Broward County cops are leaving the Republican party because of Gov. Rick Scott:
Next month the Broward County Police Benevolent Association is holding a “Party to Leave the Party” — an event coordinated with the Supervisor of Elections where police officers and the general public can switch their voter registrations from Republican to Democratic or Independent.
The reason for the switch? The association, which serves as the bargaining union for the county’s law enforcement officers, is unhappy with the leadership of Governor Rick Scott and the results of the past legislative session, including changes to the Florida Retirement System that will require the workers to pay more of their own wages into retirement savings.
The PBA may be a union, but it’s not traditionally a bunch of liberals. “You’d be surprised,” says Broward PBA President Patrick Hanrihan. “I think most of our police officers and stuff are Republicans.” Well, until the party-switching party, that is.
“We’ve been supporting Republican governors for the past 20 years,” Hanrihan continued.
But this one’s antics may be too much for the traditionally red-voting, gun-wielding, meat-eating, hippie-busting (OK, we’ll stop) cops to stomach.
“[Governor Scott’s] union dues deduction bill is a flat-out union-busting bill,” says Hanrihan. “Under the law, a government agency wouldn’t be allowed to collect union dues if it was involved in political campaigns.” He notes that Scott had “no problem” taking money from the police union in the past election. Scott did get significant pushback on the bill from some Republican representatives, but the House eventually passed it.
We need to do this on a national level: Have a lefty-blog wide push for people to De-Register from the Democratic Party (and get copies of the change to send to the state party HQ and to the DNC, maybe one’s Dem representatives and the ostensible Dem in the WH).