top of page
Search

(Video) Kelly Skidmore, Florida House District 92: Breaking The Republican Super Majority

Writer: Indivisible Boca Raton
Indivisible Boca Raton
3 days ago
6 min read

State Rep. Kelly Skidmore, running for her final term in Florida House District 92, explains how one-party rule in Tallahassee breeds corruption and why Democrats must break the Republican super major



Life In The Super Minority

Kelly Skidmore opened her talk to Palm Beach voters with a civics lesson many of us never got, and it was the key to everything else she said. Democrats hold 34 of the 120 seats in the Florida House and 12 of the 40 in the Senate, which leaves them in a super minority, short of the one third needed to block anything. Some legislative rules take a simple majority, some take three fifths, and some take two thirds, and those thresholds exist to protect the minority party. “When the minority party can’t get up to a third,” Skidmore said, “the majority party always has all the votes to do whatever it wants, and there’s not a way to stop it.” When one side writes the rules, breaks the rules, and enforces the rules, she told us, “this is the kind of corruption that you get.”


Thirty Years In Tallahassee

Skidmore knows how the Legislature got this lopsided because she watched it happen. She started in 1996 as a legislative aide to Ron Klein, back when the state Senate was split evenly and the presidency rotated between the parties, and the Florida House was still run by Democrats. Republicans took the House that November and have held the House, the Senate, and the Cabinet ever since. She served in the House from 2006 to 2010, returned in 2020, and has been the Democratic ranking member on health care committees and the caucus policy chair, according to Florida Phoenix. She is now asking District 92, which covers western Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and Boynton Beach, for her last term. Her Republican opponent on the November 3 ballot is Steve Byers. When someone asked what flipped the state in the 1990s, she did not spare her own party, saying Democrats “got lazy,” split into factions, and missed what Republicans saw coming.



Following The Hope Florida Money

Skidmore acknowledged the room might be tired of hearing about Hope Florida, then explained the scandal from inside the Legislature. After Florida privatized Medicaid in 2011, the insurer Centene was penalized for failing to meet its contract. Of that settlement, $10 million went through the Department of Children and Families to Hope Florida, and from there, in two $5 million payments, into political committees tied to James Uthmeier. She stressed that nobody needs a grand jury to solve this one, because the paper trail shows exactly where the money went. As Skidmore tells it, Ashley Moody signed off as attorney general and was rewarded with a U.S. Senate seat, while Uthmeier, then the governor’s chief of staff, was rewarded with the attorney general job. That money was spent fighting the citizen-led amendments on medical marijuana and abortion access, and the Agency for Health Care Administration website was turned into a campaign tool against them. “Using your money against you for your ballot initiative,” she said. Skidmore was among the lawmakers who called for that website to come down in 2024. For more on Hope Florida, see our forum with Jose Javier Rodriguez, who spoke alongside her.


Culture Wars Instead Of Your Pocketbook

Skidmore said a majority that never has to worry about losing stops caring about policy and starts polling for outrage. She pointed to the hours spent on trans kids in sports, an issue that, by her count and Sen. Lori Berman’s, involved two athletes in the entire state. Meanwhile, nothing was done about property insurance premiums or the gas tax, and a House Democratic proposal for gas tax relief went nowhere while families were getting sticker shock at Publix. She also took aim at school vouchers that now hand roughly $8,900 to wealthy parents whose kids were never in public school. Republicans have run education in Florida for 30 years, she noted, so when they complain about it on the House floor and blame teachers and librarians, the obvious question is what they were doing all that time.



The Insurance Fix Tallahassee Will Not Touch

Asked why nothing has been done about property insurance, Skidmore answered in two words: the insurance lobby. What the Legislature did do, she said, was limit homeowners’ ability to sue over unpaid claims and put $2 billion, then another billion, toward insurers’ reinsurance bills. For six years she has filed legislation asking Congress to create a national catastrophic risk pool, and this past session she filed a bill directing the state to start one. A global risk firm told her it had already shown the last two House speakers that pooling Florida’s risk with California and Japan would cut premiums by 35 percent right away, with more savings as other states joined. “The insurance companies don’t want that,” she said, “and that’s why the legislature hasn’t done it.” She also described how parent companies like Allstate load costs onto Florida subsidiaries such as Castle Key so the subsidiary shows a loss and can raise rates, calling it “a shell game” that persists because Florida has no rules on executive pay for insurers.


Condo Owners, HOAs, And Amendment 3

A resident of a Huntington Lakes condo asked why the Legislature mandated milestone inspections after Surfside but never delivered the low-cost loans owners were promised. Skidmore did not pretend the answer was simple. Florida has condo and HOA statutes but no agency that enforces them, so lawmakers started in the middle with inspection and reserve rules meant to prevent another collapse, and owners are now paying for decades of neglect by their associations. She said she is sad about that burden and that the timeline was extended twice once its weight became clear. On Amendment 3, the property tax measure, she explained that long-time homesteaders would see their exemption jump from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, with no guarantee of funding for firefighters, police, 911, libraries, parks, and roads. Everything that brought you to your community, she warned, would be at risk.


Protecting Your Vote

When asked how to make sure our votes get counted, Skidmore said fears of widespread fraud have been planted on purpose to make people doubt their votes. Palm Beach County audits 100 percent of its ballots every election, and she said there is no evidence of meaningful fraud anywhere in Florida. She reminded the room that Gov. DeSantis once called his own election the best the state ever had, then reversed himself the next year once the national narrative changed. Her advice was practical: vote by mail and drop off the ballot if that feels safer, vote early rather than waiting for Election Day, and have a plan B and a plan C. When an attendee raised the fear that ICE presence keeps citizens and green card holders away from the polls, she called it a real problem, pointed to vote by mail and Spanish-language outreach groups, and urged anyone with questions to contact the Supervisor of Elections or her office for voter protection help.


Why We Are Supporting Kelly Skidmore

Skidmore admitted she loves the legislative process, and she told us the best bills come from residents whose everyday problems need fixing, while ideas like hers on the catastrophic risk pool keep getting buried by the lobbyists she calls the third House. Her closing message was blunt for someone who says she has never talked this way before: vote for every Democrat down the ballot, whoever they are, because breaking the Republican super majority is the only way to restore checks and balances, and a party that holds every lever of power answers to no one. Florida needs lawmakers who know the rules well enough to expose who is breaking them, and Kelly Skidmore has spent 30 years learning them. Vote early, return your mail ballot by November 3, and make sure your neighbors in District 92 know her name.



Support Kelly Skidmore for Florida House District 92:





Links to all our social media:


Volunteers:

Indivisible is a volunteer-led organization, and we could use your help! If you want to volunteer occasionally to help us fight for democracy, please CLICK HERE to fill out the volunteer form.


Donations

We also are in need of any donations you can make towards Indivisible Boca Raton. Money is needed to be able to rent the Civic Center, serve refreshments, pay for postcards, office supplies, name tags, signs and other necessities to operate. This is a grassroots organization and any amount you can give would be extremely appreciated.


Click here to donate. It will take you directly to our ActBlue Page. Thank you!


Comments

bottom of page