Opinion: A pattern of unacceptable conduct has emerged. Rep. Basabe must resign from his House seat
“Have we met?”
Three little words, deceptively innocent, uttered out of the blue over the phone Thursday by Florida state Rep. Fabian Basabe during what was supposed to be a conversation about the serious allegations of unethical and possibly illegal conduct made against him.
They say a lot about the modus operandi of a public official in trouble who should’ve never been elected in the first place — one who should resign or be forced to resign by House Speaker Paul Renner and other GOP leaders.
The Republicans are dragging their feet.
They’re playing possum despite a lawsuit and EEOC complaints filed by two employees alleging that Basabe made lewd comments, engaged in unwanted touching and made drunken sexual advances.
But they have a supermajority in the Legislature. Are leaders staying quiet because ousting the 45year-old Republican freshman means Democrats would likely recover the seat in a district that favors them?
No need to bring politics to a case that should be about whether Basabe — who has a long trail of using berating, racist language and engaging in questionable altercations, reported by the Miami Herald and CBS News Miami — is fit to hold public office.
He’s not.
PRECEDENT FOR RESIGNATION
The Miami Beach lawmaker should be held to the same standards as were other misbehaving members of the Florida Legislature.
Last year, despite denials of impropriety and insistence that the relationship was consensual, state Rep. Ramon Alexander, a Tallahassee Democrat, was forced to resign after the Tallahassee Democrat reported sexting and sexual harassment allegations filed by a university athletic director with the Florida Commission on Human Relations.
In 2017, state Sen. Frank Artiles, a Miami Republican, resigned after he unleashed racial slurs against African-American colleagues at a bar — despite the apology he issued on the Senate floor.
In 2015, Rep. Ralph Arza, a Hialeah Republican, had to resign after he left obscenity-filled messages and a racial slur on a colleague’s voice mail. No one gave him a break. He was charged with two felonies in connection with his acts.
In none of these cases have the guardians of integrity at the Florida Legislature waited out lengthy trials to oust misbehaving members.
Why the slow-ride with Basabe?
A public, open-hand slap to his legislative aide Nicolas Frevola — seen by people attending a DeSantis inauguration after-party — sparked a House inquiry that recently concluded.
But nothing has come of it. Although the physical altercation was confirmed, the findings of the law firm hired by the House to investigate were ruled inconclusive for lack of corroborating witnesses.
Inconclusive doesn’t mean innocent — and new, additional allegations of misconduct should be taken into account.
GIFT OF THE GAB
Perhaps, Basabe’s gift of the gab keeps him in the game.
I sent him a text and email informing him that I was calling for his resignation and offering him the opportunity to comment on the workplace sexual harassment allegations made against him by two House employees in a civil lawsuit and EEOC complaints filed this week.
One of them, Frevola, 25, still is listed as a legislative aide on Basabe’s Florida House profile.
Frevola and Jacob Cutbirth, a 24-year-old former intern for the lawmaker, allege Basabe made unwanted passes at them in a predatory manner and made sexual comments about their bodies. He preemptively had tried to keep them from speaking out by requiring they sign nondisclosure agreements as a condition of employment.
When I approached him, Basabe did what most politicians do when journalists call at such moments.
He sent me his attorney’s official denial statement.
“Basabe will not be litigating this frivolous and meritless lawsuit in the media or giving it any more public attention than it deserves — which is none,” said the statement by attorney Robert Fernandez.
“Representative Basabe looks forward to defending himself in court, and we believe he will be fully vindicated once these allegations are scrutinized under the rule of law. In the meantime, Representative Basabe will continue to focus on the issues important to the citizens of Florida.”
Then, surprisingly, Basabe texted: “May I call you?”
Of course, I answered. He called immediately and stated right off the bat that this was an off-therecord conversation.
I firmly said no, it’s not. It’s a well-known rule between journalists and politicians that off-therecord conversations are something both parties negotiate and agree to. It’s not a mandate. And as an attention-seeking socialite and ex-reality television star, Basabe has plenty of media experience.
Plus, why off-the-record when Basabe has blasted his accusers on social media, denying the young men’s claims and calling Frevola “lazy, entitled, unscrupulous, self-involved, ungrateful, lying scum.”
Is that language becoming a legislator?
Likewise, he berated Frevola’s mother, an Orange County Republican who ran for office. Both acts have generated yet another complaint filed for retaliatory libel and slander.
GAS-LIGHTING HIS WAY
Interacting with him is, frankly, different.
Unable to get the response he wanted from me on the phone call, Basabe suddenly changed his tone from assertive to flirtyfriendly, as if we had been discussing our favorite ice cream flavors: “I have to ask you, have we met?”
It’s called gas-lighting, using manipulative tactics to distort reality and gain power and control.
When I tell him the only subjects at hand are the accusations made in Tallahassee, the conversation, predictably, is over.
He hangs up — but later sends me a YouTube video he previously shared about his stance on abortion (a vote he skipped) and another quote, doing what he has done in public appearances: painting himself as a victim.
“I appreciate I am a major target for the opposition, but only hope people find some level of comfort in disparaging my past,” he reiterated in a text. “The great state of Florida is no place for hate.”
The latter is most laughable.
BASABE NO VICTIM
He isn’t a victim.
One legislative session into the job, Basabe’s public record shows a pattern of unacceptably boorish, deceitful conduct.
He started off lying to voters — telling them, to earn their support, that he would fight for LGBTQ and women’s abortion rights and represent the gay community in the Florida Legislature. Then he did the exact opposite.
Without lying, he wouldn’t have been able to squeeze his 2022 election win by 236 votes — with some Democratic support — in a district that runs from South Beach to Aventura.
In interviews and socialmedia posts, he contorts his voting record by saying it is congruent with “going after advocacy groups” that he claims are keeping people in some type of bondage.
Just shade, that’s all it is. What does his strange distaste for advocates, part of the democratic process, have anything to do with voting in favor of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign to silence gay high school children and erase the safe zones that schools and gay-straight alliance clubs represented for them?
What does it have to do with skipping the vote on the six-week abortion ban he promised to stand against?
His turncoat voting record, however, may be what’s saving him from House censure for allegations that he groped, kissed and suggested sexual positions to the two employees.
Maybe the time when Republican leadership held their members to standards of decorum is a thing of the past. Only people whose politics DeSantis doesn’t like are readily removed from office, as happened to Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren. He won his case in court, but DeSantis has refused to reinstate him.
If Basabe were a Democrat like Alexander, Speaker Renner would have already launched proceedings against him. Republicans would be engaged in an all-out social media campaign to hasten his exit.
With a D next to his name, Basabe wouldn’t have a chance.