Wes Wolfe
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott’s motivating message to the several hundred attendees at the Moms for Liberty national summit was that top-ballot candidates, like the Senators he’s responsible for electing as leader of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, need strong turnout for quality conservative school board candidates.
“If you guys run, you’re going to make everyone else win,” Scott said.
At the school board level, Scott said people have to keep up the pressure.
“We were already giving (school districts) $150 million a year for hardening the school, and then they just spend it another way,” Scott said. “We as parents — first thing is, as parents we have to demand this stuff.”
When you go to talk to a school board now, he said, you get shut down.
“Whose government is this?” he asked.
Any one school board member, he said, changes the board.
“We have sunshine laws, so everything’s done in the sunshine,” Scott said. “If you’re willing to stick your neck out, show up, ask questions and hold people accountable, it forces everybody to (do that), and that’s what (Sarasota County School Board member) Bridget (Ziegler) did.”
Scott’s purpose at the summit was to discuss what his administration did in response to the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County.
“Your heart goes out to these people — all of a sudden, family members gone, like that,” Scott said, reflecting on that and other mass shootings while he was Governor. “You couldn’t say goodbye.”
For the Governor, he said it’s your job to get to town and see how you can use the power of the office to help.
“The biggest thing you can do is get information out to people and be respectful of everybody’s family and privacy, but I think the big thing is show up and get good information out to people,” Scott said. “Because what happens, when these things happen people clam up and don’t want to say anything.”
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice was on the Indian River County School Board at the time.
“As we’ve recently seen across the country, there are many unknowns and many questions after something so horrific happens,” Justice said. “We waited for information and direction.”
After information starts flowing, you have to start working on preventing these sort of events from happening again, which, though it didn’t get mentioned on stage, has tragically failed nationwide.
“There’s things we knew we had to do at the state level, things we should expect out of the school district, things we should expect out of the school, things we should expect out of the federal government,” Scott said.
Pushing through a legislative response wasn’t easy, he said, but possible with everyone involved. Talks, between legislators and parents whose children died, helped push that legislative package across.
“Is it perfect? Of course not,” Scott said. “Is it … wherever you want it? Of course not. Should it have a very positive impact on our school safety? You better believe it.”
10 comments
Lynda
July 16, 2022 at 3:13 pm
One of the acts Scott was forced to do while governor was to sign the gun safety reforms demanded by the public, the surviving students, the parents of the victims and many voters for whom the Parkland shooting was their “Enough is enough” straw to break the gun lobbb’s hold on simple, sensible gun safety reforms in Florida.
Now Scott’s position on gun safety reforms is a loud “NO” like the rest of Republican obstructionists. I was surprised to read his Mom’ s for Liberty (“Freedom” must be owned by deSantis) speech included praise for his actions in 2018. Flip-Flop or Lie?
Joe Corsin
July 16, 2022 at 3:41 pm
Scott is a grifter and hatemonger…
Vote RED for wealth and income inequality the likes of which the world has never seen.
Vote RED for a culture of greed, racism, incivility, and politicized religion.
Vote RED for never ending low wage exploitation and capitalist scams.
Vote RED for get out of jail free for the rich and prison for the poor.
Vote RED for domestic terrorism to eliminate government so that hogs can grift Americans into slavery.
Vote RED for ancient Roman plutocracy in the name of Christ.
YYep
July 17, 2022 at 2:45 pm
To Tell the truth you can vote anyone it will not relieve anything.but I guess if you want better things vote less tariffs and decide who much cost you need to absorb when you purchase goods and start international business
Tom
July 16, 2022 at 3:47 pm
Biden Harris economy, dog food for Americans!
Incompetent bastards!
Elliott Offen
July 16, 2022 at 9:07 pm
Trump inherited a great economy from Obama, but sat on his nuts and insulted people for four years while it overheated. Cheered success the whole time. You know not what you speak of and I hope you go flat broke.
Ocean Joe
July 16, 2022 at 4:17 pm
At least dog food is back on the shelves, Tom, unlike the last year of Donald.
ScienceBLVR
July 16, 2022 at 4:36 pm
I remember when Scott was governor, whenever he appeared on the news, my grandchildren screamed Skeletor and ran from the room. He still has that effect on me. So creepy and self serving. And a crooked businessman to boot, like Trump. What drives Florida voters to select men like him and that putz, DeSantis, simply defies common sense. Let’s turn this around and vote them out!
Joe Corsin
July 16, 2022 at 9:08 pm
Vote RED for domestic terrorists shilling for grifters and the rich
Vote RED for neo nazi propaganda and horrible far right culture
Vote RED for neo slavery and wealth and income inequality the likes of which the world has never seen
Joe Corsin
July 16, 2022 at 11:11 pm
Vote RED for empty suit, televangelist politicians that merely exist to entertain stupid people and the rich.
Vote RED for 40,000 lies in four years by the Trump regime.
Vote RED for, “You shouldn’t arrest me because I am a Republican.”
Vote RED for right wing authoritarian dictatorship over democracy.
Vote RED for religious propaganda that demonizes people who would actually raise the standard of living in the country as satanic.
Dan
July 19, 2022 at 2:49 pm
This toadstool committed the largest medicare fraud in US history. Stole billions from American tax-payers and Floridians rewarded him for it. Now he wants to kill medicare and social security altogether to steal the rest of the money we’ve already paid into them. He got a taste of it and now he’s coming back for it all. If the GOP wins and they kill social security and medicare, its Florida that will be blamed for it.
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