A 1-mile stretch of road alongside Florida International University in west Miami-Dade County is set to bear the name of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, following the passage of legislation that drew sharp debate on the Senate floor.
Republican lawmakers pushed through the bill (HB 33) by Miami Rep. Juan Porras, which will rename a portion of Southwest 107th Avenue between Coral Way and Tamiami Trail as “Charlie Kirk Memorial Avenue.”
Doral Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez sponsored the bill’s Senate analogue and carried the bill to final passage, 27-10, with all Democrats and independent Hollywood Sen. Jason Pizzo voting “no.”
Rodriguez offered no commentary on the bill before the vote Wednesday, which came after virtually no discussion on the Senate floor
The legislation, which cleared the House floor on an 82-30 vote last month following heated debate, also authorizes the renaming of a similar span of Commercial Boulevard in Broward County as “President Donald J. Trump Boulevard,” effectuating a resolution the town of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea passed 3-2 in October.
A House staff analysis of the legislation estimates the total cost of implementing the bill to be $4,800 overall — $1,200 per sign, for two signs per designation. A Senate analysis also noted that the designations are honorary and not full street-name replacements, meaning local street signs, addresses and information for 911 systems won’t need to be changed.
The bill was a passion project for Miami Republican Rep. Juan Porras, who filed it less than two weeks after Kirk was shot and killed by a lone sniper on a Utah university campus Sept. 10.
Porras, who called Kirk a personal friend, said the location is appropriate, as he helped found Florida’s first Kirk-run Turning Point USA chapter at FIU back in 2015. He noted in Committee that the city of Sweetwater had issued a resolution supporting HB 33, though the roadway in question isn’t in Sweetwater’s bounds.
Opponents of the measure argued that Kirk, who owned a vacation home in Longboat Key in Sarasota County, had little tangible connections to Florida or Miami-Dade. They also raised issues with Kirk’s rhetoric, including questions he raised about the qualifications of Black pilots, references to “prowling Blacks” targeting White people in urban areas and his perpetuation of the “great replacement theory.”
During the bill’s last Committee stop Feb. 10, St. Petersburg Democratic Rep. Michele Rayner quoted Kirk calling Martin Luther King Jr. “awful” and George Floyd a “scumbag.” She recited another statement Kirk made about accomplished Black women like Michelle Obama, Joy Reid and Ketanji Brown Jackson as having to “steal a White person’s slot” through affirmative action because they “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
“I have three degrees — earned; nobody gave them to me — and I’m a Black woman. You want me and my colleagues to sit up here and swallow rage and be forced to have a debate on a bill like this, to name a street after someone who doesn’t even live in Florida, who was not a Florida citizen, because he’s your friend?” she said.
“I have a lot of friends I would like to … have bills for. I don’t do that because it’s inappropriate, it’s unprofessional and it’s disgusting.”
Porras said Kirk did not discriminate against people based on any demographic characteristic and pointed out that the late activist had built or contributed to several minority-focused movements, including BLEXIT and the Young Black Leadership Summit, that have benefited “tens of thousands of African Americans.”
During debate on the House floor last week, Miami Democratic Rep. Ashley Gantt called Kirk “mediocre and racist.” She then contended, incorrectly, that Kirk “was not assassinated” but instead suffered “a death by gun violence.”
Her comments inspired a Fox News headline.
HB 33’s approval comes ahead of the expected passage of another proposal (SB 194, HB 125) by Fort Myers Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin and GOP Reps. Yvette Bennaroch of Marco Island and Meg Weinberger of Palm Beach Gardens to establish every Oct. 14, Kirk’s birthday, as the “Charlie Kirk Day of Remembrance.”
That bill passed in the House on Feb. 25 and awaits a final vote in the Senate.
