Joe Gruters battles Steve Vernon for Florida’s District 73 seat in Republican debate

Republicans Joe Gruters and Steve Vernon were on par with one another through most of Friday’s debate as the two candidates vie for the Florida State House District 73 seat against one another in the Aug. 30 primaries. The winner will face unopposed Democrat James Golden in November.

Gruters, who chairs Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Florida campaign, as well being vice chair for the Florida Republican Party, said the recent media speculation that Trump’s campaign is internally divided is untrue.

“Donald Trump’s campaign in Florida is thriving,” said Gruters. “We are doing big things in Florida and are going to win in November. We are going to be united as a team and you can expect to see Donald Trump’s team, as well as Donald Trump have some good news in our area soon. No one can imagine another four years of (President Barack) Obama’s failed policies.”

The pair of candidates shared a lot of the same philosophies in the debate sponsored by the Bradenton Herald and Manatee Educational Television. Both believe education is a priority and that Common Core standards should be eliminated while bringing back school choice to parents.

“We need to empower parents to take the best route for their kids,” said Gruters, who noted that schools need to do better in not only preparing students for college, but for careers straight out of high school.

Vernon said Common Core is, “a terrible way to teach people. We essentially need to stop that and bring back local control of our educational system. We have not done that and we need to bring it back to the parents, teachers and taxpayers. Don’t test over and over and over again. This overtesting is ridiculous.”

On environmental issues, both candidates agree that it’s time to bring all the stakeholders together to find solutions to issues like the one that caused a massive algae bloom in Southwest Florida. Both candidates also share similar stances on health care as far as removing Affordable Healthcare Act regulations and bringing back more health care choices for Floridians.

Vernon said regulations on insurance companies need to be eased while Gruters said he supported Gov. Rick Scott’s rejection of Medicaid expansion.

“I would not be in favor of Medicaid expansion because I think it’s broken and wrought with fraud,” said Gruters. “It’s better to let the free market decide rather than to expand a system that has so many problems.”

Where the two candidates took different paths was on how to attract business to Florida. Both agree that continued tax cuts for corporations seeking to relocate to Florida are a good idea, but things got heated when it came to the Enterprise Florida proposal supported by Scott, but shot down by the Legislature.

Vernon was part of the effort to defeat that proposal. He said it didn’t create a level playing field for all businesses.

“I still think business taxes are too high because the government has their finger on the scale,” said Vernon. “They don’t allow free market to truly be free because they want to favor this industry or this well connected business. They should cut all taxes.”

Gruters said he supports Enterprise Florida because it diversifies jobs and will protect Floridians from the next economic downturn.

“Gov. Scott is laser focused on jobs,” said Gruters. “This is not about picking winners and losers. Look at Feld Entertainment and all the jobs it brought to Manatee County, but it’s not only the jobs, it’s looking at where all those people are spending money and supporting the local economy.”

The two then traded jabs after Vernon referred to Gruters as the establishment candidate.

“Joe is the establishment candidate with a capital E,” said Vernon. “He is the essence of establishment.”

Gruters fired back, noting his 20-year long tenure as a volunteer helping outsider candidates like Trump can hardly can be considered as working for establishment politicians.

“I’m called the disruptor because I help the outside candidates,” he said. “I’m almost insulted to be called establishment.”

This story was originally published August 5, 2016 at 3:42 PM with the headline "Joe Gruters battles Steve Vernon for Florida’s District 73 seat in Republican debate."