Louisiana Voice

The argument could be made, I suppose, that because I don’t have a dog in this hunt, I probably should just butt out but I just can’t let the actions of a Florida legislator go without commenting on what a petty, vindictive, miserable s.o.b. State Rep. RANDY FINE has to be.

Yes, I’m keenly aware that he will probably never read this to know to what degree of total disgust and contempt I hold him in, but I’m saying it even if the only person whose feelings it assuages are mine.

Fine, a Republican supporter of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s fight with Disney, has labeled himself as one of Hillary Clinton’s true deplorables by using the Special Olympics as a weapon to reek some sort of sick revenge over a local school board member with whom he apparently has issues.

That’s just about as despicable as one can ever get. It’s probably some sort of new depth to which an elected official can dive in the sewer of political spats.

Fine, who sponsored a bill punishing Disney over the state’s LGBTQ education law, attempted to pull the rug of financial FUNDING out from under the Special Olympics for the city of West Melbourne, because school board member Jennifer Jenkins was invited to a fundraising event and he wasn’t.

Seriously? Someone should bitch-slap this sanctimonious little saggy-jowl twit just for general principle.

At the same time, he also threatened to pull funding for a flood risk reduction project in West Melbourne – all because he (wait for it) doesn’t like Jenkins, whom he referred to as a “whore” in a text to West Melbourne City Council member John Dittmore.

Apparently, his dislike of Jenkins stems from Jenkins’s support for school mask requirements and other Covid safety measures during the pandemic. Well, that’s certainly justification for cutting funding for Special Olympics and flood protection. Nothing there to remind us of the small-mindedness of the type people who support the likes of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.

Of course, Dandy Randy tried to spin the confabulation in his favor by the tried-and-true Trumpian method: denial.

He predictably denied that the conversation ever took place and said he never threatened to ask DeSantis to veto funding for anything.

But he did an equally predictably stupid thing: he put his threat in writing in the form of a (ahem) text. (Oh, when will they ever learn about that damn social media?)

The messages to Dittmore were released by West Melbourne city attorney Morris Richardson as part of a public records from (who else?) Jenkins.

“Jenkins just put your project (flood protection) and Special Olympics funding on the veto list,” he wrote in a text to the city councilman. In another text (one is never enough), he told Dittmore that it would be “smart” to cancel the event with an “apology for wading into politics.”

“You guys will have to raise a lot of money given that’s who you want to honor, not the person who got you money in the budget,” he wrote.

But Fine never threatened anyone, don’t you see?

Jenkins somehow managed to take the high road in this messy affair. “I’m not surprised by it,” she said. “It’s typical for someone to attack a woman with sexual innuendos when they are threatened by their strength.”

I suppose this ugly episode does deflect attention from Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, another of those Trumpian Republicans who one wit said never had a high school sweetheart until he was 38.

But unfortunately, it does not conceal the sad truth that Florida is doing a deep dive into authoritarianism, hoping to take the entire country with it in the process.

The only hope is that with both residing in Florida and both seemingly casting solicitous eyes toward the White House, they will be successful only in destroying each other and perhaps leave the door open for a decent Republican (if there is one left out there) to fill the void.

And the Democrats had better start looking for a strong (and younger) candidate of their own.