Losses continue for alumni ex-lawmakers who ignored attacks on FAMU

Florida A&M University received poor representation from its alumni who served in the Florida Legislature between 2015 and 2016.

In 2015, FAMU lost control of a multi-million dollar college budget after 28 years and saw its alumni become a minority in the 11 appointed university Board of Trustees seats. But the six FAMU alumni who held seats in the legislature at that time simply ignored those attacks against the university.

Four of those individuals are now ex-lawmakers who have taken some big losses since leaving the state capitol.

Sen. Arthenia Joyner and Rep. Mia Jones left the legislature due to term limits in 2016. They both publicly backed chosen successors for their seats during the 2016 Democratic primaries, but Democratic voters in their own districts gave cold shoulders to those endorsements.

Rep. Alan Williams represented House District 8 for eight years between 2008 and 2016. Facing term limits, he ran for Leon County Supervisor of Elections that year but lost to Mark Earley.

Sen. Dwight Bullard held the District 39 Senate seat from 2012 to 2016 and ran for the District 40 Senate seat after the district maps were redrawn. He lost to state Rep. Frank Artiles, a Republican.

Bullard then sought the chairmanship of the Florida Democratic Party. In December, he lost his bid for the Miami-Dade committeeman position to developer Stephen Bittel. That left him ineligible to run the state chairmanship due to the rule that candidates hold a county-level office.

After that, Bullard moved from Miami-Dade to Gadsden County and won the state committeeman post there. But in the statewide Democratic chairmanship race, he still came in a distant third to Bittel. Bittel won with 615 weight votes versus the 115 votes that went to Bullard.