| As Florida's legislative session opened in January, Republican lawmakers quickly made clear their plans to continue efforts to enhance parental rights in education. They used that wording to label their bills (SB 1834 and HB 1557), which they said would build upon the law they enacted a year earlier. And for about a week, few questions arose about the message the sponsors had attached to their initiative. Then seemingly out of nowhere, a new angle took hold. And it came from an unlikely source.
— Jeffrey S. Solochek, jsolochek@tampabay.com
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| In Florida education politics, names matter |
| "Don't say gay." In the days after the Senate and House held their first hearings on the bills, that three-word phrase surfaced as the critics countered the notion that the proposals had anything to do with parental rights. And it wasn't just local activists who were using it. National magazines and political figures adopted the tag as they attempted to reframe the discussion around the section of the bill that aimed to prohibit classroom conversation and instruction about gender orientation and sexual identity.
That's exactly what Kevin Cate, the strategist who helped Equality Florida devise its strategy, was looking for. Catchy labeling "matters when the conversation starts to go a mile outside the Capitol," Cate said. "It's an easy way for people for people to grasp what is happening."
It's not anything new in political campaigning. Florida Republicans have successfully branded several education-related concepts to favor their positions for several years. They named a teacher pay bonus that teachers hated "Best and Brightest," for instance. They took ideas that schools long have valued, such as diversity, and wrapped them into the term "critical race theory," which conservatives began rallying against at meetings across the state.
"We live in a moment in time where you live and die by the sound bites," said Christian Ziegler, vice chairman of the state Republican Party who also works as a campaign consultant. "Obviously, you need to have facts to support your message. But you want to have a good topline headline. ... You want people to stop scrolling." This phrase has gotten people to stop scrolling. As such, it has made headlines across the nation, including on a story from The Hill on how other states also have "don't say gay" bills just like Florida. In the hours before the bill arrived on the House floor this week, #DontSayGay was among the top trending tags on Twitter. |
| The phrase itself wasn't invented by the LGBTQ advocacy group that launched it at a news conference condemning the legislation. It came from a little noticed Tennessee bill of a decade earlier, Equality Florida executive director Nadine Smith said. Back then, Facebook was the only social media platform with more than 16 percent of Internet users, according to the Pew Research Center. The opportunity for it to gain steam was limited. In 2022, strategist Cate said, it has become easier to wage and win a battle online. Not that the Florida Democrats have experienced much success in that arena. When they held their annual leadership conference in December, party leaders lamented that messaging was among their biggest deficits. Other attempts to rename contentious education legislation have fallen short, too. Few people, for example, are calling the House "Individual Freedoms" bill (HB 7) the "Erase History" bill, one of a few alternatives tested by the opponents. So they've celebrated the ability to rebrand the "parental rights" bill, and raised hopes they can do it again. "I think it was brilliant that they did it," said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Broward County Democrat who is vice chairperson of the Senate Education Committee. "They're doing exactly what the Republicans do, how they message things so it's easy for people to understand." |
| Not that everyone is happy about the "don't say gay" moniker. A Moms for Liberty local chapter leader grumbled on Facebook that it's misleading, as "nowhere in the bill does it say that." A conservative Pinellas County blogger complained that news reports using the tag are little more than inflammatory clickbait. State Rep. Joe Harding, the Williston Republican sponsoring the legislation, told his colleagues during committee debate that he wanted to "come back to what we are actually talking about." Afterward, he bristled about Equality Florida's online ad blasting the bill, saying "Our bill doesn't force a buzzer in a classroom to go off" when students or teachers say certain words. Still, even those who don't like the way that "don't say gay" has taken off acknowledged that they try to do the same thing in their realms. "This time it could be the Democrats winning it. Next week, it could be the Republicans using the very same strategy," Republican political consultant Shawn Foster said. "It depends on which fight and what words stir the electorate. They all have a base they have to get stirred, and they all have a message they want to get out." |
| TAMPA BAY EDUCATION ROUNDUP |
| [Courtesy of Pasco eSchool] |
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