Florida Republicans Just Passed A Major Bill Designed To Hurt Democrats

Republicans in the Florida House passed a bill Wednesday aimed at reducing membership in public-sector unions and weakening organized labor’s political clout, delivering the controversial legislation to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for his signature.

Progressive lawmakers and labor groups have blasted the legislation as a political power grab meant to kneecap teachers unions and other labor groups that tend to support the Democratic Party. The bill would make it harder for unions representing government employees to collect dues and make it easier for the state to “decertify” them and nullify their contracts.

In a clear indicator of the bill’s political intentions, Republicans .

“The goal of the bill is to eliminate collective bargaining for public-sector workers who the governor doesn’t like,” Rich Templin, director of politics and public policy at the Florida AFL-CIO labor federation, told HuffPost ahead of the House vote. “This is another in a very long line of policies being advanced solely for the governor’s run for the White House.”

Proponents of the legislation have cast it as “paycheck protection” for workers against greedy unions. However, that stance has made it harder to explain why cops and firefighters, whom the backers described as heroes, should be undeserving of the same protections that teachers and sanitation workers would receive.

Republican state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, the bill’s sponsor in the Senate, tried to explain the logic during questioning from a Senate colleague during a committee hearing. Ingoglia said cops and firefighters “put their lives on the line” every day.

“[I]f you’re getting rid of payroll deduction, then you’re forcing a face-to-face conversation with the employees and their union representatives,” Ingoglia said. “I would have a hard time telling law enforcement who worked an overnight from 12 to 8 that she or he would have to not get any sleep and meet their union representative at 11 a.m. to give them their check.”

This is not the first time Republican lawmakers have tried to undermine public-sector unions while protecting the unions they tend to like. When Wisconsin Republicans enacted the infamous anti-union package known as Act 10 under then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2011, they largely shielded the unions representing police and firefighters.