Two groups that staged the pink slip protest of Gov. Rick Scott last week arent content with getting rid of Floridas chief executive.
Florida New Majority, a coalition of state and nationwide left-wing immigrant and workers' rights groups, and Florida Watch Action, a group pushing for "progressive" -- or, ultra liberal -- policies, helped organize hundreds of unemployed and union workers to give pink slips to Scott.
The protesters gathered at the entrance to Scotts office at the Capitol, but the governor was in Palm Beach, meeting with local officials.
Workers involved in the protest said they were protesting proposed cuts to unemployment benefits that Scott favors, but the ultimate goals of FNM and FWA are much loftier than merely stopping a piece of legislation. They run the gamut of the liberal policy wish list.
From FNMs website, under the What we do segment:
Over the next 10 years, FNM will build membership throughout the state where they will be able to take effective action on issues like immigration justice, housing as a human right, jobs for all, and ending political corruption. We will organize people, ideas, and resources to build a new majority for Florida.
Badili Jones, political and alliance officer for FNM, explained that his organization does see housing as a human right, and said that he doesnt believe his favored policies are out of touch with the mainstream.
Its been recognized locally and nationally that decent and affordable housing is a human right, Jones said.
Cheap credit provided by mortgage companies in the form of sub-prime and liar loans, combined with policies that urged government-backed lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to lend to low-income homeowners, led to the housing bubble in the United States that helped bring about the recent global recession. Jones explained that FNM is advocating for housing access, not ownership.
Among FNMs members is the Florida Immigration Coalition, a group that favors granting undocumented agricultural workers permanent resident status. FNM has also been at the forefront of protests against bills in the Legislature aimed at curbing illegal immigration, and has decried the measures as a "copycat"attempt of the controversial Arizona law.
This is not the time for Florida to be pursuing Arizona-type racial profiling bills, Jones said.
The federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeal recently upheld a previous ruling of a lower court that struck down some of the provisions of the Arizona law, which called on local law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of the subjects of investigations, including at traffic stops. Activists said it would lead to racial profiling.
Jones said he would like to see measures like the DREAM Act, the federal bill that Democrats failed to pass last year allowing undocumented minors a path to citizenship if they attend college for two years or serve two years in the military, put into place instead of the state-by-state approach.
Legislative leaders in states attempting to tackle the immigration issue cite the federal governments unwillingness to take on the problem as the reason for their legislation.
On the jobs front, FWA and the protests website, www.pinksliprick.com, recently got Politifact Floridas worst rating, a Pants on Fire, for their claims during the protest -- and still on the website -- that 331,247 jobs have been lost under Scotts watch.
The numbers were a tally of fudgy figures that are based on projections of Scotts policies relating to rejecting Floridas proposed high-speed rail line, stalling on the SunRail contract, and cuts to education, prisons, Medicaid and the Department of Community Affairs.
Susannah Randolph, the wife of Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, is the executive director of FWA, and was also the campaign manager for the liberal firebrand, former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson.
Statistics from the Agency for Workforce Innovation show that 22,700 new jobs were added in February, the latest month for which numbers are available, and the unemployment rate stood at 11.5 percent, down 0.4 percent from the month before.
Reach Gray Rohrer at grohrer@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
