Kate's Big Ideas

This week I’m away from my part-time home in Florida, and so is our governor. While I am aligning with leftist hearts and minds in New York, he is rallying the conservative masses on his book tour.

Prospective presidential candidates routinely queue up book tours right before their runs, as a way of priming their audiences, revivalist-style, before campaigning is allowed. DeSantis is kicking off his charm offensive in Iowa. What a surprise.

In fact, he seems to be using his entire governorship at the moment as a trial period, proposing legislation in Florida that previews his plans for national policy.

He gave the Florida legislature the thumbs-up to approve open carry anywhere. He banned the AP Black History course in high schools, as well as books using the word ‘queer' (including the classic Boxcar Children series!). Last April, he signed the Stop Woke Act, which, per The Guardian, “prohibits in-school discussions about racism, oppression, LBGTQ+ issues and economic inequity.” As a part of the bill, “books that have not been officially vetted and approved must be hidden or covered, lest teachers unknowingly break an ill-defined law against distributing pornography – a felony.”

That’s all rather alarming, and what ratchets up the alarm is the speed with which similar legislation is popping up in red states around the country.

“National party messaging has been playing a bigger and bigger role every year,” said Phil Freedman, regional political coordinator with the Teamsters. That’s because Republican lobbyists are sending laws around to legislators in different states, who pass them with little to no local differentiation.

This is not a new strategy, but it is picking up steam, in part thanks to ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) – an organization that, in its own words, is working toward rewriting the American constitution to create a "conservative nation."

They draft model bills reducing regulation and taxation, curtailing the movement of undocumented people, loosening environmental regulations, tightening voter identification rules, weakening labor unions, and opposing gun control, to name a handful of issues. In 2011, ALEC drafted anti-union Right to Work legislation that was introduced almost identically in three states at once.

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“They start by approaching freshman legislators and saying things like, "You don't even need to draft the legislation. We have it right here for you,"” said Phil.

This all works thanks a legislative system that never gives legislators time to actually think.

Most of the time, lawmakers have no way to read through all the bills that cross their desks, Phil says. “They are often on multiple committees and need to review dozens of bills for those committees. If a bill reaches the floor that was not in their committee they will often just take the lead of party leadership or a friend who was on a committee that reviewed the bill.”

That is some big group-project energy.

What compounds the issue, Phil explained, is that many states also have a limited legislature that requires bills to be passed in short periods of time. “Representatives and staff sleep in their offices, hearings get limited to get through all the bills — there is no way every bill is getting read by every member.”

The way to beat this? “Get as local as possible,” says Phil. That means, yes, calling your local reps — that’s the way to get them to actually learn about a bill instead of waiting until the last minute and doing whatever party leadership recommends.

Sure, your one call feels small. But it feels bigger when you know its effect, doesn’t it?

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