In 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Frank Artiles, a member of the Florida House of Representatives who first turned up in the Tea Party Wave of 2010, has a voting record featuring support for drug testing welfare recipients, unnecessary bans on Sharia Law, trying to prevent gays and lesbian couples from adopting children and find ways to deny them their legal right to be married, as well as sponsor pro-life legislation that included a measure to try and change the definition of fetal viability. At the time we gave Artiles the spotlight, he was one of the first Republicans around the country to also support transphobic bathroom legislation, wanting to fine transgendered citizens $1000 for using the “incorrect” bathroom. In our profiles of Artiles, we’ve taken great pains to be as accurate as we can in our discussion of him because he tends to threaten people who report on anything he does with libel and/or slander lawsuits, considering unflattering discussion of him or his interests “bullying”. When we factored in that, along with Artiles being investigated for assault for attacking a man in a night club a few years back, we thought we had more than enough to begin keeping tabs on him.
After six years of being a toxic influence in the Florida House of Representatives Artiles did successfully win election to the Florida State Senate in 2016 after fundraising at a rate roughly four times that of his opponent, Dwight Bullard. However, his time in the upper chamber was much shorter than perhaps anyone anticipated. One would think that after Frank Artiles had that run-in at a night club a few years back, that he might rethink where he spends time after hours in the state legislature, or to not be so combative. Well, Frank Artiles is a special brand of hostile, as in April of 2017, only four months into his first term in the Florida State Senate, went out to the Governor’s Club, a members-only bar and restaurant in Tallahassee, and called several members of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus the n-word, as well as calling one female lawmaker a “bitch”, and a male lawmaker a “p***y”. Artiles actually tried defending his use of the racial slur, claiming it was the version of the word that ends in an –a, and not –er, so he felt like he was just using slang and not insulting any of them. After days of trying to justify why casual bigotry was not a big deal, Artiles made a few half-hearted apologies before resigning in disgrace.