Who Governs Tampa?
Most people think that when they vote for a Tampa City Council member, a Hillsborough County Commissioner, or a School Board member, those officials will actually have the authority to govern.
That’s a reasonable assumption.
But every year, that becomes less true.
For years, the Florida Legislature has slowly taken away the power of local governments, turning home rule into something more like asking for permission slips from Tallahassee. If a city wants to fix a local problem with a local solution, legislators hundreds of miles away increasingly reserve the right to say, “No thanks. We’ve already decided for you.”
Representative Karen Gonzalez-Pittman has been one of those reliable votes.
This isn’t just about one controversial bill. It is a philosophy of government. Florida Republicans prefer to call it “uniformity.” Most local officials call it preemption. No matter what you call it, the result is the same: decisions that used to be made by local officials are now made by politicians in Tallahassee.
The list keeps getting longer.
Local governments have lost authority over worker heat protections, affordable housing, aspects of zoning and land use, vacation rentals, environmental regulation, energy policy, firearms, labor standards, and more. Local school boards have also seen Tallahassee take over decisions about curriculum, classroom instruction, library books, pronoun policies, school governance, and the daily running of schools that local voters chose them to manage.
Apparently, local control is a wonderful principle right up until someone local exercises it.
Take housing.
People in South Tampa care a lot about what gets built in their neighborhoods. Some want more housing, while others worry about traffic, infrastructure, flooding, or keeping the character of established communities. These are the kinds of debates city councils are supposed to have.
But instead, Tallahassee has increasingly inserted itself into those decisions through measures like the Live Local Act and related legislation limiting local discretion over qualifying housing developments. Whether you want more density or not isn’t the main issue. The real question is who gets to decide. Representative Karen Gonzalez-Pittman has consistently sided with Tallahassee..
The same pattern appears in education.
Parents choose Hillsborough County School Board members to run local schools. But every year, the Legislature gives more power to the state. Now, rules about classroom instruction, library books, pronoun policies, and curriculum are increasingly dictated from Tallahassee rather than decided by the communities those schools serve.
Hillsborough County Public Schools has over 220,000 students. Liberty County has about 1,400. One district is bigger than many state university systems, while the other could fit inside a single large Hillsborough high school. Still, Tallahassee seems to think that if a policy works for a district smaller than many Hillsborough high schools, it must also work for the seventh-largest school district in America. That’s certainly one theory. Evidence is still pending.
Hillsborough County has about 25,000 employees, which is more than the number of students in many Florida school districts.
Yet Representative Karen Gonzalez-Pittman has repeatedly supported legislation giving Tallahassee more authority to dictate how both districts operate, as though educating students in downtown Tampa presents the same challenges as educating students in rural North Florida.
Then there are worker protections.
When Florida temperatures rise into the upper 90s and heat indexes go over 100 degrees, some local governments looked at stronger protections for outdoor workers. But instead of letting communities decide what works for their own climate and workers, the Legislature stopped them from making those choices at all.
Apparently, the people pouring concrete in Tampa should take comfort in knowing Tallahassee has provided them with the reassuring consistency of statewide policy.
Supporters of preemption argue that statewide rules create predictability for businesses. There is merit to that argument. Companies operating across Florida often prefer one set of regulations rather than dozens of different local ordinances.
But every policy comes with a cost. In Florida, relying more on preemption has cost us local democracy.
When people in Tampa vote for City Council, they expect those members to make decisions for Tampa. When Hillsborough County voters pick School Board members, they expect them to run local schools. More and more, these officials find that many decisions have already been made before they even get to vote.
Her voting record leaves little doubt where she stands.
She doesn’t always sponsor the bills making headlines. She doesn’t need to. When the roll is called on legislation transferring authority from local communities to the state, she has consistently helped provide the votes that make those transfers possible.
Campaign ads often promise to fight for the community, but voting records show who was actually trusted to govern. Karen Gonzalez-Pittman’s record brings up a simple question for District 65 voters.
If Tampa can’t decide what’s best for Tampa, who exactly is Representative Gonzalez-Pittman really representing?
With Representative Karen Gonzalez-Pittman’s help, Tallahassee has increasingly taken upon itself the job of deciding which laws Tampa is allowed to make.
