Meet the politicians who broke their promise to support better jobless benefits

Last year, we asked every candidate running for the Florida Legislature whether they would support better benefits for unemployed Floridians.

We asked because Florida’s benefits are the worst in the nation, which means workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own — as more than a million did in 2020 — suffer all the more. The issue was a top priority for our editorial board.

Last week, four of those state House candidates — who won their races in Central Florida — broke their promise to support better unemployment benefits: Reps. Scott Plakon, David Smith, Fred Hawkins and René Plasencia.

On Tuesday, each of them voted no to amendments that would have raised the maximum weekly benefit from $275 to $375, and raised the number of weeks people could collect unemployment from as few as 12 weeks to 22 weeks.

These amendments to a larger bill — which is designed to fix other elements of the state’s dysfunctional unemployment system — were simple and modest, a perfectly reasonable response to the pandemic’s jarring reminder of how miserly Florida is toward the unemployed.

Even if the amendments had passed, Florida would have been at best a middleof-the-pack state for benefits.

But Plakon, Smith, Hawkins and Plasencia — all Republicans — still voted no to just slightly better benefits, as did the other House Republicans.

We suppose voters are accustomed to politicians breaking their promises. But Florida’s unemployment crisis was such a profound tragedy that we naively thought our representatives would err on the side

Hawkins

Plakon

Plasencia

of doing what they said and show compassion for families.

If they did have any compassion on unemployment, it was reserved for businesses, not families.

Plakon, Smith, Hawkins and Plasencia all voted yes on a different bill that expands the state sales tax to online purchases and redirects all of that new revenue toward keeping unemployment insurance rates low for businesses.

To simplify, these representatives voted to increase taxes on families and use the extra money to provide unemployment tax relief for businesses. Then they turned around and voted against relief for workers by improving benefits.

Oddly enough, the only legislative candidate we interviewed last year who refused to commit to better benefits was Republican state Sen. Jason Brodeur of Seminole County, who ended up introducing a bill doing just that.

Good for Brodeur, whose bill received

approval Thursday in the Republican-controlled state Senate. It could get a vote in the state House.

Plasencia and Smith say they still support better benefits. So why did they vote against them?

Procedural objections. They say they questioned the use of amendments to raise benefits, and that a standalone bill to do so would have been preferable.

Agreed. But House leaders made sure that wasn’t going to happen.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani of Orlando, who tirelessly advocated for the unemployed during the worst of the pandemic, introduced a comprehensive unemployment bill in January that should have been evaluated by state budget experts and debated in committees. But her bill never got a hearing. Not one.

So she introduced the amendment that Plakon, Smith, Hawkins and Plasencia voted against. It was the only tool she had left to force a House vote on increasing weekly benefits. The other amendment they voted against — expanding the number of weeks people are eligible for unemployment — was submitted by state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith of Orlando. He had co-sponsored a bill that similarly expanded eligibility but, like Eskamani’s bill, it never got a hearing.

The fact is that state House leaders never had any interest in doing right by people who lose their jobs. As a result, members like Plakon, Smith, Hawkins and Plasencia probably thought they’d never have to vote on better benefits. But then Eskamani and Carlos Smith offered their pesky amendments and forced the issue.

We understand that members of the state House take their marching orders from its leaders. Politically speaking, it’s not easy to buck the wishes of someone as

Smith powerful as House Speaker Chris Sprowls. It also didn’t help that Gov. Ron DeSantis cluelessly declared last week that he supported Florida’s chintzy $275 a week maximum, calling it “fine.”

But this vote should have been different for Plakon, Smith, Hawkins and Plasencia. Their working-class constituents suffered through the pandemic. They deserve representatives who were willing to take a courageous stand on their behalf.

They deserve representatives who keep their promises.