Jesse Scheckner
A new direct mail campaign aimed at ousting Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe is sending thousands of voters in House District 106 his mug shots — three of them, to be exact.
Above them, text reads, “If reckless Basabe can’t stop getting arrested, how can he represent our district?”
Below them: “Unqualified, unserious.”
Basabe said the mailer is part of a concerted effort to “smear” him and distract voters from the threat he poses to the local “status quo.”
The group behind the mail buy is FLIC Votes, a Miami-based nonprofit that works to mobilize voters on behalf of Florida’s immigrant community. FLIC Votes spent $8,074 to reach 14,680 households in HD 106, which spans a coastal, northeast portion of Miami-Dade County from South Beach to Sunny Isles and Aventura.
“We are tired of extremist politicians who vote for destructive anti-LGBTQ legislation like the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill,’ permitless gun carry, and anti-immigration laws that are disrupting agriculture and causing a spike in food prices for all of us,” FLIC Votes Director of Policy and Politics Tiffany Hankins said in a statement.
“Fabián Basabe’s extreme partisan agenda fails to address the real needs of constituents instead of working to solve rising housing costs, chronic flooding, skyrocketing property insurance, and out-of-control condo maintenance fees.”
Basabe voted last year on SB 1718, a sweeping measure that among other things hiked penalties for people who aid and employ undocumented immigrants and cleared $12 million for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ headline-catching “migrant flights” program.
He also backed HB 543 to eliminate a permit requirement for the concealed carry of a firearm and HB 1069, which expanded restrictions on LGBTQ-inclusive classroom instruction to all grade levels, eased challenges to school library books and added tighter strictures on preferred pronoun use — a feature that earned it the nickname from critics of “Don’t Say They.”
The mailer (viewable below) doesn’t include information about when or where the mug shots were taken. A search of Miami-Dade Clerk’s Office records returned three results. One was for disorderly intoxication in June 2016.
The other two related to what was originally filed as felony “robbery by sudden snatching,” but later reduced to a misdemeanor in October 2020. Basabe said on X two years later that he was arrested after he “threw the phone of a stranger in the water because they were filming his underage child without a shirt on.” The case ultimately resulted in “a victory for my family and me,” he added.
Asked to comment on the mailer, Basabe said Wednesday that he found it “deeply concerning” how much money opposition groups and his Democratic opponent, former Rep. Joe Saunders, are spending against him.
“(This is) simply because I’m working with the supermajority of the state to bring back funding to our District, to resolve the insurance crisis, the destruction of our waterways, to bring down the cost of living for all, and to keep our small businesses open. It is obvious that my re-election threatens the status quo and further exposes the mismanagement and corruption of local leadership from the left-leaning establishment career politicians,” he said by text.
“It also surprises me how the opposition truly believes that voters would, in fact, base their vote only on smear campaigns, empty of solutions or ideas for the future. The fact is, my main opponent was already voted out of office once for his extreme propaganda in Orlando. This carpetbagger has no business representing my community.”
The General Election is on Nov. 5.
