Once coveted endorsements from police unions become more problematic for candidates in new era of skepticism toward cops

Endorsements from the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Benevolent Association have long been coveted by politicians. After all, what could be a better way for a candidate to show support for first responders and law & order than recommendations from police groups?

The answer isn’t as clear in 2020 as it once was. Instead of serving as a badge of honor, recommendations from the FOP and PBA could, for some voters, amount to a scarlet letter.

2020 environment

Since Memorial Day, when George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer who pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, there’s been a change.

In the last two months there has been unparalleled public concern over what activists have been talking about for years: systemic racism in the criminal justice system and the deaths of unarmed Black people at the hands of police. At the same time, video images of protesters roughed up by cops have proliferated online and on TV.

Since the Floyd killing and the ensuing protests, activists have sought to put police unions on the defensive for their advocacy of laws and regulations that make it difficult to fire bad cops and next-to-impossible to sue them, a doctrine known as “qualified immunity.”

(Police unions say bad officers should be fired or disciplined, but not at the expense of their rights. And they say that “qualified immunity” is misconstrued.)

“What people have come to realize, ordinary folks now, is that unfortunately police unions in doing their job to protect their members at all cost are now looked at as part of the problem in the criminal justice system,” said Broward Mayor Dale Holness. “The Floyd situation has blown it up.”

The idea of not voting for candidates who tout FOP and PBA endorsements was a topic of discussion when Holness got his last haircut at the Neighborhood Unisex Salon on Sistrunk Boulevard, the unofficial main street of the Black community in northwest Fort Lauderdale.

“Nobody thought about it before. They weren’t talking about it before. [Now] the barbershop says they’re not going to vote for anybody who has any police union endorsement,” Holness said.

Barbershops function as community centers in the Black community, detailed in film, in academic journals, and in news accounts, Holness said. “It’s where the political gospel is spoken,” Holness said.

Not automatic plus

For years, Democrats and Republicans have sought the PBA and FOP approval. Candidates for president and governor would summon TV cameras for the announcements. Those who couldn’t command that kind of attention — candidates for judge, state representative and city commission — featured the support on their campaign mailers.

Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies who specializes in politics and voting at Nova Southeastern University, said endorsements from the PBA and FOP are no longer an easy, automatic plus.

“It depends on your party and your politics,” he said. “If you’re shooting for Trump voters, it may even carry more weight in this period. If you’re pushing yourself as a law and order candidate, and you’re fighting the culture wars, getting the cops behind you is really going to work with voters who are committed to Trump’s world view.”

But, Zelden said, candidates trying to build a racially diverse base of support and younger voters, “getting the cops’ backing might not actually help. It might actually hurt.”

He said that’s also more likely to be the case in a place like Broward County where there are lots of minority voters and liberal white voters than in a more conservative place like Pensacola.

“It becomes a shorthand for the sort of candidate you are. That hasn’t gone away — but what that shorthand means has changed,” Zelden said.

Endorsements still sought

Most candidates still want endorsements from police unions. And that’s not just confined to white candidates Plenty of Black candidates seek and promote their FOP and PBA seals of approval.

John Kazanjian, president of the Florida and Palm Beach County PBAs, and George Woolley the Region 5 director of the FOP, said multiple 2020 candidates participated in their respective organizations’ endorsement screenings, most in person, some virtually.

Coming into endorsement season in the post-Floyd world, Kazanjian said he thought he might have seen some candidate resistance.

“But more so now, they want our endorsement because of those interest groups that are out there saying defund the police, get rid of the police,” Kazanjian said. “The silent majority I guess still likes law enforcement officers, and they still like their police.”

There were two Broward County candidates the FOP reached out to and “they didn’t want anything to do with us. One said they actually wanted to put Black Lives Matter on their paperwork,” Woolley said. “They didn’t want us near them.” He declined to identify them, saying he didn’t want to give them any publicity.

Other candidates “were trying to get in on the interview process. They did not want to get left out,” Woolley said.

Coral Springs Commissioner Joshua Simmons said candidates can get elected without the support of the FOP and PBA. When he ran for office the first time, against an incumbent, Simmons said he didn’t get an interview, his opponent got the endorsement, and Simmons won.

“At this point, they probably don’t even want it. If you’re a progressive running for office you probably don’t want that seal of approval,” Simmons said.

New voices

New voices are offering endorsements. Various chapters of Black Lives Matter, Dream Defenders and Color of Change are making their picks known in some races, though they’re generally not as comprehensive as the PBA and the FOP.

Community organizer Tifanny Burks said the Black Lives Matter Alliance Broward is not making endorsements.

But it is urging people to vote in the Aug. 18 primaries and nonpartisan elections where many of the most important local decisions will be made, and it is pointing people to Black Lives Matter of Weston’s endorsements, along with Color of Change and Dream Defenders and “encouraging people to look up and see if their candidates are being endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police and Police Benevolent Association.

“Your endorsements showcase what you stand for and what you believe in. We’re encouraging people to keep an eye out for those things,” Burks said.

Burks said it’s important to “show people that we can really exercise our power and decrease the power and influence that these unions have on the elections,” she said. “People are going into the voting booth with police accountability and justice on our minds.”

Candidates are paying attention. Last week, five of the six Democratic candidates for sheriff appeared in an online candidate forum sponsored by the Broward Young Black Progressives, Broward Young Democrats and Black Lives Matter. (Sheriff candidate Scott Israel didn’t participate; his campaign said he was still recovering from COVID-19.)

State attorney

One example of push and pull of different endorsements involves the race for Broward state attorney, a job that has enormous influence in the operation of the entire criminal justice system.

The office has been occupied for decades by Mike Satz, who was first elected in 1976. There’s a crowded field of Democrats in the Aug. 18 primary seeking to replace him. (The county is so Democratic that the winner of the primary is virtually guaranteed to win a four-year term as state attorney.)

The FOP endorsed Gregg Rossman. The PBA endorsed Joshua Rydell. “We feel that he is a fantastic candi 1/4 u00addate and is the perfect fit to lead the State Attorney’s office into the next decade and beyond,” Broward PBA President Rod Skirvin said in the endorsement announcement.

With another perspective, Broward Dream Defenders and the Color of Change political action committee, on its votingwhileblack.com website, endorsed Joe Kimok. And the Black Lives Matter group in Weston produced a report card assessing 20 candidates in several races, giving top scores to Kimok and Harold Pryor.

“State Attorneys are the most powerful actors in the criminal legal system. Florida has a long history of State Attorneys targeting Black & Brown communities, using ‘tough on crime, tactics, but on August 18th, there’s an opportunity to realize our vision of public safety!” Dream Defenders wrote on Facebook.

Skirmishes

One result of the current environment is that the FOP district that covers Broward, Collier and Hendry counties didn’t endorse any of the members of Congress, all Democrats, from Broward who are running for re-election this year.

A month after the Floyd killing, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a package of police reforms that included doing away with qualified immunity, an action that was done almost entirely along party lines. Woolley said the qualified immunity vote was the reason for the lack of endorsements.

“They voted against us,” Woolley said “We basically abstained from all the congressional races. We chose not to oppose them, but we’re not going to [support.3/8 ”

The Broward PBA made one congressional endorsement: Michael Kroske, who is seeking the Republican nomination to stand as a long-shot challenger to U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings. Hastings received the FOP endorsement in 2018.

In Palm Beach County, the PBA took the unusual, though not unprecedented, step of withdrawing the endorsement of a candidate for state representative after learning more about his views of police reforms.

Democrat Michael Weinstein, a former assistant state attorney in Broward and currently a criminal defense lawyer, said he would work to build bridges between police and the community and try to get them the resources they need.

When PBA members came across the questionnaire, posted online and used by the editorial board of the South Florida Sun Sentinel to help it determine candidate endorsements, Kazanjian said he was bombarded with questions about why he was the union’s pick.

Weinstein said he favored deescalation training, questioned police wearing fatigues and patrol officers driving unmarked cars, and support citizen review boards. Review boards to examine alleged police misconduct are unpopular with officers.

“My phone started blowing up. Like how dare the PBA endorse Weinstein,” Kazanjian said. “We can’t endorse somebody like that.”

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics

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