ABOVE: Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith. Photo by Mitchel Worley.
The State of Florida is at a tipping point. We have a housing affordability crisis, skyrocketing property insurance rates and cost of living, plus a massive teacher shortage. As a member of the Florida House of Representatives, I’m working with other Democrats to deliver common-sense solutions to these issues and more for the people of our state.
Unfortunately, the Florida GOP has a different set of priorities. They spent the last legislative session dividing Floridians with invented culture wars and doling out political retribution for companies that dare to speak against them.
Perhaps most notably, this played out in the fight over Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, a piece of legislation designed to erase LGBTQ students, families and history by banning classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. While a bipartisan coalition of companies and elected officials lined up to condemn the bill, Republicans in the legislature got support from one of their biggest cheerleaders in Congress, Senator Marco Rubio.
In February, Rubio gave a full-throated endorsement of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, bucking public opinion, mental health experts and the pleas of LGBTQ youth, families and teachers across the state. This is just the most recent example of Rubio’s self-serving political agenda designed to harm LGBTQ Floridians.
But he’s out of alignment with the people of our state. Polls show that 75% of Floridians support fully inclusive laws to protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination. They don’t want to see the civil rights of their family, friends and coworkers stripped away.
Whether the issue is marriage equality or protecting workers from discrimination, Rubio has consistently opposed giving LGBTQ Floridians equal treatment. He has raised money in favor of conversion therapy, said that LGBTQ parents are part of a “social experiment” and vowed to support Supreme Court Justices who want to overturn marriage equality. He’s consistently sided with the NRA in opposition to every commonsense gun safety proposal before Congress. And after 49 people were taken by hate at Pulse nightclub, Rubio showed up in Orlando only to exploit our pain and relaunch his Senate run after a failed presidential campaign. But showing up is really out of character for him.
In his 24 years as a politician, Rubio has a long and documented history of skipping work. In 2016, he earned the worst missed-vote record of any sitting senator during his failed presidential campaign. Over several weeks last fall, Rubio missed 14 Senate committee hearings, including critical meetings about U.S. foreign policy, protecting seniors and helping small businesses. In fact, he has missed so much work that Politico dubbed him the “absentee senator.” His refusal to do his job isn’t just a dereliction of duty, it’s a slap in the face to the hardworking Floridians who pay his salary.
While hundreds of thousands of us are fighting for our lives, Marco Rubio is focused on the culture wars of the right. We deserve elected officials who care about the kitchen table issues facing working people, that put all Florida’s families first including the LGBTQ community, and that, yes, show up for work. We deserve better than Marco Rubio.
Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith is a member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing District 49. Born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Guillermo Smith attended the University of Central Florida, graduating in 2003. He joined the statewide LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida in 2015 before winning his run for House District 49 in 2016 and becoming Florida’s first openly LGBTQ Latinx person ever elected to the Florida Legislature.
