State Senator Lauren Book is being challenged
by former Broward County Commissioner, Barbara Sharief.
It has become a nasty campaign.
But I wanted to focus on issues, particularly guns,
and what she thinks about Governor DeSantis' pledge
to weaken gun laws in the state,
including pushing for an open carry law,
which would allow anyone to carry a gun without a permit.
>>You know, the governor's talked about it
and the incoming speaker of the house
quite frankly has said that open carry
will pass this chamber this legislative session.
That is terrifying in so many different ways.
I think it's completely tone deaf.
To your point, Jim,
Uvalde, we are living back
through the horrors that was Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
A very, very dangerous, scary time,
when we know law enforcement doesn't believe in open carry.
It is scary to think that the leaders of our state
want to bring a policy like this
and are promising, quite frankly,
a policy like this to the State of Florida.
Being the leader of the Senate Democrats,
working very hard to bring back candidates
who care deeply about gun safety
and will do anything possible to stop policies like this
from moving forward in our legislature.
Because we know that it won't keep our communities safe.
It won't keep our schools safe.
And is dangerous all the way around.
>>And I guess, in some ways,
to marry the policy part with the political part,
I guess this becomes the question that Barbara Sharief,
your opponent, has been raising about you is,
whether or not you play too gently
when it comes to the Republicans and whether or not
you're able to stand up and try to truly block them
from passing things.
So I guess I'm trying to figure out,
how do you balance that line
between keeping a collegial attitude with your colleagues,
but yet, at the same time, standing up for what you believe?
>>Well, that's a great question.
My opponent talked last time, she was on your show,
about some of the issues around the abortion issue.
Let me be very, very clear.
While we, and the Senate Democrats,
fought tooth and nail to try to stop
that draconian, dangerous piece of policy
in the legislature, the reality is, we are the minority.
We do not have enough votes within the Democratic ranks
to stop policies like that.
We do stand up to the GOP. I do stand up to the GOP.
I lost a chairmanship because of my outspoken,
we talked about, I was on your show,
after losing my chairmanship,
talking about when the president wanted to pass
a Texas-style abortion ban here in the State of Florida.
There is not a lot that we can do
without the numbers in Tallahassee
to stop dangerous policies like that,
and so many others, quite frankly,
that the extremist GOP party is moving forward in our state.
And that is why it is so important
that we have more of us in Tallahassee come November
to stop those policies.
Because the reality is, we're 16.
We don't have enough
to stop those types of policies in our state.
>>So lemme just hold you there.
Just so people understand, when you say we're 16, we're 16,
your Democrats are 16 out of 40.
>>That's correct.
>>So 16 out of 40. So Republicans have a 24 to 16 advantage.
Since you talked about the abortion issue,
I was gonna bring it up as well,
and I want you to address it,
because there has been a number,
not just from Barbara Sharief, but from others,
who have questioned whether
in the final moments of that debate,
there was the question as to whether or not
to make exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother.
And you made the case why they needed those exceptions,
why that was critical.
And then it went to a voice vote.
And the Senate president ruled
that the votes were not there, that you had lost.
Now, there were a lot of people who thought
that you may have actually won that vote
based on the voice vote.
It's very subjective.
And the question became,
why you didn't insist on a roll call vote,
even if you lose, just to make sure
that every Republican, every Democrat
is formally on record, by name, by vote
as to how they stand on that issue.
Why did you not ask for a roll call vote?
>>So let's be very clear.
Several times my issue,
my stance as a survivor of sexual assault,
nobody wanted that exemption more than me.
In fact, I introduced that amendment three separate times
in the process that that bill was moving forward.
First, in health policy.
Second, in appropriations.
Third, on the floor.
We did call hands on that second stop in appropriations.
We had several of our Republican colleagues, females,
that came to me and said,
we will be with you on a voice vote,
but do not count for us on the board.
It will not happen. They're punitive. They punish us.
We're not gonna be with you.
Your best bet is to get it in a voice vote.
As a point of strategy, my colleagues and I,
my responsibility was to give
the most effective, strong case to have that exemption.
I'm a survivor of sexual assault.
I was a survivor of a gang rape.
I talked about that for the very first time
on the floor of the Florida Senate,
begging my colleagues to give that exemption to survivors,
because you just need a little bit more time.
>>Do you regret, but lemme ask you this.
Do you regret, in hindsight,
not asking for a roll call vote?
I mean, you let some of them off the hook.
They may, if the Republicans want to be vindictive
against other Republicans for stating their position,
that's on the Republican side of the aisle.
Why should you try to protect and make it easier for them?
>>Don't believe that that happened, Jim.
And by the way,
there are several other members on the floor.
We had a plan in place for me to give the case that I could,
share everything that I could share.
If the members on the floor wanted to do that,
my job was to give the speech of a lifetime,
to do everything that I could
to make the case of a lifetime,
to prove that the Florida Senate
was gonna do the right thing, and they didn't.
They made that call as well. They chose not to do that.
But I wanna also make something very, very clear.
That was never going to happen.
They were never going to give us that exemption.
And their vote was very clear.
It was a party line vote
of who supported that measure and who did not.
That is their stance.
>>Let me ask you this.
Where do you think we're going
when it comes to the issue of abortion?
'Cause Florida now finds itself
in a very interesting position, being that because states
like Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi,
have even more restrictions on abortion.
Women from those states are now coming to Florida.
Florida has now become the place in the South
for people to come.
If, you know, if you wanna say
we have more quote, unquote liberal laws
when it comes to abortion compared to those other states.
How do you think that's gonna play?
And what kind of moves do you envision
from the legislature next year
to make it even more restrictive on abortion?
>>The governor has already made it very, very clear.
He plans on further restricting a woman's right to choose.
And Florida has become a safe haven, really for individuals
and women to come and get reproductive healthcare.
Last week I was with the vice president
talking about this very, very issue and how we can work
to try to protect a woman's right to choose
and have access to these essential healthcare procedures.
The reality, again, Jim,
there are fewer of us than there are of them.
And anything that is introduced,
all we can do without those numbers
is try to stop it and play good offense.
I would not be endorsed by Planned Parenthood, Ruth's List
and other organizations that are pro-women, pro-choice,
if they didn't believe I was the tough and strong woman
that I am to lead the charge at this time.
We're doing everything that we can,
but without more numbers come November,
there is not a whole hell of a lot that we can do
to stop the GOP extreme agenda.
We've talked a lot about one of our colleagues,
Ileana Garcia, who argued that the policy
relating to the abortion ban
and not having the exemption,
was helpful to survivors of human trafficking,
because they were no longer profitable to their pimps.
This is the mentality that they have.
And we can just argue as much as we can,
but without those numbers, there's not much we can do.
>>I just wanna stay with your opponent for one second,
because there was a mailer,
I know it wasn't put out by your campaign, but, you know,
it was a group working on your behalf, essentially,
put out a flyer critical of Barbara Sharief
for when she was a county commissioner
for voting to offer a subsidy, a tax subsidy,
to the maker of the AK-47, the Kalashnikov company,
to relocate into Broward and to open a facility there.
The flyer also included a photo of her
holding an assault weapon,
and she took great offense of that
saying that that picture misrepresented her.
That was actually a picture taken,
and I believe it's been confirmed,
at a gun buyback program that she was sponsoring.
And that she was attempting to get guns off the street.
And the suggestion that she's promoting guns,
especially given that some of her family members
have been shot as well,
is an outrage and a low blow by your campaign.
How do you respond to that?
>>I just wanna, again, be very, very clear.
The mailer was not done by me or my campaign.
But I do wanna to address some things.
I think that my opponent needs to answer
for some of the things that the mailer did point out.
She seems to be very upset about a photo,
but she should be answering questions
about why she thought it appropriate to give tax breaks
and to incentivize the maker of a Russian war type weapon
to come to Broward County.
I would be more concerned about answering and responding
to those things than the photo on the mailer.
And so I would suggest
that maybe those are some of the things
that she should be a little bit more concerned about
than the use of a photo.
Again, not our mailer, not a part of our campaign,
but I think that those are some things
that she really does need to answer for.