Florida Catholic Church top lawyer Stephen Emmanuel donated to State Sen. Lorrane Ausley | FLCCB / Florida State Senate
Florida Catholic Church top lawyer Stephen Emmanuel donated to State Sen. Lorrane Ausley | FLCCB / Florida State Senate
Stephen Emmanuel, chief public policy attorney for the the Catholic Church in Florida gave $750 to one of the Florida State Senate’s most ardent defenders of abortion.
That’s according to an analysis of 2020 Florida Division of Elections campaign finance records by the Sunshine Sentinel.
Emmanuel’s donations were to State Sen. Lorrane Ausley (D-Tallahassee), who defeated Republican Marva Preston to win election to the Senate last year, replacing retiring State Sen. Bill Montford (D-Tallahassee).
Florida Planned Parenthood, the state’s leading pro-abortion group, endorsed Ausley, who opposes a partial-birth abortion ban and voted last year against a bill to require parental consent for a minor to obtain an abortion in Florida. Both of the latter measures are strongly backed by the church.
Emmanuel, a 1979 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, provides “necessary legal advice and other recommendations related to the public policy dealings” of the church’s Tallahassee-based Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FLACCB), which speaks for the church on policy matters.
He has been a shareholder at the Tallahassee-based law firm of Ausley & McMullen since 1983, when he graduated from University of Florida Law School.
In January 2020, FLACCB issued its “renewed call to a culture of life on the tragic anniversary of Roe v. Wade,” declaring itself “appalled that some states sought (in 2019) to strengthen laws that permit abortions even to the moment of birth.”
Ausley, 57, told FLACCB on its 2020 candidate questionnaire that she opposed “prohibiting abortion when a fetus has reached 20 weeks gestation and has the capacity to feel pain.”
She previously served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2000-2008 and again from 2016-2020.
Ausley originally backed Mayor Pete Buttigieg for President
Florida’s eight bishops are Rev. Thomas G. Wenski of Miami, Rev. Gerald M. Barbarito of Palm Beach, Rev. Felipe J. Estevez of St. Augustine, Rev. Gregory L. Parkes of St. Petersburg, Rev. Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Rev. John G. Noonan of Orlando, Rev. William A. Wack of Pensacola-Tallahassee and Rev. Enrique E. Delgado, auxiliary bishop of Miami.
On Oct. 29-31, Wenski is hosting the sixth annual National Congress Pro Vida in Miami
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