Staff Reports
Congressman Charlie Crist also wants Frank Artiles gone.
“The racial slurs used by Sen. Artiles are deeply offensive to me and the community I represent,” said the St. Petersburg Democrat and former Republican governor in a short statement on Thursday.
“He should restore the dignity of the Florida Senate by immediately removing himself from it.”
Artiles, a Cuban-American Republican from Miami-Dade County, made national news after he accosted Sen. Perry Thurston, a Fort Lauderdale Democrat, and Sen. Audrey Gibson, a Jacksonville Democrat, calling her a “b—h” and a “girl” in a dispute over legislation at a private club in Tallahassee Monday night.
Artiles also used a variation of the “N-word,” referring to her and to white Republicans who supported Joe Negron as Senate President.
Thurston and Gibson are black. Artiles apologized on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Thurston has lodged a Senate rules complaint against Artiles seeking his expulsion. An investigative report by General Counsel Dawn Roberts is due next Tuesday.
