Jesse Scheckner
Miami Beach Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe has filed a formal complaint with the Florida Elections Commission alleging his Democratic challenger, former Miami-Dade School Board member Lucia Báez-Geller, defamed him in a fundraising text message.
He’s seeking an investigation, a cease-and-desist order from the state against Báez-Geller and all other “appropriate penalties under Florida law.”
The message in question, sent Aug. 26, said Basabe voted to, among other things, “criminalize reproductive health” and that he “seems to have a new scandal or offensive quote in the news every week.”
Basabe, in his Thursday complaint, contends those statements are “false, malicious, and defamatory.”
He noted that he abstained from voting for Florida’s six-week abortion ban when it passed in 2023 and had filed an alternative version with a 12-week limit. At the time, the restriction was 15 weeks, which had passed before he took office.
Basabe also said that he has “never been charged with any crime,” referring to multiple House investigations into battery and sexual harassment accusations by two former staffers who have since sued him that were dismissed for lacking evidence.
Notably, the texts did not say Basabe was charged with a crime, only that he “seems” to be in the news frequently for what Báez-Geller’s campaign deems “offensive” actions or statements. Recent examples may include successfully calling for the firing of Bay Harbor Islands’ Town Attorney, describing Miami Beach Commissioners who oppose him as “irrelevant” and “pawns,” and dismissing their outrage over the pending removal of a rainbow crosswalk in the city as “performative politics.”
Basabe faced three misdemeanor charges in Miami-Dade County between 2016 and 2020. He was first elected in 2022.
In a statement, Basabe called Báez-Geller a “failed former School Board member” and the text a move out of “the same low-level dirty politics playbook the establishment uses when they have nothing real to offer.”
He referenced a YouTube video he posted in July after Báez-Geller entered the race in which he urged her to eschew “smear campaigns, false narratives and political games.” Then the statement turned personal.
“The truth is, when she needed help during COVID because she couldn’t find breastmilk for her child, I was the first one to step up. Even her husband voted for me and has expressed his support,” he said. “Because that is who I am. I help my community. She has chosen instead to attack with lies.”
Reached by phone Thursday afternoon, Báez-Geller and her husband, David Geller, accused Basabe of lying and defended the text’s assertions.
Báez-Geller recalled during the pandemic that when Basabe learned she was having difficulty getting baby formula during a national shortage at the time, he found and “sent a picture of something that was available, but he never made it available to us and never brought us any.”
Screenshots Basabe shared with Florida Politics show that on the morning of Sept. 23, 2023, he texted Báez-Geller a photo of breastmilk substitute Aptamil and offered to “get this now” for her. Báez-Geller wrote shortly after, thanking him for the offer, but turning it down because she’d found an alternative that was “close to hypoallergenic,” adding, “Thank you again. We are OK for now. Thank God.”
Geller, a lawyer and past President of the Miami Beach Democratic Club, said he never voted for Basabe and that while Basabe may have “gone for a walk” when it was time to vote on the six-week abortion ban, he voted with every other lawmaker for the budget that funded parts of the bill.
“If he really wants to get technical,” he said, “there’s some legal technicalities that are not in his favor on these issues.”
Geller also questioned the timing of Basabe’s complaint, which came as the couple and their family mourned the loss of Geller’s mother, who died Sunday.
“I mean, I understand politics,” he said. “He could have waited a week.”
Asked about this, Basabe said he “had no idea about their family loss.”
“Of course I would have waited had I known,” he said. “My condolences to the Geller family.”
So far, Báez-Geller — who unsuccessfully ran against Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar — is the only person who has filed to run against Basabe this cycle.
HD 106 covers a coastal strip of Miami-Dade between Miami Beach and Aventura.
