Scott Senate campaign calls opposition ad 'dangerous' in light of hurricane
The Florida ad wars are in full swing.
Rick Scott’s Senate campaign sent a letter to Florida television stations this week demanding that they pull what it says is a “false, misleading, and potentially dangerous negative advertisement” produced by a political action committee supporting incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
Released by Senate Majority Pac, the ad targets Scott over education funding in Florida, splicing together a news report that proclaims that “he cut $1.3 million dollars from K12 education” with narration that proclaims “and gave tax breaks to corporations instead.”
Beyond disputing the specific claims in the ad, the statement from Scott’s campaign described it as a literal threat to public safety:
“The people of Florida rely on Governor Scott for accurate storm response and safety information — and a false ad suggesting Floridians should not listen to the Governor isn’t just ill-timed, it’s dangerous,” the statement, which made three references to Hurricane Michael in two paragraphs, said in part.
The demand that television stations stop running the ad follows a similar demand by Democrat Andrew Gillum, who is running against Ron DeSantis to succeed Scott as governor. Gillum’s team says a Republican-funded ad implying he is the target of an FBI investigation is defamatory.
The letter from Scott campaign lawyer Steve Roberts Friday charged: “The Advertisement falsely asserts that Governor Scott cut state general revenue funds for education. This claim is a blatant manipulation of the facts. The largest portion of the decline in education funding from October 2011 to November 2012 was the expiration of two years of federal stimulus funds. The expiration of federal funding is not the same as cutting general revenue funds.”
Democrats would like to make education a central issue in the Senate race, in which Nelson has opened up a slight polling lead, according to the Real Clear Politics average. The ad also hits Scott for cutting “$20 million from pre-K” and slashing “Bright Futures scholarships.”
Scott’s lawyer disputed both the figure and the implication of the claims.
“This number completely ignores the fact that funding has jumped to $398 million and that the governor had proposed increased funding that would be the largest boost for early learning in the past decade,” Roberts wrote. “The Advertisement continues to totally mislead the viewers by stating that Governor Scott ‘slashed Bright Futures scholarships’ when in fact Governor Scott signed legislation permanently expanding the Florida Bright Future Scholarship Program.”
The new ad echoes many of the claims made against Scott by a previous ad produced by the Democratic Party in 2014, when Scott ran for reelection as governor.
The Tampa Bay Times’ PolitiFact reviewed the content of the earlier ad, and rated its central claim, that Scott “cut education to pay for even more tax breaks for big, powerful, well-connected corporations,” to be only “half true.”
“Scott and the Legislature did cut K-12 in 2011 and money for universities in 2012. And Scott and the Legislature implemented a series of business tax breaks in 2012,” PolitiFact’s Amy Sherman wrote. “However, the ad exaggerates when it focuses attention on tax breaks for ‘big, powerful, well-connected corporations.’ Some such companies benefited, but so did many other types of businesses. And the question of whether the tax cuts and the education cuts had any causal relationship is murkier than the ad lets on.”
Roberts concluded his letter with a warning to the stations in Florida that are still airing the ad.
“Knowing that the Advertisement is false, and possessing the legal authority to refuse to air it, your station is obligated to exercise such authority in accordance with its duty to protect the public,” Roberts said. “We trust that you are aware of your responsibility, and that as a licensee, you may be held liable for knowingly broadcasting false claims.”
But it’s unclear whether Scott’s campaign will prevail in convincing stations to pull the ad. On Thursday, Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren told Yahoo News that courts are reluctant to become involved in fact-checking the content of political ads.
“I don’t think the courts are going to get involved. I mean this is not an issue for the courts to resolve,” Warren said on a conference call with prosecutors speaking out against an ad produced by Florida’s Republican Party that made claims disputed by Democrat Andrew Gillum.
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