If a Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade sends a wave of outraged abortion-rights supporters to vote this year, there is one political race in Broward County where it could make a difference: The coastal district where Republican state Rep. Chip LaMarca is running for re-election.
Democrats, including LaMarca’s opponent, Linda Thompson Gonzalez, think the sudden prominence of abortion rights as an issue could galvanize voters in an area that isn’t dominated by either political party and can swing either way in elections depending on the mood of the voters.
Abortion has been a defining issue of American politics since the U.S. Supreme Court said in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that a woman’s right to have an abortion is protected by the U.S. Constitution — something that the political right never accepted and the current Republican-dominated court is ready to overturn. Now it’s exploding as a 2022 campaign issue.
LaMarca record
In 2020, when running for re-election, LaMarca wrote on a candidate questionnaire: “I am pro-life and have supported measures that I believe are fair and reasonable to protect the life of the unborn as well as the mother.”
Also in 2020, LaMarca voted in favor of a law requiring minors who seek abortions to obtain notarized consent from a parent or guardian, except in cases of emergency, or get a judge’s OK for the procedure. Previously Florida required parental notification, but not consent.
Earlier this year, LaMarca voted in favor of a new state law, which goes into effect July 1, banning almost all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. The new restriction doesn’t provide exceptions for victims of rape, incest or human trafficking, allowing abortions after 15 weeks only if there is a “fatal fetal abnormality” certified by two physicians. Until July 1, abortion in Florida is legal until the 24th week of pregnancy.
This week, after the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion showing justices decided to overturn Roe v. Wade, LaMarca used some of the language of abortion-rights advocates to describe a woman’s right to choose, and that he doesn’t favor a complete ban on abortion. “A woman’s right to make decisions for her family is fundamental in the United States. We learned years ago that an outright ban does not work and is frankly unsafe. I will continue to support keeping these decisions safe and legal, but rare in Florida,” he said via text message.
Personal for challenger
On Tuesday, the afternoon after Politico disclosed the contents of the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion, Thomson Gonzalez was at a downtown Fort Lauderdale rally in support of abortion rights. On Thursday, in an email blast to supporters, she wrote that “the stakes have never been higher” because “radical Republicans are dead-set on banning abortion.”
“When we see the kind of cruel votes that our incumbent [LaMarca] has taken — we can say that a 14-year old girl doesn’t have to wear a mask but we can force her to have a child, whether or not she’s the victim of rape or incest or human trafficking — we need to hold our elected representative accountable,” she said in an interview. “It’s a very close district. I’m hoping that this will motivate people.”
Thompson Gonzalez has a deeply personal perspective of what things were like in the pre-Roe era — and what could happen if Florida becomes one of the states that move to completely ban abortion.
She described in an interview what a high school friend of hers experienced. She was an honor student and they used to talk about their college plans. In senior year, “all of a sudden she disappeared two months before graduation. She had been killed by an attempt at a self-abortion.”
Thompson Gonzalez and other members of the high school yearbook staff in her small Michigan town in 1967 “were looking forward to graduation and all of a sudden we had to put in a special page for Edna.”
“This still affects me today when I talk about it,” she said. “It had a huge impact on all of us. This is real. She simply had nowhere to go and no one to talk to.
“There’s hardly a day in my life I don’t think about Edna. I know I’ve been able to succeed and go places that Edna wanted to go, and she can’t. I’m fighting for Edna. I’m fighting for my daughters, my grandchildren. I’m fighting for all of our children. Not just the girls, but the boys. This is all part of a very divisive and hurtful agenda, and we need to stand up and say ‘No more. Stop this.'”
Battleground
State House District 100 is the the only partisan federal, state or county district of any kind in Broward where the parties are evenly matched, and either could win. And it’s the kind of district where the issue could have an impact.
District 100 takes in most of the county east of Dixie Highway (plus a few pockets west) from the Palm Beach County line on the north to State Road 84 on the South. (It excludes some Democratic territory in that region: parts of Fort Lauderdale along with Oakland Park and Wilton Manors.)
The district includes many of Broward’s most upscale communities, home to the kind of Republicans that, prior to the rise of former President Donald Trump, were called “country club Republicans” — more interested in economic issues than in social, culture war issues.
It’s a suburban district that’s also home to many highly educated voters and no party affiliation/independent voters, said data analyst and Matthew Isbell, who grew up in Broward County and founded the firm MCI Maps, which analyzes political demographics.
District 100 is about as evenly matched as any place can be. Isbell’s analysis shows the territory in the new district voted 49.93% for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 and 49.32% for Republican Donald Trump. By contrast, election records show, Biden received 64.48% countywide, compared to Trump’s 34.74%.
In the 2018 race for governor, District 100 precincts went 50.11% for Democrat Andrew Gillum 49.19% for Republican Ron DeSantis. Countywide results were 67.95% for Gillum and 31.29% for DeSantis.
2022 landscape
Could a Supreme Court rollback of abortion rights — turning the issue over to the states to decide — shift the tide in the 100th District?
“That’ll probably be one of the bigger tests. That’s the type of district where you could imagine that pro-choice polls pretty well,” Isbell said.
But Isbell, who works for Democrats, said the issue might not end up helping Thompson Gonzalez. Farther down the ballot, away from high-profile contests such as president and governor, he said the district leans more Republican.
And single-issue voters who cast ballots based on abortion tend to be opponents, he said. For abortion-rights, supporters, the issue tends to be one of several and isn’t the sole factor driving people to the polls, Isbell said.
Isbell said the 15-week ban with no exceptions for rape, incest or human trafficking victims “already is arguably out of touch with his [LaMarca’s] district. But how much do the voters hold it against him as opposed to other issues? That still really is the big question mark that is unanswered.”
Local abortion rights leader Emma Collum said most Americans don’t want what appears to be coming from the Supreme Court. “House District 100 is a perfect microcosm,” she said.
Collum is board chairwoman of Ruth’s List Florida, which helps women candidates who support abortion rights and was co-coordinator of the Always My Choice abortion rights rally Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale. She was also an unsuccessful candidate for state House against LaMarca in 2018.
Collum said she sees the possibility of rallying independent and Republican women over the Supreme Court decision and Florida’s 15-week abortion ban. “If the Supreme Court is bringing it back to the states, the fact that the Florida Legislature and [Gov.] Ron DeSantis could go a step further and ban all legal abortions … what you could see is a real awakening for women going to the polls,” she said. “And that could be a turning point in this district.”
That might be Democratic wishful thinking. Although congressional and county commission districts in the same area have flipped back and forth during the last 15 years, Republicans have won the state House district or its predecessors every election for the past two decades.
And — possible mobilization over abortion rights aside — 2022 is shaping up as a strong one for Republicans. Midterm elections, between presidential years, are almost always bad for the party that controls the White House. And Florida Republicans, thanks in no small part to DeSantis, are energized and feel the political winds at their backs.
“I don’t believe this issue will have an effect in the state House race. All the candidates, whether it was Chip or the representatives who came before him, have been pro-life candidates, and the voters in those districts know who they were voting for,” said Heather Moraitis.
She is a Fort Lauderdale commissioner who was involved in running her husband George Moraitis’ four winning campaigns for state representative, including knocking on voters’ doors. (George Moraitis left office in 2018 because of term limits, and was succeeded by his fellow Republican, LaMarca.)
“This definitely is going to be a big issue that the Democrats will be very vocal about to try to turn out the vote for their side,” Moraitis said.
It won’t work, she said. “There is still a strong group of people in our city who are pro-life.”
LaMarca
LaMarca, 54, lives in Lighthouse Point. He owns a construction company.
He was elected to the state House in 2018, and is the only Republican in the Legislature whose district lies entirely in Broward County. He previously served two terms on the Broward County Commission, where he was the only Republican. Before that he served as a Lighthouse Point city commissioner and as chairman of the Broward Republican Party.
LaMarca considered running for Broward-Palm Beach congressional seat that U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-West Boca, is vacating, but in April said he would instead run for re-election to the state House.
LaMarca has for years balanced between the more conservative wing of the Republican Party, which is focused largely on social and cultural issues, and the faction of the party that is most interested in economic issues. LaMarca puts himself in the second camp.
During this year’s legislative session, LaMarca broke with his party and voted against the Republicans’ Parental Rights in Education law, better known by the label applied by critics, “Don’t Say Gay.” The new law bans instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, and imposes limits at higher grade levels, and allows dissatisfied parents to sue schools.
Alfredo Olvera, president of the Dolphin Democrats LGBTQ+ political club, said at the April 27 meeting of the North Broward Democratic Club that “right now in Broward we have one problem…. His name is Chip LaMarca.” Olvera said some Democrats have supported LaMarca in the past thinking “Chip is a good guy. Chip is not a good guy.”
Thompson Gonzalez
It’s the second time Thompson Gonzalez, 72, is running against LaMarca.
In 2020, the two faced off in a district that is largely the same as the new 100th District. (Boundaries are changing for this year’s elections to reflect population changes uncovered in the 2020 Census.) LaMarca received 55.2% and Thompson Gonzalez got 44.8%.
A lawyer and former Republican turned Democrat, she served in the Foreign Service, and is retired from the U.S. State Department. Thompson Gonzalez lives in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics
