Overall Summary: Senator Rubio opposes taxing businesses, restrict money in politics, consumer protection, disaster relief, funding education, environmental protection, financial sector regulation, gun control, public health, foreign and humanitarian aid, humane immigration policy, labor rights and wages, LGBTQ rights, internet freedom, avoiding default, poverty amelioration, racial equality, increasing revenues, taxing the wealthy, a robust safety net, higher spending, women’s rights. Rubio supports big business, hawkish foreign policy, military spending, domestic surveillance.
Rubio’s Attendance Record in Congress
Rubio announced his candidacy in April. Since January 2011, he’s missed 197 of 1,482 roll call votes, 13.3% overall, GovTrack.us found. That gives him the not-so-coveted title for the worst voting attendance for any senator for this year. Rubio’s peak of absence is from October to December 2021, where he missed 58.2% of votes, according to GovTrack.us.
Rubio on Guns
Rubio has taken $3.3 million from the gun lobby in his career. It comes out to $1.05 in donations for every Florida high school student. That’s the price of student lives for Rubio, as he continues to block any progress on gun safety reform. Rubio has a “B” from the NRA and Demings has an”F”.
Rubio on Voting Rights, Voter Suppression and Election Integrity
Rubio has thrown his full support behind GOP-led voter suppression laws like the one in Florida – meaning he supports making it more difficult for Americans to register to vote, mail in their ballots and even receive water while waiting in line. Florida’s last Senate race was determined by only 10,033 votes, and the Rubio/Demings race could be just as close. Voter turnout is especially important.
Rubio declines to say whether he’ll accept election results, calls “Democrats the real election deniers” via Jesse Scheckner of Florida Politics. In the past, Rubio has largely expressed faith in America’s electoral system, but recent comments he’s made and declined to make indicate he might be thinking of adopting rhetoric similar to that of Trump if things go poorly for Republicans this November. When asked by The Washington Post if he’d accept the outcome of the Nov. 8 election, Rubio joined 11 other GOP candidates, including DeSantis, in declining to answer the question.
Rubio on Women’s Reproductive Rights
In a recent virtual town hall , Rubio seemed to compare abortion to vehicular manslaughter. He said: “In most states in this country, if a drunk driver runs a red light and kills a pregnant woman, they are charged with two counts of vehicular manslaughter, one for the child and one for the mother. So, we already, in other areas of the law, recognize that is a human life worthy of protection of our laws.” In the town hall (captured on video obtained by VICE News), Rubio also said that abortion ban exceptions meant to protect the health of pregnant people are “a massive loophole.”
Rubio says he’d rather lose his job in Washington than compromise his strong anti-abortion views, signing onto a federal 15-week nationwide ban just weeks before the midterm elections.
Immigration
Rubio defended DeSantis’ sending of migrants to Massachusetts, saying that what critics say is “wrong” about the action is actually “minuscule” compared to the larger failures in U.S. immigration policy. “What was wrong in Martha’s Vineyard is about a small, like a minuscule fraction of the problem being carried by just a handful of states,” said Rubio during an appearance in West Palm Beach. “Most states are taking on 90% of the burden of uncontrolled illegal immigration.” Immigration is a federal responsibility, but Rubio said the U.S. government has dropped the ball
Culture issues / On WOKE-ness
Like DeSantis, Rubio is not beyond name calling. He says things like “In America, we have this movement on the far Left that has overtaken the Democratic party…if we don’t beat these people, if we don’t stop them, they’ll destroy this country.”
Rubio has stated that the Socialists and Communists (aka the Democrats) have “caused” the devaluation of the model nuclear family. Rubio also said that the devaluation is also caused by a decline in “dignified jobs.” Without them, Rubio has said that “pride — personal and national — faltered, and corrosive, failed ideas like socialism and Marxism took root”. Rubio has said: “It’s probably one of the fundamental differences between the socialists and leftists and those of us on the Right, and that is their belief that it doesn’t really matter where the money you have comes from, whether it’s a government stimulus check or government welfare program or a job. The important thing is you just got a hundred bucks…but we know better, because human history tells us that if that $100 is the product of your work, your labor or something you put into it, it means something to the person. It has an element of it that is the glue that holds communities together. It’s the kind of thing that makes it possible to start a family and be a part of a community.” He went on to say “If you’re atheist, agnostic or of a different religious persuasion, if you’re a member of the LGBTQ community or you believe some existing aspects of American society describable as socialist — public libraries, schools, health care, police, fire rescue and infrastructure among them — you won’t be discriminated against under this creed, its proponents say. But don’t expect special treatment or unique protection. Equality doesn’t have carve-outs”.
Rubio has said that “the Democratic Party has all but caved to the far-left demands of Marxists swelling from within its ranks, who are distinguishable from their less threatening, but nonetheless errant, socialist cousins by their quest for power rather than economic equity…American history, patriotism, border security, gender, traditional morality, capitalism, fiscal responsibility, opportunity, rugged individualism, Judeo-Christian values, free speech, law enforcement, religious liberty, parental involvement in schools and even private ownership of firearms — the woke Left wants all of that gone,”
A Stalwart Defender of Trump
If Rubio’s “National Conservatism” sounds like an echo of what Donald Trump promotes in his perpetual “Make America Great Again” tour, it’s because that’s essentially what it is. And to Rubio — who famously and publicly traded barbs with the former President before morphing into a stalwart defender through two impeachments and an ongoing FBI investigation — becoming a Trumpian saving America from what he calls ”an increasingly batty army of laptop liberals and Marxist misfits, whose disregard for traditional, capitalist, American values long ago verged into outright disdain”.
Disinformation campaign
Besides spreading all kinds of misinformation about the Democrats, Rubio’s re-election campaign pulled two ads from broadcast television after questions about content were raised. Both were the subject of reporting by Florida Politics for offering incomplete presentations of facts. One ad, “100%,” attacked Demings for voting for pandemic relief checks that went to inmates and undocumented workers but failed to mention that Rubio co-sponsored and voted for the legislation as well. The other, “Diego’s” spotlighted a Panama City Beach business that benefited from the Paycheck Protection Program, which Rubio helped craft. But it turned out the business was owned by a man who pleaded no contest to a charge he solicited and procured a prostitute in 2001.
Image Credits: pbs.org
