Sarasota state Senate race is a battle between committed activists

Oct. 19--The contest for a state Senate seat covering Sarasota County and part of Charlotte County pits two longtime political activists against each other.

Republican state Rep. Joe Gruters has been involved with conservative causes his whole life. He was president of an anti-abortion club in high school and used to protest outside abortion clinics with his father as a child.

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Democrat Olivia Babis has worked for various progressive groups and causes, including Planned Parenthood, the Florida Consumer Action Network and as a field organizer for the Democratic Party.

Gruters is the chairman of the Sarasota GOP and was the co-chair of President Donald Trump's Florida campaign.

Babis is the former first vice president of the Democratic Women's Club of Sarasota County.

In many ways, the District 23 Senate race is a contest between a committed conservative and a proud progressive.

But both candidates are emphasizing broader messages as they try to appeal to a larger swath of voters.

Gruters casts himself as a "common sense guy" who will focus on community priorities. He notes that he has gone against House GOP leaders at times and partnered with Democrats on a number of bills.

Born without arms, Babis is drawing on her experiences as a disabled person trying to get equal treatment. She pledges to fight for disadvantaged individuals in all walks of life.

Babis also has been criticizing Gruters on everything from his campaign donors to his views on abortion and his support for a controversial "toilet to tap" water bill that was vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott.

Gruters has a number of advantages in the race. District 23 leans Republican, Gruters has raised considerably more money than Babis and he is well known after years of political involvement.

But Gruters said he's not letting his guard down during a year when Democrats are energized.

"With the national environment being what it is you can't take anything for granted," he said.

Mixed record

Gruters' political ambitions go back decades.

The Sarasota native lost two elections for a local state House seat in his early 20s before barely squeaking through on his third try in 2016, winning his primary by just 385 votes. Now he's trying to succeed GOP state Sen. Greg Steube, who resigned from the District 23 seat halfway through his term to run for Congress.

In his roles as a GOP official -- he also is the former vice chairman of the Republican Party of Florida -- Gruters has been a reliable cheerleader for Trump and a sharp-elbowed partisan.

But Gruters has more of a mixed record as a lawmaker. He sponsored conservative legislation to restrict abortion and crack down on illegal immigration. But he also has sponsored bipartisan legislation aimed at reigning in "dark money."

And Gruters co-sponsored a number of bills pushed by Democrats, including legislation aimed at prohibiting discrimination against LGBT individuals in the workplace.

Gruters also went against the National Rifle Association in supporting a school safety bill that included gun control measures. And he broke with GOP leadership on two high profile bills, one that eliminated taxpayer funded incentives for corporations and another aimed at implementing a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana. Gruters opposed a provision in the marijuana bill that banned smoking the product.

That voting record positioned Gruters as something of a maverick within the House GOP caucus.

"At the end of the day my thing is common sense," Gruters said of his decision to support the school safety bill, adding: "How do you put aside sometimes partisan thought for the greater good of your community and state?"

Gruters says his philosophy as a lawmaker is not simply to defeat the other side but to look for "win-win" situations.

But Babis says Gruters and GOP leaders have not done enough to help people in need, and have made their lives more difficult in some cases.

Overcoming adversity

The theme of Babis's campaign has been helping people who are struggling and overlooked.

As a disabled person, overcoming adversity is something she knows a lot about.

Babis grew up in Lakeland, where, as an elementary school student she was put in a special education class for much of the day. Her family had to fight for her to be fully "mainstreamed" with children who were not disabled.

Babis has fought for equal treatment for the disabled throughout her life, and has made disability rights a focus of her campaign. She has used the platform that comes with running for office to draw attention to issues such as parking for the disabled.

After Babis and other Democratic candidates staged a press conference to complain about a local shopping center removing disabled parking, the removed spaces were quickly restored.

"That was the fastest parking I'd ever seen go in in my life," Babis said.

At the state level, Babis criticized a decision this year by lawmakers to combine multiple waiting lists for home health care services, including those for the disabled. Babis worries that people now will have to wait longer for services through the Medicaid waiver program, which is intended to help individuals at home instead of forcing them to live in long-term care facilities.

"It's really tragic to put people in that type of position," she said.

Gruters said he wasn't aware of the potential problems that could arise from combining the wait lists. He's glad that Babis has brought the issue forward, saying he may have voted differently if he'd known about her concerns when the bill was going through.

"That's the great thing about having someone with a different perspective run," he said.

Babis also has criticized Gruters's vote for so-called "toilet to tap" legislation. The bill would have allowed treated wastewater to be pumped underground. Scott vetoed the bill, citing concerns it could undermine "Floridians' confidence in our existing water quality regulatory system" and that it could "muddle Florida's protection of our aquifers."

Gruters said he's proud of his environmental record, noting his supports banning fracking for oil and gas and banning oil drilling off the coast of Florida.

"That was a Democrat-sponsored bill that was based on science," Gruters said of the toilet to tap bill.

Policy differences

The candidates differ on a variety of other issues.

Babis wants to legalize recreational marijuana and tax it. Gruters opposes full legalization but has been supportive of more permissive medical marijuana rules.

Babis is against new abortion regulations, while Gruters has sponsored two bills that would further restrict abortion.

And while Babis told the Herald-Tribune last month that she does not believe raising Florida's corporate tax "is a necessary action, or should be the first course of action," she said in a recent interview that she's open to raising the tax, an idea pushed by Democratic candidate for governor Andrew Gillum as a means of generating more funding for education.

But Babis said the state should first look at other ways to generate revenue, such as closing so-called corporate tax loopholes.

"I'm not against raising the corporate tax," she said. "But I think we need to work on getting back some of the income that's owed to the state."

"We have one of the lowest corporate taxes in the country," Babis added, before calling criticism of the tax hike "a scare tactic -- we're not talking about raising it that much."

Gruters is staunchly opposed to raising the tax.

"We have the number one business climate in the country," he said. "Our economy is humming. Why would you do anything to jeopardize it? To me it's a foolish idea."

Fundraising advantage

Babis faces an uphill climb as she tries to interrupt Gruters's ascent in Southwest Florida politics.

Trump won District 23 by 14.3 percentage points.

Gruters also has amassed a huge fundraising advantage, collecting roughly $515,000 between his campaign account and two political committees. Babis has raised $33,885.

"Obviously we're not going to have as much money but I think it's important to point out the sources of the contributions," Babis said. "It's all PAC money."

Gruters has received big contributions from PACs controlled by special interests, including large checks to two PACs he controls.

Babis accused Gruters of hypocrisy, noting he filed a bill aimed at shining a light on "dark money."

It's often difficult to trace the source of political ads in Florida because the money can be funneled through multiple PACs, obscuring where it originally came from. Gruters's bill would have prevented one PAC from transferring funds to another.

Gruters says all he wants is transparency.

"I will continue to fight to transform that process," he said. "However, I'm not going to limit my contributions."

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