Ronda Storms

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Ronda Storms
Ronda Storms
Florida Senate, District 10
In office
2006 – present
Preceded by Tom Lee
Constituency Eastern Hillsborough County, Southeast
Pasco County and
Western Polk County
Hillsborough County Commission,
District 4
In office
1998 – 2006
Succeeded by Al Higginbotham
Constituency Bloomingdale, Brandon, Plant City, Riverview, Sun City Center, Valrico
Born September 5, 1965 (1965-09-05) (age 42)
Des Moines, Iowa
Political party Republican
Spouse David Storms
Children Roxanna Storms
Residence Valrico, Florida
Occupation educator,
attorney
Religion Southern Baptist
Website http://www.rondastorms.com

Ronda R. Storms (born Ronda Rehnell Newcomb on September 5, 1965) is a Republican Party member of the Senate of the U.S. state of Florida, representing the 10th District since 2006.

Storms had an eight-year tenure on the Hillsborough County Commission (1998-2006), for which she is well known, and pushed a number of controversial issues. These issues included a fight against establishing the proposed Florida A&M University School of Law in Tampa, a campaign in favor of the sterilization of men and women convicted of child abuse, eliminating county-appropriated money for Planned Parenthood, and perhaps most publicized, her crusade for the county to officially abstain from recognizing gay and lesbian events held inside county lines, which was passed in June 2005 despite vocal opposition, most notably from openly gay topless dance club proprietor Joe Redner. She is also recognized by her quick tongue and often scathing sarcastic remarks, many of which she does not retract, stating "I am not apologizing for who I am."[1]

Contents

[edit] Background and personal life

Ronda Newcomb was born in Des Moines, Iowa, into a military family, and moved around often, growing up in Germany, Turkey and Alabama.[2] Spending many formative years in Turkey, she used to be fluent in the Turkish language, but has had "little call for the language recently."[3]

The Newcomb family finally settled in Brandon, Florida when Ronda was 15, and she graduated from Brandon High School in 1983. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in English education from the University of South Florida in 1988. For a time, she taught English at Bloomingdale High School in Valrico, Florida, and later went on to pursue her Juris Doctor at the Stetson College of Law in Gulfport, receiving her law degree in 1995.[4]

She married David Storms in December 1986. They have one daughter, Roxanna (born 1999). They currently reside in her home district in Valrico. Her husband is a deacon at Brandon First Baptist Church, where she has been a parishioner for over 25 years.[5]

[edit] Hillsborough County Commission

In all three of her elections, Storms ran on a "responsibility" platform, believing strong moral principles from voters, politicians and other public officials were key for there to be responsible government.[5] In addition to simply acting in a "morally responsible" fashion, Storms was also a proponent of sunshine laws, believing that people can only trust government officials when they can see for themselves that they are not corrupt. Storms' other platforms included family values, helping make the cost of living affordable for military families, and lower taxes.

[edit] Elections and challengers

Storms was first elected to the Hillsborough County Commission in 1998. She was re-elected in 2002 and 2004. Her opponent in 2002 was Arlene Waldron, who claimed that Storms' comments had polarized too many constituents. Since both candidates were Republican, Storms won the election in 2002 at the state primary level.[6] Her opponent in 2004 was Jean Batronie, who ran as an independent.[7]

[edit] Issues and controversies

[edit] Florida A&M School of Law controversy

In the summer of 2000, alumni from Florida A&M University asked the Commission for a $1,000,000 commitment to start a School of Law in Tampa (the main branch of Florida A&M is based in Tallahassee). Storms, attending the meeting that night, made a remark that she said was intended to mean that creating a historically black law school will not increase the number of minority lawyers in the state. Storms said, "We can get them through law school, but we can't get them to seem to pass the Bar."[1] The comment met with much controversy in the black community of Tampa, as well as with the Florida A&M alumni still living in Florida, as it was perceived that Storms made a remark that minority students were not smart enough to be capable of passing the state Bar exam.

Two anonymous people offended with Storms' quote called her office the next day, with no comment made on what their exact message was, or if any threats were made against Storms. Storms was unruffled; she apologized if anyone took offense, but noted, "I believe it is an attempt to intimidate honest public discourse...This is how (they) can tar and feather me...By accusing you of racism, (they) can turn you into someone you are not. I know who in my core I am."[1]

When asked if the comment about minorities being capable to pass the Bar was offensive to her, Mary White Darby, president of the Florida A&M Tampa alumni association, responded, "How could she not offend you?"[1] Carolyn Collins, former vice president of Florida A&M's national alumni association, said, "I don't think (Storms) is important enough. All someone has to do is look at her track record or watch her on TV and see how she responds. She has not been stable in some of her comments."[1] After the backlash, Storms took on a more conciliatory tone and openly apologized, stating that she is not a racist, and personally tried to make amends with Thomas Scott, who at the time was the only black member of the Commission. He said of her, "She wanted me to understand that she isn't a racist, and that is not my perception. She's a very vocal person. It's just her style."[1]

Even though her comment created controversy, Storms was adamant in not allowing Florida A&M to open a law school in Tampa. It was eventually opened in Orlando in 2002.

[edit] Child abuser sterilization plan

In 2004 and 2005, Storms tried to introduce a law which would approve sterilization for men and women convicted of child abuse in Hillsborough County. The original motion was approved by all commissioners in attendance in February 2005.[8] When the County Attorney, Renée Lee, made it known to Storms that only the state legislature could pass such statutes, not the County Commission, she made it high priority to lobby for the bill to various legislators. Originally the bill called for sterilization to be voluntary, but between February and April 2005, Storms rewrote the bill, which would make sterilization a mandatory part of sentencing.[9] The Florida legislature turned down Storms' bill in 2005, citing lack of time to discuss it. The bill also did not come up for discussion in 2006, meaning the ruling from the Commission in early 2005 does not have any legal standing.

[edit] Ending county funding to Planned Parenthood

In 2005, Storms called for the elimination of funding for a teenager outreach program funded by Planned Parenthood, which teaches adolescents about safe sex, drugs, gangs, and family violence. The refusal for funding was passed by the board by a vote of 5-2. By doing so, the Commission cut off any aid to Planned Parenthood, as the county does not fund any other Planned Parenthood initiatives.[10]

After Barbara Zdravecky, who oversees Planned Parenthood for 15 counties throughout central Florida, asked Storms to reconsider her proposal on July 21, 2005, Storms said she told Zdravecky, "I am pro-life and you're not...There is nothing you can say or do for me to support you. Thank you very much for your comments." After the exchange, Storms recalled smiling at Zdravecky and thanking her again for her request to reconsider. Zdravecky, however, recalls that Storms was much more blunt, saying "I am pro-life, you are pro-death" twice. Recalling her side of the events, Zdravecky said, "I have to say I was pretty shaken. I'm used to taking hits. But I was surprised at her lack of humanity...I believe anyone who professes to be a proponent of Christianity would treat me with more dignity than the way I was treated." Storms was quoted as saying " I am pro life but I will kick your ass."[10]

[edit] Storms' positions on gay issues

In June 2005, some library patrons complained about a book display at the West Gate Regional Library in Town 'n' Country honoring June, which is Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. Storms heard about the complaints and decided to put to a vote to ban such book displays in county libraries. On June 15, however, she moved for the Commission to "adopt a policy that Hillsborough County government abstain from acknowledging, promoting or participating in gay pride recognition and events, little g, little p." In effect, by adding the footnote "little g, little p," the county would be abstaining from acknowledging, promoting or participating in any recognition or events for gay pride at any time, not just during "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month," with "big G and big P."[11]

The vote was passed 5-1, with Commissioner Ken Hagan out of the room during the vote, and Kathy Castor dissenting, saying "I think it's inappropriate for government to promote discrimination." Storms then asked that an addendum be placed upon the bill, that it cannot be repealed without a super majority vote of at least 5-2, and a public hearing. This time Hagan joined the vote and the addendum was passed 6-1, with Castor again being the only dissent. In the public hearing portion of the meeting, which occurred before the meeting, many people spoke out against the removal of book displays, not knowing of the impending vote.

Vonn New, the central Florida director of Equality Florida, an LGBT rights group, said, "I think that Hillsborough County commissioners sent a very clear message that not everyone is welcome here. I think it's shameful what the commission has done." Reverend Phyllis Hunt, the pastor at the local Metropolitan Community Church, said, "I'm stunned, disappointed and shocked that there was zero conversation about the vote."[11]

In October 2005, Kathy Castor proposed a statute which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the workplace in Hillsborough County, in both the public and private sectors. The statute, which was once law in Tampa, was repealed in 1995 and rejected in 2000. The commissioners, led by Storms, voted 5-2 to reject Castor's statute. Castor and Thomas Scott were the dissenters. Storms then asked for a motion to raise the number of votes needed from commissioners to place the issue on direct referendum to county voters from four commissioners to five.[12]

In December 2005, Joe Redner, who owns the nationally-known strip club Mons Venus, filed a lawsuit against every Commission member except for Castor, alleging discrimination as a result of the June 15 vote. At the same time, Redner, who people had believed was straight, came out on a WFLA-AM morning show broadcast.[13] Redner and Storms had fought before, most recently in November 2005 over a donation Redner had made to needy children. Storms had been a longtime foe of Redner, as she has tried to curtail Redner's business on many occasions, due to his occupation, in Storms' words, as the "purveyor and seller of female flesh."[14]

[edit] Florida Senate

[edit] Senate race

In April 2006, Storms announced her intention to run for the state Senate seat that was being vacated by Senate President Tom Lee. From the outset, her Democratic challenger was Iraq War veteran and Hillsborough Community College staff member Stephen Gorham, a newcomer to politics. Shortly after her announcement to run for the Senate seat, Storms spoke out against the virulent backlash she had received in the gay community, and made it known that she would try to bar gays and lesbians from being foster parents, saying "I don't support putting at-risk children in homes that I think are at-risk themselves."[15] Of the response she received from Tampa's gay community, Storms said, "I've had all sorts of threats and horrible things said and done to me...things done to my church, things done to my home, and personal threats...never attacked anybody's appearance and in fact worked very closely with people who are out-of-the-closet homosexuals and they will tell you I have never done anything but treat them with dignity and respect in my personal working relationship with them."

During the summer, Shelby McIntyre of Tampa started UNbanned.org, a reference to, among other issues, Jean Batronie being banned from appearing on public access television for a debate, implying that station owners choose to only air programming Storms approves of, lest Storms try to convince the Commission that public access television not receive funding by the county.[16] Filmmaker Amy Nestor also created a video documentary, UNbanned, about the Ronda Storms gay pride vote.[17]

Despite the campaigning against Storms by the gay community of Tampa, and Gorham hitting hard with campaign television advertisements[18] and insisting that Storms was an "empty suit who's all style and no substance,"[15] and that "the thing about Ronda is that she only will look out for the interests of folks who look and act like her...she pretty much ignores everyone else,"[3] Storms won the Senate seat in a close match in November 2006.

[edit] Issues and controversies

[edit] "Pole Tax"

In February 2008, Storms introduced a bill that immediately became known as the Florida "Pole Tax". Florida Senate Bill 1520 would tax adult entertainment, including escorts and strippers, and use the money to fund additional services at the Department of Children and Families.[19]

[edit] Academic Freedom bill (SB2692)

See also: Academic Freedom bills

Storms' key role in a bill promoting the teaching of intelligent design in public school science classrooms has been the source of much controversy. On February 29, 2008, Storms introduced Academic Freedom bill (SB2692) in the Florida Senate targeting teaching of evolution,[20] which is based upon the Discovery Institute model statute promoting intelligent design.[21] Its sponsor in the Florida House of Representatives (as HB1483) is Representative Alan Hays,[22] who arranged for a private screening of the intelligent design promotion film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed for Florida legislators who are to vote on the bill. Storms refused to answer repeated direct questions from senate Democrats as to whether teachers would be permitted to teach intelligent design under her bill and whether she believes that intelligent design meets its criteria for 'scientific information'.[23]

The House bill underwent substantial modification and, as amended, requires the intelligent design lesson plan "Critical Analysis of Evolution" to be taught.[24]

John Stemberger of the evangelical Florida Family Policy Council, one of the drafters of the bill, said that intelligent design could not be taught, though "criticisms" of evolution could, and the teacher would have to follow the curriculum. Stein said it was the teacher who would decide what was "scientific information", and the program officer for public policy and legal affairs of the Discovery Institute, Casey Luskin, said that intelligent design constituted "scientific information." The Miami Herald saw this as acknowledgement that the bill would make it easier to bring up religiously tinged intelligent design in public-school science classrooms.[25] Wesley R. Elsberry considered that this would enable the Discovery Institute to recruit sympathetic teachers to introduce religiously-motivated antievolution arguments, and lawsuits would depend on someone with standing being willing to become a plaintiff. John West of the Discovery Institute said that "scientific information" would be determined by science teachers themselves in consultation with their science curriculum staff and their school boards. This would bypass the Florida education standards identified by science domain experts and education experts.[26]

The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concerns that these bills would make it easier to teach intelligent design as science in public schools:

The presumption of this bill is that all you have to do to teach something in a science class is to call it science. Simply saying something is science does not make it so and calling Intelligent Design science, does not make it science. Intelligent Design relies on the assertion that there is a supernatural creator, which inherently precludes it from being scientific, as the ACLU proved in our landmark case in Dover, PA.

– Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida[27]

The bill has also been criticised for its inconsistency in only protecting the freedom of teachers to discuss anti-evolution arguments, but not other controversies:

If it's OK for science teachers to talk about controversial alternatives to Darwin, it should be OK for health teachers to talk about birth control and abortion. ... With intellectual inconsistency such as this, it's hard to see this effort as anything other than a ham-handed attempt to keep the flames of religion vs. evolution in public schools burning.

—Michael Mayo, Proposed Academic Freedom Act ripe with mumbo jumbo, South Florida Sun-Sentinel[28]

Democrats later introduced a proposal to have the protection extended to sex-education, but Storms voted against it.[23]

A 'Bill Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement' prepared by the Senate Education Pre-K - 12 Committee staff stated that:[29]

  • "Taken as a whole, the science standards [already] encourage teachers and students to discuss the full range of scientific evidence related to all science, including evolution."
  • "According to the Department of Education, there has never been a case in Florida where a public school teacher or public school student has claimed that they have been discriminated against based on their science teaching or science course work."
  • The bill creates ambiguity in its lack of definition of "biological and chemical evolution" and "objective scientific information", because it is silent on how this bill would affect teacher discipline over the science standards and by employing the word "may" in the context of student evaluation.

Liam Julian, a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution and editor for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (which advocates and researches education reform), lists a number of reasons why the bill is "a lousy idea for Florida's students and schools":[30]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Karp, David. FAMU remark raises eyebrows. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  2. ^ Varian, Bill. Mincing few words, pulling no punches. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  3. ^ a b Crouse, Julia. Storms Plans to Keep Her Direct Style. The Ledger. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  4. ^ Senators' Pages: Ronda Storms. Florida Senate. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  5. ^ a b Ronda Storms: A Tested Leader. Ronda Storms for Senate. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  6. ^ Ballingrud, David. Forthright Storms fends off challenger. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  7. ^ From different worlds: For the most part, Ronda Storms declines to discuss Jean Batronie's personal life.. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  8. ^ Varian, Bill. Commission backs sterilization for abusers. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  9. ^ County commissioner again pushes to sterilize child abusers. WFTS-TV. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  10. ^ a b George, Justin. Commission backs off Planned Parenthood. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  11. ^ a b Varian, Bill. Hillsborough bans county from recognizing gay pride. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  12. ^ County Commission votes against gay protection. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  13. ^ Liberto, Jennifer; Bill Varian. Redner stirs up Storms with gay revelation in suit. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  14. ^ Charity finds itself in middle of Storms-Redner flap. WFTS-TV. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  15. ^ a b Smith, Adam C.; Bill Varian. Storms makes political vow. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  16. ^ The Facts and Details. UNbanned.org. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  17. ^ UNbanned. Amy Nestor/iFilm. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  18. ^ Storms, Justice Win Tough Senate Races. The Tampa Tribune/TBO.com. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  19. ^ Storms, Ronda. Florida Senate Bill 1520. The Florida Senate. Retrieved on 2008-02-11.
  20. ^ Storms' Evolution Bill Lets Teachers Contradict Theory, Keith Morelli, Tampa Bay Online, The Tampa Tribune
  21. ^ Anti-Evolution Legislation Introduced in Florida, Mike Dunford, Panda's Thumb
  22. ^ Catherine Dolinski (March 4, 2008). Storms Tries To Put Evolution Up For Vote. The Tampa Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-03-12.
  23. ^ a b 'Academic freedom' for evolution, not sex-ed, Marc Caputo, Miami Herald, April 17 2008
  24. ^ Antievolution bills continue to advance through Florida legislature, National Center for Science Education, April 29, 2008
  25. ^ Marc Caputo (March 15, 2008). Intelligent Design could slip into science class - 03/13/2008 - MiamiHerald.com. Miami Herald. Retrieved on 2008-03-15.
  26. ^ Wesley R. Elsberry (14 March 2008). The Austringer » Florida: John West Spins Wildly to Cover Luskin's Back. Retrieved on 2008-03-16.
  27. ^ Intelligent Design Should Not Be Taught in Florida’s Public School Science Classrooms, American Civil Liberties Union
  28. ^ Mayo, Michael. "Proposed Academic Freedom Act ripe with mumbo jumbo", South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 20, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-20. 
  29. ^ Bill Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement, The Professional Staff of the Education Pre-K - 12 Committee, Florida Senate, March 26 2008,
  30. ^ Julian, Liam. Academic Anarchy. www2.tbo.com. Retrieved on 2008-03-29.

[edit] External links