This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 173.168.228.41 (talk) at 12:39, 6 June 2012. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 12:39, 6 June 2012 by 173.168.228.41 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)| Ronda Storms | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the Florida Senate from the 10th district | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 2006 | |
| 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, Zephyrhills, Lakeland |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1965-09-05) September 5, 1965 (age 59) Des Moines, Iowa |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | David Storms |
| Children | Roxanna Storms Elijah Storms |
| Residence | Valrico, Florida |
| Occupation | educator, attorney |
| Website | Senator Ronda Storms |
Ronda R. Storms (born Ronda Rehnell Newcomb on September 5, 1965) is a member of the Senate of the U.S. state of Florida. Affiliated with the Republican Party, she has represented the 10th District since 2006.
Storms had an eight-year tenure on the Hillsborough County Commission (1998-2006) and advanced a number of controversial issues.
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. Spending many formative years in Turkey, she used to be fluent in the Turkish language, but has had "little call for the language recently."
The Newcomb family finally settled in Brandon, Florida when Ronda was 16, 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, as a S.C.A.T.T. honors graduate. 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 Cum Laude.
She married David Storms in December 1986. They have one daughter, Roxanna (born 1999) and one son, Elijah Gideon (born 2008). They currently reside in her home district in Valrico. Her husband is a deacon at Brandon First Baptist Church, where she has been a member for over 25 years.
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. 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 strong constituent service and family values, helping make the cost of living affordable for military families, and lower taxes.
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. Her opponent in 2004 was Jean Batronie, who ran as an independent.
Issues
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 so that, in her view, child abusers would not be able to continue to produce children that would become abused also. The original motion was approved by all commissioners in attendance in February 2005. 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. 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.
Florida Senate
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. When asked by the hosts of Bay News 9's Political Connections whether she supported homosexual people becoming foster parents or adopting, Storms replied "I don't support putting at-risk children in homes that I think are at-risk themselves." 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 ... Ive 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 cable TV 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. Filmmaker Amy Nestor also created a video documentary, UNbanned, about the Ronda Storms gay pride vote.
Despite the campaigning against Storms by the gay community of Tampa, and Gorham hitting hard with campaign television advertisements and insisting that Storms was an "empty suit who's all style and no substance," 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," Storms won the Senate seat in a close match in November 2006.
Issues and controversies
"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.
Academic Freedom bill (SB2692)
See also: Academic Freedom billsStorms has had a key role in a bill promoting the teaching of intelligent design in public school science classrooms. On February 29, 2008, Storms introduced The Academic Freedom bill (SB2692) in the Florida Senate. The bill did not require any change to the current science curriculum and under the bill, evolution would still be taught as a matter of law. The bill gave express statutory right and protection for teachers to "present scientific information that is relevant to the full range of views on biological and chemical evolution." The bill did not authorize the teaching of creationism or intelligent design. Under the act, all students would still have been required to learn and be tested upon all aspects of the Science Standards, including evolution.
Its sponsor in the Florida House of Representatives (as HB1483) is Representative Alan Hays, 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.
The House bill underwent substantial modification and, as amended, requires the intelligent design lesson plan "Critical Analysis of Evolution" to be taught.
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. 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.
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
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
Storms was contacted by multiple teachers who had been disciplined for speaking of alternative theories, despite those critics who said retaliation never occurred. Public record shows the concerns of these teachers "I have been criticized for offering scientific evidence that goes against evolution! There is always a dark cloud looming in the back of my mind even though the evidence I provide is purely scientific. I should not have to teach under these restraints." A public school teacher of more than 35 years stated "I am a proponent of critical thinking and discussion among students in the classroom. But it has been my observation that for too long, much has been lost in our students' ability to grasp the concepts related to biological and chemical evolution. This has occurred precisely because they are not encouraged to look critically at and freely investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the subject as they would any other." Another teacher stated "my school is a majorly 'hostile' environment toward criticism of evolution... I greatly fear reprisal from... administration as I have already been completely shunned and ostracized by my science department."
Democrats later introduced a proposal to have the protection extended to sex-education, but Storms voted against it.
A 'Bill Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement' prepared by the Senate Education Pre-K - 12 Committee staff stated that:
- "Taken as a whole, the science standards 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.
References
- Varian, Bill. "Mincing few words, pulling no punches". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- ^ Crouse, Julia. "Storms Plans to Keep Her Direct Style". The Ledger. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- "Senators' Pages: Ronda Storms". Florida Senate. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- ^ "Ronda Storms: A Tested Leader". Ronda Storms for Senate. Archived from the original on 2006-08-18. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- Ballingrud, David. "Forthright Storms fends off challenger". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- "From different worlds: For the most part, Ronda Storms declines to discuss Jean Batronie's personal life". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- ^ Varian, Bill. "Commission backs sterilization for abusers". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- "County commissioner again pushes to sterilize child abusers". WFTS-TV. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- ^ Smith, Adam C. "Storms makes political vow". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - "The Facts and Details". UNbanned.org. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- "UNbanned". Amy Nestor/iFilm. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- "Storms, Justice Win Tough Senate Races". The Tampa Tribune/TBO.com. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
- Storms, Ronda. "Florida Senate Bill 1520". The Florida Senate. Retrieved 2008-02-11.
- Catherine Dolinski (March 4, 2008). "Storms Tries To Put Evolution Up For Vote". The Tampa Tribune. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
- Antievolution bills continue to advance through Florida legislature, National Center for Science Education, April 29, 2008
- Marc Caputo (March 15, 2008). "Intelligent Design could slip into science class - 03/13/2008 - MiamiHerald.com". Miami Herald. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
- Wesley R. Elsberry (14 March 2008). "The Austringer » Florida: John West Spins Wildly to Cover Luskin's Back". Retrieved 2008-03-16.
- Intelligent Design Should Not Be Taught in Florida’s Public School Science Classrooms, American Civil Liberties Union
- Mayo, Michael (March 20, 2008). "Proposed Academic Freedom Act ripe with mumbo jumbo". South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
- 'Academic freedom' for evolution, not sex-ed, Marc Caputo, Miami Herald, April 17 2008
- Bill Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement, The Professional Staff of the Education Pre-K - 12 Committee, Florida Senate, March 26 2008.
External links
- "Senator Ronda Storms". Florida Senate.
- "Ronda Storms for State Senate". Official Campaign Website.
- Profile at Vote Smart
- Follow the Money - Ronda Storms
| Current members of the Florida Senate | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
|  | |