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Q&A – What’s the Best way to Keep Tabs on Florida’s Legislators?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: Hey Brian! Long time listener. I credit you with getting me interested in state and local issues. I’ve got a question about what the best way is to track our state reps and their votes during the session. I’ve noticed that a lot more happens daily than ever gets reported and news outlets only report the issues they prioritize or think are sensational. Do you have any advice for how to track what’s happening with the votes by our reps and is there anyway to easily gauge how conservative their voting records are like Freedom Works does for Congress?
Bottom Line: I love hearing that I’ve contributed to your engagement with local issues. As I’ve often said, it’s the elections which happen closest to you that often have the biggest impact on your daily life. Now, President Biden is challenging that usual truism, but nevertheless the overall concept remains true. What’s also worth mentioning in this context, with local elections and local issues receiving far less attention and thus engagement by voters, those who vote and choose to correspond and engage with state and local politicians can often have an outsized impact on outcomes. I’ve heard from many listeners over the years who’ve been surprised to have received direct responses from state and local officials to their concerns. A little engagement can go a long way – so congrats to you and hopefully others will follow your lead. If most in this audience engaged, we could move mountains in South Florida - you know if we had any. So about keeping tabs on our state legislators...
The first place I recommend starting is the “Find Your Representative” feature at the myfloridahouse.gov website. While the state Senate has a similar feature – the state House site has a more robust breakout of officials, so I recommend starting there. When you go to the “Find Your Representative” screen you’ll be asked for your address. I’ll give you an idea of what you’ll see based on my example. When I put in my address I see:
- Mike Caruso is my state representative
- Lori Berman is my state senator
- Lois Frankel is my US House representative
- Marco Rubio & Rick Scott are my US Senators
The site provides contact information for all of your representatives – including members of Congress. Since this is about tracking the performance of your state representation, I’ll drill down on the info that’s made available here which will be helpful. If you click the “Full Detail” button below your state rep, you’ll see full contact information, the name of the legislative aide and district aide. All committee Assignments, all affiliations (in addition to biographical information) and all bills sponsored by the representative. If you click on the legislation, you can read the text and summary of the bills, and see what the current status of them is in the state session. In terms of tracking the votes of your representatives on all legislation, the best way to do so is the click on the “bills” tab on the website’s homepage and to click through bills you’re interested to see how your representatives voted. Of course, legislation can be hard to understand at times, and I understand the desire to have a trusted resource which helps you understand the performance of legislators.
There are multiple interest groups and organizations which grade our state legislators, based on their organization’s values. Among the most prominent and active on the left is The Sierra Club (most recent report card linked). For perspective their top-rated members from the 2021 session were Reps. Ana Eskamani and Omai Hardi – arguably the hardest left members of the Florida legislature. While Freedom Works doesn’t put out a scorecard for state legislators, there are two prominent right-of-center groups which do. Americans for Prosperity and The Florida Chamber of Commerce. As an illustration of the contrast with the Sierra Club’s report card, Eskamani received an “F” in the Americans for Prosperity report and Hardy was given a “D”. Similarly, the Florida Chamber’s scorecard shows Eskamani and Hardy with an “F”. And back to my personal example.
I’m generally supportive of the performance of Mike Caruso and displeased with Lori Berman. The Americans for Prosperity scorecard shows Caruso with a “A+” rating and Berman with an “F”. I agree with that assessment. The Florida Chamber’s scorecard provides Caruso with an “A”, while Berman received an “F”. Again, assessments I agree with. I’m not equating the Florida Chamber or Americans for Prosperity with Freedom Works purse, however if you’re looking for a grading system that aligns with a right-of-center perspective, those two are usual resources. Hope that’s helpful and congrats on the engagement and desire to get more involved. It makes a difference.