Florida’s GOP may be OK with Miami senator’s vague apology. But voters get to decide | Editorial

Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia won the election to represent Miami-Dade County’s District 37 by the thinnest of margins in 2020 — 32 votes — and under tainted circumstances, when it turned out a sham, no-party candidate with the same last name as the Democratic incumbent was paid more than $40,000 to run as a spoiler in the race.

Garcia has not been implicated in the vote-siphoning scheme. However, the sham candidate, Alexis Rodriguez, has pleaded guilty to accepting illegal campaign donations and lying on election forms. And former Republican state Sen. Frank Artiles is still awaiting trial on felony campaign fraud charges, with prosecutors alleging that he was behind the whole thing in a push to unseat Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez.

It was a corrupt election. And, at best, it was an inauspicious beginning for any legislator. That’s all the more reason we had hoped Garcia would prove that her win, rather than being the probable by-product of the bad actions of others, was deserved.

That’s not happening. Garcia has distinguished herself, instead, by making both uninformed and flat-out offensive statements as a recruit in the culture wars of Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP.

Obviously, other Republicans, as members of the party in power in Tallahassee, also have worked to carry out the governor’s agenda, one with which this Editorial Board has generally disagreed. Still, we understand that’s how politics work.

However, Garcia delivered dangerously dismissive takes on pressing issues that affect the lives of real people, including those in the swing district she represents in greater Miami.

The most recent example came during the Senate debate over the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, when she took to the floor to say that “gay is not a permanent thing, LGBT is not a permanent thing and it is not a bad thing.”

Her comments, which triggered an intense backlash, included a story about a personal friend who is transgender. She misgendered the woman during the telling, as Equality Florida tweeted.

On Thursday, Garcia issued an apology on Twitter. She said she understood the “responsibility and impact of words on others. That’s why I want to apologize to anyone I offended by my comments on the floor of the Senate during the debate on HB 1557, Parental Rights in Education.” She said she had been trying to talk about her own experiences and “did not properly articulate my sentiments” and that her comments “in no way were intended to generalize or disregard the experiences of any member of the LGBT+ community.”

She also said she had been threatened with “physical harm” last week.

We certainly do not believe that she — or any legislator — should be subjected to threats of physical harm because of their positions on legislation. That’s a given.

But her apology is thin and smacks of damage control. In particular, it doesn’t say exactly what she’s sorry for saying. Perhaps she still believes being gay is “not a permanent thing” — we can’t tell by reading her tweet. And earlier in the week, Garcia continued to say to the Editorial Board that being gay or transgender can sometimes be a choice. However, years of well-founded studies say that sexual orientation is biologically determined. She should know this. Her apology, notably, did not touch on that point.

Critical race theory

But that’s not the only time her thoughtless words have inflicted pain. Earlier this year, she was similarly ill-informed and dismissive during an interview with CBS4’s Jim Defede. Regarding the Legislature’s push to pass a law prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory, she said that people should “move on” after experiences with racism.

Defede asked if Garcia, the daughter of Cuban exiles, thought the experience of Black people was different from hers or from Defede’s. (He’s white.) She said no, and cited Barack Obama’s election and re-election as president. She also said she grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood and felt discriminated against, but added that she had “moved on,” suggesting others should, too.

Black Democrats in the Senate were understandably taken aback. Sen. Randolph Bracy of Orlando called her comments “naive” and “deeply concerning” in a POLITICO story. Sen. Bobby Powell of West Palm Beach called them “deeply hurtful.”

Sen. Shevrin Jones of Miami noted that DeSantis and the Republican leadership already had been pushing policies with racist overtones, including the ban on teaching critical race theory and the “anti-riot” bill passed a year earlier, which critics say only seems to apply when protesters are Black. All of which, ironically, Garcia supported.

We do not dismiss any personal experience that Garcia had in confronting discrimination. No one should have to face that. However, she seems tone-deaf in attempting to equate her ability to “move on” as a white Hispanic in Miami-Dade County with the experiences of Black residents — here and across the country — who continue to confront easily quantifiable racism in too many aspects of their lives, from securing a mortgage to police encounters to getting lower quality healthcare.

And, yes, despite it all, African Americans do “move on,” and soldier through, carrying on every day. Perhaps Garcia should consider making a second apology.

She told the Editorial Board that she sees Obama’s two elections as an indication that the political system is improving, and that she does believe that racism exists in this country. She also said she believes that there is a “narrative” to make her look bad.

But her remarks are her own — including her vague apology — and so are her votes. She voted for the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. She voted for the bill banning teaching of critical race theory. She voted for the “anti-riot” bill.

She says she wants to be known as a legislator who works hard and produces results. She provided a list of money she helped secure for local needs, including road improvements and stormwater management. She issued a news release about legislative accomplishments including the No Patient Left Alone Act designed to make sure families are not kept apart because of strict nursing-home visitation policies, a COVID-spurred measure.

That’s all fine, but she’s also responsible for the rest of it — and that includes her uninformed words. Garcia’s rhetoric may be acceptable to Florida’s GOP, but it’s the voters she represents — again, in a swing district — who get to decide.

And they might see things differently come this fall, when she runs for reelection.

This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 6:12 PM.