By Kartik Krishnaiyer

Term limits and redistricting have created a never ending flow of new legislators and new opportunities for the Democrats in Florida. Yet more often than not the party has failed to take advantage of these opportunities. Despite the pickup of five seats this cycle, House Democrats missed countless opportunities to actually change the two decade trajectory of history in the lower chamber. Twelve Democratic candidates lost House elections by under 5,000 votes on November 6th. With this election cycle being fought on a completely new map, a fairer map than the previous one used from 2002-2010, the failure to pick up more seats is unforgivable. Central Florida performed very well for Democratic House candidates but the rest of the state was a wash in a heavily Democratic year.

But since the opportunities to really change the composition of the House were blown let’s look at how this year’s House Democratic Caucus will be different. Both good and bad news for progressives exist in the new dynamic.

• Perry Thurston is a true liberal and will help steer the Democratic Caucus towards being strong advocates on the progressive issues that matter most to Floridians. His predecessor Ron Saunders who had spent the better part of three decades in and around Tallahassee was too cozy with lobbyists representing various interests that were contrary to the liberal position on many important issues and thus steered the caucus into a neutral position on many key issues.
• The Caucus is five members larger which is good news, but in many cases, “moderates” won contested Democratic Primaries and were elected in November. Larry Lee, a well connected local Insurance man defeated former Rep. Adam Fetterman, Rick Stark a former Republican Executive Committee officer in Broward County defeated two good progressive candidates and Katie Edwards who got an “A” rating from the NRA, the only non elected Democratic candidate in the state to get such a rating in defeating Louis Reinstein, were all moderate victors.  With the departure of strong progressive voices like Geraldine Thompson (to the Senate), Scott Randolph (to Orange County Tax Collector), Evan Jenne and Dwight Bullard (also to the Senate) the caucus could be pushed to the middle despite Saunders departure.
• Incoming Democratic Leader Darryl Rouson is far from progressive, and is likely to de-emphasize certain issues the same way Saunders did. This is the bad news. However,  the good news is that Rouson appears to be more willing to get down into the trenches on the political side and do some of the dirty work, raising money and recruiting candidates that many former Democratic Leaders avoided.

In short the Democratic Caucus will likely be different this session. How different remains to be seen but with different faces and a different dynamic a lot can change, perhaps for the better but sadly also for the worse.