Ryan Nicol
As Florida Politics reported earlier Friday, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin made a visit to Miami-Dade County to join state Rep. David Richardson on the campaign trail.
Richardson is pursuing a promotion, running for the Democratic nomination in Florida’s 27th Congressional District.
Pocan is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group with nearly 80 members in the U.S. House. In light of his visit, he and Richardson spoke with Florida Politics about the CD 27 race and why Pocan felt the need to make his voice heard.
“This district is crucial to us taking back the majority in Congress,” Pocan said.
“We need to have the best candidate there to make sure we’re taking back this seat. And David Richardson is that person.”
Richardson is one of five candidates competing in the Democratic primary for CD 27. He’s joined by former Knight Foundation Program Director Matt Haggman, Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, former University of Miami academic adviser Michael A. Hepburn, and former University of Miami President Donna Shalala.
Richardson has taken particular aim at Shalala, who is the presumed favorite in the race. Even a poll released by the Richardson campaign last week showed Shalala ahead by 12 percentage points.
Richardson has released several ads attempting to frame himself as the progressive alternative to Shalala. And Pocan agrees that Richardson is the best choice for progressives.
He brought up Richardson’s record on things such as Medicare-for-all and prison reform, and argued Richardson’s time as a state legislator gives him the experience to make an immediate impact for South Floridians.
“He’s really woke to these issues,” Pocan said. “And Donna Shalala is kind of waking up to some of them. But it’s not enough. What we need is someone who can hit the ground running.”
The pair also discussed their plans to abolish ICE. It’s an issue Richardson has come back to repeatedly on the campaign trail, though he says there’s more to it than just getting rid of the agency.
“People ask me, ‘If you abolish ICE, are you saying we don’t need any enforcement?’ And I’m not saying that.”
He and Pocan, who introduced a bill to abolish ICE in the U.S. House, argue that other federal agencies can pick up the essential duties of the agency if it were dismantled. Richardson told Florida Politics he would sign onto that bill.
Pocan says the bill would create a commission to determine which duties would be transferred to which agencies. He mentioned the policing of human trafficking as an example and argued the FBI, DOJ and Labor Department would all be able to handle some of the work in that area.
But Pocan says ICE has lost its ability to do its most important work.
“To go after the really bad players, you have to be able to go into a community and have the confidence of the community to find those really bad folk. And right now you come in with an ICE jacket and everyone runs.”
He points to President Donald Trump‘s aggressive immigration policies as a reason for this loss of confidence.
“[ICE is] going after people with speeding tickets,” Pocan said. “They’re going after people with decades-long-ago misdemeanors.”
Richardson has called for the impeachment of Trump due in part to some of his harsher immigration measures. But Pocan says he’s waiting to make a call on impeachment until the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation in Russian interference in the 2016 election, and any role the Trump campaign may have played.
“Let it run its course because that’s going to the best way to convince people what needs to happen,” Pocan said.
“Although I have to admit, over the last couple of days watching [Trump] with an enemies list among the intelligence community and taking away security status, I think this argument just becomes stronger every single day. And I think David is exactly right in talking about this because this is the debate we need to have.”
We asked Pocan if Congress could do anything short of impeaching Trump to serve as a reprimand for actions that may not quite rise to the level of impeachment in his eyes.
“Paul Ryan would have to develop a spine in order for anything to happen like that,” Pocan charged. “And I don’t anticipate that happening any time soon.”
With just 11 days until the Aug. 28 Election Day, Richardson sounded confident about his general election prospects, but recognized there’s a lot of work to be done if he wants a chance to be on the November ballot.
“I think I’ll be the favorite in the general,” Richardson said. “It’s not going to be a cakewalk but I think the bigger battle is here in the primary.”
He also discussed what he needs to do to become the Democratic nominee.
“We’re hoping we can get everybody off the sofa and get them to the polls,” Richardson said. “It’s going to be about turnout for me.”
He says the campaign will be hard at work in the closing days: “We knocked on 4,000 doors last week. We’ll knock on 5,000 doors this week.”
And Pocan once again made his pitch for why Richardson is his candidate of choice.
“We’re trying to elect people like David around the country. And the Democrat caucus will be stronger because of it.”
