Rick Scott promises to return your calls if elected. Never mind the Hurricane Irma controversy.

Gov. Rick Scott says he means it: Elect him to the U.S. Senate, and he’ll call you back when you call him.

“When I get to D.C., I’ll return your phone calls,” he said during a stop in Hialeah. “I’ll work my butt off.”

Democrats hear that, and they think about the people who died in a nursing home after Hurricane Irma. When the power failed at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, a representative called Scott’s personal cellphone once on Sept. 11 and twice on Sept. 12 trying to get the facility’s air conditioning restored. Scott never returned the calls personally, and 12 elderly residents overheated and died.

But a Scott spokeswoman says the governor’s aides did return those calls, and it’s the negligence of the nursing home staff — not the governor’s response — that should be blamed for those deaths.

State Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point, took issue with Scott’s campaign promise.

“This campaign talking point is just reminding people every single day of Rick Scott’s record,” said Farmer, whose district includes the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Hollywood, Fla. “This is simply disingenuous, and the people of Florida deserve better.”

The governor is trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in a closely watched race that could determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill.

Scott provided nursing home and assisted-living administrators with his personal cellphone number to call if they needed help in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. When the power failed at the Hollywood Hills nursing home, a representative called Scott’s cellphone once on Sept. 11 and twice on Sept. 12 trying to get the facility’s air conditioning restored.

Scott has defended his response, attributing the deaths to the nursing home’s negligence and failure to follow instructions to call 911 if residents were in danger. On the campaign trail, he has touted his accessibility.

Kerri Wyland, a Scott spokeswoman, said every phone message left by the nursing home was returned by a member of the governor’s staff.

“Instead of politicizing this tragedy, Senator Farmer should ask why this facility failed to do their basic duty to protect life by not calling 911 or evacuating to the hospital across the street,” she said.

The nursing home was evacuated early Sept. 13 after there had been three deaths. Residents were moved across the street to a hospital that never lost power.

Records show the nursing home started making 911 calls on that day as residents were dead or dying.

The governor’s cellphone received at least 120 messages in Irma’s immediate aftermath from nursing homes and assisted-living centers, according to records released by his office.

The Associated Press contacted 29 of those callers. About a third said they were satisfied with the response they received, another third were unsatisfied and the remainder were neutral, according to the AP’s report.

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