Floridians should ask for their money back if all Marco Rubio is going to do is play games with their children’s health. Rather than vote on a bill that would fully fund emergency response to Zika, Marco Rubio and his Republican allies decided to play quick and loose with children’s health and vote on the same bill that was a non-starter seven weeks ago.
Rubio is so ineffective at finding solutions for Florida that he’s either unwilling — or worse — unable to convince the Republican Congress that it should be their top priority to fight the spread of Zika. Floridians need representatives who will fight tooth and nail for their interests, and that includes fighting the spread of Zika and investing in research and treatments. Rubio has fallen far short of that bar.
Marco Rubio must think he’s still on vacation because he’s not paying attention to what his leadership in Congress is doing. In the seven weeks that Congress has been out of session, Zika has become a public health emergency. The first local spread of Zika came in Miami — Rubio’s backyard. The first domestic Centers for Disease Control travel advisory was issued in Miami-Dade and Hillsborough. The number people infected with Zika in Florida and around the country has grown dramatically.
All Rubio has to show in the last seven weeks is another partisan Republican vote that was never going to pass, and Rubio knew it. Until Rubio can rally Republicans to a clean funding bill on Zika — no erroneous riders — he is proving that he would be just as ineffective for Florida in the next Senate term (until he runs for president, of course) as he has been the last six years.
Published: Sep 6, 2016