Broward Republican lawmaker’s response to attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband: ‘Maybe now they’ll get tough on crime.’

State Rep. Chip LaMarca, a Republican seeking re-election in heavily Democratic Broward, devoted part of his initial response to the violent attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband to a get-tough-on-crime political message.

Like many people inside and outside the political worlds, LaMarca took to Twitter on Friday morning, as word of the overnight attack made the news. And, like many, he expressed his concern: “Very sad news for the Pelosi family. We hope for a speedy recovery.”

The second sentence struck a different tone. “Maybe now they’ll get tough on crime, theft, assault, murder and no-cash bail that has plagued a once great American city?” LaMarca wrote.

[ RELATED: Florida Republicans register 9 new voters for every 1 new Democrat in months leading to midterms ]

Linda Thompson Gonzalez, the Democrat running against LaMarca in the northeast Broward 100th state House District, condemned the tone of the incumbent’s tweet.

“Really the idea that anyone would go out and mock the attempted assassination of the third most powerful elected official, her 82-year-old husband, that he’d mock and be sarcastic about that, it’s just beyond the pale,” Thompson Gonzalez said Monday.

By tweeting what he did, Thompson Gonzalez said, “I think he was sarcastic and mocking,” adding, “It’s not acceptable, the fact that he didn’t come out and condemn it, period.”

In a news conference Friday night, the San Francisco police chief said, “This was not a random act. This was intentional.”

Instead, the attack on the spouse of Pelosi, who is second in line to the presidency, was politically motivated. The attacker reportedly was asking “Where is Nancy,” an echo of the chant from insurrectionists who temporarily took control of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Republicans nationwide have made crime a central part of their 2022 campaigns. Florida state House District 100, which takes in most of Broward east of Dixie Highway (plus a few pockets west) from the Palm Beach County line on the north to State Road 84 on the South, is evenly split between the two parties. It also has a large share — about 30% — of no party affiliation/independents.

[ RELATED: Democrats pushing Black voters in South Florida to turn out for midterm elections ]

Later Friday, LaMarca tweeted again. “For the record, the city turns a blind eye to crime and this is what can happen. It’s a sad time in SF. And I still hope he’s OK. That’s it.”

LaMarca said Monday the tweets expressed his view. “I said I hope he’s OK, and I genuinely mean it. I don’t want to see anybody hurt,” LaMarca said.

He said the second part of his comment still stands, that it says something broader about crime.

“Nobody knows the cause of it, but at the end of the day, San Francisco is a once great city, and it’s fallen into disrepair because of bad policies on crime. Regardless of the motivation, someone should not be able to break into the speaker of the House’s private home.”

“If it’s politically motivated,” LaMarca said, “this stuff has to stop.”

“Me hoping that he’s OK isn’t a political statement. That city being unsafe is a statement that those people should elect people that want to keep them safe. That’s what we do here,” LaMarca said.

LaMarca said the San Francisco police should have been guarding Pelosi’s house all the time, even when she’s not there. She has a security detail wherever she is — Pelosi was in Washington, D.C., when her husband was attacked at their home in San Francisco — but it’s not present when she isn’t there.

“I find it interesting, we didn’t hear any Democrats feel concerned when a brick was thrown into my window during the McCain election,” LaMarca said. During 2008, when the late U.S. Sen John McCain was running for president, LaMarca was the Broward Republican chairman and a Lighthouse Point city commissioner, prompting police to station a squad car outside his house for a time after the incident.

LaMarca is the only Republican state legislator whose district lies entirely within Broward County. A central tenet of his re-election campaign is that he works with people in both parties, and that he’s willing to buck Republican Party leadership.

[ RELATED: Can Democrats unseat LaMarca, the last remaining Republican state lawmaker in Broward? ]

In one TV ad, LaMarca’s wife, Eileen, said, “There’s too much extremism and false attacks.” In another, a narrator says that “While radicals in both parties are fighting each other, Chip LaMarca is fighting for the people of Broward. … Even if that means fighting his own party.”

Thomson Gonzalez said LaMarca’s response to the Pelosi attack is “one more example of how he is really not representing the district. He’s just sort of moved further into the extremism, the far right extremism and people don’t want that.”

The Dolphin Democrats LGBTQ political club, which has endorsed Thompson Gonzalez, responded on Twitter to LaMarca’s tweet: “And just like that you showed us why you are NOT the right person for District 100. You no longer sound like the moderate Republican you paint yourself to be. Your maga colors are showing.”

Tom Powers, chairman of the Broward Republican Party, said the political temperature across the political spectrum should be reduced.

“We need to be stronger about the escalation in violence in our politics,” Powers said. “On both sides of the aisle we should be holding people accountable.”

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics