Terrie Rizzo Leading the Way
Dear Democrats,
This week we salute the nurses and front-line workers who are literally risking their lives to take care of COVID-19 patients. They are truly the heroes of this tragic and horrendous pandemic. Without them, the human pain and suffering would be much worse. We also salute another group of heroes, our Florida teachers who continue to educate our children whether in class or online – Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! And, to all of our moms, we wish you each a very Happy Mother’s Day!
As we witness directly day after day, Donald Trump cannot be trusted with our health care. His response to the coronavirus pandemic has ranged from negligent to chaotic — and we truly cannot afford another four years of his erratic leadership, especially when it jeopardizes our health and safety.
Luckily, we have an opportunity to vote for someone in November we can trust with our health care. Former Vice President Joe Biden not only helped pass the Affordable Care Act ten years ago but also has a plan to strengthen this legislation to make health care more affordable and accessible for Americans.
Meanwhile Florida’s GOP state legislators have REFUSED, on a straight Party line vote, to call for a Special Legislative Session formally requested by our Democratic delegation to address and fix urgent issues affecting Floridians – the unemployment mess, expansion of Medicaid, and preparation for the 2020 Election, especially Vote By Mail. If you live in Republican districts, make sure people know that their Republican state senators and representatives voted to stay home rather than work to fix issues that are affecting them!
Just a quick reminder that the filing period for state legislative races is June 8-12, and the petition deadline for those candidates trying to qualify by petition is May 11. The Secretary of State has modified petition requirements to allow SOEs the option to accept electronic signatures and submissions, but the filing and petition deadline dates have not been extended. Please do everything you can in your districts to help all of our candidates qualify. And please continue to help recruit great Democrats to run for seats that currently don’t have Democratic candidates – even in deep red districts, having a Democrat on the ballot brings Democratic votes and strengthens the entire ticket. A shout out to all of you who are stepping up to run and to everyone working hard on recruitment!
As we all know, the road to the White House goes directly through Florida, and all of the work going on around the state, even in the middle of the pandemic, is awesome to see! A big thank you to each and every one of you for all the Zoom meetings, phone banks, texts, calls, and everything you are doing to keep us moving forward to win in November!
As of Sunday, May 10, there are exactly 177 days — 5 months and 26 days — to November 3, 2020.
