José Javier Rodríguez drops digital ad focusing on Florida’s unemployment struggles

Democratic Sen. José Javier Rodríguez is releasing a new ad featuring his Tuesday testimony on the state’s unemployment problems before the U.S. Senate.

Rodríguez spoke before the Senate Finance Committee where he detailed Florida’s struggle with paying unemployment benefits amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The state’s online application system collapsed due to a surge in applications at the outset of the pandemic. That led officials to scramble to make paper applications available and seek out additional capacity to handle online and phone applications.

The Rodríguez ad begins with footage from an early April scene in Hialeah, where out-of-work Floridians were forced to largely ignore social distancing guidelines as hundreds gathered to pick up paper applications.

The ad continues detailing Floridians frustration with the system’s failure and closes with the Tuesday testimony from Rodríguez.

“For hundreds of thousands of Floridians, DEO’s system was inaccessible for at least the first half of the crisis, punctuated by unmet, ever-changing goals and seemingly never-ending mishaps,” Rodríguez told Senators.

“On top of design flaws coming into the crisis, Florida’s system continues to be slow, unreliable and inept in general.”

Rodríguez had been unchallenged for most of this cycle in the Senate District 37 contest. That changed in late May, when Republican Senate leadership got behind Ileana Garcia‘s bid to challenge Rodríguez.

She officially filed for the contest on June 1.

Rodríguez is one of many Democrats who have criticized state leadership for failures in paying out benefits. Rodríguez will likely continue to hammer that message going forward.

“Continued federal oversight is needed over Florida’s unemployment system where willful neglect has caused continued failures (that) unnecessarily hurt Floridians during this crisis when they most need help,” Rodríguez said in a statement on the ad.

“Hundreds of thousands of Floridians are being left behind, their unemployment claims languishing as bills pile up with few answers and continued mismanagement. It’s time to finally fix this disastrous system.”