TAMPA, Fla. — Two Florida state representatives have sent a letter to the city of St. Petersburg threatening to cut off all of its state funding until council members drop a plan to allocate $50,000 to the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund.
Mike Beltran, R-Riverview, and Berny Jacques, R-Seminole, sent a letter Wednesday to Mayor Ken Welch and City Council member Gina Driscoll, who is the head of the Health, Energy, Resiliency and Sustainability committee that greenlit the proposal.
“Not only is the City’s contemplated assistance to the TBAF unlawful, it is a wasteful and frivolous use of tax dollars,” they wrote. “The City obviously has no need for any further funding from Florida taxpayers if the City intends to spend money in violation of state law.”
Last month, that committee advanced a proposal to allocate $50,000 at council member Richie Floyd’s request to the abortion fund to pay for residents’ out-of-state travel for abortions. It also passed a resolution affirming the right to privacy in women’s health care decisions.
In the letter, Beltran and Jacques wrote that state law bars a local government agency from expending funds on an organization that owns, operates or is affiliated with one or more clinics that perform abortions. They said the city is a government entity and the abortion fund “advertises a dozen partner clinics that perform abortions,” and therefore St. Petersburg may not provide economic assistance to the abortion fund.
The full City Council needs to hold a vote for the funding and resolution to go into effect. Welch’s administration said it would not commit to the agreement.
