


Florida state Rep. Hillary Cassel is talking more about why she decided to leave the Democratic Party and start the new year as a Republican.
Cassel’s move gave Florida House Republicans an 87-33 supermajority. She followed Rep. Susan Valdes, who switched parties earlier this year. Cassel said the instance she felt so disenfranchised as a Jewish woman from the Democratic Party that she decided to leave it “will live with me forever.”
“Shortly after Oct. 7, we were on the floor of the House of Representatives arguing and debating a bill in support of Israel, and I was forced to debate a Democratic colleague who filed a resolution, while we still have hostages there, but this was shortly after Oct. 7,” Cassel detailed Monday on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle. “And rather than my colleagues rallying around this issue, which is extremely important not only to myself, my community, America, and democracy as a whole, ensuring the Jewish people had a state, I was told I should have sat down and stayed quiet.”
At the time of her announcement, Cassel wrote that she was “increasingly troubled by the Democratic Party’s failure to unequivocally support Israel and its willingness to tolerate extreme progressive voices that justify or condone acts of terrorism.”
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Since then, Cassel, along with other state representatives, has filed a resolution to support “the right of the State of Israel to exist as a sovereign and independent nation, with the full recognition of its borders and territory.”
This comes as Florida’s Miami-Dade County voted for President-elect Donald Trump 55%-43%, marking the first time a Republican candidate has won the county since 1988. Notably, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) also won the county, and three of the four U.S. House members that represent the county were also Republican.