“The only thing red in our district is our sun burns,” said state Sen. Alexis Calatayud, a Miami-area Republican who voted against the abortion bill last week when the full Senate approved it.
Calatayud said she voted against the measure because thousands of her constituents in the blue stronghold of Miami don’t support such a restrictive law. Despite being a Republican, she’s still beholden to the will of the voters.
Republicans hold supermajorities in the Florida Legislature, so the few GOP lawmakers who reject the measure have no power to stop or even slow its passage. But their opposition shows how abortion remains a tough issue for the party, especially after Republicans nationally underperformed in the 2022 midterms in part because the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade energized Democratic and swing voters.
That dynamic was much different in Florida, however, Republicans picked up seven new GOP members in the state House and four in the Senate. DeSantis also won the state by historic margins, even in traditionally Democratic areas like Miami.
When Florida lawmakers last year passed a 15-week ban on abortions that offers no exceptions for victims of rape and incest, only one Republican, state Rep. Rene “Coach P” Plasencia of Orlando, voted against it. He later resigned a few months before he was term-limited out of office.
House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell (D-Tampa) said the difference this year is that more Republicans are realizing the consequences of the six-week ban, which does have exceptions for victims of rape, incest and human trafficking up to 15 weeks of pregnancy.
“They know and understand, like we do, that at six weeks most women don’t even know they’re pregnant,” Driskell said. “This is effectively an outright ban.”
At least 12 other states have enacted six-week bans, including neighboring Georgia. The Florida bill, once DeSantis signs it into law, will effectively end the state’s reputation as a safe haven for people seeking abortions in the South. Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe last year, at least 4,000 people have traveled to Florida to get abortions from as far away as Texas and Alabama, where abortion is prohibited at any stage of pregnancy.
In addition to its exceptions, the six-week ban includes a provision that would give $5 million to the state Department of Health for programs that promote causes such as contraception, and $15 million for programs that support mothers who give birth.
Republican state Rep. Mike Caruso of Delray Beach told POLITICO he will vote “no” Thursday on the six-week ban, while GOP Rep. Traci Koster of Tampa previously rejected the bill during a March committee vote. She did not respond to requests for comment this week.
“I don’t think the bill takes into consideration certain religious rights,” Caruso said on Wednesday. “And based on that, and some other things, I’m going to be down on the bill.”
Several faith-based groups filed legal challenges last year against the state’s 15-week abortion ban, arguing that it violates the constitutional right to freedom of speech and religion, among other things.
“I do not like this bill,” Caruso said.
The Republicans who vote against it, however, are unlikely to face any blowback from their caucus. The vast majority of the 84 House Republicans are expected to vote for the six-week ban, and Florida GOP Speaker Paul Renner told reporters on Wednesday that some Republicans in Democratic districts must still represent their constituents.
“We have members who will likely not be able to support the bill because they are a good representative of their district. And that’s not where their district is.” Renner said. “We respect those differences in our caucus.”