Your Words: letters to the editor

¶ Every year, we work our keyboards to the bone assembling the results of our annual Best of Orlando Readers Poll, and every year we get bitter commentary on the number of national businesses — specifically, chain restaurants — that make it in. We agree! You’ll notice that our Staff Picks focus on local love. After decades of this, we’re tired of saying it every year, but here goes: If you don’t want to see chains win, vote for locals and encourage your friends and family to do the same.

@Alex Osborn-Flanagan: Orlando Weekly has some awful results. Allowing companies like Publix in this is dumb — I bet people voted them because they never even tried the others. I get how it works, but how is it “Best of Orlando” when Bahama Breeze and Tropical Smoothie and Publix are placing? Those aren’t Orlando-based businesses and shouldn’t be included in voting, period. [Editor’s note: Bahama Breeze is, in fact, based in Orlando. Publix is headquartered in Lakeland, 56 miles from Orlando. Tropical Smoothie is now based in Atlanta, but was founded in Florida, FWIW.]

¶ Democrats’ struggle to “cause good trouble” by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act has intensified after it passed in the U.S. House on a party-line vote, but the Senate filibuster stands in the way. Demonstrations in D.C. last weekend singled out West Virginia’s DINO Sen. Joe Manchin and called on President Joe Biden to undo the filibuster rule so the Senate’s Democratic majority could pass the bill. Letters were sent!

Colleen Sheehan, Orlando: Biden has a choice to make: Does he want to establish his legacy as a president who fought for voting rights, or not?

In order to be remembered as a president who fought for voting rights, Biden must do more than ask the Senate to pass voting rights legislation. He knows as well as we do that bills like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act won’t make it through the Senate unless we abolish the filibuster.

Biden must publicly and unequivocally support abolishing the filibuster to clear the way for these crucial reforms. It’s time for Biden to be the leader he promised to be and call on the Senate to end the filibuster and protect our right to vote.

We’re counting on him to do the right thing.

Elvia Lopez, Orlando: In 2006, 192 House Republicans voted to renew the Voting Rights Act. Now, we can’t get a single Republican senator to come out and unequivocally support protecting the freedom to vote for the American people.

That tells you everything you need to know about our hopes for passing voting rights legislation without abolishing the filibuster.

It’s time for President Biden to recognize this reality and use the power of his office to demand the Senate abolish the filibuster. Supporting voting rights legislation alone is simply not enough.

Please, President Biden, we need a strategy. Put the freedom to vote of the American people ahead of any reservations you have about abolishing the filibuster. The stakes are too high to lack your leadership.

FEMA DAD JOKES BY CLAY JONES