How often every Florida Democrat voted with Republicans in 2024

January 14, 2025

Florida Representative Hillary Cassel of Broward County suddenly left the Democratic Party a few weeks ago, reportedly due to Democrats not supporting Israel enough and their inability to relate to everyday Floridians.

Rep. Cassel’s right, in a way: Florida Democrats are struggling to relate to everyday Floridians, but let’s not paint the Republican Party as some haven for the common folk. That’s dangerous and revisionist.

Right now, everyday Floridians are freezing in their homes, contemplating if they should turn on the heat and deal with an even higher utility bill, all because Republicans keep approving endless rate increases for extremely profitable energy companies and refuse to establish laws against shutting off electricity or gas during winter months.

Republicans may be better at relating to Floridians than Democrats, but fail miserably in actually solving our problems. They’d rather continue their crusade of sterilizing Florida by banning books and eradicating homeless people (not homelessness) than pass bills to improve our material conditions.

But, like Kurt Bardella said, being relatable is far more powerful than being right. And Democrats have to learn that lesson if they ever plan on freeing Florida from Republican control.

Getting back on track, though.

When I heard the news, I wondered:

How often did Rep. Cassel agree with Republicans before joining them?

I attempted to answer this question by comparing how often Rep. Cassel voted with Rep. Renner, the top House Republican, last Session.

The Florida State Legislature doesn’t have a database of legislators’ vote records, so I created my own.

Using data from PolicyEagle*, I compiled the final roll call votes on the 261 bills signed into law last year by Governor DeSantis. Then, I examined each vote to determine how often every Democratic member of the legislature agreed with the top Republican’s (Rep. Renner or Sen. Passidomo) position on the bill — this is the “Republican agreement score.” If a legislator missed a vote on a bill, I removed that bill from the analysis.

Rep. Cassel voted with Republicans 91% of the time on bills signed into law last year.

While Rep. Cassel had a higher rate of agreement with Republicans than most of her former Democratic colleagues, she didn’t have the highest. That title went to Rep. Cassello of Palm Beach County, who voted with Republicans 96% of the time.

Interestingly, Rep. Valdés was among the least likely to agree with Republicans, but will be caucusing with them next Session. She left the Democratic Party days before Rep. Cassel over issues with leadership and not wanting to belong to “the party of protesting.”

The wide distribution of Republican agreement scores between House Democrats reflects a divided caucus, but also a Democratic Party struggling to understand itself or agree on the path forward.

The departure of Reps. Cassel and Valdés mirror what’s been happening locally: Democratic voters are switching sides because they’re losing their connection to the party. Blame it on lack of progress, a cloudy vision, culture wars, or just plain apathy, but the Florida Democratic Party has shrunk, losing 15% of its members in the last four years. Will Democrats find a way to tighten up and stop the exodus, and will they start with their own state legislators?

I was curious if Senate Democrats had a similar cohesion problem, so I expanded this analysis by comparing their votes with Sen. Passidomo., the top Senator last Session.

What I found was something I didn't expect.

Florida Senate Democrats are more cohesive than House Democrats, based on voting patterns from last Session.

Senate Democrats were remarkably unified last Session. The Republican agreement score ranged only 8 points among Senate Democrats, compared to the House Democrats’ 14 points.

How have the Senate Democrats managed to stay unified in a hostile political environment, and how can the House Democrats learn to do the same?

One place to start is learning how to use their caucus’ more right-leaning or bipartisan members as a bridge to the other side.

The most “bipartisan” Senator, Shevrin Jones, voted with Republicans 89% of the time, but is still a proud member of the Democratic Party, stepping up to serve as Chair of the Miami-Dade chapter to overcome the huge Republican advantage in registered voters— Florida Republicans outnumber Democrats by 1,156,082 voters. In 2020, the Democrats had a 97,000 voter advantage.

Reps. Cassel and Valdés could have learned from Sen. Jones and leveraged their affinity towards the Republican Party to improve the passage of Democratic-sponsored bills (or weaken the blow of heinous ones) and the spirit of bipartisanship in the legislature, instead of quitting the party.

Florida’s regular Session starts March 10th, with Republicans now entering with an 86 to 33 majority in the House and retaining their 28 to 12 majority in the Senate over Democrats.

With a shrinking minority, we’ll see how Democrats navigate this heightened challenge to reign in the Republicans and deliver results for everyday Floridians, who want expanded public services, infrastructure, and resources to live a better life and provide for their families.

*A note on the data: The vote record data came from Policy Eagle, a tool my husband and I are building to support residents and advocacy organizations who want to engage in public policy, track legislation, and search vote records in the Florida State Legislature.

We're still in the early stages, so email us if you'd like to test out the beta product / get access to vote record data: shelby @ togethernotfor.com