Author Of Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' Bill Headed To Prison

The former lawmaker who authored and co-sponsored Florida's notorious "Don't Say Gay" Bill has been sentenced to four months in prison for defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program that was put in place at the start of the COVID pandemic. The lawmaker - who resigned in disgrace at the end of last year - secured a loan of $150,000 based on fraudulent information submitted to the government and will spend the next few months behind bars. But the people of Florida will continue to suffer under the legislation of a criminal for a much longer time, as Farron Cousins explains.

Listen to our videos in an audio format by subscribing to our podcast

Don't forget to like, comment, and share! And subscribe to stay connected!

Connect with Farron on Twitter

*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Joe Harding, the former Republican lawmaker from the state of Florida who resigned in disgrace last December, has been sentenced to four months in jail for fraudulently obtaining paycheck protection program P P P loans during the start of the C Ovid 19 pandemic in 2020. So why does this matter? Right? Okay. A Florida Republican lawmaker resigned in disgrace. He pleaded guilty, I think back in March. Why should we care about this? Well, the answer is quite simple. Mr. Harding is the co-author and co-sponsor of Florida's controversial and ridiculously oppressive and homophobic. Don't say gay legislation. Now, let me tell you first and foremost what Mr. Harding pleaded guilty to Harding pleaded guilty in March to one count each of wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements in a plot to fraudulently obtain $150,000 federal covid relief loan. Uh, according to a statement by US Attorney's office for the Northern District of Florida, he was sentenced to four months in federal prison and two additional years of supervised release following his prison sentence.

And he has to pay $300 in restitution, got $150,000 loan fraudulently. He has to pay $300 in restitution. Uh, he used two businesses of his, that the businesses were dormant. Harting still claimed to the small business administration that one of the companies had four employees and a 420,000 uh, dollars in revenue. The other had two employees, he said, and had $392,000 in revenue according to authorities. And of course, those claims were not true. So again, another Republican busted defrauding the very people who put 'em in office. But that's just part of the story, as I said, right? Because the bigger part of the story is that the paycheck protection program, the P P P loans, the deadline to submit a claim to even get a P P P loan was May 31st of the year, 2021.

Him writing and co-sponsoring the don't say gay legislation in Florida actually happened after May 31st, 2021. So by the time he wrote this legislation that has ruined the lives of so many people here in Florida, by the time he had written that he had already broken the law. So this law that is in place in Florida that we are all living under right now was written by a man who had broken the law, who is now officially a criminal. He wasn't technically by definition a criminal at the time because he hasn't been, hadn't been caught and convicted of it yet, but he had already done the crime by the time he wrote the legislation. And there's nothing we

Can do about that. We are living under this law that, again, is ruining people's lives every day. And it was written by a man who's now a criminal. Oh, and I mentioned, you know, he is sentenced to four months in prison, but don't worry, he doesn't have to surrender himself to January 29th of next year. So he gets all this time after pleading guilty in March, sentenced at the, you know, tail end of October. Now he gets another three months like to enjoy Christmas and Thanksgiving with your family. You're just gonna miss the winter months and you're out in time for summer vacation. And the damage he has done to this state will live on a law written by a now criminal ruining people's lives, and there's nothing we can do about it. That's what me off the most about it. The fraud. Yeah, that's infuriating. The fact that we're living under a law written by a man who had already broken the law when he wrote it, that is absolutely unforgivable.