Castor Breaks Ranks On Cuba

Well done, Kathy Castor. The Tampa-based U.S. Representative just broke ranks with this state’s Congressional delegation by signing on to the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act.

For Castor, it was a gambit borne of overlapping priorities and motivations.

Her office receives a constant stream of inquiries and entreaties from local Cuban-Americans whose family ties don’t qualify for special travel status. And those who do, have to incur the inconvenience and extra expense of flying out of Miami.  She wants the White House to get off the dime and help her constituents by further liberalizing travel and halting the foot-dragging on approving TIA for charter flights to Havana. Plus, she wants Tampa Bay — its port and airport — to realize benefits that would necessarily result from expanded trade and travel with Cuba.

“My first motivation is jobs in Tampa and putting pressure on the Obama Administration on TIA,” explained Castor. “We’re trying to do everything possible to diversify our economy. That means trade and travel. Every day in my office we see Cuban-American families having to go through terrible red tape trying to travel to Cuba. It’s not right.”

In 2010, breaking with the Florida delegation over Cuba still takes a measure of political guts and a greater-good ethos. On this still politically dicey issue, the delegation is comprised of hard-line ideologues or those intimidated and bought off by them. You don’t have to be a Diaz-Balart to toe the hard line. You can be a card-carrying liberal Democrat and still back the strident, vendetta crowd in South Florida. Just ask U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz or Kendrick Meek.

By co-sponsoring Massachusetts Democrat Bill Delahunt’s H.R. 874, Castor joins 178 other Representatives. The critical-mass number to ensure victory on the House floor is 218. The Castor move just added critical impetus. The window of opportunity for something this meaningful–lifting the travel ban and further loosening restrictions on U.S. agricultural sales–hasn’t been open this wide in memory.

Some co-sponsors, to be sure, are more important than others. Arguably, Castor is a coup for those fighting the good, frustrating fight to extricate the U.S. from a counterproductive, Cold War time warp with Cuba. For too long a key political argument against abandoning a manifestly failed Cuban policy has been this: If easing up now were such a good idea, then why doesn’t somebody from Florida, the state that ostensibly would benefit most from rapprochement, vote for one of these bills that liberalizes trade and travel relations between Cuba and the U.S.? If THEY’RE not voting for it, why should WE?

Castor’s co-sponsorship has the look of a game-changer.    

Her reasoning is hardly grounded in knee-jerk idealism. More like enlightened self interest. “Now is the time to remove the obstacles and hassles that have prevented Cuban-Americans without direct family ties and other Floridians from traveling to Cuba, and for our region to reap the benefits that freedom of travel can bring,” stated Castor.  

To that end, the two-term Representative has been aggressively lobbying for months for TIA to join New York, Los Angeles and Miami in the direct-charter-flights-to-Cuba business.

“There is great potential for new jobs and economic growth throughout the Tampa Bay area if travel and trade opportunities are expanded over the coming years,” underscored Castor. “The Port of Tampa, Tampa International Airport, area businesses and our neighbors are well positioned for new economic opportunities.

“Tampa, candidly, has to position itself as a gateway,” emphasized Castor. “It’s a dividend for our local economy.”

Castor wants it understood that she is no less interested in calling for improved human rights in Cuba, but emphasizes that unfettered travel, education and cultural exchanges can provide “greater attention to human rights.” Indeed, it’s hardly unprecedented that increased outside contact, let alone free-flowing visitations, begets inevitable change, even in police states.

Moreover, just this week Castor’s position was buttressed by Cuba’s Guillermo Farinas, the internationally prominent dissident-journalist who nearly died recently from his hunger strike. “The visits of millions of U.S. citizens would without a doubt change this country” he told Spain’s El Pais.