Group slams Anthony Sabatini for the many votes he missed — and a few he cast

A political committee wants voters to hold state Rep. Anthony Sabatini responsible for his absenteeism.

“You show up for work,” reads the headline on a direct mailer. “Tell Sabatini he’s fired because he doesn’t.”

Sabatini is actually already hunting for a new job, running for Congress in Florida’s 7th Congressional District. But he’s apparently unable to escape his poor attendance record in the Florida House.

The mailer, paid for by Citizens for Better Government Accountability PAC, employs a dubious nickname — “Absentini” — in its messaging. That moniker surfaced online when Sabatini skipped a large portion of a Special Session in order to campaign out-of-state in February.

“He can’t show up for you in Tallahassee,” the mailer reads. “Why bother sending him to Washington?”

A photo shows a series of voted-on legislation during the 2021 Legislative Session.

It also highlights the fact the two-term lawmaker never passed a single bill in the Florida Legislature.

But the mailer also finds space to slam Sabatini for votes he did show up for, like when he cast a ballot in the 2012 Democratic Presidential Preference Primary; he was registered as a Democrat at the time.

“Anthony Sabatini took the time to vote for a Democrat in the 2012 presidential election, but finds showing up to work in Tallahassee too inconvenient, with 92 percent of his colleagues outperforming him,” the mailer states.

And it notes that when Sabatini has cast votes in the House, he often has sided with Democrats in fighting priorities for the Republican majority. The flyer even namedrops one of Sabatini’s most liberal colleagues, Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani. The mailer labels her a “socialist” but said Sabatini joined with her as he “votes against veterans, wounded warriors and military families.”

A citation points to a vote Sabatini cast against the state budget. He was the only Republican in the House to vote against the budget.