Florida Right-Wingers Erect Barriers To Unemployment Claims

By Isaiah J. Poole

May 24, 2012 - 3:35pm ET 

Thursday's reports that unemployment claims are edging downward take on a slightly different cast after reading a complaint filed with the Labor Department detailing how a new Florida law is hindering unemployed people from claiming the benefits that are rightfully theirs.

The changes in the unemployment law are just one of the ways Republican Gov. Rick Scott and his tea-party-dominated legislature is remaking the state into a extremist conservative dystopia. They are detailed in a 10-page complaint sent to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis by Florida Legal Services Inc. and the National Employment Law Project.