Florida Gov. Rick Scott may have had a death row inmate's execution delayed to accommodate a fundraiser for Attorney General Pam Bondi, but he'd really rather not talk about that right now, mmkay? Scott's in the middle of a close re-election campaign and this seems to be a topic he finds inconvenient, based on his evasion of Democratic opponent Charlie Crist's questions about it at Tuesday's debate.
Scott deployed a series of evasive maneuvers to get out of answering whether he knew, when he delayed the execution of Marshall Lee Gore, that it was for a political fundraiser. First, because Crist had the temerity to note that "it is the most solemn act a governor has to do as you're governor, knowing that your name on a piece of paper is going to result in the death of another human being," and because Crist acknowledged that he didn't have all the facts—which would be one of the reasons he was asking Scott for additional facts—Scott fell back on pieties about "the prayers that I do" and how "what I think about is those victims." As if the question had been "why did you execute a person," Scott said "you won't feel good about doing it, but it's my duty to do it as governor and I'll continue to do it."
But of course the question was not "why did you execute a person" in the abstract, it was "why did you delay this specific execution and did you know it was for Pam Bondi to attend a political fundraiser?" And that's a question Scott continued to evade. Crist pressed him: "Did the attorney general ask you to delay the execution so she could go forward with her political fundraiser?" That's where Scott started to really fall apart.
"See, the, it was, she asked me to delay it because it didn't work on the dates that she thought it was going to be on."
"Did you know it was for a political fundraiser?"
"Charlie, she apologized. She apologized. What would you like her to do? She apologized. She apologized, Charlie. What would you like her to do?"
See, Gov. Scott, it's not about what Bondi should do at this point. It's about whether you knew she wanted to delay the execution for a fundraiser, and aided her in doing that. She apologized—though it's not really clear what kind of apology wipes the slate clean after you toy with another person's life and death to raise some campaign cash—but voters need to know what and how much Rick Scott should be apologizing for. If Bondi lied to him about her reasons for wanting the execution delayed, that's something voters should know about Bondi. And if Scott knew that he was delaying an execution for partisan reasons, that's something voters should know about Scott.
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The funny thing is, Scott has
previously denied knowing that the delay was for Bondi's fundraiser. So why is this such a hard question to answer now?