Former State Senator and former Senate President Tom Lee is running to once again represent East Hillsborough County. His opponent is Democrat Elizabeth Belcher. Belcher is very involved in the Seffner-Mango community and has advanced issues dear to her with county government.
She is very focused on ethics. As a former criminal investigator for the IRS, she feels the Tallahassee money trail is too easily hidden from citizens. Costly projects appear in the State’s budget with no legislator’s name attached. Later, when the public finds out the funding is really to line someone’s pocket, no one will take credit.
She is right, but there is little separation in this issue between her and her opponent. Republican Tom Lee has worked to reform the ethics of Tallahassee. He knows the problems and used his leadership and a lot of his political capital to try to make it better.
But the Legislature is like an overweight person who is not committed to dieting. There is food hidden under the cushions and since his reform, the House and Senate slunk out at night and found a new place to buy doughnuts.
Tom Lee is a class act. He is smart, knows the issues and is poised to bring leadership to make changes.
His knowledge of the State’s insurance company, Citizens, would be very useful to bring focus to the future of the insurer of last resort.
He knows that the State needs funding to invest in infrastructure and proved his approach to governing is to steer to the middle and avoid the extremes.
We asked if he was aiming to repeat as Senate president. As a very new dad and one who knows how time-consuming the road to the Senate presidency is, he is non-committal, but has not ruled it out.
It is obvious that his reputation will advance him to more powerful committees and leadership positions than a true freshman would receive.
That’s good for our county, school district, port and USF.
La Gaceta confidently endorses Tom Lee for State Senate District 24.
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