By D’Anne Witkowski, TGP Senior Copywriter
Once upon a time Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon stood in front of Michigan’s State Capitol Building and said that we needed to “Florida our Michigan.”
She was talking about her “Age Appropriate Classroom Instruction Act” which would’ve banned teachers from talking with students about sexual orientation or gender identity until after the third grade, just like Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, which it was modeled after. Commonly called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, parents can sue school districts if a teacher dares to acknowledge that LGBTQ people exist.
Actually fun fact: Democrats have the majority in Michigan and Dixon lost bigly to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. So Dixon’s dreams of making Michigan more like Florida have been dashed, unless she’s working on a scheme to import, like, a bunch of alligators or something.
Really and truly, Michigan and Florida really couldn’t be more different politically right now, as is evident by their respective legislative agendas. Keep in mind that Democrats in Michigan have the majority for the first time in nearly 40 years. And they have wasted no time undoing decades of Republican harm. Let’s look at how a few specific issues have been handled in both states since the new term began in January.
LGBTQ Rights
Not satisfied with the scope of the Don’t Say Gay bill, Florida Republicans, who have a majority in the legislature, are seeking to extend the bill through 8th grade and ban the use of pronouns that “do not correspond to [a person’s] sex” for students and staff. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who gleefully signed the first bill, will no doubt support this, too.
Meanwhile, the Michigan legislature voted to expand the Elliott Larsen Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity and Gov. Whitmer signed it into law. Prior to this moment, it was perfectly legal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in Michigan, including firing them for being gay or trans. Inclusion in Elliott Larsen has been a goal of progressive LGBTQ people and allies in Michigan for decades.
Abortion
Currently in Florida a six-week abortion ban is moving through the legislature, something Gov. DeSantis, who signed a 15 week abortion ban last year, has said he will sign. Keep in mind that most people do not even know they’re pregnant at 6 weeks. This will hurt low income and BIPOC people the most as they already face health care disparities and obstacles to access.
The Michigan legislature, on the other hand, voted to repeal the state’s ultra restrictive abortion ban, something that has been on the books since 1931 but was not enforceable so long as Roe v Wade was the law of the land. And we know how that turned out. Also, a proposal on the November ballot that would codify protection for abortion rights was passed by Michigan voters by a healthy margin.
Gun Violence Protection
The Florida legislature is working on weakening concealed carry laws so that people can carry loaded guns without a permit. Gov. DeSantis said he supports going even further and that if it were up to him people could just openly carry loaded guns wherever they wanted because freedom.
Michigan is taking a much different approach. As I write this Michigan leaders are rallying on the steps of the Capitol in Lansing with former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in the head while meeting with constituents in 2011. Six people died and another 12 were wounded in that mass shooting. In the wake of mass shootings at two schools – Oxford High School and Michigan State University – lawmakers in Michigan are done talking and ready to act. There’s an 11-bill package moving through the legislature that includes safe storage and red flag laws.
So how did this happen? How did Michigan, which quite recently had a Republican majority in the legislature and the governorship, become a blue state?
Well, our Democratic majority was a years-long effort. I give much of the credit to the Voters Not Politicians proposal which voters passed in 2018. Instead of letting the majority party draw redistricting lines and gerrymandering them for political advantage, Michigan voters opted to have an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission draw the lines instead. Now, before your eyes glaze over from boredom, let me assure you that this was a big deal. The result was the fairest maps Michigan has seen in many years. And guess what? It turns out that Democrats can and do win when the maps aren’t rigged against them and voters get to actually choose their representatives, rather than the other way around.
VNP paid off big time for Democrats in 2022 who were running against extremist Republican candidates up and down the ballot. Had the 2022 “red wave” that Republicans promised actually happened, you can bet that Michigan’s legislative agenda would look a lot like Florida’s.
Florida does not have an independent commission to do redistricting. It’s done by the majority party, in this case Republicans. But Gov. DeSantis, a Republican, rejected the Republican legislature’s new maps because they weren’t racist enough. Florida is supposed to follow the Fair Districts amendments, which basically say you can’t chop minority districts apart in order to “diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice.” It’s basically saying, “Don’t be racist.” But DeSantis, who is very racist, is basically saying that the Fair Districts amendment is racist. Against white people. DeSantis has proposed maps that are even more favorable to Republicans, especially when it comes to making congressional districts more safely red. This is all being done with an eye on widening the Republican majority in the U.S. House. We’ll see how things shake out, but I can guarantee you it won’t be pretty.
So long story short, voting matters. Anyone who tells you that there’s no difference between the parties is engaging in intellectual laziness and being disingenuous. Are there big systemic issues that Democrats have not done enough to address? Yes. Absolutely, especially at the federal level. But there are fundamental differences between the platforms of the two parties that directly affect real people’s lives.
The fundamental difference between the parties is what they believe government is for. From LGBTQ rights to reproductive freedom and so much more, Democrats are using government to help people, while Republicans, as usual, are using government to hurt people. We’re seeing that play out in real time during this ultimate March Madness matchup between Michigan and Florida. I hope that Democrats across the country are looking at Michigan and taking notes. Because Michigan Democrats are on fire and we love to see it.