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LeMieux, Hasner trade jabs over social issues

Posted Aug 19, 2011 by William March

Updated Aug 19, 2011 at 05:42 PM

On the eve of a Republican Senate candidates’ debate before a social conservative organization, candidates George LeMieux and Adam Hasner are tangling over social issues.

In a news release Friday, LeMieux blasted Hasner for votes Hasner cast while he was in the state House, and Hasner shot back over LeMieux’s ties to former Gov. Charlie Crist and issues from LeMieux’s unsuccessful 1998 campaign for a state House seat.

Among LeMieux’s charges were that Hasner voted to “weaken pro-life parental notification laws” in 2007, and got an F rating that year as a state House member from the Christian Coalition; and that he opposed a bill to provide private school tuition vouchers for all military families, and got a good rating as a legislator from the AFL-CIO in 2003.

LeMieux noted that in the past, Hasner described himself in newspaper interviews as a “moderate.”

Hasner did vote in 2007 for a “judicial bypass” in Florida’s law requiring that parents be informed of a minor seeking an abortion, but the same Christian Coalition rating that gave him an “F” that year said the vote was in favor of the coalition’s position, to “fix a glitch” in Florida’s existing parental notification law. It’s common for parental notification laws to allow minors to seek exceptions in court.

Hasner got the “F” rating for votes against the Coalition position on gambling.

Hasner called LeMieux’s attack a “cynical reinvention on social issues” by LeMieux. Hasner cited his endorsement in the Senate primary by social conservative groups including Concerned Women for America, former Christian Coalition executive director Dennis Baxley and others.

He pointed to actions by Crist while LeMieux was Crist’s chief of staff, including denying Republican Party funding for a campaign for an anti-gay marriage amendment, and appointing Supreme Court Justice James Perry, an appointment conservative groups opposed.

Hasner noted that according to news reports during LeMieux’s campaign for a state House seat from Broward County in 1998, LeMieux sought to appeal to gay voters, favoring allowing civil unions and adoption by same-sex couples.

All four candidates for the nomination to run next year against Sen. Bill Nelson—Hasner, LeMieux, Mike MacCalister and Craig Miller—are expected to participate in a debate Saturday in Orlando sponsored by the Florida Family Policy Council and a Central Florida tea party group.