Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Culture wars? In Tallahassee? What culture wars?
In the legislative session that ended March 14, state lawmakers made diapers and baby clothes tax-free for an entire year and children’s books tax-free during the summer. They waived sales taxes on mobile home purchases. Students in public schools will now have the most funding ever per student. Hearing aids for low-income children will now be free.
Thousands of disabled Floridians on the waiting list for state services will be served, finally, and the Legislature made the largest investment of state dollars for affordable housing in 16 years.
But if you get your news on Twitter or in the newspaper, all you would hear is that this session was all about “culture wars.”
You wouldn’t need to look far to find examples. In Associated Press, a headline on a story distributed nationwide on Monday read, “Florida ends legislative session marked by culture wars”; in the Orlando Sentinel and Sun Sentinel shared session-end story, the headline read, “Florida Legislature wraps up combative culture-war session”; and in the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times last week, “‘Culture wars’ session of Florida Legislature is nearly over, but emotions are still raw.”
Lawmakers fought for many issues that voters sent us here to accomplish, like combatting the fatherhood crisis, supporting our foster youth, and ensuring our hometown heroes can afford to own a home. Headlines like those above reflect the bulk of the press coverage, though.
A total of 285 bills passed this session, and overwhelmingly they were supported by both parties. In all, 193, or 60% of the bills heard on the House floor, passed unanimously, and all but seven bills had bipartisan support in their final House floor vote.
The news media has missed the story here: The Florida Legislature is one of the last great places where a person can work across the aisle to make a major, meaningful impact for the residents of this state. That is what our lawmakers did this last session.
Yet, 90 headlines over the past week contained the phrase “culture wars” when describing Florida’s legislative session, according to Muck Rack, a media analysis tool. If Democrats were in charge, and they spent this session running unbridled with their priorities to teach kids that assigned sex does not exist, require that the 1619 Project be taught in every school, and make abortion free for all, the newspapers would call it a social justice session, not “culture wars.”
When Republican lawmakers decry the press for biased reporting, editorializing, and ignoring stories like the one I highlight here, think back to this op-ed and to these headlines.
At the Legislature’s closing “Sine Die” ceremony I said that politics shouldn’t be about cowering to the loudest voices or catering to the most powerful ones. It’s about standing up for the everyday person — the moms and dads who are busy going to work, paying their bills and raising their kids.
These are the people we work for, and these are the people who suffer when the media ignores the bigger story about the overwhelming success of this past session for them in their everyday lives.