Accusations against Florida lawmaker are disturbing, just like his House record | Opinion

Fabian Basabe’s short political career started on the wrong foot when he ran for a Miami Beach Commission seat in 2021. A circuit judge disqualified him from running, ruling he did not meet the city’s residency requirements.

Basabe’s problems have now descended from run-of-the-mill controversies to bizarre and disturbing. Now a state representative in his first term, he faces a series of accusations ranging from sexual harassment to biting — yes, biting — people.

If true, these allegations show that the consensus-seeking family man Basabe presented himself to be during his campaign last year are as flimsy as his campaign promise to be a moderate in the Florida House. It turns out Mr. Kumbaya is a faithful soldier in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ culture wars.

A lawsuit filed by two former aides accuses Basabe, a married father of one, of making lewd sexual comments and advances toward a legislative aide and an intern. One of the young men previously said Basabe slapped him and told him to stand in a corner during an event. A Florida House investigation into the incident turned out “inconclusive.”

Basabe denied those allegations.

“Representative Basabe will not be litigating this frivolous and meritless lawsuit in the media or giving it any more public attention than it deserves — which is none,” a statement from his lawyer read, in part.

Bad behavior

And then, there are the allegations of him biting Miami Beach hotel employees on at least two occasions, as reported by the Herald Wednesday. Basabe is also accused of berating workers at different local venues and calling a publicist the n-word at a 2019 Art Basel party, which he also denied. Employees at the Faena hotel — where one of the alleged biting incidents took place — told the Herald Basabe has been temporarily banned several times.

Again, Basabe denies all of this. But what a contrast to the candidate who, during last year’s campaign, wrote “Join our mission to civilize” on Twitter.

The former New York socialite was a Republican running in a Democratic-leaning district covering Miami Beach. He branded himself as the solution to the culture-war obsessed Florida GOP — a conservative on fiscal issues and moderate on social issues.

He vowed to stand with Miami Beach’s large LGBTQ+ community and told the Herald Editorial Board at the time, “There needs to be some middle ground” on abortion.

“I don’t like extreme positions on anything,” Basabe said in July 2022.

On gun rights, he said he believed in “responsible gun laws” and that he never met any parent who would not “agree that responsible and strict gun laws should be in place.”

“Nobody needs a semi-automatic rifle tomorrow,” Basabe said. “So there’s no reason why we can’t take proper precautions and make people comply with strict applications and background checks. I think that, you know, everything, including a bullet, people should be accountable for.”

When asked to elaborate on specific policy stances, Basabe was vague. He talked about bringing people together, but he often spoke in platitudes. That’s still a far cry from how, once elected, he’s fallen in line on key votes with DeSantis’ most extreme proposals.

Basabe voted for a bill that allows Floridians to carry a concealed weapon without a license. He also supported DeSantis’ draconian immigration law.

Most notably, Basabe voted for a bill that expanded a parental-rights law known as “Don’t say gay,” which prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity. The new law bans schools from requiring employees and students refer to each other with their preferred gender pronouns.

Basabe also supported legislation that targeted drag-queen shows and another that banned transgender people from using bathrooms in government buildings that align with their gender identity.

After all the damage was done, he attended at a Pride parade in Miami Beach. Standing atop a red convertible, he faced protesters calling for his resignation.

Blames Democrats

Basabe has downplayed the impacts of the “Don’t say gay” bill. He told the Editorial Board he “worked diligently on the improvement of this bill” and claimed credit — which we could not verify — for changes he said allow discussions about LGBTQ issues to take place in schools outside classrooms.

“These bills are intentionally being misrepresented by advocacy groups turned activists,” he said in a statement via text message.

On abortion, he inexplicably skipped voting on a six-week ban that’s one of the strictest in the nation, though it makes exceptions for rape and incest. He also voted against several Democratic amendments to the bill.

Based on Basabe’s account, Republicans, who hold a super-majority in the Florida Legislature, are not to blame for passing the legislation along partisan lines. Basabe argues that Democrats, who control only 30% of the House and Senate, are responsible for it.

Huh?

In a video posted on YouTube, Basabe ranted about offering Democrats a compromise of a 12-week ban with exceptions, but “none of you were allowed to propose anything but the extreme.”

That’s a head-scratcher of an explanation at best, and disingenuous at worst.

The serious accusations of misconduct against Basabe, at this point, are exactly that — accusations. But Basabe’s votes are clear and on the record. Let them speak for themselves.

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