The Week That Was - Week 1

The Florida Delegation didn't disappoint during the first part of our 100 hours agenda. All three of our newly elected Democrats (Castor, Klein and Mahoney - 2 pick-ups) as well as our returning Democrats voted in support of the Democratic agenda.

The big surprise might be the new, provisionally-elected Republican from FL-13, Vern Buchanan. (Reminder - he won by 369 votes in a race that had 18,000 undervotes and no paper trail. This is being appealed and a Notice of Contest has been filed with the House.)

Of the four votes taken last week, Buchanan broke with his party to vote with the Democrats 3 of 4 times! He voted for 9/11 commission recommendations, the minimum wage and Medicare prescription drug negotiation.

Considering that 28.5% of his district is over 65, I'm not too surprised that he was in the 12% that broke with the Republicans on Medicare. Too bad we didn't get him on stem cells.

Another real surprise was re-elected Republican, Ric Keller. Well-known in Orlando for being a Bush sychophant over the last six years, not only did he support the 9/11 recommendations and the minimum wage, he issued a strong statement from the Floor opposing the escalation (surge) in Iraq. It was quite the smackdown of Bush's reasoning.

But here's some interesting news.

Of the 16 Republican Representatives from Florida, 12 broke ranks with their leadership position on a least one of the four issues. Half of them broke on at least two issues.

Eight broke on 9/11. Ten broke on minimum wage. Three broke on stem cells and two on Medicare.

Not too bad for blue issues in a red state.