The Rubios have lead feet, apparently: The New York Times reports that Marco and his wife, Jeanette, have racked up a total of 17 driving infractions since 1997. In fairness to the senator, Jeanette has most of them, 13. The tickets cover everything from reckless driving to speeding to blowing red lights and stops signs. Both have wound up reporting to driver-improvement classes. The Times reviewed Miami-Dade and Duval County court records for the story, which itself has become a political football.
After it came out, the Washington Free Beacon accused the newspaper of being hand-fed the information from "liberal opposition research firm American Bridge," led by David Brock. But in an email to Politico, the Times denied any such thing. "We came across this on our own," wrote DC bureau chief Carolyn Ryan. "Steve Eder and Kitty Bennett noticed it on Tuesday while looking into something else—it is almost all on line. ... We hired a document retrieval service in Florida and got copies of the paper records ourselves." (More Marco Rubio stories.)