Photographer: AP Graphics Bank
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted: 11/03/2010
Florida voters are sending a message to Tallahassee. They cast their ballots, giving Republicans the Governor’s mansion and a supermajority in the House and Senate.
Republicans carried the election promising to create jobs, lower taxes, and cut state government. But talk is cheap.
Republican strategist Pete Dunbar says now they have to deliver. "They’re all back up for election. It’s a reapportionment year so it’s not half the Senate, it’s all the Senate, all the members of the state legislature and they’re going to have to turn back and say here is what we did.”
Governor-elect Rick Scott's promise to cut state government by 10 percent and the prison budget in half has law enforcement running concerned
"I just hope people realize that state workers do a good job. They do a thankless job sometimes, they are underpaid and they are underappreciated," said Matt Puckett of the Florida Police Benevolent Association.
Democrats call Scott’s plan unrealistic, but since the GOP has a supermajority in the legislature, and a clean sweep in the state cabinet, they’ll have to sit and watch.
Democrats do have an ace in the hole, although they can't play it till 2012.
Amendments 5 and 6 passed. Now Republican leaders will no long be able to draw strange looking districts to make sure their party stays in power.
“There’s going to be an election here is just two year where every seat in the legislature will be up,” said Screven Watson a Democratic strategist.
In the meantime, the onus is on Republicans to fix the state’s 11 percent unemployment rate, lower taxes, and cut government without eliminating essential services.
The new legislative and congressional districts have to be drawn in time for the 2012 election. Two lawmakers have already challenged Amendment 6.
©2007 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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