Justice Joseph Woodrow Hatchett, a barrier-breaking man of great distinction, was the first Black judge on the Florida Supreme Court. To honor his memory, Congress was recently set to name the Tallahassee federal courthouse after him. The Senate, including Florida Republicans Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, unanimously supported the measure. But it failed in the House at the last minute when Republicans, including Tampa Bay representatives Gus Bilirakis of Palm Harbor, Vern Buchanan of Longboat Key and Scott Franklin of Lakeland, voted against the honor, even though they had co-sponsored the measure. To his credit, Rep. Daniel Webster voted yes. So did five other Florida Republicans and all 11 Democrats.
Why the change of heart? It seems as simple as the cowardice of their convictions, and they should be ashamed. Turns out the late judge had written a federal appeals court ruling against prayer at a public high school graduation in Duval County in the 1990s. This was no maverick decision. He cited and followed the precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Worse, this “news” — that the judge followed precedent and upheld the Constitution — emerged as the House was voting, and it came from a decades-old news clipping circulated by Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Georgia Republican who made his own headlines when he voted against the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act and for comparing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to “a normal tourist visit.” In the end, the Hatchett bill failed to gain the required two-thirds majority. The near-party line vote was 238 yes to 187 no, including 10 Florida Republicans.
