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Val Demings
Florida
"Never Tire"
Challenging Marco Rubio
“You shouldn’t lose your job if you get sick or pregnant. America, we deserve better. ”
What will it take for a Democrat to beat Marco Rubio in Florida? What will it take to enact actual police reform in this country? Val Demings, a former police chief who aims to work from the inside to gain Florida voters’ trust and influence over the nation’s law enforcement, thinks she can do the job. Democrats wary of electing a ex-cop can take heart in knowing that Demings has had a long career as a progressive lawmaker with a strong record on gun control, healthcare, and reproductive rights.
After starting as a social worker in Jacksonville, Demings applied for a job as a police officer in 1983 and patrolled Orlando’s west side. She worked her way up in the department, and in 2007 was appointed Orlando’s first female police chief. During her tenure she oversaw a 40 percent decrease in violent crime, but not without controversy. A 2015 Atlantic article described the department as having “a long record of excessive-force allegations, and a lack of transparency on the subject, dating back at least as far as Demings’s time as chief.”
Demings was born into a working class family (her father was a janitor, her mother a maid) and became interested in law enforcement in high school, where she served on the “junior patrol.” She retired from the police department in 2011 after 27 years of service. The following year, she became the Democratic nominee for the United States House of Representatives in Florida’s 10th congressional district. She went up against Republican Daniel Webster, but was the victim of 2010’s Republican-led gerrymandering and lost by a small margin in a district that had previously gone to a Democrat. She received 48 percent of the vote to Webster’s 51 percent. Court-ordered redistricting in 2016 put the tenth district back in Democratic sights, and Demings won handily, taking 65 percent of the vote.
As a legislator, she has stayed true to her past, mostly sponsoring bills concerning crime and law enforcement. When the Congressional Black Caucus released the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, Deming’s tweeted, “To protect our communities and the life, liberty, and safety of every American, it is vital that we hold bad cops accountable, end unjust practices, increase transparency, and refocus police on their core mission: to protect and serve every American, regardless of their race.” Republicans like to call themselves the party of law and order, but after the January 6th insurrection, it’s clear that’s a hollow refrain. Marco Rubio, the Republican incumbent, stands behind the party of sedition, while Val Demings is making a case for broad reforms that strengthen our democracy.
—Caitlin Lent
Caitlin Lent is a staff writer and media director for Weekly Senator. She is also a photographer and filmmaker. Born and raised in Deep River, Connecticut, she now lives and works in New York City.
Policy Positions
Gun Control
“I’m sick of inaction while easily fixed loopholes cause death and tragedy in our communities. I call on Congress to immediately advance and pass common-sense reforms to stop mass shooters, slow the flow of untraceable weapons into our communities, and protect law enforcement officers... Let’s get this done and save lives.” (demings.house.gov)
Healthcare
“Americans have a right to healthcare and I will be relentless in my efforts to protect and expand that right. I’m proud to cosponsor new legislation to lower health insurance premiums and protect Americans with pre-existing conditions. The Trump Administration is dead wrong to side with big corporations in their sickening efforts to take away affordable care from millions of Americans, eliminate no-charge preventive services for older Americans, and increase out-of-pocket costs for families.” (demings.house.gov)
Reproductive Rights
“If the Senate confirms this or any Supreme Court Justice who will end Roe v. Wade, criminalize abortion, and abolish the ACA \[Affordable Care Act], I commit to support legislation that will make abortion available in all 50 states.” (Twitter)
Endorsements
Emily's List
Collective PAC
Challenging Marco Rubio
The old Republican ideology goes that every American can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. To a large extent, Marco Rubio is an emblematic example. Born to immigrant parents, a housekeeper and a bartender, he grew up in Las Vegas and Miami. Rubio attended a year of college on a football scholarship in Missouri before transferring to a community college in Florida, then graduated in two years from the University of Florida. He attended the University of Miami School of Law and graduated cum laude, and in 1998, less than two years after finishing law school, he was elected as a city commissioner, before quickly becoming a member of the Florida House of Representatives in 2000. In 2010, Rubio was elected to the Senate, the second Latino in the chamber’s history. In 2016 he joined the circus that was the 2016 Republican Primary. He dropped out of the primary race when he came in second place to Donald Trump, who took to calling the Florida lawmaker “Little Marco,” in Rubio’s home state of Florida.
Even though Rubio rose from humble beginnings, he doesn’t support a single program or policy that would help others who grew up economically disenfranchised. He wants to slash government spending on welfare. “Our anti-poverty programs have become, in some instances, a lifestyle,” he declared in the South Carolina presidential primary debate. His view that social programs negatively impact the people they serve is in line with the GOP’s long-held beliefs on welfare, despite the high number of Floridians that rely on government support to make ends meet.
Rubio’s Twitter bio reads: “Banned in & sanctioned by China,Follower of Christ,Husband,Father, Proud AMERICAN” [sic]. To Rubio, being a proud American means dismantling gun control legislation, banning same-sex marriage, supporting the death penalty and calling for “more streamlined” executions, and criminalizing marijuana. He believes in eliminating property taxes and increasing the sales tax, shifting the burden of taxation to poorer Americans who do not own their own homes. Rubio also denies the need for immigration reform, despite both his parents having been undocumented when they emigrated from Cuba in 1956. (In addition to being selfish, Rubio is also a liar: his parents left Cuba two and a half years before the Cuban Revolution, despite Rubio’s previous claims they were fleeing the rule of Fidel Castro). Rubio also is a fervent supporter of the Patriot Act, and voted yes on expanding roving wiretaps of American citizens and collecting metadata of the U.S. population.
State: Florida
Paleo-Indians arrived almost 14,000 years ago, making Florida one of the longest inhabited places in the current-day continental United States. By the 16th century, major Native American civilizations had formed, from the Apalachee on the Panhandle to the Calusa of the Southwest. It was also the earliest part of America to be reached by European colonization, with Juan Ponce de León landing on the peninsula in 1513. Though Florida has historically been known for agriculture, today it is perhaps best known for its tourism industry, with spots like Disney World, South Beach, and the Florida Keys attracting millions of visitors each year. The past two elections have seen Florida going to Donald Trump, and the state is home to his golf resort-cum-coronavirus hub Mar-a-Lago, which he referred to as the “winter White House” during his tenure. (Unlike the White House, however, Trump was able to bill U.S. taxpayers $650 per room per night to house his Secret Service detail). Floridians come from all over the world, but Cuban Americans are a particularly prominent group, making up 26 percent of the Latino population and playing a huge role in the state’s politics and its reputation as a swing state. 58 percent of Cubans in Florida reported leaning Republican in 2020, compared to 32 percent of non-Cuban Latinos.
