From failing to show up for his job to voting against legislation to speed up COVID vaccinations and grow the economy, Marco Rubio spent the year being too cowardly to step up and do what’s right for Florida. Newspapers across the state took notice, excoriating Rubio for his spinelessness and self-serving attempts to score political points at Floridians’ expense.
Here are some of the highlights from editorials this year blasting Rubio for being weak and ineffective:
South Florida Sun Sentinel: Et tu, Marco Rubio?
- It has become impossible to respect Marco Rubio, Florida’s senior U.S. Senator. One wonders how he can even respect himself. No president ever disgraced his office and defiled the Constitution like Donald Trump did in his final days, and yet Rubio continues to make excuses for the man whose candidacy he once called “the biggest scam in American political history.
- Rubio’s motives for letting Trump off are mired in self-interest, not the national interest.
- However, the ultimate point of serving in Congress is not to get oneself re-elected. It is to uphold the Constitution and protect the nation from “all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
- So Rubio and Scott might at least listen to the evidence before going in the tank for Trump again. If Rubio were a wiser politician, it might occur to him that Republicans won’t be the only people voting on him next year. Democrats, Republicans and independents will have a say on him, too.
South Florida Sun Sentinel: Rubio has a lot of explaining to do. When he shows up, that is
- More often than not, Rubio and Scott kowtow to the demands of former President Donald Trump, their party’s Liar King
- Rubio already has a record of irresponsibility. Rep. Val Demings of Orlando, his likely Democratic opponent next year, scored a clean hit on him last month over his having missed as many as 14 Senate hearings in the previous two months
- On Nov. 18, he blocked the confirmation of Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat, to be ambassador to China. That was an act of petulance more likely to weaken than strengthen our diplomatic posture vis-à-vis China
- Like others who ran for president in 2015-16, Rubio played hooky from his day job. His absenteeism was the Senate’s worst; he missed 35% of roll calls in 2015. When he switched to run for reelection, an opponent called him out for the worst voting record of any Florida senator in 59 years. PolitiFact consulted GovTrack to confirm that.
- When it comes to showing up, he’s improving — from terrible to mediocre. Floridians deserve better.
Orlando Sentinel: Time to give up on Marco Rubio, who will never do the right thing if there’s any risk
- We always hold out hope Rubio will do the right thing and he almost always disappoints
- Sorry to say it, but Marco Rubio is beyond hope. Before the insurrection, we, too, took a few stabs at encouraging Rubio to do the right thing
- What’s the point of appealing to someone who swore off another Senate run when he ran for president in 2016, then turned around and ran for the Senate? Someone who negotiated a bipartisan immigration reform bill and then campaigned against it? We’ve been waiting a decade for Rubio to do the right thing. But the senator is Lucy with the football, and every Floridian who trusts him is Charlie Brown.
- It’s time to surrender any hope that Rubio will ever do the right thing if there’s any risk involved.
Tampa Bay Times: Blocking the debt ceiling is a reckless move by Senate Republicans
- Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida are particularly brazen for ignoring this shared sense of responsibility.
- That’s why it’s galling to see the very politicians who’ve bellied up to the buffet now attempt to dine and dash. Rubio and Scott both voted Monday against proceeding to raise the debt limit.
- Republicans had a hand in amassing this debt, and they need to put the nation’s interest before any perceived partisan advantage.
Miami Herald: Here’s your chance to prove you’re more than a Trump sycophant, Sen. Rubio
- It’s hard to take a principled stand when one lacks a spine, as Florida’s U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has shown us since Donald Trump’s election — most recently by declaring he’s against the creation of a bipartisan commission to look into the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attacks
- It’s unlikely Rubio will reverse his stance, but he should — if not for the sake of the nation he professes to love, then to show us just a small shred of backbone he might still possess.”
Tampa Bay Times: Senate infrastructure plan a boost for Florida
- Whether they are road-testing a talking point for reelection or as they mull a presidential run in 2024, Rubio and Scott failed to promote the economic interests of the Sunshine State.
Miami Herald: Rubio calls it “crazy nonsense.” To Black and brown people, health inequity is dead serious
- In one short tweet Tuesday, Florida’s senior senator, Marco Rubio, managed to dismiss the idea that racial and social inequities exist in healthcare in this country. And he did it during a pandemic that has disproportionately harmed minorities. Talk about tone deaf — and hurtful
- But the idea of inequities in medicine is not some wild — or even new — idea, despite Rubio’s flippant Twitter rejection. Inequities have dogged the medical community for years and became even more apparent in the COVID-19 pandemic, when more Black, Hispanic and Asian people had higher rates of infection, hospitalization and death than white people
- And yet, despite all of that, Rubio couldn’t resist the urge to try to score cheap political points on social media with a quip about a deadly serious topic: inequities in medical care. Is that really the kind of senator we want?
Florida Democratic Party Chair Releases Statement On Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s Retirement From Congress
Following the news that Representative Stephanie Murphy will not be running for reelection in Florida’s 7th District, Florida Democratic Party Chair Manny Díaz issued the following statement thanking her for her dedication and service to the people she represented:
“I want to thank Rep. Murphy for a job well done representing the people of Florida’s 7th Congressional District. Whether it was fighting for the Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act, which President Biden signed into law, and which will bring thousands of jobs to Florida, or helping engineer the 2018 recapture of the House by Democrats, Rep. Murphy’s accomplishments are many.
“Even though I am not happy to see her go, Floridians across our state are better off thanks to her service. I’m confident this is not the last we hear from her, as I think she has a brilliant career ahead of her. Rep. Murphy’s work has made our party stronger, and I am confident she will continue her work on behalf of Floridians beyond the next election cycle. I wish her and her family the best in this new phase of her life.”