Meet the Woman Who Yelled Florida’s GOP Governor Out of Starbucks

Cara Jennings was sitting in a Gainesville, Florida, Starbucks last week, doing some work for the labor union where she is a contract recruiter, when she noticed Gov. Rick Scott and a gaggle of aides waiting in line for coffee.

Their exchange began with Jennings — who served as city commissioner of Lake Worth from 2006 to 2011 — asking the governor why he signed a law defunding Planned Parenthood, and ended with Scott scuttling out of the coffee shop empty-handed, Jennings calling after him, “Shame on you, Rick Scott. You’re an embarrassment to our state!”

Scott was apparently embarrassed enough by footage that emerged of the encounter that on Friday his PAC, Let’s Go to Work, released an attack ad characterizing Jennings as a latte-swilling, Internet-surfing welfare queen.

Jennings tells Rolling Stone she stands by her assertion that Scott is an “asshole” — though there are a few other names she’d like to call him as well — and says she hopes the video will raise awareness about the gap in health care coverage for low-income Floridians that she scolded Scott about on film.

The video that has been circulating online begins in the middle of your interaction. How did it all start?
I don’t typically go to Starbucks. Usually I work at the library. The library was closing so I reluctantly went to the Starbucks and I was just doing work on my laptop and I glanced up and saw the profile of the governor. And at first I wasn’t even positive that it was him and I said “Gov. Scott?” and then he turned and I realized it was him. So I calmly asked him why he passed that awful law that restricts low-income women’s access to health care. Throughout our entire engagement, he would never answer any of my questions. In fact, when I asked him why he passed the law, his response was, “I don’t vote on laws.” This is what we see constantly from Gov. Scott: He doesn’t answer the question you’re asking. He always has some PR line or some way to step around the question.

I asked him, “Why would you pass this bill? Don’t you understand that is reduces options for low-income women to access health care?” He wouldn’t answer. I tried to share with him my personal experience of using Planned Parenthood services. He told me, “You should go to the county health clinic.” You have a sitting governor giving a constituent health care advice in the middle of a Starbucks. I’ve dealt with other elected officials — it wasn’t the tone of, Hey, let me introduce you to my staffer, they can help you figure out how to access the resources you need. It was more of a, I’m not funding Planned Parenthood, you can go to the county health clinic tone.

You also asked him about losing your health insurance…
I tried to talk to him about how I, up until recently, fell into the Medicaid gap he’s created in our state. Upwards of 800,000 people are unable to get affordable health insurance in Florida because they fall into the Medicaid gap and in response to that is when he says he created a million jobs.