Don’t Say Gay bill’s author could go to jail for 35 years after guilty plea

Former Florida Rep. Joe Harding (R)
Photo: Campaign Photo

Former Florida state Rep. Joseph Harding (R) could be going to prison for a long time after he pled guilty to committing fraud to get $150,000 of COVID-19 relief funds.

Harding is perhaps best known as the author of Florida’s infamous Don’t Say Gay bill, which banned discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in younger grades and restricted them in older grades. LGBTQ+ advocates said that the law would effectively ban discussions of LGBTQ+ people, force teachers into the closet, and cut LGBTQ+ students off from much-needed support outside of their homes. Supporters of the bill said that anyone who opposed it was a pedophile.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) believes that Harding used “materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, and for the purpose of executing such scheme, caused wire communications to be transmitted in interstate commerce” to defraud the Small Business Administration (SBA) of the money. The Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, which the SBA administered, was meant to help small businesses keep from firing workers during the early days of the pandemic.

He allegedly applied for loans by…

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