Will State House candidates get rid of special interests? Or keep Florida moving forward?
Local State House candidates made it clear during a Saturday forum that the question won’t be right or left on Election Day ballots.
In common refrains, Republican candidates said they were running to keep Florida moving forward while Democrats preached about representing constituents and not special interest groups.
USF Sarasota-Manatee hosted a public event that welcomed candidates, including those running to represent Manatee County, to discuss their platforms. The District 71 candidates, Democrat Tracy Pratt and Republican Will Robinson, took the stage first. In his opening statement, Robinson said Florida’s past was “dark,” but has come a long way since then.
“I’m running to keep Florida moving forward, because think back to where we were just eight short years ago,” he said, citing state debt and unemployment rates before Gov. Rick Scott was elected. “I never want to go back to those dark Florida days because, for me, it’s personal.”
Robinson stressed his dedication to Florida’s workforce development, as well as fixing the opioid epidemic that has ravaged the area and ensuring that the state legislature works with a balanced budget. Pratt said the environment was top priority and attacked her opponent for accepting donations from Florida’s polluters.
“We need to put regulations back in place, and we need to make sure our legislators are not taking money from polluters,” Pratt said. “My opponent has taken maximum donations from ‘Big Sugar.’ I will not do that because we know that the nutrients and the toxic runoff going in from big sugar into Lake Okeechobee are aggravating the harmful algae blooms that are down there.”
Campaign finance records show that U.S. Sugar donated $2,000 to Robinson’s campaign, but he promised that taking care of the environment was also a key objective for him.
“Water is the lifeblood of this economy. We’re surrounded on three sides by water, so water is especially important to me,” said Robinson, who claimed he was in favor of punishing corporations that pollute waterways.
Both candidates toed the party line in response to questions regarding increased minimum wage, education improvements and which gubernatorial candidate they align with.
Republican Tommy Gregory and Democrat Liv Coleman, the candidates running for the District 73 seat that represents East Manatee, espoused similar ideals to their West Manatee counterparts. Liv Coleman, a political science professor at the University of Tampa, said her main focus was education.
“I like to say my top three priorities are education, education and education,” she said, advocating for removal of high-stakes testing in Florida classrooms and more resources during the critical stage of early childhood.
Gregory agreed with the removal of high stakes testing, but called them a Democrat creation and said statistics show that students in private schools perform better. When asked why he decided to run, he said that just like his 20 years in the Air Force, he has always felt the need to protect America’s democracy.
“We fought enemies from outside the country, but now we need to fight for Floridians, because I believe that our democracy is under attack,” Gregory said. “It’s under attack intentionally and it’s under attack unintentionally by people who may have good intentions but they believe the answer to problem they said is bigger government, increased taxes, increased regulations.”
He used Tallahassee mayor and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum as an example of someone he says is attacking democracy. He cast aside Gillum’s platform ideas and aligned himself with Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis, stating that the two had nearly identical plans for the government.
“You can have a society that believes in equal opportunity or you can have a society that believes in equal distribution, but you can’t have both,” Gregory said as he disavowed an increase in minimum wage and corporate taxes that both Gillum and his opponent support.
Coleman specified that she supports the minimum wage increase “in stages” in order to tend to the needs of small businesses that wouldn’t be able to handle a sudden increase. While her Republican opponent said he didn’t support a Medicaid expansion that he believes would lead to deficit spending, Coleman said it’s an issue of using the money correctly.
“We have close to 800,000 people who could have access to healthcare coverage if we have Medicaid expansion. There’s money there if we look for it.”
“We are spending a lot of money that’s taken out of taxes to pay for Medicaid expansion, but this money is going to other states. We’re not paying for it. We should take what we’re paying for,” Coleman said. “Right now, we have too much that’s catering to special interest in Tallahassee and we’ve got corporate welfare. There’s money there if we look for it, if we put the people first and not special interest.”
The forum also featured conversations between candidates running for Districts 72, 74 and State Senate House District 23. Full videos are available on the Manatee Educational Television YouTube channel.