Guest Blog: Diaz-Balart Brothers that's who!

This Spirit Airlines ad defines the Diaz-Balart Brothers party line "sell-out" votes recently when the Offshore Drilling Debate came to a head in the U.S. House. Wrapped within a Dem sponsored Energy bill was a tiny section that respected the law passed in 2006, under then Governor Bush, which settled the "Lease Sale 181" debate that had gone on for about 2 years prior. That deal provided a buffer of 230+ miles from the west coast and 125 miles along the panhandle from Offshore Drilling but gave over 8 million new acres offshore to Big Oil.

The FL Dem Caucus had successfully petitioned House Speaker Pelosi late last week to add a provision to the current Energy Bill that respected the 2006 deal. Their pitch to Pelosi went like this: "Look, less than 2 years ago, Florida gave over 8 million acres in the Eastern Gulf for drilling. We were promised that was enough and we wouldn't deal with this issue until 2022." Pelosi agreed and Florida dodged a bullet (again) regarding drilling, the bill passed 236 - 189. It now goes to the Senate, where a new battle begins.

THAT' S NOT THE WHOLE STORY THOUGH

Florida Congressional Dems were united behind the new Pelosi bill before it came to floor. Would the rest of the Dems in the Nation roll with it? Would Florida be perceived as getting special treatment? Every R vote would be critical to make sure the bill got over the top, but the vote on the bill itself wasn't "the real vote".

The real vote came 15 minutes earlier in a procedural move called a motion to "recommit". A process where the minority party moved to recommit the bill to committee with directives on how a new bill should look. Essentially, as a last ditch effort to avoid a perceived Dem win, the R's tried to "recommit" an old bipartisan bill between Abercrombie (D) and Peterson (R) that they had abandoned months ago when they took up McCain's mantra of "Drill here, Drill now". If the bill was recommitted (i.e. voted back to committee), the directions for the committee DID NOT provide protections for Florida's Gulf coast. In short, if the recommit motion passed- its over - FL is screwed.

That's where the BIG sell-out by the Diaz-Balart Brothers takes place. They voted FOR the motion to recommit: a party-line ideologue vote. They knew the day before that the mega powerful Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association which represents a $57 billion dollar industry that is 20% of Florida's economy, contributing $3.4 billion in sales tax revenues and employing more than 900,000 people, weighed-in against drilling. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen voted against the recommit - kudos to her - shows she's willing to break party ranks when necessary.

But not the Diaz-Balarts, who voted against the interest of Floridians.