Pro-embargo Republican stepping down, but not letting up

Republican Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (Florida) is one of the staunchest congressional supporters of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. In a noon conference today, Diaz-Balart announced that he would not run again in his Florida election district: he will retire from politics and return to practicing law. In that context, he said, he would work to support Cuban migrants and political prisoners (he did not specify how). “I am convinced,” he said, “that in the upcoming chapter of the struggle, I can be more useful to the inevitable change that will soon come to Cuba, to Cuba’s freedom, as a private citizen dedicated to helping the heroes within Cuba.”

His Miami district, which is dominated by Cuban-Americans, is considered by many to be reliably Republican, which is perhaps why his brother Mario Diaz-Balart has already jumped into what was a very brief void. Mario, also a Republican Representative, will run for Lincoln’s seat in November. But the district delivered 49% of votes to Barack Obama during the 2008 election, so his ascension is far from given.

Lincoln Diaz-Balart has served nine terms in his 21st District seat, and is the 18th House Republican who will not seek reelection in November, but perhaps most importantly, he is a senior embargo supporter in Congress, and his absence will be felt in that group. In his announcement this afternoon, he trumpeted his own work to strengthen the embargo:

“One of the achievements of which I am most proud was the codification, the writing into U.S. law, of the U.S. embargo on the Castro dictatorship, and the law’s requirement that before any U.S. President can lift the embargo, all political prisoners must be freed, all political parties, labor unions and the press must be legalized, and free multiparty elections must be scheduled in Cuba.”

Democrats are channeling Joe Garcia into the 25th District that Lincoln’s brother Mario will depart—a district in which Garcia garnered 47% of the vote in the 2006 elections he lost to Mario—not half bad.

(AP Photo)