By Senator Rosalind Osgood
Legislative leaders appear to be struggling to do what’s morally right and to fulfill their constitutional obligation to the people of Florida. The Governor’s veto and the submission of his own Congressional maps was another attempt to suppress the Black voters. He is attempting to personally choose the districts that will represent the people in Congress for the next decade!
This strategy has been used before to strip the Black community of their vote in the State of Florida. Last month, U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker struck down SB 90 while rebuking lawmakers “for the past 20 years, the majority in the Florida Legislature has attacked the voting rights of its Black constituents. They have done so not as, in the words of Dr. King, “vicious racists, with [the] governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification,” but as part of a cynical effort to suppress turnout among their opponents’ supporters.”
As one of two Black women in the Senate, I am reminded that the 18th Amendment in 1868, gave Black people the right to vote. We have been fighting to keep that right ever since. Historically, our voting rights have been diluted by poll taxes, literacy tests and the requirement of specific identification.
I am asking my colleagues to do what’s right by ensuring that all people in the State of Florid have an opportunity to have fair representation in Congress.
Senator Rosalind Osgood represents District 33 in the Florida Senate and served as a member of the Broward County School Board for 10 years. Her email address is Osgood.Rosalind.web@flsenate.gov.
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