Six-time candidate Jan Schneider announces start of campaign for U.S. House seat

Perennial Congressional candidate Jan Schneider announced that her campaign against incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan in the 2018 midterms will start in early January.

Schneider, a Sarasota attorney and a Democrat, has long sought a seat in Congress. Twice defeated by Katherine Harris, R-Sarasota in the general elections of 2002 and 2004, she was also once defeated by Christine Jennings in the Democratic primary in 2006 — the year Buchanan was first elected to the seat by a razor thin margin. Running as independent in 2008, Schneider lost the general election with just 5.5 percent of the vote.

She came back in 2016 to challenge Buchanan yet again as a Democrat in 2016, beating out Lakewood Ranch airline pilot Brent King in the primary, but fell short in the general with 40 percent of voter support.

She joins two other Democrats, David Shapiro and Calen Cristiani, seeking the nomination to challenge Buchanan in the fall.

This time around — Schneider’s sixth shot for Congress — the bulk of her focus is on health care.

“I think the whole country has gone nuts,” she said about not providing basic healthcare, adding that she’s in favor of national health insurance but not national healthcare.

She said she would have voted for the Affordable Care Act had she been in office, although she called it a “mixed up system.”

A recent analysis suggests that the second oldest congressional district is District 16, which encompasses Manatee County, northern Sarasota County and southern Hillsborough County. The oldest is District 11, according to the analysis, which includes The Villages.

For this reason, Social Security and Medicare are major priorities. Schneider said Medicare was “in danger,” and was against turning it into a voucher system.

“I think it’s become the issue of our times,” she said.

Schneider, a Yale Law School classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton, said she is more progressive than Hillary Clinton, adding that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was “very, very right in pointing out to the increasing concentration of wealth as a danger of democracy.” She also openly criticizes President Donald Trump, labeling him as a “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, raging narcissist.”

“That is still my view,” she said.

The primary is scheduled for Aug. 28. and the general election will be held Nov. 6.

This story was originally published December 29, 2017 at 3:36 PM with the headline "Six-time candidate Jan Schneider announces start of campaign for U.S. House seat."