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Politics

Parent Empowerment Bill Again Dies in Dramatic Tie

April 29, 2013 - 6:00pm

Parent empowerment legislation once again stalled in the Florida Senate on Tuesday, as four Republican senators who backed parent empowerment in 2012 turned around and voted against it in 2013.

Despite large majorities in both chambers of the Florida Legislature, once again Republicans could not pass parent empowerment legislation out of the Senate, despite sailing through the House. HB 867, sponsored by Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, cleared the House easily. But when the matter came up in the Senate on Tuesday, it failed on a 20-20 vote, the same margin that killed a similar bill during the 2012 session.

The bill would have allowed parents choices for when their children were in low-performing schools. While watered down from its original version, the Senate bill -- sponsored by Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland -- had gained the support of many prominent conservatives across the nation, including former Gov. Jeb Bush and education reformer Michelle Rhee, who was in Tallahassee earlier in the month trying to round up support for it.

As the Florida Senate voted down House Bill 867, Parent Empowerment in Education, Patricia Levesque, executive director of the Foundation for Floridas Future, released the following statement:

The choice today was simple: do you believe parents deserve a seat at the table or not, said Levesque. Senator Thrasher said it best, Parent Empowerment is about trusting parents. We are grateful for the 20 senators and 68 House members who trust parents and voted to include them in the decision-making process on how to improve failing schools.

In 2012, eight Republicans -- Charlie Dean, Nancy Detert, Paula Dockery, Mike Fasano, Alan Hays, Dennis Jones, Evelyn Lynn and Steve Oelrich -- joined every Democratic senator in opposing the parent empowerment bill -- better known then as the "parent trigger" bill.


Despite Democrats gaining two Florida Senate seats in November, things looked better for parent empowerment when session began. Only three of the Republicans who opposed parent empowerment in 2012 -- Dean, Detert and Hays -- were still in the Senate. Just as in 2012, every Democrat in the Senate remained opposed to the parent empowerment bill.

While Hays switched sides in 2013 to vote for parent empowerment, Dean and Detert remained opposed to it. During the debate on Tuesday, Detert was vocal in her opposition to the bill.

Parent empowerment failed in the Senate as four Republicans who voted for it in 2012 -- Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, Greg Evers, Rene Garcia and Jack Latvala -- turned around and voted against it in 2013.

Tallahassee political writer Jeff Henderson wrote this story exclusively for Sunshine State News.

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