On Wednesday, St. Pete City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Darden Rice announced her sponsorship of a city resolution that calls on the Pinellas County Legislative Delegation to oppose legislation in the Florida legislature that could restrict voting access across the Sunshine State.
At least two Republican-sponsored Senate bills—targeting voter ID requirements and mail voting—have been introduced that could restrict voting access in Florida, according to an annual roundup from the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice.
“The attacks on voting rights in the Florida Legislature are shameful and indefensible,” said Rice, referencing Florida’s Senate Bill 90 introduced by Republican Senator Dennis Baxley of Ocala.
“Senate Bill 90 throws out existing vote by mail requests for millions of voters, bans ballot drop boxes, and makes it harder for seniors and people who are homebound to return their ballots in time to be counted. This bill is anti-American, bad for Floridians, and must be defeated,” Rice shared in a press release.
And while this voter suppression bill is one that would affect voters in communities statewide, this has particular salience in Pinellas County, which ranked fifth across the state in vote-by-mail requests in 2020, with more than 60% of votes cast by mail.
Rice isn’t alone in her opposition to these laws currently circulating in Florida’s legislature. A wide base of elected officials across the state—including some Republican Florida Supervisors of Elections—have argued that Florida’s Senate Bill 90, specifically, would be costly, antidemocratic, and likely to hit Black and brown voters the hardest.
Rice’s announcement comes just days after the state of Georgia passed its own sweeping changes to election law, with a bill decried by President Joe Biden as “Jim Crow in the 21st century”.
Across the nation, at least 253 bills in 43 states have been proposed that could restrict voting access in future elections, in a move referred to by Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias, an election law attorney, as “a tidal wave of voter suppression”.
And just last week, Florida Republican Blaise Ingoglia of Spring Hill filed a bill which would effectively ban giving voters “assistance” such as food and water within 150 feet of polling locations—a proposal similar to a measure in Georgia’s recently-passed election law.
As some Tampa Bay lawmakers look to expand the vote in Florida with their own voter expansion bills, Rice wants everyone to know where the city of St. Pete stands when it comes to bills that could reduce voter turnout and disproportionately affect the city’s most marginalized voters.
“We must be united in our support for free, fair, and accessible elections. We must send a clear message that we will not stand for any attempt to interfere with Floridians’ fundamental right to vote.”
The proposed city resolution has been added to the St. Pete’s City Council agenda for next Thursday, April 8.
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This article appears in Mar 25-31, 2021.