‘You have to come back.’ Val Demings campaigns for U.S. Senate in South Florida
On the campaign trail as she runs for U.S. Senate, there was one thing that Cuban American community leaders at a Tamiami restaurant wanted to tell U.S. Rep. Val Demings before she skipped town: Be more visible in South Florida.
“You have to come back,” said former state Rep. Annie Betancourt, the first Cuban American Democrat to be elected to the Florida Legislature since 1925. “Here, you have boots on the ground. Cuban American women... Come down here for us.”
Demings, who on Wednesday also met with Puerto Rican, Jewish and Black faith leaders, was just one of several Florida lawmakers who took advantage of both the U.S. House and Senate being in recess this week to swing by Miami and speak to voters.
Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Rick Scott and South Florida U.S. Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez spoke to Colombians in Doral, ahead of the South American country’s elections in late May. They slammed President Joe Biden over his administration’s decision to remove the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the Marxist guerrilla group, from the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.
“We have got to stand up and make sure that Colombia doesn’t go the way of Cuba, doesn’t go the way of Venezuela, doesn’t go the way of other countries of Latin America,” said Scott.
Salazar said that Colombia’s elections presented a challenge to Colombians in the U.S. who didn’t want the country to elect a socialist leader, Gustavo Petro, who has been leading the polls.
“We know Colombia is the crown jewel, the crown jewel of the hemisphere that communists want to steal,” said Salazar.
The visit from lawmakers in South Florida also came on the day that Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal voice on the U.S. Supreme Court, announced his plans to retire later this year. Demings said she was excited at the prospect of choosing a Black woman, a campaign promise of Biden’s, but ultimately said she knew the most qualified person would be nominated.
“President Biden, I know he has talked about appointing an African American female, certainly as I stand here today, that would be history. But that decision does rest with the president... I think we should get the most qualified person to serve on the Supreme Court,” she said.
Meanwhile, Scott was more vague and said he will judge Biden’s nomination to replace Breyer based on one main criteria: whether or not the person is an “activist judge.”
“I’ll look for qualifications… somebody who’s going to enforce the law, not make the law,” he said.
This story was originally published January 26, 2022 at 8:51 PM.
