Florida Republicans called for the Biden administration to provide answers on whether it worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center to label Moms for Liberty and other parents’ organizations “extremist groups” on its latest “hate map.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, led the Wednesday letter to President Biden asking for information on a Jan. 6 meeting at the White House between Susan Corke, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, and National Security Council counterterrorism director John Picarelli.
“This meeting raises serious questions as to whether the White House encouraged SPLC to work on behalf of the administration to label parental rights groups and organizations as ‘extremist groups,’” said the letter signed by Mr. Rubio, Sen. Rick Scott, and eight Florida House Republicans.
They noted that Moms for Liberty, which is based in Florida, and other parental-rights groups were added to the SPLC’s “hate map” and included in the center’s “2022: The Year in Hate” report released June 6.
“SPLC’s bad-faith designation of Moms for Liberty, as well as other parental rights groups, should come as no surprise, as SPLC is a corrupt and vicious tool of progressive radicals seeking to label individuals and groups with whom they disagree as hateful and/or extremist,” said the GOP letter.
The lawmakers asked for details about the meeting between Ms. Corke and Mr. Picarelli, including whether the White House incentivized or pressured the SPLC to target parents’ rights groups.
Conservatives are increasingly concerned about the White House’s ties to the SPLC, a left-wing advocacy group known for lumping mainstream conservative organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council with neo-Nazi and racist cells on its “hate map.”
Mike Gonzalez, Heritage Foundation senior counsel, said that Mr. Picarelli spoke alongside SPLC officials at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit. Two days after the center released its “Year in Hate” report, the White House issued a strategy to “protect LGBTQI+ communities.”
“It [the White House report] said it had ‘monitoring’ evidence that members of the LGBT groups face threats ‘increasingly tied to hate groups and domestic violent extremists.’ Just excellent timing?” asked Mr. Gonzalez in a Wednesday post. “Anything is possible, but Congress ought to investigate if there indeed was a collaboration between the corrupt SPLC and the White House. Such coordination would not be new.”
Mr. Biden also nominated a top SPLC lawyer, Nancy Abudu, to sit on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She was confirmed by the Senate in May.
The center’s decision to add parental rights groups to its “hate map” sent the count soaring from 733 in 2021 to 1,225 in 2022. Included for the first time were hundreds of state and local chapters of organizations like Moms for Liberty, Parents Rights in Education, and Parents Involved in Education.
The parents’ organizations were labeled “antigovernment groups.” The center also added “antigovernment” to the title of its “hate map.”
“Schools are a primary target for locally driven extremist mobilization, according to the report, with 12 anti-student inclusion groups leading a movement to gain power through school boards to attack public education, ban books, and remove any curriculum that contains discussions of race, discrimination, and LGBTQ+ identities,” said the SPLC in its June 6 release.
The SPLC’s designation prompted Moms for Liberty to pay for additional security at its second annual conference in Philadelphia, which runs from Thursday to Sunday.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center has put a target on the back of every mom that wants to stand up and speak out on behalf of her child,” Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich told the Daily Signal.
The Florida Republicans said that families “have rightfully been concerned about draconian COVID-era policies that resulted in severe learning loss, school activities rooted in critical race theory, and curricula that are inappropriate for young children.”
The Republican lawmakers also wanted to know whether the White House, including the Justice Department, has used taxpayer funds to “target parents.”
“Does the administration agree with SPLC that parental rights groups should be labeled “extremist groups”?” they asked.
The Washington Free Beacon first reported the meeting between Mr. Picarelli and Ms. Corke, citing White House visitor logs.
