Because of their position to represent large regions and their inhabitants, politicians should set an example for the people. Therefore, it is important to know their history and career path to find out if they are honest and if they deserve our vote.
Most of the time we are having successful businessmen running for a political positions. While looking through their career, you can find many interesting things and business moves they did which can be implemented in our lives. However, you can find lots of controversies as well.
Rick Scott also knew what is a diffusion notice well and used this knowledge often. After all, when a person does not understand such formulations, then he can easily fall under this cap due to a minor misconduct.
In this article, we’ll talk about Governor Rick Scott and all the reforms he brought. In addition, we will go through some of his controversial moves and understand why was he such a controversial political figure. Keep reading and find out more.
Contents
Death penalty
During his time as Florida’s governor, he signed an act of timely justice that brought the death penalty as an option for punishment. However, this act was partially shut down due to the via lotion of the sixth amendment.
However, the legislature brought a new statute that made a commission of ten unanimous juries to achieve a majority in voting for the death penalty sentence. This law could not be implied in current prosecutions which gave a bit of space for inhabiting the law.
During his run as a governor, there were more executions than ones executed under other governors in the history of Florida. Because of this fact, he put such controversy on his name.
As a new topic today, especially due to the situation where abortion was banned in many states, Scott was involved in this controversy as well. Namely, he is supporting the life movement, and thereby supports the policy of banning the right to abortion.
This was strongly critiqued by the liberals since many women are affected by this law. Since abortion cannot be stopped, but only the legal procedure can, this puts many women at risk which affects the population as a whole.
Scandals of his associates
His associates are responsible for some of the controversies following Rick Scott as well. For example, one of his consultants by the name of Joshua Cooper. He had a photo of him resurfacing while he is touching a mannequin between her groin with a penis made out of ice.
While this photo was posted by a teammate of his thinking it was just funny and there were no bad intentions, the situation got out of control. The photo of Scott Cooper Miami was posted on this website and provoked such embarrassment.
Later, Cooper said that the photo was taken out of context and it is not what it seems like. This happened during a cookout competition where he was supposed to throw away a large chunk of ice. He said that the bad-angle photo was used as a distraction from scandals of other political figures.
No welfare for drug users
During his mandate, he signed a law that mandates all the people who are seeking welfare under the program of assistance for families in need to provide drug tests. With that, everyone who fails the test cannot receive welfare funds. However, they can name another person to receive the finances for their kids.
While this brought lots of controversies, Scott was driven by the thought that people seeking welfare are statistically more likely to be drug users. Since he does not want the government money to be spent on illegal substances, he prohibits the users from the financial help.
During the initial screenings, only two and a half percent of welfare candidates were positive on the drug tests, while two percent did not want to take the test. This beat the estimation from the department of justice thinking that six percent of Americans are recreational drug users. What is important to note is that this law was not constitutional.
Variety of firearm laws
Other things that constantly bring controversy are the firearm laws and all the bad situations that happen due to the widespread and easy access to guns. During his mandate, Scott has signed more supportive firearm laws than any other politician in the history of the state.
One of the bigger laws was the act of privacy for gun owners. This prohibits medical and mental health workers to ask the patients whether they own any guns unless it is important for their safety as patients or the safety of the population.
After a massive high-school shooting that took place in Florida, Scott supported the raising of the minimum age for firearm owners. With that, the minimum age was pushed from eighteen to twenty-one, as well as background checks were made mandatory.
In addition, he hired police to stay at schools as well as armed some of the professors to provide more safety to the collective. Lastly, he banned firearm possession for people with a violent history, as well as mentally ill people.
However, certain organizations were strongly against this law since it was violating the rights under the constitution of the people from eighteen to twenty-one.
Immigration
He has been a great opponent of illegal immigration which is shown through the policies he has adopted or supported. For example, he encouraged the police to check whether people had their citizenship. In addition, he prohibited immigrants to receive tuitions which were later allowed.
However, he was clear to state that he is strongly against the campaign of separating the children from their parents who they’ve crossed the border with. In addition, he called for the stoppage of this campaign.
Conclusion
While being eight years in his position as governor of Florida, he had a spotlight and every move was strongly judged by the community. However, some of the laws and reforms he signed were strongly controversial due to their hot topic among the citizens.
In addition, being a republican and strongly supporting the position of president Trump was also a reason why was he so controversial. All of his conservative politics and patriotism were other reasons for the controversies.
However, with a such large number of people living in Florida, it is normal to have opposing opinions. Some think he did a great job with the laws and policies he led, while others are offended and harshly condemn his ideology and the laws he introduced.
