Progress Report: From Progress Florida

This was supposed to be a terrible year for progressives, but it wasn't. Rick Scott was inaugurated Governor in January along with huge, extreme right wing majorities in the Legislature. We were told to sit down and take it, instead we stood up and fought back.

Together, we turned a real crisis into an opportunity to stand up and fight for our progressive values and loudly champion Florida's middle class in contrast to Gov. Scott's extremist agenda. Here are just a few examples of what we accomplished:

• We launched the Awake The State movement alongside our progressive partners with hugely successful rallies in March to highlight the destructive proposals being put forth by Gov. Scott and right-wing extremists in the state legislature. Today Awake The State is a growing movement with grassroots networks in almost every major city in Florida.

• We won important legislative victories in concert with our allies, including: stopping SB830, the “worker gag” bill designed to destroy unions along with the right to collectively bargain for wages and benefits; derailing House Speaker Dean Cannon’s politically driven Supreme “Court packing” bill; defeating the abortion clinic shutdown bill; and stopping massive funding cuts for Florida’s developmentally disabled.

• We helped lead the fight against voter suppression by tea party extremists in the Legislature. More than 13,000 Floridians signed our petition opposing the 2011 Voter Suppression Act, helping in a big way our ongoing efforts to repeal this travesty of a law.

• We fought to protect the Fair Districts amendments from self-serving politicians. Progress Florida and partner groups helped boost progressive turnout at public hearings throughout the state, and thousands of Floridians signed our petition demanding Speaker Cannon drop the taxpayer-funded lawsuit against Fair Districts, garnering statewide press coverage.

• We turned up the heat on Senate President Mike Haridopolos via DirtyHari.org, a website exposing Sen. Haridopolos' numerous ethical problems and extreme positions. Once the GOP front-runner to challenge Sen. Bill Nelson, "Dirty Hari" dropped out of the race in disgrace.

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