Pirate's Cove

This is what the GOPe doesn’t get: the base has to vote for them to limit the damage done by Democrats, but, what they really want are Republicans who will fight back, who will actually walk the campaign talk

For Gaetz, Washington Drama Could Fuel Florida Ambitions

Rep. Matt Gaetz’s successful push to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy has ratcheted up speculation that the fourth-term Republican congressman already has his eye on his next target, still three years away: the Florida governor’s mansion.

Gaetz, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, has swatted away rumors that he is planning to run statewide in 2026. But that hasn’t stopped Florida’s political class from chattering. A lot.

“He’d be the front-runner in any Republican primary he wants to run in right now,” said state Rep. Alex Andrade, a Republican who represents the Pensacola area, which is in Gaetz’s Panhandle district. “He’s got his finger on the pulse of the Republican base better than anyone I see.”

Regardless of whether he is or isn’t looking towards the Florida governorship, he does understand that the base is sick and tired of the broken promises from the GOPe. That they are simply slowing down Democrats, not stopping them and instituting conservative policies. Or, at least trying. Again, if Biden were a Republican Democrats would have impeached him multiple times. When they get in power they have no problem pushing their agenda, regardless of whether they control the White House and all of Congress. They will force shutdowns, hearings, whatever. They do not stop.

The US House of Representatives isn’t representative — and that’s a problem | Editorial

Only Republicans in U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz’s north Florida district could vote in the election that mattered — the GOP primary. It’s the same in the heart of Tampa Bay in District 13, where the real race was the Republican primary, won by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, or in Rep. Kathy Castor’s District 14, where there are more than three Democrats for every two Republicans. These races were effectively decided in the primary, where the voting is limited to members of one political party. This is true in most congressional districts across the nation.

Want to know why this is bad for democracy? Just review the past few days when the federal government narrowly averted a disastrous shutdown, basically held hostage to the demands of a few extreme Republican House members, with Gaetz as ring leader. We would call them representatives, but they aren’t really representative of anything but the problem with our process for electing members of the House.

Obviously, the Tampa Bay Tribune is using Gaetz, but, they do sort of make a point in that so many elections in safe districts comes down to the primaries

The numbers are even more lopsided in Pinellas County’s newly drawn District 13, which encompasses most of Pinellas and favors Republicans because it cleaves off Democratic strongholds in St. Petersburg. Luna won the competitive GOP primary with less than a majority — she got just 37,156 votes. That total wasn’t even 7% of all registered voters in her district, but it effectively secured her seat in Congress. She cruised to an easy win in the general election, thanks to a district that skews heavily Republican.

Castor faced no meaningful opposition in the Democratic primary. However, we include her district in these examples to show that the structural problem crosses party lines. There are 50% more Democrats than Republicans in her district, which helped her crush her Republican opponent by nearly 14 percentage points in November. Imbalances like this mean the representative could completely neglect the concerns of the opposing party’s voters and likely still hold on to the seat. That’s not good for democracy.

We aren’t a democracy, but, there is a point here.

We’re not blaming Gaetz, Luna or Castor. They’re just playing by the rules, which don’t work anymore. David Wasserman, an election expert at the Cook Political Report, summarized the overall problem: Only 82 of the 435 House districts across the United States are competitive enough to give Republicans and Democrats each a decent shot to win. That means in most congressional races, it’s the primary, not the general election, that matters. Since fewer people vote in primaries, each ballot carries disproportionate weight. The headline on a Washington Post column we published Monday captured the conundrum concisely — “Who elects all these clowns? As it turns out, a sliver of us.”

Reps can essentially ignore people, especially the opposition. But, the Tampa Bay Tribune is missing a big problem: each rep represents around 700,000 Americans. That is not representation. Even doubling the number would leave little representation except to big money donors, groups, and companies. They have no impetus to listen to you or me. And, once they’re captured by The System (what happened to most of those Tea Party folks?), they do not care. There needs to be term limits. I used to think 12 years, now, I’m thinking 8. (I won’t get into there being no need for Senators having term limits, since we would repeal the 17th amendment, meaning senators do the business as directed by their state general assemblies, not their parties or their “conscience”).

At least at this time, Matt, and the ones who voted with him, are think of We The People.

Read: Surprise: Matt Gaetz “Has Finger On Pulse Of Republican Base” »