Representative Fentrice Driskell said that Florida Dems would contest for cheap health care, affordable housing, and lower property insurance prices and Florida’s House minority leaders are ready for the dare. Fentrice Driskell, who is a Democrat and a Floridan Representative, represents District 67 in the Tampa Bay area and won re-election recently. She will render her service as the first Black woman leader of the Florida House Democratic assembly.
In a recent interview with the Florida Courier, Driskell said, “It’s an amazing honor to be the first Black woman to lead the Florida House Democratic Caucus…I know on whose shoulders I stand. Senator Arthenia Joyner was the first Black woman Democratic leader in the Florida Senate. She has been a mentor to me and helped me prepare for this,”
In 2018, She was the one who was first appointed to the Florida House in the year 2018 in District 63, replacing Republican office-holder Shawn Harrison with more than 53 percent of the vote. Her current district covers the area of Tampa near the University of South Florida and some parts of northern Hillsborough County.
She was recently seen in a “60 Minutes Overtime” interview with CBS’ Scott Pelley to talk over her House bill 1215 that would have originated an Office of Historic Cemeteries in the Florida Department of State. The office will have devoted state resources to help in opening historic cemeteries and help to handle situations where the cemeteries discovered were on their own property.
The bill was brought into the House committees and ended up in the House during the 2022 legislative session. Driskell told Pelley that she planned to introduce the bill back at the time of different legislative sessions.
A more vocal stand on issues
Driskell became leader when the party was not in the super high minority in the Florida legislature; Republicans took over more than two-thirds of the White House seat.
“It is unfortunate because it now means that if Republicans want to close off debate on a topic, they could do it. Any vote that typically would require two-thirds in favor of that vote, they now have more than two-thirds of the House, so they, therefore, don’t need Democrats on those votes,” she said.
She further added that They didn’t have the ballots to stop an abortion ban at 12 or six weeks. So, it was going to be up to the Republicans to indeed hear out the people and not give in to their more supremacist nature and to exercise some self-control when they addressed the chances of passing these restrictions.
To fight the lack of votes, Driskell said that the party members would become more spoken in this legislative session to make sure that the public is informed. She worked on a board for Reproductive Freedom at the White House on 7th December.
Driskell said that they just didn’t have the ballots to stop it, but we can surely use their platform and provoke pulpit to try to get the people to be a part to ensure that their voices are listened to, and sometimes that can have an influence on the legislative process.
Searching for areas of sequence
This time Florida Democrats will concentrate the legislative class on fighting for access to quality, affordable health care and more.
“During the last term, Democrats and Republicans were able to work together to extend Medicaid benefits to mothers post birth for a full year whereas previously it had been less than a year…So that was a huge victory,” Driskell shared. “I think there are oftentimes more areas of common ground than people would think.”
Driskell hopes one area of adjustment will be improvements to the state’s base as it connects to traffic congestion and safeguards clean primary water channels. She is worried that Republicans will push more legislation to serve its far right and support Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan without any pushback in order to level up his fame worldwide.
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