Natacha Seijas Slams Charlie Van Zant

Former Miami Dade commissioner Natacha Seijas (R) lit into Florida Rep. Charlie Van Zant. At issue is Van Zant's legislation HB 181. The bill would take away counties rights to impose a living wage for employees of government contractors.

The Miami-Dade laws require major contractors to offer a minimum wage higher than the one set by the federal government and offer their employees health insurance, and to provide victims of domestic violence up to 30 days off without pay to get their lives in order. The county also gives employees who have not been paid for their work a venue to denounce their employers for wage theft.

It is a good law. Which is exactly why Van Zant is trying to have working class people make less money during economicly difficult times. Seijas points out that Van Zant has been doing a poor job of taking care of his constituents in Palatka.

"I don't know how many of you have been to Palatka -- I've been to Palatka," Martinez said. "Palatka happens to be one of the poorest cities in the state of Florida."

There is more.

"Rep. Van Zant from Palatka doesn't think we need any local wage ordinances. Well, God bless Rep. Van Zant," Seijas said, pointing to Van Zant's legislative biography, which says he earned a doctorate in theology from the Western Baptist Theological Seminary in Havana from 1999 to 2001. "He probably thinks everybody in Miami-Dade County should live in poverty just like all those people he saw in communist Cuba."

Seijas really worked Van Zant over in this press conference.