A powerful south Florida state senator who repeatedly sidelined popular gun rights legislation lost his seat Tuesday, opening the door for campus carry and open carry in the Sunshine State.
Florida State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and in 2015 refused to hold hearings on a bill to allow legal concealed carry on public colleges and universities. Diaz de la Portilla was also a fly in the ointment when it came to derailing an emergency concealed carry bill the year before and in 2016 was key in killing bills on campus carry and open carry, refusing to even meet with advocates.
The Dem replacing him is also rated F, but taking one F and replacing them with a more junior F who doesn’t chair a key committee can be a win overall. Senator Greenleaf, Chairman of the Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee, who is the reason enhanced preemption had to be stuck on another bill, should think about that. Like Florida, the Pennsylvania GOP Senate majority could absorb the loss of one seat, and I’d be happy to donate to or volunteer, even for the most Kumbaya singin’, tree huggingist hippie, if they looked like they had a credible chance of getting him out of our way.
Politics is a chess game. Suppose Florida gun owners are playing as White. They just replaced a turncoat “white” Queen with a black pawn. Sure, the replacement could, conceivably, promote to become a black Queen at some future date, but right now it’s one less Queen on the board working against us.
And that’s a big friggin’ deal.
I like that analogy. It’s also the reason why even though I voted for neither, having McGinty win over Toomey wouldn’t have been an apocalyptic event in my mind.
One could also argue that if playing the long game, electing a junior, extremely anti-gun Dem may eventually result in a big enough backlash that gets someone who is genuinely pro-gun in. “Primarying out” an establishment-backed RINO would a lot harder in many cases.
Stewart Greenleaf is a douche, but a douche who has held the same office since 1979. It appears his district likes douches. I would be very surprised if any issue short of being caught red-handed in criminal wrongdoing would shake him out of office. But, I don’t want to discourage anyone from trying.
More than 20 years ago I went with a small delegation of people to talk to him about a (non-firearms issue) bill he had sponsored — in several sessions. He not only did not know the content of his own bill, he argued vehemently against some of the features contained in it.
A douche, but a surviving douche.
Diaz de la Portilla bought and drank the Kool Aid that the NRA and Gun Owners were no longer the power they used to be. That was the story coming out of Bloomberg/Watts und Company and as we saw in this election, getting high on your own supply was slightly stupid.
Plus it was rather simple to oust the bastard: Gun owners did not vote for him.
Since Diaz de la Portilla is nowhere near my part of the Florida, it hadn’t occurred to me to look and see if he won or not. I am very happy to hear that he lost.
You sir, have made my day!