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Pam Bondi
The former Florida attorney general supported workforce protections for queer people in Florida but battled marriage equality in court until the bitter end.
President-elect Donald Trump’s new pick for Attorney General, Pam Bondi, will bring a mixed record on LGBTQ+ issues to the Justice Department. Former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz had been Trump's initial pick, but a House ethics investigation report and allegations he had sex with a 17-year-old girl forced him to withdraw after some Senate Republicans said they would not confirm him.
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“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans – Not anymore,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”
The new AG pick has been a long Trump ally. Also, in 2019, Bondi's reelection campaign was at the heart of a court case against Trump.
"Trump was ordered by a New York state court to close his charitable foundation and pay $2 million in damages because of an illegal donation from the foundation to a political action committee supporting Bondi’s reelection campaign for Florida attorney general. The $25,000 payment occurred in 2013, just before Bondi’s office declined to pursue a lawsuit against Trump University concerning fraud allegations," The 19th reports.
Bondi, a 59-year-old Republican from Tampa Bay who was the state's first woman AG, brings a history as a prosecutor predating her time in elected office. That means she has plenty of courtroom experience, but that record includes fighting against marriage equality in Florida well after courts effectively settled the matter, unnecessarily postponing wedded bliss for thousands of same-sex couples in the state.
The first disappointment from Bondi for many LGBTQ+ Floridians came when she first ran in a Republican Primary for the statewide office. She had initially refused to take a stance on whether she would defend Florida’s decades-old ban on adoption by gays and lesbians, drawing fire from groups like the anti-LGBTQ+ Florida Family Policy Council. But after the group endorsed one of her opponents, Bondi later toldPolitifact she would “vigorously defend Florida's law banning gay adoption in our state.”
Her stance would never be tested. A state appellate courtstruck down Florida’s law months before her 2010 election. She played no role when the Florida Legislature formally repealed the 1977 ban.
But Bondi did defend a Florida constitutional amendment passed by votersin 2008, two years before her election as Florida Attorney General. She even campaigned on that issue, saying at a 2014 fundraiser she was “just getting started” on defending marriage discrimination. Her office appealed court rulingsfor years after judges said the state language violated LGBTQ citizens’ civil rights, going as far as petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding lower court decisions.
While Bondi maintained she had an obligation to defend Florida’s constitution, attorneys general in other states including California, Virginia, and Nevada all abandoned the fight well before her office. Bondi only abandoned the legal effort following the2015 landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that made marriage equality the law of the land.
A year later, Bondi still served as the state’s top legal officer during the investigation ofthe Pulse shooting in Orlando in 2016. She remained on the scene of the deadliest attack on LGBTQ+ people for days as state and federal law enforcement investigated the murder of 49 people, most of them LGBTQ+ and Latino. During the aftermath of the tragedy, she made sure loved ones and spouses of individuals could obtain information about victims of the attack and said Florida would not tolerate any violence targeting the state’s LGBTQ+ community.
But Bondi’s most infamous moment during the Pulse response came during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, one of America’s most prominent out journalists. Cooperconfronted Bondi on camera about her fight against marriage equality.
“You were arguing (in court) that gay marriage – if there was gay marriage, if there was same-sex marriage – that would do harm to the people of Florida, to Florida society,” Cooper said in the memorable exchange.
“I’ve never said I don’t like gay people. That’s ridiculous,” Bondi countered.
The testy encounter generated public back-and-forth between the Republican and prominent journalist for days, and further strained Bondi’s already difficult relationship with LGBTQ Floridians.
But as her tenure in office continued, Bondi, like many politicians, seemed to evolve on LGBTQ+ issues. In 2017, Bondi came out in favor of workforce protections for LGBTQ+ Floridians. Even as the Florida Competitive Workforce Act was still in drafting, she came out in support of the bill.
“I haven’t read the bill, but of course, it’s something that I would support,” she said in 2017, according toWFSU. “We’ve always had a great policy in my office regarding LGBTQ employees in my office and protecting their rights.”
Republican leadership in the Florida Legislature never took up the legislation, despite the bill having a high level of support among Democrats and Republicans.
