Immigrant rights group sends out critical mailers against Republicans in swing House races

One side of mailer being sent to voters in Florida House districts in Central Florida and Miami-Dade County. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)A Florida political committee that supports immigrant rights is sending out negative campaign mailers against four state House Republicans running for reelection in swing districts this year.

FLIC Votes is the political arm of Florida Immigrant Coalition. The group announced Thursday that it is sending campaign mailers to voters in three Central Florida House districts and to a district in Miami-Dade County about how Republican lawmakers Paula Stark, Susan Plasencia, David Smith, and Fabian Basabe, they contend, supported legislation that hurt the immigrant community in Florida, specifically a 2023 crackdown on illegal immigration and a 2024 bill that preempts local governments from enacting heat protection ordinances for outdoor workers.

The mailers sent to voters in Central Florida target Stark, Plasencia, and Smith by asserting that their votes against the interests of immigrants “are driving up food costs in grocery stores in Florida, increasing worker shortages, and causing a rise in prices.”

A separate mailer sent to voters in Basabe’s House District 106 seat in Miami-Dade County notes that, “instead of addressing rising housing costs, chronic flooding, skyrocketing property insurance, and out of control condo maintenance fees, Fabian Basabe has been focused on an extreme partisan agenda.”

All told, the group says it is spending $13,700 to reach 26,541 households in the four districts.

Miami activist Thomas Kennedy, a former Florida member of the Democratic National Committee who consulted with FLIC Votes on the mailers, said the lawmakers’ votes have resulted in higher inflation rates than in the rest of the country and have exacerbated worker shortages in the state “that are aggravated by anti-immigrant laws.”

“We wanted to point that these are people who are in flippable swing districts which represent immigrants that are out of step in our opinion with their electorate, and we want to see a change in representation,” he said. “We want to see representative politicians that are going to be more moderate, more centrist, more pro-immigrant, more welcoming, and are going to look out for the economic well-being of the state.”

All four House Republicans supported a comprehensive crackdown on undocumented immigrants championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2023 session (SB 1718) that required businesses with 25 or more employees to use the E-Verify system for new employees; required hospitals to include a question on admission forms inquiring whether a patient is a U.S. citizen, and banned undocumented immigrants from driving in the state, even if they have a driver’s license from another state.

They also supported legislation (HB 433) earlier this year that prohibits local governments from enacting heat protections for outdoor workers.

Close margins

Basabe won his House District 106 seat over Democrat Jordan Leonard by just 240 votes in 2022. He is now running for reelection against Democrat Joe Saunders, senior political director for Equality Florida, who previously served in the Florida House from 2012-2014.

Stark is running for re-election against Democrat Maria Revelles in House District 47, which includes both Orange and Osceola counties. Stark won by 2 percentage points, 51%-49% against Democrat Anthony Nieves in 2022.

Plasencia won her House District 37 seat in Orange and Osceola counties in 2022 by 4 percentage points, as did Smith in his Seminole-based House District 38 seat. All four House districts have more registered Democrats than Republicans, according to the statistics provided by the Florida Division of Elections as of July 22.

“Florida is still a rough state for Democrats, but I think that there’s going to be a correction from what happened in 2022,” Kennedy said, referring to the blowout electoral victories by Ron DeSantis for governor and Marco Rubio for Senate, when Democratic participation was dramatically lower than in any other previous election cycle.

“We are tired of extremist politicians who vote for destructive anti-LGBTQ legislation like the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill, permitless gun carry, and anti-immigrant laws that are disrupting agriculture and causing a spike in food prices for all of us,” said Tiffany Hawkins, director of policy and politics at FLIC Votes in a statement.