Broward Rep. LaMarca masquerades as moderate

As politics writer Anthony Man reports in his May 6 article, Could Supreme Court ruling on abortion endanger state Rep. Chip LaMarca’s re-election?, when in Tallahassee, Rep. Chip LaMarca’s voting record on abortion is quite different from what he says when he’s here in Broward.

In Broward, he says he cares about the mother, but Republicans go out of their way to be cruel to women, and LaMarca goes right along. He voted for the current Florida 15-week ban (HB 5), without any exceptions for women who are raped or victims of incest. For Republicans, it’s MAGA-way or the highway and LaMarca is a MAGA vote like every other Republican in Tallahassee. If they want to remain in power, they must vote in MAGA lockstep.

After the leaked Supreme Court opinion surfaced, Man quoted LaMarca as saying he does not support an outright abortion ban (ignoring that he voted for one for 15 weeks). Does anyone doubt that he’ll vote for a ban as soon as there’s a bill and DeSantis tells him and other Republicans to vote for it?

LaMarca and the rest followed orders and gave their constitutional power over Congressional redistricting to DeSantis and voted for his blatantly racist map (SB 2C). Far from the more tempered LaMarca who was on the Broward County Commission, Rep. LaMarca voted to destroy Broward’s home rule powers. He voted against Disney, our biggest state employer (SB 4C), and for DeSantis’ signature “Stop W.O.K.E.” bill (HB 7).

There are also corporate lobbyists to feed, too, and LaMarca was right there voting with Florida Power & Light for its bill (HB 741) against solar power — a bill so bad even DeSantis vetoed it.

LaMarca is a MAGA Republican masquerading as a moderate. You are what you vote, not what you say to the hometown crowd. We need a representative who represents Broward in Tallahassee — not MAGA.

Sandra Diaz, Fort Lauderdale (Editor’s Note: The writer is correct that LaMarca voted for the bills cited above. Every roll call vote on every bill is online).