Shortly after Florida Gov. Rick Scott officially said he will run for Bill Nelson’s U.S. Senate seat, Black state lawmakers expressed concern.
With his bid, Scott is seeking to put two Republicans – Sen. Marco Rubio is the other – in Congress for the first time in 144 years. There has been prior speculation that Scott, a reelected governor whose second term ends in 2019, would make a run for the U.S. Senate.
State Sen. Oscar Braynon II and State Rep. Barbara Watson reminded voters that Scott’s actions have been more harmful than helpful.
They cite his stance on clemency for felons and on expanding Medicaid, and the smoke and mirrors of his recently signed gun violence law as examples of Scott’s policy’s working against the citizens of Florida.
In 2011, Scott issued clemency rules for former felons to have their voting rights restored; the Brennan Center for Justice considers them the most restrictive in several gubernatorial administrations. Since he took office, the governor has reviewed 100,000 cases to restore voting rights and has done so for fewer than 2,000 Floridians. More than 20,000 applications remain pending and the number of people who were removed from the democratic process grew by almost 150,000 between 2010 and 2016.
Scott reversed a Charlie Crist decision that made it easier for former felons to apply for clemency. To receive clemency – the restoration of voting rights – a former felon must wait five or seven years after the completion of a prison sentence.
“There’s a nefarious intent in that,” said Braynon, during a news conference he held at his office in Miami Gardens Monday after Scott announced his bid to unseat Nelson, the only statewide elected Democrat in Florida. “To take someone’s rights away just because they are not going to vote for you that to me speaks volumes about what you think about democracy.”
Out of six million former felons whose voting rights were taken away in the U.S., around 1.6 million of them are in Florida as of a February 2018, Brennan Center for Justice reports. The Brennan Center is a part of New York University’s School of Law.
The New Florida Majority, a voter enfranchisement organization, said in a statement, Scott’s Senate bid is disturbing because of his direct and indirect attempts to limit democracy in Florida.
“Gov. Scott … led the charge to cut short the number of early voting days in 2011, he heads a rights restoration process that everyone from editorial boards to the federal court system has called arbitrary, lengthy and unconstitutional, and he refused to extend the state’s 2016 federal voter registration deadline in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.”
On Feb. 1, a federal judge in Tallahassee ruled the “unfettered discretion the Florida Clemency Board possesses” violates the First and 14th Amendments.
Braynon said Scott’s slowness in restoring civil rights is what concerns him the most, but he also noted how Scott has flipped on certain issues.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott announces his bid to run for the U.S. Senate at a news conference Monday, April 9, 2018, in Orlando, Fla.
“That’s what really bothers me about his intent to move to the senate,” he said. “His put-your- finger-in-the-air-bellwether-type of politics that he does."
He described how a bipartisan group in the Florida Senate was working to expand Medicaid through a bill and Scott promised to support them during his reelection campaign.
However, he changed his mind and joined House Republicans who were against it, Braynon said.
Scott announced his candidacy for Nelson’s seat on Monday, April 9 – right as Congress resumed session. Nelson won his senate seat over Republicans Connie Mack in 2012 by 1,065,184 votes and Katherine Harris by 1,064,421. Republican Marco Rubio beat Democratic candidates Kendrick B. Meek by 1,552,807 votes in 2010 and Patrick Murphy by 713,103.
Sen. Bill Nelson speaks during a CNN town hall meeting in Sunrise, Fla. The mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has put guns at the forefront, for now, in the U.S. Senate campaign in Florida. Republican Gov. Rick Scott, is expected to mount a campaign to oust incumbent Democrat U.S. Bill Nelson from his Senate seat. CNN host Jake Tapper, left, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) are seen in the background.
Watson, a former Miami Gardens lawmaker and now the representative for Florida’s 107th district, said Scott’s most recent accomplishment was more of a deception.
Watson accused Scott of putting extremely similar language in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act that already exists in a bill she introduced in 2013 to help put people who meet the requirements to be a danger to themselves or others under the Baker Act.
The bill, Purchase of Firearms by Mentally Ill Persons signed by Scott on June 28, 2013, provides conditions for which people who admitted themselves to a mental health facility for treatment and have undergone involuntary examination may be prohibited from purchasing a firearm.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas bill that Scott signed on March 9, prohibits someone who has been determined mentally ill or who was committed to a mental health facility from owning or possessing a firearm until “certain relief is obtained.”
She said the most meaningful measure to come out of the Parkland bill is the demolition of the freshman building and the money for a new one.
“To me, that’s a deception,” Watson said. “You’re not really giving communities additional stuff; it’s just fluff.”
Though she supports school safety, Watson said the money in the bill is heading in the wrong direction – more should go toward student learning instead of security guard arming.
“Many of our communities are in need of additional financial support to educate our children for the future. And the idea of putting more guns into a volatile situation is horrible,” Watson said. “More guns doesn’t solve the issue. If more guns solved a problem, we would have won in Vietnam.”
