Get Out And Vote

We can pick up a seat tomorrow. It's up to you in Seminole County:

On top of that, a Special Election in an off year is its own kind of beast. Turnout will be low, perhaps 15% or so, which means getting reliable base voters out is priority one. With the help of a team of volunteers, the Bacallao campaign has covered most of District 34 door to door, emphasizing the registered Democrats who have voted regularly in the past.

Also in a Special Election, the advantages of incumbency, particularly name recognition, go away. As an example of what this can mean, nearby District 49 went for the incumbent Republican by 7 points in 2006, only to switch to a Democrat, Darren Soto, who won by 4.2% in a Special Election this April – an over eleven-point swing!

All elections have consequences. High-stakes testing of our schoolchildren is a fig leaf labeled "accountability" when really it’s a weapon aimed at poorer public schools to push an ideological obsession with privatization. It does nothing to foster innovative critical thinking, which is the skill that builds a prosperous society. Stephen’s Republican opponent, as you suspect, is a staunch advocate of continuing the Jeb Bush-era policy of producing a traumatized cohort of kids lacking in arts, history, and civics education.

Also, right at this moment there is a mad rush to slash property taxes in Tallahassee, and some calm and reasonable thinking is badly needed there, because Florida does not have a state income tax. The State Legislature makes property tax law, but it’s the counties that provide the overwhelming bulk of the services. Therefore it’s easy for the Legislature to be prodded by the wealthy developers to cut taxes since they don’t have to face the consequences, such as park and library closings, cutbacks in school equipment and supplies, and stagnant public sector salaries. For gosh sakes, Florida ranks 49th in the nation in per capita school expenditures, and dead last in the nation in per capita university expenditures as it is! Florida is a wonderful place to live in because it retains such fantastic beauty, but the threat of bulldozing just to put up tacky strip malls is relentless.