We will release our first annual scorecard of all 120 Florida House members on Sunday. The scorecard is based on 17 key votes in the recently completed legislative session (three votes were double weighted to bring the total votes scored to 20) and it yielded some interesting results. Without giving away scores of specific legislators, it is very useful to compare the loyalty of the most Democratic county delegations to the capitol.

Broward County has long prided itself on being the state’s most Democratic mega-county and is considered by many the most liberal metropolitan county in the southeast United States. Despite significant demographic changes over the past decade, Broward remains solidly blue in Presidential, state and local elections. The county’s neighbor to the north, Palm Beach was between the late 1980s and mid 2000s, the second most urban Democratic county in the state at the Presidential and state level but recently backsliding in partisan performance has taken place in the county. Miami-Dade and Orange County are trending Democratic but both delegations are mixed and general elections in these counties tend to be more competitive than in Broward or Palm Beach where the Democratic Party effectively has a lock on all but a handful of legislative seats.

But as we calculated the voting records on key ideological issues this session, Democrats from Broward County were worse in their votes from a progressive perspective than Democrats from Miami-Dade and Orange counties and far worse than neighboring Palm Beach County whose demographics are similar to large parts of Broward. In fact, many Broward Democrats are voting in a similar if not more conservative fashion to the way north Florida and rural Democrats did for a number of years on non-social or education issues.

Broward County for various reasons tends to have the lowest turnout on primary day and that has empowered some “power brokers” in local Democratic clubs as well as activists who consider personality and access to elected officials more important than ideology or competence. In this county, most Democrats running for legislature never face a competitive general election and win in low turnout primaries based on factors other than ideology or competence. This is not a new pattern as for many years we have seen that many elected Democrats in the county have no loyalty whatsoever to the ideology of the party.  The talking points these legislators spout out at local Democratic clubs are difficult to reconcile with votes cast in Tallahassee. Furthermore, many candidates simply run as a Democrats because it is the ticket to election, unlike in other parts of the state where the partisan balance is more competitive and those running as Democrats must have some fundamental reason to run as a member of the Democratic Party.

The scorecard that will be released Sunday on this website will further paint picture of delegation filled with legislators who talk out of both sides of their mouth, cut political deals for various reasons and whose loyalty to progressive causes must be questioned. Thankfully most Democrats elected to the Legislature from outside Broward County understand why they run with a D next to their name and have served with distinction and courage in a hostile legislature dominated by arrogant and self-entitled Republicans.

Our scorecard for the House will be issued on Sunday morning.