Marco Rubio Backed Measure Seen As Protecting The Confederate Flag In Florida
WASHINGTON -- As a state lawmaker in Florida in 2001, Marco Rubio, now a leading Republican presidential candidate, co-sponsored a bill that would have protected the Confederate battle flag’s place in public spaces.
The bill was described as a racially charged response to a decision from then-Gov. Jeb Bush, himself a current Republican presidential candidate, to remove the Confederate flag discreetly from the capitol building in Tallahassee. The flag and its symbolism are facing renewed scrutiny in the wake of Wednesday's murder of nine people in a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Rubio was one of dozens of lawmakers who backed the measure. Reflecting the odd political dynamics of the state, several of those co-sponsors were Democrats, and several of them were African Americans (who would later withdraw their support). The bill was framed as an act of historical preservation. Under its guidelines, the government would have been blocked from permanently removing or relocating historical monuments, including flags, from public property.
“It’s a preservation of historical monuments,” state Rep. Jeff Kottkamp, a co-sponsor of the measure, said in 2006 when the controversy was raised again during that year’s gubernatorial election. “I don’t ever remember the flag being mentioned.”
The language itself said that any group that tried to prevent the preservation of a historical flag or a monument would be committing a misdemeanor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/19/marco-rubio-confederate-flag_n_7623958.html
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Not to mention about twenty anti-choice billboards.
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I've got to get out of this state.
