WASHINGTON — Val Demings has repeatedly criticized Republican Sen. Marco Rubio for failing to vote last week on a broad spending bill that would have allocated additional billions of dollars for natural-disaster relief, accusing her foe in this year’s election of letting down Florida residents after Hurricane Ian.
But the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee herself hasn’t always backed legislation that includes hurricane relief funds.
In 2017 and 2018, Demings, a congresswoman from Orlando, voted against large legislative packages that would have delivered aid to hurricane-affected areas like Florida and Puerto Rico, arguing the relief efforts either didn’t go far enough or were paired with legislative measures that she opposed.
Both measures — one including tax provisions meant for victims affected by a trio of recent hurricanes and another including aid to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria — were ultimately approved with bipartisan support, despite Demings’ opposition.
In each case, the party’s gubernatorial nominee this year, Charlie Crist, supported the bill as a member of the House.
Demings’ opposition to the bills complicates her argument that Rubio’s missed vote — and his opposition to a relief bill for victims of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 — is proof that he won’t deliver enough federal aid to help Florida recover from Hurricane Ian, with the two candidates’ election little more than a month away.
In a statement, the Demings campaign reiterated criticism that Rubio needed to be in Washington for last week’s vote and should never have voted against Hurricane Sandy relief.
“Marco Rubio doesn’t show up for work, even when Florida is in a crisis,” said Christian Slater, Demings’ spokesman. “Just like his vote against Hurricane Sandy relief, Marco Rubio has yet again failed to show up and deliver for Florida. It’s shameful that Rubio would rather skip out on work than fight for the people impacted by Hurricane Ian.”
Last week, Congress passed a stopgap government funding bill that included nearly $19 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund.
It was money the agency could use to help parts of Florida recover from Hurricane Ian, which officials estimate could have inflicted tens of billions of dollars in damages when it struck last week.
Rubio was in Lee County surveying storm damage on Thursday of last week, when the Senate vote was held.
He has subsequently called for Congress to pass a disaster supplemental spending package to help fund recovery efforts in the state.
A spokesman for Rubio’s office did not respond to questions about whether the senator would have voted for the spending bill had he been in Washington.
Demings voted for the legislation on Friday by proxy, according to Slater, when the House vote was held. The Senate does not allow votes by proxy.
In an interview Sunday with ABC’s “This Week,” the senator said he would back the supplemental bill as long as it did not include spending unrelated to damage caused by Hurricane Ian.
“It won’t come to that, because it’s our state,” Rubio said. “So if we’re not asking for it and we’re saying we don’t need it and it doesn’t have anything to do with emergency relief for Florida, why would it be in there?”
The back-and-forth over past votes for hurricane relief has become a political flash point this week in Florida campaigns, after Ian moved past the state and its politics resumed in force.
Republican Sen. Rick Scott, who opposed last week’s government funding bill, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who also voted against Hurricane Sandy relief in 2012 when he was in Congress, have been criticized by Democrats, as they try to convince voters that the GOP officials’ response to the hurricane has been insufficient.
Demings in particular this week has leaned into that line of criticism, posting frequently on social media and giving speeches in which she says the senator has failed to do his job because of last week’s missed vote and his opposition to Sandy relief.
“Over and over again, time and time again, when Florida has needed Marco Rubio the most, he has not shown up,” Demings said on MSNBC on Wednesday. “And so Florida, again, we deserve better.”
Rubio has defended his vote against relief efforts related to Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of New Jersey and New York in 2012, saying he thought the measure included spending unrelated to storm recovery efforts.
Critics have said his vote was more about partisan politics, citing his subsequent run for president in 2016 and his political need to ingratiate himself with fiscal hawks unsupportive of additional government spending.
Demings’ own votes include opposition to a 2017 bill aimed at extending the Federal Aviation Administration’s tax authority that also included tax provisions for victims of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the latter two of which battered Puerto Rico that year.
The bill, which passed with 43 Democratic votes, split the party’s Florida delegation: Five of the 11 House Democrats from the state at the time backed the legislation, while six members did not.
Demings officials say that the congresswoman worked to include disaster relief from the hurricanes in the bill in the first place and also backed supplemental legislation to further increase recovery funds.
In 2018, Demings voted against a broad budget bill that included about $17 billion in recovery funds earmarked for Puerto Rico.
At the time, the congresswoman said the bill short-changed hurricane relief efforts, harmed early childhood education programs and provided insufficient funding for the military.
The bill passed that year with 73 Democratic votes. More than half of Florida’s Democratic House delegation, six of the 11 members, backed it.
