Anthony Frank Sabatini (born October 20, 1988) is an American attorney and far-right politician who served as a member of the Florida House of Representatives from the 32nd district from 2018 to 2022. He was a candidate in the

2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Florida The 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Florida were held on November 8, 2022, to elect the 28 U.S. representatives from Florida, one from each of the state's 28 congressional districts. The primary was held on August 23, ...

for

Florida's 7th congressional district Florida's 7th congressional district is a congressional district in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. From 2003 to 2013, the district consisted of the suburban area between Orlando and Daytona Beach and included St. Augus ...

, losing the Republican primary to

Cory Mills Cory Mills (born July 13, 1980) is an American businessman, defense contractor, and politician serving as a member of the United States House of Representatives for since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he worked in various organization ...

Early life and education

Sabatini was born in

Smithtown, New York Smithtown is a town in Suffolk County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. The population was 116,296 at the 2020 Census. The census-designated place (CDP) of Smithtown lies within the town ...

, in 1988 and moved with his family to Florida the following year. In a high school photo, Sabatini and a friend were pictured in blackface. In his freshman year of college, he was photographed in

brownface Brownface is a social phenomenon in which a white or light-skinned person attempts to portray themselves as a "brown" person of color, but less overtly and with a lighter complexion than traditional blackface. This may include mimicry of Midd ...

. He earned bachelor's degrees in philosophy and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

from the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

in 2012 and a Juris Doctor from the

Fredric G. Levin College of Law The University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law (UF Law) is the law school of the University of Florida located in Gainesville, Florida. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest operating public law school in Florida, and second oldest overall ...

in 2017.

Career

Sabatini is an infantry officer in the

Florida Army National Guard The Florida Army National Guard is Florida's component of the United States Army and the United States National Guard. In the United States, the Army National Guard comprises approximately one half of the federal army's available combat forces ...

. He was appointed to the City of Eustis Code Enforcement Board and later elected to the Eustis City Commission in 2016 and resigned from the office on April 30, 2018, to focus on his campaign for the Florida House of Representatives. In December 2022, Sabatini was elected Chair of the Lake County Republican party.

Florida House of Representatives

Sabatini defeated Monica Wofford and Shannon Elswick, to win the August 28, 2018 Republican primary, winning 46.7% of the vote. In the November 6, 2018 general election, Sabatini defeated

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

Cynthia Brown, taking 56.48% of the vote. In 2019, Sabatini proposed amendments to make The Swamp Restaurant in Gainesville a landmark to protect it from demolition. The restaurant was temporarily closed, but not demolished, and eventually returned. On January 13, 2020, Sabatini introduced HB 1365, which would have made it a felony for doctors to provide hormone therapy or

gender reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and all ...

for

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

minors. In 2020, Sabatini introduced legislation allowing Floridians with valid

concealed carry Concealed carry, or carrying a concealed weapon (CCW), is the practice of carrying a weapon (usually a sidearm such as a handgun), either in proximity to or on one's person or in public places in a manner that hides or conceals the weapon's pr ...

licensed to carry firearms on public colleges and universities. Sabatini has sponsored legislation to enshrine eight-year term limits for Florida's

school board A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution. The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are ...

s. Sabatini has introduced legislation to ban red light cameras in Florida.

2022 U.S. House campaign

On March 8, 2021, Sabatini announced that he would challenge incumbent Republican Representative

Daniel Webster Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison ...

for

Florida's 11th congressional district Florida's 11th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Florida. It was reassigned in 2012, effective January 3, 2013, from the Tampa area north to four other counties: Sumter County, Citrus County, Hernando an ...

. He later suggested he might not wind up running against Webster due to redistricting. On June 7, 2021, he announced he would challenge incumbent Democratic Representative Stephanie Murphy for

due to redistricting. Sabatini lost the 2022 Republican primary to

in August 2022.

Political positions

Gun rights

Sabatini has supported

Constitutional carry In the United States, the term constitutional carry, also called permitless carry, unrestricted carry, or Vermont carry, refers to the legal public carrying of a handgun, either openly or concealed, without a license or permit. The phrase does ...

legislation to allow Floridians to carry concealed firearms without first acquiring a permit. Sabatini described permit requirements as a requirement for persons "to beg government permission and pay money for the exercise of their fundamental God-given right." Sabatini introduced Constitutional carry legislation in 2020, 2021, and 2022; the legislation was endorsed by Republican Governor

Ron DeSantis Ronald Dion DeSantis (; born September 14, 1978) is an American politician serving as the 46th governor of Florida since January 2019. A member of the Republican Party, DeSantis represented Florida's 6th district in the U.S. House of Repres ...

but did not pass the Republican-controlled legislature; Sabatini criticized several fellow Republicans for failing to back the bill.

Black Lives Matter protests

In response to the

protests A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...

following the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...

, Sabatini posted a tweet that suggested that protesters who unlawfully enter businesses would be met with an

AR-15 An AR-15-style rifle is any lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on the Colt AR-15 design. The original ArmaLite AR-15 is a scaled-down derivative of Eugene Stoner's ArmaLite AR-10 design. The then Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporatio ...

rifle; he posted a similar suggestion on his

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

page with the caption "Don't Tread on Me". The sentiment was widely condemned, with Florida State Representative Cindy Polo deriding it as "clearly inflammatory" and "inciting violence".

Nikki Fried Nicole Heather Fried ( ; born December 13, 1977) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 12th Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, Florida commissioner of agriculture from 2019 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party (United Sta ...

, Florida Agriculture Commissioner, called for Sabatini to be reprimanded. House Speaker

José Oliva José Oliva (March 3, 1971 – December 22, 1997) was a professional baseball player who played in the Major Leagues primarily as a third baseman from 1994 to 1995. Oliva had three daughters, Laura Oliva, Tiana Oliva, and Yeika Oliva. On Decembe ...

found no "direct or preemptive threat" in Sabatini's comments and did not take punitive actions. Sabatini also drew criticism from Florida State Senator

Shevrin Jones Shevrin D. Jones (born October 12, 1983) is an American politician from the state of Florida. He was elected to the Florida State Senate in 2020 Florida Senate election, 2020 to represent the 35th District. He previously was a Democratic Party (Un ...

for referring to

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police br ...

protesters in Minneapolis as "disgusting, lawless thugs" in a tweet calling for their arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment.

"Cancel culture" and the media

Sabatini has made multiple critical statements of " cancel culture", tweeting that, "If

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...

was out philosophizing in American society today, he would be cancelled real quick". He has called for repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, arguing that it allows online platforms to remove conservative perspectives.

COVID-19

In July 2020, a Florida resident filed an ethics complaint against Sabatini in connection with his involvement in several mask mandate lawsuits. The complaint was in response to a press release about the lawsuit that printed Sabatini's official House email address as the press contact and alleged that this violates a Florida State Statute about misuse of public position. Sabatini has filed at least 14 lawsuits during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

challenging local ordinances requiring the use of face coverings. On September 2, 2020, he received his sixth loss from the filed suits that have so far been heard.

Donald Trump

Sabatini has proposed renaming the Florida section of U.S. Route 27 the "President Donald J. Trump Highway". During Trump's reelection bid announcement in Orlando on June 18, 2019, a rally goer attacked an ''

Orlando Sentinel The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is the primary newspaper of Orlando, Florida, and the Central Florida region. It was founded in 1876 and is currently owned by Tribune Publishing Company. The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is owned by parent company, '' Tribune P ...

'' reporter filming the event. The reporter

tweeted Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

the encounter, to which Sabatini replied "

MAGA Maga or MAGA may refer to: MAGA * Make America Great Again, a political slogan famously used by Donald Trump * Museo MAGA, a modern-art museum in Gallarate, Italy * ''maga'', the logo of the Cornish Language Partnership, an organisation promot ...

". for which he was again criticized for supporting violence. Sabatini has repeatedly supported Republican attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden. He has repeated disproven conspiracy theories about the election, and has called for audits of the results in Hillsborough County, Miami-Dade County,

Broward County Broward County ( , ) is a county in the southeastern part of Florida, located in the Miami metropolitan area. It is Florida's second-most populous county after Miami-Dade County and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with over 1.94 m ...

Palm Beach County Palm Beach County is a county located in the southeastern part of Florida and lies directly north of Broward County and Miami-Dade County. The county had a population of 1,492,191 as of the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous county ...

, and

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

. Following the FBI's August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, Sabatini said Florida should "sever all ties with DOJ immediately" and added that "any FBI agent conducting law enforcement functions outside the purview of our State should be arrested upon sight".

Supreme Court

Sabatini criticized President Joe Biden's pledge to nominate a Black woman to the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

following Justice Stephen Breyer's announcement that he would retire, tweeting, "Biden MUST be impeached for his anti-white racist exclusion of any white nominee to the Supreme Court".

Francisco Franco

In 2022, Sabatini quoted

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

dictator Francisco Franco on Twitter, tweeting that “I answer only to God and to History.” In response to criticism of Sabatini's tweet, Sabatini posted a picture of Franco with President Dwight Eisenhower and stated that critics of his tweet were "extremely un-American."

Electoral history

References

External links

Campaign websiteFlorida House of Representatives – Anthony Sabatini
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabatini, Anthony 1988 births 21st-century American politicians American critics of Islam Candidates in the 2022 United States House of Representatives elections Critics of Islamism Discrimination against LGBT people in the United States Far-right politicians in the United States Florida National Guard personnel Living people Sabatini, Anthony People from Smithtown, New York University of Florida alumni