GOP Bill Aims to “Cancel” Florida’s Democratic Party Over Past Pro-Slavery Stance

The Republican lawmaker behind the stunt wants you to know he’s just trolling.

Steve Cannon/ AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

A Republican lawmaker has filed a bill that, if passed, would, apparently, eliminate Florida’s Democratic Party.

On Tuesday, Florida state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia filed the “Ultimate Cancel Act“—a bill that doesn’t mention the Democrats by name but would require the state’s Division of Elections to “immediately cancel” the filings and official status of any political party whose platform had “previously advocated for, or been in support of, slavery or involuntary servitude.”

Democrats, especially in the South, supported slavery up to and then during the Civil War. The Democrat party backed Jim Crow laws for decades following emancipation. Famously, the so-called “Southern strategy” saw whites in the South, aggrieved by the Civil Rights Movement, courted by the Republican party.

The state Democratic Party would be the only official party currently recognized by the Florida Board of Elections affected by this act, according to Fox News.

“For years now, leftist activists have been trying to ‘cancel’ people and companies for things they have said or done in the past. This includes the removal of statues and memorials, and the renaming of buildings,” Ingoglia said in a statement. “Using this standard, it would be hypocritical not to cancel the Democratic Party itself for the same reason.”

Under this bill, Democratic voters would be automatically reregistered as having “no party affiliation.”  The party itself would have to reregister under a “substantially” different name. In a statement, Florida’s Democrats called the bill a “publicity stunt” and warned that it could disenfranchise nearly 5 million voters, many of them Black. State Sen. Linda Stewart said that in her five years in office she’s never seen a bill like this before and predicts that it won’t survive upcoming the legislative session. 

“First, I don’t think it’s legal,” said Stewart. “But the other thing is that it just goes too far. I do not think that it’s going to go anywhere in the Senate. I know it’ll get assigned committees. If it gets heard by one committee, I’d be surprised if it goes anywhere else, because I can’t imagine anybody thinking that this is a fair treatment of political parties.” Stewart added: “We would no longer be a democracy if we do away with one [of] the major parties.” 

Ingoglia has insisted that he’s just trolling Florida Dems, but this stunt is especially sinister coming from a politician whose party is actively trying to eradicate African-American studies in its schools and suppress its Black voters

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate