Why, I was asked Tuesday, wasn't House Democratic Leader Perry Thurston included on Sunshine State News' "2013 session winners" list?
That was one of the easier questions I've had to answer in the last few weeks.
Thurstondidn't deliver.
Certainly he wanted to. The upwardly mobile Plantation attorney is rumored to be a blue-party prospect for a Cabinet post in 2014; he has already filed to run for Senate in 2016.
Thurstonsuccessfully rallied every one of the 44 Democrats in the House to protest the failure of Medicaid expansion. Certainly, it was a show of unity and a rare opportunity for the minority party to flex what little muscle it has. But to what end was this protest? What was the win by demanding all bills be read in full? Certainly it grabbed attention, but did it change a single vote? Of course not. All it did was slow the process of bill reviews to a crawl.
Important bills shortchanged -- all of them deserving of more careful consideration.
As I began writing this column, the Republican Party of Florida released a scorecard spelling out the failure of Democratic leadership to control its own members. The numbers on Rick Scott's budget vote, for example, tell the story of how it was that Thurston came up empty:
-- All five House Dem leaders voted against the budget (floor vote, bill number 1500): Thurston; Mia Jones, leader pro tempore; Mark Pafford, policy chair; Jim Waldman, floor leader; Janet Cruz, deputy whip.
-- In all of the House and Senate, 10 Democrats voted against the budget. You read right. That's 10-- total.
-- 47 Democrats in the House and Senate -- of a total of 58 Democrats in both chambers -- voted for the budget.
As RPOF Chairman Lenny Curry said on the scorecard, "The overwhelming bipartisan vote supporting the budget is also a vote of no confidence in House Democratic leaders ... They found themselves in the small minority of their own party."
The Dems on Tuesday who made a case for Thurston's heroics said they were proudest of his ability to fire up the party's base by trashing the procedure used to pass Gov. Rick Scott's manufacturing sales tax exemption. They said Thurston's repeated promises that Democrats would sue if Scott signs a bill that passed 12 votes short of a two-thirds majority was lawyerly confident and no-nonsense scary, reinforcing his leadership credentials.
Maybe. But Scott made a speech throughout the session that warmed a lot of Floridians to eliminating the manufacturing sales tax exemption.We only have 4.3 percent of our jobs in manufacturing," he said over and over. "Thats way below the national average. With investment in our 15 seaports, the fact that were a right-to-work state, and have lower business taxes, we should have way more manufacturing jobs than the rest of the country as a percentage. This is our opportunity to level the playing field.
So here's the problem: Talking lawsuit, Thurston runs the risk of sounding anti-job creation. Most voters aren't going to look at insider legislative rules, they want action on the economy.
While Thurston might run in a "safe" Broward County district, a district so blue Alex Sink took nearly 80 percent of the gubernatorial vote there in 2010, other Democrats aren't so lucky. They face tooth-and-nail dogfights in districts where finding employment -- not putting one party or the other in office -- remains voters' top goal.
This is going to be an honest-to-goodness leadership decision. It will be interesting to see what Thurston does with it.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
