UPDATE: Suddenly the Florida Senate President declares this bill will move forward and the Florida Senate Press shop asks that I make a note of it. Done.————————–It never ceases to amaze me how Republicans can play politics so badly.The latest example is State Senate President Don Gaetz in Florida who will not move publicly supported bipartisan legislation forward that has caused headache after headache for the left.Sources tell RedState that Gaetz himself is the roadblock.About two weeks ago, Planned Parenthood of Florida stirred up sensational headlines as its representative before the state legislature, Alisa LaPolt Snow, more or less said Planned Parenthood was cool with infanticide.In particular, in considering Florida’s version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (Florida House Bill 1129), a bit of legislation that has been routinely passing state legislatures around the country over the past decade, a member of the legislature asked Alisa LaPolt Snow, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood before the legislature, what Planned Parenthood would want if a baby were born alive after a botched abortion.Alisa LaPolt Snow of Planned Parenthood replied, “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family and the physician.” In other words, if the baby were born alive and the family wanted it dead, it was okay to kill the now breathing and out of the womb child. The legislator responded, “I think that at that point the patient would be the child struggling on a table. Wouldn’t you agree?”The testimony made national news. Planned Parenthood was pilloried. In George Will’s latest column he noted

Planned Parenthood, which receives more than $500 million in government subsidies, is branching out, expanding its mission beyond the provision of abortions to the defense of consumers’ rights: If you pay for an abortion, you are owed a dead baby.

Momentum and public support are with the issue. Planned Parenthood in Florida even folded after the controversy and backed off opposition to the law.That gets us to Don Gaetz.Today in the Miami Herald we find this about Florida Senate President:

Conservative House members generally support the proposals, but Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, has said that abortion-related measures are not among his top priorities.“Nobody whose doors I knocked on said abortion was an issue that they wanted us to focus on. They wanted us to focus on economic issues,” Gaetz said. “I don’t think they’ve become less pro-life, but I think they’ve become more pro-jobs.”

In fact, sources tell us at RedState that Don Gaetz himself will not move the bill forward. As the Miami Herald reports, “the proposal has drawn rare bipartisan support and even the muted acceptance of abortion rights groups.”So we have an issue that damaged the left, receives bipartisan support, has seen acceptance by the kid killing lobby, and has public support, but Don Gaetz won’t move forward with it.Read how the Associated Press described Don Gaetz in the description of the file photo I’ve posted above:

Gaetz is a throwback to an era when Democrats and Republicans put ideological purity aside to solve common problems together. The conservative Republican was mentored as a teenager by a liberal Democratic lawmaker who went on to became lieutenant governor and state school superintendent in his native North Dakota. Don Gaetz then succeeded in business by partnering with another liberal and now counts a Democratic colleague as one of his best friends.

With leadership like this, who needs Democrats. It looks like Gaetz is doing the Democrats’ bidding while giving them cover to say they’re opposed to killing kids who’ve been born alive.