of their race.
Whatever the dates or history, it’s clear that lynching is where racism, blind fury and bigotry lead, the Fort Myers lynching no less than any other.
But the Fort Myers lynching is also a lesson on the rule of law. In 1924 the two accused teenagers had no rights, no protections, and no defense. They were never able to assert or prove their innocence. They were presumed guilty from the outset, never tried and were punished according to the whims of the mob.
As the rule of law is eroded in this country, every American loses the protections that law provides. The result can be something like a lynching—and can lead to the deaths of innocent people.
A century may seem like a long time ago, in a different age and this kind of behavior may seem ancient and unthinkable today. But the fury and hatred that led to lynchings is still very much with us.
Very recently, in our own time, on Jan. 6, 2021 an incited horde of insurrectionists invaded the United States Capitol. Outside was a crude gallows. Inside those imposing halls the screaming rioters demanded to hang the Vice President of the United States.
That was a lynch mob just as surely as the one that demanded the deaths of Bubbers Wilson and RJ Johnson.
In 1924, the mob succeeded. In 2021 it failed.
Even now, the only thing standing between mob mayhem and civilization is the rule of law and the willingness to apply, assert and enforce that law. It’s a precious gift that’s under enormous threat.
And if there’s any lesson that the Fort Myers lynching can teach, it’s that the rule of law needs to be defended as much today as it did then, 100 years ago—and it is just as threatened.
The gallows erected outside the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Tyler Merbler)
The full front page of the Fort Myers Press on May 26, 1924.
Below is the full text, with original capitalization and usage, of the article on the Fort Myers lynchings as published on the front page of The Fort Myers Press, on May 26, 1924:
NEGROES PAY PENALTY FOR HORRIBLE CRIME COMMITTED YESTERDAY
Two negro youths, “Bubbers” Wilson and Milton Williams, met death at the hands of “unknown persons” early this morning following their positive identification as the two negroes who yesterday afternoon had attacked two young Fort Myers school girls.
Within a few hours after word of the happening had reached town a systematic search was started independent of the efforts of Sheriff J.E. Albritton who with his force was on the job immediately upon hearing of the crime.
A general round up of suspicious characters by the sheriff’s office netted Wilson, who was lodged in the county jail.
Hearing of this the armed citizens went to the jail and demanded the prisoner. The request being lawfully refused by the sheriff, he was overpowered, the jail unlocked and the negro led out.
Taken before one of the girls he was identified by her and then taken away where he confessed to his captors, following which his body was riddled with bullets and dragged through the streets to the Safety Hill section.
The search for his accomplice was then carried out with increased vigor, all outlets from the city being carefully guarded. The hunted man was located about 4:46 a.m., on a north-bound train pulling out of the railroad yards. Following his positive identification, he met the same fate as the first negro.
The following jurors were sworn in by County Judge N.G. Stout, coroner ex-officio, this morning: C. J. Stubbs, C.C. Pursley, Vernon Wilderquist, Alvin Gorton, W.W. White and Thomas J. Evans.
Charged with ascertaining by what means the two negroes met their deaths, the jurors reported as follows: “the said “Bubbers” Wilson and Wilton Williams came to their death in the following manner, to-wit:
By the hands of parties unknown, and we herewith wish to commend the Sheriff and his entire force for the earnest efforts made by them, in their attempt to carry out the duties of their office.”
A building destroyed by Hurricane Ian on Fort Myers Beach, Fla., four months after the storm came ashore in September 2022. (Photo: Author)
May 19, 2024 by David Silverberg
One month after the earth experienced the hottest April in history, 16 days before the start of what is expected to be an extremely active 2024 hurricane season, five days after Tallahassee was hit with its worst recorded tornado outbreak ever, and three days before Southwest Florida was put under an extreme heat advisory, the government of Florida formally banned use of the term “climate change” in state statutes.
“Florida rejects the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid, pursue a radical climate agenda, and promote foreign adversaries,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) stated in a May 15 posting on X.
“Global elites want to reduce the standing and influence of America and the west. Florida says no!” stated a graphic that accompanied the posting.
On that day, DeSantis signed House Bill 1645 into law, which rescinded language in state laws that tried to address or reduce factors contributing to climate change.
As the governor’s statement put it, the law repeals “Obama-era” climate policies. No longer will the state set clean energy goals or take climate change into account in setting state energy policy. It will no longer make an effort to take a leading role in promoting energy conservation or attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. No longer will state agencies try to hold meetings in facilities that acknowledge climate change and try to be environmentally responsible. No longer will state schools, agencies or local governments try to buy reduced-carbon vehicles.
Moreover, local governments are now prohibited from taking environmental actions on their own to reduce energy use or cut down on carbon emissions.
Gas appliances? They can’t be touched by laws or regulations. In fact, the law promotes the use of natural gas.
And don’t think of putting up a wind farm. That’s prohibited along Florida shores (not that Florida has any at the moment).
All this comes a year after DeSantis rejected $354 million in federal funding for improved energy efficiency.
At the time, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-14-Fla.), who had chaired the US House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, accused DeSantis of “pickpocketing Floridians, making the cost of living more expensive. We’re already paying higher property insurance than anywhere else in the country, higher electric bills. He has been a disaster for clean energy and environment in Florida.”
Florida’s latest anti-environmental measures are especially ironic—and self-defeating—given that they apply to a state that is probably the most climatically vulnerable in the country and the most impacted by climate change.
What’s more, they’re out of synch with the perceptions and sentiments of a majority of Floridians.
Facts and the future
In February the Environmental Defense Fund, a global, non-profit think-tank, specifically focused on Florida and the likely impacts of climate change, presenting its findings in a graphic, interactive presentation titled Florida’s Climate Future.
Spoiler alert: all the impacts are bad. Thanks to climate change, when it comes to energy, Floridians can expect greater demands on the electric grid, rising electricity costs and inducing greater unreliability as the climate disrupts the supply. As it is, Florida is already the third-highest energy consuming state in the nation.
Given rising heat, there will be more deaths from heat, more wildfires and hotter sea temperatures. As of last August, Collier County had over 80 days with a heat index over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Lee and Charlotte counties had between 70 and 80. If current trends continue, in 26 years, 2050, Collier County will have 126 days a year with temperatures over 100 degrees, Lee will have 112 and Charlotte will have 111. (And all this comes after the legislature banned cities, towns and counties from mandating heat breaks for outdoor workers.)
But the worst impacts will likely come in storms and floods. “Extreme rain events” like hurricanes are increasing in frequency and intensity and there’s no reason to expect that will change any time soon. The state’s flatness and extensive coastlines already make it uniquely vulnerable to flooding and storm destruction. Hurricane Ian in 2022 was the first hurricane to result in over $100 billion in estimated damages. This is all exacerbated by warming sea temperatures, rising seas and a moister atmosphere.
These projections are not lost on property insurance companies who game out the state’s prospects into the far future. In addition to massive losses and payouts insurance companies have had to make for past disasters, the companies’ actuaries are telling their bosses that due to climate change, risks are rising with no prospect for change in the future. It’s a key reason that established insurance companies have fled the state and rates for Florida homeowners are skyrocketing.
A table from the Actuaries Climate Index showing the rising level of risk in the Southeast Atlantic region, which includes Florida. The red bars represent extreme weather events in each particular season. The black line is the level of risk. Note the frequency of the red bars after 2015. The interactive version of the chart can be accessed here.
Insurance companies aren’t swayed by the governor’s denials, the legislature outlawing climate change, or the votes of blindly fanatical climate deniers. They—and every other entity that has to weigh realistic choices—make decisions based on objective, scientific facts and rationally-determined risk.
By any calculation, the odds are very bad. So the companies have fled the state or are avoiding it altogether, to be replaced by less-established, questionable providers. Meanwhile, rates continue to rise for policyholders.
Analysis: Why the delusion?
In a state so subject to such obvious climatic changes, why does its elected leadership so resolutely refuse to acknowledge what is clearly underway?
Some answers seem obvious to even the most casual observer and they’re rooted in basic human nature.
There’s simple inertia, a refusal to acknowledge change in any form. There’s denial, the resistance to facing uncomfortable facts. There’s helplessness, a sense that no action will have any effect anyway.
Added to those are some political reasons peculiar to Florida.
There’s a fear of offending a constituency that’s older and resistant to change—which is also Republican.
This year the survey, released on Tuesday, May 14, one day before the governor’s bill signing, found that belief in human-caused climate change had fallen among Florida Republicans from 45 percent to 40 percent—meaning that 60 percent of Republicans don’t believe human activity is a factor in climate change. That’s the 60 percent of Republican voters that Florida lawmakers need to win their primaries.
It also found that older voters are less likely to believe that human activity causes climate change than younger ones (50 percent of Floridians over 50 years of age don’t believe in climate change compared to 66 percent of Floridians under 50).
Given that older Republicans have a preponderant sway in primary elections, it’s far easier for Republican politicians to pander to this demographic than to serve the entire population of the state or do anything to halt or mitigate climate change’s ravages.
As DeSantis’ May 15 posting revealed, opposition to acknowledging climate change is also ideologically rooted. Climate-denying Republicans are still warring against the Green New Deal, a concept that sprouted in 2019 but has been moribund ever since, although it serves as a useful specter to scare a credulous base.
DeSantis has his own special anti-woke crusade that he had hoped to ride to the presidency this year. In his view, anything that smacks of concern for the environment or the planet or acknowledges climate change is lumped together under “wokeness” and is to be denounced and opposed.
DeSantis’ anti-environmentalism is somewhat poignant in that upon taking office in 2019 he drew a sharp distinction from his gubernatorial predecessor, Rick Scott (now senator). Scott had banished the term “climate change” from state government and resisted meeting with scientists to discuss the subject. (He ultimately met them, but only briefly.)
By contrast, DeSantis declared in his inaugural speech on Jan. 8, 2019: “For Florida, the quality of our water and environmental surroundings are foundational to our prosperity as a state—it doesn’t just drive tourism; it affects property values, anchors many local economies and is central to our quality of life,”
He continued: “We will fight toxic blue-green algae, we will fight discharges from Lake Okeechobee, we will fight red tide, we will fight for our fishermen, we will fight for our beaches, we will fight to restore our Everglades and we will never ever quit, we won’t be cowed and we won’t let the foot draggers stand in our way.”
Of course, all that was before his presidential ambitions fueled a culture war against everything “woke” including concern for the environment and the climate.
Now there is a new/old factor driving Florida’s climate change denial: Donald Trump.
Trump has long dismissed climate change as a “hoax.” He took the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord as president. In April, according to an account in The Guardian newspaper, he met with over 20 fossil fuel executives at Mar-a-Lago and promised to give them massive tax breaks and roll back environmental and climatic measures. These included barriers to drilling, a pause on gas exports, and new rules to cut car pollution—but there was an ask: he wanted $1 billion in campaign contributions in exchange.
“Meatball Ron,” having now bent the knee to Trump, has assumed Trump’s anti-environmentalism as well and so climate change denial is in full force in Florida.
Ironically, attitudes among the population of Florida are moving in a polar opposite direction. According to the Florida Climate Resilience Survey, 90 percent of Floridians believe that climate change is happening—even more than in the rest of the US population, where 72 percent believe it.
What is more, Floridians want state and federal government to do more to combat climate change: 68 percent of all respondents wanted more state government action and 69 percent wanted more from the federal government.
“Floridians support strengthening our resilience to the effects of climate change because they are experiencing it. The urgency to act means debate over causes is largely irrelevant,” professor Colin Polsky, founding director of Florida Atlantic University’s environmental school, stated when the survey was released.
While Republicans’ belief in human-caused climate change fell, that recognition surged among political independents, 64 percent of whom believe it, up 11 percent since the last survey in September 2023.
Republican rejection of climate change evidence is more pronounced in Southwest Florida than in the state as a whole.
There have been two regional surveys of public opinion regarding climate change. Both were conducted under the auspices of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. One was conducted a year after Hurricane Irma and released in 2019. The other was released in April 2022—but it was conducted before Hurricane Ian struck in September.
The 2022 Climate Metrics Survey of Southwest Florida found that “People who identify as Republicans are increasingly harder to engage with and persuade on issues of climate. Meanwhile, people who identify as Democrats continue to express significant concerns around climate change and support for solutions.”
Despite these partisan divides, “A total of 87 percent of adults say that climate change is happening either due to human activities (26 percent), natural causes (24 percent), or a combination of both human activities and natural causes (37 percent).” This was an increase from 2019, when 75 percent believed climate change was happening.
However, in 2022 there was greater cynicism about government’s ability to deal with the problem, less inclination toward taking action and greater fatalism toward stopping the change.
For all that, 85 percent of respondents favored modernizing the electric grid, 74 percent favored charging corporations for pollution they caused and 56 percent wanted their city or town to prepare for the impacts of climate change.
Did Hurricane Ian change any minds in Southwest Florida? It will be very interesting to see the next survey that measures attitudes after that storm—and after the 2024 hurricane season.
So taken together, all public opinion research indicates that the vast majority of Floridians believe there’s climate change, they’re acutely aware of it, they want something done about it, they believe government should take action to slow or mitigate it, and they believe humans are causing it to some degree.
However, in true Florida fashion, the state’s governor, its legislators and its whole top political echelon are moving in the exact opposite direction.
But facts are stubborn things. The governor, the legislature, climate-deniers and Donald Trump, Florida’s denier-in-chief, can deny that the climate is changing, they can legislate it out of existence in Florida law, they can prohibit speaking the words and they can (literally) stick their heads in the sand all they like—but the storms keep coming, the heat keeps increasing and the seas keep rising.
It seems that they won’t acknowledge the reality until the water is up to their eyeballs—and starts to boil around them.
Can everyday, sweltering Floridians make a difference? Of course they can, at the ballot box.
Climate change is a reality that no amount of propaganda, denial or delusion can erase. It’s up to Floridians who recognize that reality to reject candidates who deny it and vote like their lives depend upon it—because they do.
A lone American flag flies over a devastated Times Square in Fort Myers Beach immediately after Hurricane Ian. (Photo: U.S. Air National Guard /Jesse Hanson)
All of Southwest Florida’s congressional representatives voted to keep House Speaker Rep. Michael Johnson (R-4-La.) in his position, rebuffing an attempt by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.) to oust him.
The vote taken this evening at 5:43 pm was to table Greene’s “motion to vacate,” House Resolution 1209, which would have declared the Speaker’s position vacant and set in motion an effort to elect a new Speaker. By tabling the motion, the House set it aside, taking no further action and effectively killing it.
The House voted overwhelmingly, 359 to 43 to table the motion. Some 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats voted for tabling. Only 11 Republicans and 32 Democrats voted against it. Seven Democrats voted “present,” 10 Republicans and 11 Democrats did not vote at all.
Rep. Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.) was very clear about his reasons for the vote.
“This Motion to Vacate vote is nothing more than a patently obvious attempt to seek attention, it will not help achieve any tangible results except media interviews for the proponents,” he stated on X. “Since @SpeakerJohnson was elected, he has proven remarkably adept at achieving conservative policy wins with the smallest majority in modern times. Time and time again he has earned my respect and deserves the support of every House Republican.”
As of this writing, Reps. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) and Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) had not posted statements about their votes on any platform.
Water and insurance: the bane of Florida homeowners.
May 5, 2024 by David Silverberg
Southwest Floridians know that their region is in the midst of a property insurance crisis and faces long-term water issues.
Insurance companies have left the state, people are having difficulty insuring their homes, and rates are skyrocketing. Much of the crisis is caused by repeated hurricanes devastating the area—and a new and potentially disastrous hurricane season looms.
The water issue is simply ensuring that safe, clean, unpolluted water is available to sustain life in the region.
Right now the water issue has reached a new inflection point. There’s a battle between the big sugar companies of Florida’s interior and environmental groups on the Gulf coast like Captains for Clean Water over how to use the water in a major reservoir.
In the midst of these existential problems, one might expect the congressman representing the area, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) to be actively engaged on behalf of the people of his district, roughly the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island.
However, an examination of the political action committees (PACs) contributing to his campaign reveal the heavy presence of Big Insurance and Big Sugar. It means he’s beholden to these industries financially and less likely to intervene when there’s a conflict between the interests of the companies and those of his constituents.
Which PACs have purchased a piece of Donalds? Their contributions are revealed in filings with the Federal Election Committee (FEC). While these contributions are legal and properly filed, they do reveal patterns of influence that explain Donalds’ handling—or neglect—of key issues vitally affecting Southwest Florida.
As it has since Donalds boasted that “the PACs didn’t get me elected” in 2021, The Paradise Progressive has issued periodic reports on his PAC support.
The issues go well beyond just insurance and sugar. PAC donations reveal a full spectrum of businesses and industries seeking to influence the congressman.
It needs to be stressed that none of this reporting alleges illegality or wrongdoing since these filings are in keeping with federal law. Also, to be compliant, none of these contributions are supposed to be given in exchange for a definite quid pro quo, a specific official action in return for a specific contribution. However, as will be seen, in one case contributions did perhaps “inspire” a very specific legislative initiative.
Big insurance
Donalds has a longstanding relationship with the insurance industry.
In the past session he sat on the House Small Business’ Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations Subcommittee, which oversaw regulations that included the heavily regulated insurance industry.
In this session he sits on the House Oversight and Accountability’s Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee.
On this committee he mainly used his position to bash the Biden administration for a wide variety of reasons, including many related to Hunter Biden and to pursue a presidential impeachment, which went nowhere. However, given the subcommittee involvement in regulatory affairs, it’s no surprise that the insurance industry saw fit to invest in his campaign in this cycle.
Some 16 insurance industry PACs contributed a total of $94,000 to the Donalds campaign in 2023. In the first quarter of 2024 he added $4,000 from the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, Inc., PAC and $7,000 from the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Federal PAC.
The other insurance industry PACs contributing are (in alphabetical order): American Council of Life Insurers PAC; American Property Casualty Insurance Association PAC; Enact Holdings, Inc. PAC; Liberty Mutual Insurance Company – PAC; Metlife Inc. Employees’ Political Participation Fund A; Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation PAC; National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors PAC; National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies PAC; New York Life Insurance Company PAC; Protective Life Corporation Federal PAC; State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Federal PAC; The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers PAC; The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. Federal PAC; and the Wholesale and Specialty Insurance Association PAC.
The bottom line conclusion from all this is that in any conflict between constituents and insurance companies, Donalds is very beholden to the insurance industry and very unlikely to contradict the industry’s interests.
Big sugar and bad water
In Southwest Florida the sugar industry has a major presence. It has always been deeply involved in the legislative process either to maintain federal sugar subsidies or to fend off restrictive legislation.
The industry has also been accused in the past of contributing to the pollution of Lake Okeechobee, a charge the companies have vehemently denied. When released, polluted water from the lake flows down the Caloosahatchee River through Fort Myers, contributing to the growth of blue-green algae, threatening the health of both people and wildlife. The companies have denied causing the pollution and argued that they follow environmentally responsible practices.
However, right now a new battle has broken out.
Sugar companies are suing the US Army Corps of Engineers to access water from the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) reservoir rather than allow it to purify before flowing south into the Everglades and to the coast.
Environmental organizations like Captains for Clean Water are petitioning the sugar companies US Sugar Corp, Florida Crystals and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida to drop the lawsuit. If the lawsuit succeeds, according to the organization, the sugar companies will hoard the water at the expense of all other water users, change the purpose of the reservoir and could use it for their own purposes, polluting it. It could lead to events like the Big Bloom of 2018 when Southwest Florida was hit by both red tide and blue-green toxic algae blooms at the same time.
Donalds has been a major recipient of the sugar PACs’ largesse. In 2023 seven sugar industry PACs contributed a total of $11,000 to Donalds’ campaign. They were: the American Crystal Sugar Company PAC ($5,000), Amalgamated Sugar Company PAC ($1,500), the American Sugar Cane League of USA Inc. PAC ($1,000), the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative Sugar PAC ($1,000), the Western Sugar Cooperative PAC ($1,000), Florida Sugar Cane League PAC ($1,000), and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida PAC ($500).
Big finance, big banking and big tech
In 2023, after the insurance industry, the next largest contribution, $70,000, was donated by 24 financial services PACs.
This was followed by 18 banking PACs contributing a total of $67,000.
Donalds’ seat on the Digital Assets subcommittee has also made him a magnet for big technology contributions. Accordingly, in 2023 he received donations from the Microsoft Corporation Stakeholders Voluntary PAC ($3,000), Comcast Corporation and NBC Universal PAC – Federal ($2,500), Google LLC NetPAC ($2,000), Meta Platforms PAC (the company owning Facebook) ($1,000), AT&T Inc. Employee Federal PAC ($1,000), Verizon Communications, Inc., PAC ($1,000) and Charter Communications Inc., PAC ($2,500), a broadband connectivity and cable operating company.
In the first quarter of 2024, Donalds received $3,500 more from Comcast/Universal PAC, $578 from ROC Media LLC, a company that does targeted digital messaging based variously out of Sheridan, Wy., and the Virgin Islands, and $258 from Better Mousetrap Digital, a Vancouver, Canada-based digital marketing company.
Energy, nuclear and fossil
Examination of Donalds’ 2023 contributions reveals some differences from his 2022 cycle.
One of the most striking changes is in the energy sector.
For all of the Sunshine State’s sunshine—and its potential for solar power—Donalds has instead championed nuclear power.
According to Congress.gov, 14 of Donalds’ 53 bills (roughly 26 percent) in the current Congress related to the nuclear power industry, mostly deregulating it or in some way favoring it.
(A note on this: Congress.gov is the official count of the US Congress. It shows Donalds sponsoring 53 standalone bills, nine resolutions and four amendments, or 66 pieces of legislation altogether in the 118th Congress. Donalds’ office counts him as sponsoring 77 pieces of legislation.)
Donalds benefited from energy industry PACs and seven of them contributed a total of $25,500 in the 2024 cycle. Fossil fuel PACs included those from the companies Sinclair, Valero, Marathon and Exxon Mobile as well as NextEra Energy, a utility infrastructure company, and Duke Energy, an energy holding company. Also contributing was the overall trade group for fossil fuels, the American Fuels and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association PAC.
While the fossil fuel companies have all diversified their energy sources in past years, it is interesting to note that the premier nuclear industry PAC, the Nuclear Energy Institute’s Federal PAC, did not make a contribution, which an observer might otherwise expect. Of course, that could change during the course of this year’s campaign.
Ideological PACs
In addition to industry PACs, Donalds received a variety of contributions from fellow members of Congress and ideologically-driven organizations.
In 2023 these included the Eye of the Tiger PAC run by House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-1-La.), which contributed $5,000 to Donalds’ campaign. The Scalise for Congress committee also contributed $2,000.
The Let’s Get to Work PAC of Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) donated $5,000. Other members of Congress whose PACs have contributed include: Reps. Jim Jordan (R-4-Ohio) (Jim Jordan for Congress, $2,000); Jason Smith (R-8-Mo.) (Mr. Southern Missourian in the House PAC, $5,000); Patrick McHenry (R-10-NC) (Innovation PAC, $5,000); and John James (R-10-Mich.) (Mission First People Always PAC, $2,000). Former Wisconsin congressman and current Fox News commentator Sean Duffy (Duffy for Wisconsin) contributed $2,000.
In the first quarter of 2024, the Lean Forward America Fund, run by Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-38-Texas), another African American conservative member of Congress, contributed an unusually large $15,601.74 to Donalds’ campaign.
The curious case of the Kochs and Americans for Prosperity
When he first ran for Congress in 2020 Donalds was backed by Americans for Prosperity, an ideological PAC backed by the extremely conservative David and Charles Koch brothers of Wichita, Kansas. Its contributions put him over the finish line in both the primary and general elections in what was then a very tight race.
But Americans for Prosperity is missing from this cycle’s list of Donalds’ PAC donors. One reason for that may be Donalds’ embrace of earmarks, special appropriations requested by members of Congress for their districts.
Initially denounced by Republicans, Party members changed tack in 2022, embracing earmarks first with disgust and then enthusiastically when they won control of the House.
In the first year that earmarks were again permitted Donalds didn’t bother to request any for the 19th Congressional District, subjecting him to local criticism (“SWFL loses out on federal millions when Donalds won’t ask for cash”). He has changed that since then and now entertains requests from constituents.
But that may have alienated Americans for Prosperity, which has remained staunchly anti-earmark despite the Republican change of heart.
Another reason may be that the Koch brothers very publicly backed former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for president and Donalds is an outspoken Trumper.
Whatever the reason, Americans for Prosperity were not among Donalds’ donors in this cycle.
However, the Koch Industries PAC remained a backer. It contributed a total of $4,000 in 2024 and $2,000 in 2023.
Analysis: The mother’s milk of politics
There has been money in politics going back to the days when Marcus Licinius Crassus bankrolled an aggressive young Roman politician named Julius Caesar.
It’s certainly nothing new. Money has been called the “mother’s milk of politics” and Byron Donalds certainly knows how to suck at that teat.
Donalds may not be a productive lawmaker or an effective advocate for his Southwest Florida constituents but he is a relentless and persistent fundraiser.
His fundraising appeals have headlines like “Stopping the cheating Democrats dead in their tracks.” They feature statements like: “Next to Crooked Joe INTERFERING in the 2024 election, what’s the one common denominator across the Left’s many Witch Hunt [sic] against President Trump? SOROS. Soros-funded DAs, Soros-funded prosecutors – all accomplices to Crooked Joe’s attempt to DESTROY his chief political rival like a Third World Marxist.”
It’s shrill and extreme but it seems to work—and even if Donalds didn’t write this purple prose himself, it goes out under his name and with his approval.
Donalds enters his re-election campaign with a substantial war chest. According to the 2024 1st quarter filings, as of March 31 he had $3.2 million (or $3,249,767.73, to be exact) on hand. Of that, $2,259,178.60 came from individual contributions and of that roughly half, $1,166,795.32, came in donations under $200, so the donors don’t have to be individually reported. He has already spent $2.5 million ($2,571,446.38) on the campaign.
The PAC contributions are much more modest: a total of $371,134.15. But it’s the PAC contributions that reveal Donalds’ ties to the various industries and businesses that keep him in office.
And one case in particular reveals the connection between money and legislation and Byron Donalds.
The smokin’ stogey
The image of cigar-chomping politicians doing deals in reeking, smoke-filled back rooms with other puffing politicos is an old one.
But in the case of Donalds, when it comes to cigars, the scene is more literal.
Donalds is a fan of cigars. He even has a “cigar chair” in his Washington, DC office for the occasional smoke.
Alex Lorusso, a conservative online journalist, works on an interview in Rep. Byron Donalds’ “cigar chair” in his Washington Office on Nov. 7, 2023. (Photo: Office of Rep. Donalds)
But Donalds’ affinity for cigars goes well beyond simply smoking them—and illustrates the PAC-Congress connection.
Political contributions are supposed to be for general campaign purposes; they’re rarely tied to specific pieces of legislation or official actions—which if done improperly is illegal.
In the spring of 2023, Donalds received $5,000, the legal limit, from Swisher PAC, the political arm of Swisher International Inc., a tobacco company based in Jacksonville, Fla., which sells cigars among its many products. He also received $4,000 in two contributions from the Premium Cigar Association PAC, which represents high-end cigar and pipe tobacconists.
On Nov. 9, 2023 Donalds introduced House Joint Resolution (HJRes) 99 to “Amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to Exempt the Premium Cigar Industry from Certain Regulations.”
Under the bill a premium cigar would not be classified as a “tobacco product” and so would not be subject to regulations covering other tobacco products like cigarettes. These regulations include prohibiting sales of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21, marketing to children, selling fruit or candy-flavored products to entice underage children to smoke and making false or misleading claims that a tobacco product isn’t harmful.
The exemption has been the goal of the premium cigar industry for some time.
After introducing the bill, on Dec. 13 Donalds received an additional $1,000 from the Premium Cigar PAC.
Like the rest of Donalds’ legislative proposals, HJRes 99 hasn’t gone anywhere. It sits in the House Energy and Commerce’s health subcommittee, where it has remained since the day after it was introduced.
But it illustrates the relationship between PACs and members of Congress in general.
And in Donalds’ case that’s a pretty tight relationship.
An archetypal scene of a smoke-filled room from the 1933 movie, The Invisible Man. (Image:Universal)
Of historical note: This article marks the 500th post of The Paradise Progressive.
Collier County voters participate in the 2018 election. (Photo: Author)
April 29, 2024 by David Silverberg
Collier County’s Supervisor of Elections and her team are dedicated to providing “secure, ethical elections,” their work is “excellent,” “they do a great job” and “the way elections are run in Collier county, they are run smoothly.”
Those words of praise for county Supervisor of Elections (SoE) Melissa Blazier and her team came from—of all people—the two candidates who are trying to unseat her in this year’s Supervisor of Elections race by alleging election unreliability.
The unlikely accolades were uttered by Timothy Guerrette and David Schaffel as they testified regarding the “Resolution for a Legally Valid 2024 General Election” on Tuesday, April 23.
The resolution was introduced by Collier County Commissioner Chris Hall (R-District 2). It asserted that the 2022 election in Florida was faulty and it would have imposed new, disruptive conditions on the 2024 election count. Ultimately, the county Board of Commissioners chose not to advance it, effectively killing it.
Nonetheless, the fact that two of the candidates and the incumbent all testified at the meeting highlighted their respective policy prescriptions, qualifications and shed some light on what they might do in office.
Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier
Collier County Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier. (Photo: SoE)
Melissa Blazier, 46, is the current sitting SoE. She came out swinging against the resolution from the very moment it was shared with her by Commissioner Chris Hall (R-District 2).
In an April 18 message to Hall, she warned that his resolution was “deeply flawed and highly unnecessary” and “riddled with erroneous conclusions.”
Most of the resolution’s demands, she wrote, “are either already incorporated into existing law, are in direct violation of existing law or would require technology that is not yet available or authorized for use in the State of Florida” and asked him not to pass “this egregious resolution.”
She repeated these arguments when she testified remotely at the meeting.
Blazier has served as an election professional in Collier County for over 18 years.
“I was trained by the best, so for over 17 years I worked under Jennifer [Edwards, the previous supervisor] and I have no plans in changing the way that we conduct elections in Collier County, any of our voter registration, voter outreach, elections. Our goal is just to improve,” she told The Paradise Progressive in an interviewed published July 3, 2023.
Improvements are what Blazier and her office have been steadily making during her time in office, mostly of the unheralded, back-office variety, included improving access to archived information, handling public information requests, improving security and streamlining office processes.
In addition to her years of experience in the Supervisor’s office, Blazier is certified as an Elections/Registration Administrator by the National Association of Election Officials’ Election Center and is a Master Florida Certified Elections Professional through the Florida Supervisors of Elections.
Educationally, she has a magna cum laude Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Hodges University. In 2010 she graduated from the Associate Leadership Collier program spring class of 2010, the 2014 Leadership Collier class and the Leadership Marco class of 2019.
Since July 2023, Blazier has raised $69,104.55 for her campaign, according to county campaign finance records. Much of it was from her own pocket.
Tim Guerrette
Tim Guerrette (Image: CCBC)
Timothy Guerrette, 56, took a cautious position during the commission debate, calling for “a” resolution rather than “this” resolution.
“I want to let you know that I support a resolution that is seeking to improve our elections here in Collier County and send a message to Tallahassee we are pro-actively seeking ways here in Collier County to improve our elections,” he said.
He praised Collier County and its election staff for their dedication to “secure, ethical elections in Collier County.”
Guerrette has no previous election experience. He’s a former chief of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, from which he retired in 2021 after 31 years of service. He has also worked as a real estate broker and since retirement has hosted an “Uncensored 239” podcast.
He has experience in police operations and management and says in a campaign video that he will bring “competence and integrity back into the voting process.” During his testimony he said that wanted to make sure that Collier County remained the “gold standard” of elections and that once in office he’d make sure that “We are running smooth elections, there is nothing to see here.”
Since beginning his quest for office in March 2023, Guerrette has raised $113,772.93, according to Collier County campaign finance records. Many of the donations came from active and former law enforcement officers, including $1,000 from the Friends of Carmine Marceno Political Action Committee. Marceno is the sheriff in neighboring Lee County.
He also received contributions from members of the Collier County Board of Commissioners. Commissioner Rick LoCastro (R-District 1) contributed $260.25 in September 2023 and Commissioner Dan Kowal (R-District 4) contributed $600 in November.
David Schaffel
David Schaffel (Image: CCBC)
Dave Schaffel, 63, fully supported the resolution.
Schaffel presented himself as “a resident here in Collier County. I spent my entire 40-year career in the information technology field in the private sector specializing in big databases, data analysis, business intelligence and security. I’ve been a successful IT entrepreneur, investor and public company executive.”
However, nowhere in his testimony did he provide any specifics of employment, names of companies or institutions, educational qualifications, past election involvement or specific accomplishments as an entrepreneur. His website is similarly vague.
Nonetheless, he said, “In the last few years I have immersed myself in learning about the technology behind our election systems as well as the Florida election statutes that oversee the process.”
While strongly supporting the resolution, he also made the point “that this resolution in no way disparages or criticizes the excellent work of the many volunteers that work the polling places during our elections or the many hardworking public servants employed in the Collier County Supervisor of Elections office.”
Suspicion of election results is the cornerstone of his campaign. A campaign video opens with questions about the result of the 2020 election. “Corrupt, bloated and out-of-touch bureaucrats are almost always the problem and rarely the solution,” he says. He calls himself a “rock-solid conservative and America First patriot.”
In his testimony to the commissioners, Schaffel had a great many suspicions about aspects of Florida elections including voting by mail, chains of custody and machine versus hand counts of ballots, although he made no specific charges (which were included in the resolution).
He said he and other election activists had been rebuffed in Tallahassee when they tried to promote legislative change in voting procedures. They were convinced that technological vulnerabilities had led to hacking and vote-flipping. As an example, he said that a street had its addresses flipped to create undeliverable mail but he provided no specifics or sources for the charge. It was unclear whether this incident even occurred in Florida at all.
Ultimately, he opposed the use of technology in general. “As a technologist…when it comes to our elections, given our current statutes and our current lack of transparency, that less technology would be the best,” he said.
For all that, when questioned by Commissioner Burt Saunders (R-District 3), Schaffel had nothing but praise for Blazier and her office.
Asked if he was satisfied by the way elections were conducted in the county, Schaffel responded, “Yes, I think the way elections are run in Collier county, they’re run smoothly.”
While he didn’t trust election machine companies and the tendency of officials to accept their assurances, he had no problem with the office or staff.
“This is not a disparagement – they are doing their jobs in that office,” he said. “They do a great job of running the election according to statute. And I want to make it absolutely clear that that is the case.”
To date, Schaffel has received $12,447.54 in campaign contributions, mostly from his own pocket. However, one notable outside contribution came on Jan. 12 of this year: $1,000 from the Friends of Chris Hall Political Action Committee—the commissioner who introduced the election resolution.
Analysis: Making the system work
The discontent with election processes reflected in the election-alteration resolution is an echo of election denialism from the 2020 presidential election and Blazier’s two challengers reflect this.
By their own testimony they denied that there was anything at all wrong with Blazier’s performance or that of the Collier County’s elections office. They praised the volunteers and professionals who conduct the county’s elections.
Why, then, are they running? Is the SoE office so lucrative and desirable that it’s worth spending all the money they’re investing to attain it? Is it so powerful that it can change the world?
Both Guerrette and Schaffel are running on the suspicion that something is wrong in elections.
Schaffel is more specific of the two, pointing to supposed vulnerabilities in vote counting and communications and alleging hacking and vote-flipping—without providing specifics. He’s a proponent of the anti-machine wing of the election-denial movement, one that sees hand counts as more reliable, a position taken by local farmer and grocer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III.
But neither has any experience or relevant credentials in election administration. Guerrette comes out of the world of law enforcement and has some management experience but it’s nothing that compares with Blazier’s 18-plus years specifically in the Collier County office.
Both say they want “improvements” in election management. But the Collier County SoE has been improving steadily and incrementally throughout its history—and someone like Blazier knows where improvements need to be made. Neither Guerrette nor Schaffel would actually be in a position to make knowledgeable improvements if elected.
As was pointed out repeatedly during the commissioners’ meeting, Hall didn’t question his own election results and that’s been true with election-deniers since 2020; they’re so obsessed with contesting the top line races they ignore all the other down-ballot results. In 2022 Collier County conducted 44 different elections, from state and county officials, to constitutional amendments, to judges to bond issues, none of which have been criticized.
Given the deep-seated disbelief and mistrust among a slice of Collier County voters, there is no result and no solution that would ever allay their suspicions. Indeed, electing either of them would make Collier County elections far less reliable and compliant.
Sometimes it takes the people in place who know how to make something work to make it actually work properly. That’s the case in Collier County.
Both Guerrette and Schaffel, when pressed, acknowledged that Collier County has had clean, honest, competently administered elections. That’s the result of the experienced, knowledgeable administration of Melissa Blazier. Neither offered anything better.
The conclusion seems inescapable: When it comes to the Office of Election Supervisor in Collier County, Fla., perhaps there is no wisdom wiser than that in the old saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”—and by their own admission, the challengers don’t believe anything here needs fixing.
Collier County, Fla., voters line up to cast their ballots in the 2020 election. (Photo: Author)
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