Uncle Luke for Congress? Luther Campbell, rapper turned civic activist, preparing to challenge congresswoman

“He’s resourceful. He definitely has an eye for those who are not represented or underrepresented. I would pay attention to him,” Messam said. “I would definitely take him seriously.”

Most people know him for his court fight over obscenity charges and his music career, Messam said. “But I also know him as an activist in the community.”

Messam also said Cherfilus-McCormick “hit the ground running in Congress and is representing (us) in Congress as well, so it’s going to be very interesting to see how all this plays.”

Chris Smith, a former Democratic leader in both the Florida Senate and in the Florida House of Representatives, said when he was in high school he was among the people who picketed on behalf of Campbell and 2 Live Crew at the federal courthouse.

“When Navarro locked him up, I was in front of the federal courthouse on his behalf. That doesn’t make him my Broward congressman.”

Campbell’s activism in Miami-Dade County doesn’t necessarily give him connections to a district based in central Broward and takes in a large share of Palm Beach County. “It doesn’t seem plausible.

“That is not a community that you can just pop up (in) based on your stardom and move to the front of the line,” Smith said. It would be hard, Smith said, because “it’s not a stardom that says ‘Send me to Congress.’”

Campbell has offered multiple critiques of the incumbent, though he doesn’t use her name.

Campbell told the “Because Miami” podcast that voters have told him “we supported this young lady and once she got in, she turned into a diva. We can’t find her. She comes in and has one meeting and sends staff and nothing basically has gotten done.”

Cherfilus-McCormick, a lawyer who had previously been CEO of a family owned home health care company self funded her previous campaigns. “When you pay for the seat you really don’t have a genuine love for the actual community,” he said on the podcast.

Campbell would bring name recognition to the contest, but Cherfilus-McCormick would be a formidable opponent.

Cherfilus-McCormick defeated 10 other candidates in a special primary election to choose a Democratic nominee to succeed the late Congressman Alcee Hastings. In early 2022 she easily won the special general election and then a full term later that year.

Neither Cherfilus-McCormick nor her campaign responded to a request for comment.

Mitch Ceasar, a former Broward Democratic Party chair who has served as a legal counsel to the Cherfilus-McCormick campaign in the past but isn’t currently working for her, said he is “sure the congresswoman takes every potential challenge seriously.”

“The voters of the district need a constantly hardworking individual. That’s Sheila,” Ceasar said. “She’s all about hard work and not about pseudo documentaries.”

Campbell did not offer specifics on two key issues in the WFOR interview.

Asked about his position in relation to support for Israel after the Hamas terrorist attacks, Campbell said, “I’m for peace,” adding that the war “has been going on too long, you know. There has to be a solution to it.”

Campbell said he could contribute to a solution in Haiti. He said he would “hop on an airplane right now and go have a conversation with Barbecue.” Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer, is the Haitian gang leader known as “Barbecue.” Campbell said the U.S. has had conversions with “more notorious gangsters than this young man. … You need to hear him out, hear what the issues are.”

Cherfilus-McCormick, the only Haitian American member of Congress, has been outspoken on the issue, pressing the Biden administration, Republicans in Congress and the international community.

Cherfilus-McCormick has taken a hard line on gang leaders like Chérizier, who are responsible for the deadly violence that has caused chaos in the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince. She said they must have no role in the interim government the international community hopes moves Haiti toward a diminution of violence.

The 20th Congressional District takes in most of the Black American and Caribbean American communities in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

It includes much of central Broward, including all or parts of Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Lauderdale Lakes, Plantation, Lauderhill, North Lauderhill, Sunrise and Tamarac. It also takes in a large swath of the Everglades and goes north to the Glades communities near Lake Okeechobee and extends back east to include parts of Royal Palm Beach, West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach.

The district is one of the most heavily Democratic in the nation. And the partisan voting index from the independent Cook Political Report rates the district as D plus 25, which means it performed 25 points more Democratic than the nation during the past two presidential contests.

It is so Democratic that the winner of the Aug. 20 primary is all-but-guaranteed to win the November election and serve a term in the House of Representatives.

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(Information from Sun Sentinel archives was used in this report.)

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