What Dems should do after hypocritical Republican bill to cancel Democratic party | Opinion

Former Florida Republican Party chair and current Republican State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia introduced a bill to cancel the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) as a political party and to automatically re-register all persons who chose to register as Democratic voters as having “no party affiliation.”  Apparently, my personal preference and individual liberty no longer matters.

The FDP governing body should expunge and strike from the record any and all party platforms references adopted over 163 years ago, prior to the Civil War of 1861 to 1865, that refer to slavery in any manner.  This would eliminate the triggering mechanism that Sen. Ingoglia desires to use to involuntary change the voter registration of nearly 5 million citizens of Florida.

Since the State Senate of Florida supported slavery in the mid-1800s I am a bit surprised that Sen. Ingoglia has not proposed the elimination of the State Senate, has not resigned from the tarnished State Senate, and has not also proposed the liquidation of the State House.  To avoid any association the Florida State Senate and State House has one would expect the senator to propose a unicameral legislative body.  To quote the senator from his appearance on Fox News, he could call this new unicameral legislative body the “hypocrites”.

The FDP governing board should strike back.  It should adopt a position that citizens who registered as “no party affiliation” be allowed to vote in the Democratic Party primaries.  When political parties did this in Connecticut, which once had a closed primary system similar to the one used in Florida, the Connecticut government opposed the move.  The United States Supreme Court stated in the Connecticut case that a political party has the right to allow “no party affiliation” citizens to vote in the party primary.

The United States Supreme Court in two California cases and a Wisconsin case has stated political parties can define their internal mechanisms and decide who can vote in their primaries.  When the state legislatures attempted to interfere in internal political party structures their efforts have been repudiated by the United States Supreme Court.

The Florida Democratic Party should take the bold step of being even more inclusionary and allow the 4 million “no party affiliation” voters in Florida to vote in the Democratic primaries.

If the FDP does this it will show that the Democratic Party is open, inclusionary, and willing to reach out.  This position will contrast nicely with Sen.  Ingoglia’s closed minded, exclusionary, and destructive approach to Florida politics.

It is noticeable that the current, term-limited governor of Florida is silent on his Republican Senator’s bill to disenfranchise 5 million citizens.

Perhaps the current term-limited governor, to support his State Senator, is now thinking about how many plane tickets he will need to move all the Democratic voters in Florida to another state.  Based on the term-limited governor’s past history in moving migrants, the governor most likely would claim success by instead airlifting Texas Democrats to Massachusetts.

Jon M. Ausman is the longest serving member of the Democratic National Committee in Florida’s history (December 1992 to January 2017).  He was elected Vice-Chair of the Florida Democratic Party in 1993.  He served as Vice-Chair for eight years.  He can be reached at ausman@embarqmail.com or at 850-321-7799.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: What Florida Democrats should do after Republican bill to cancel party | column