Why I want to support professional policing and end terror in our communities

A masked ICE agent seizes Gilberto Garcia Cruz in front of his home in Hendry County, Fla., on April 10, 2026. Cruz, a 26-year-old DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient with autism, was ultimately released. (Image: *Gulf Coast News*)

May 14, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate District 28

Not long after Sept. 11, 2001, I had the honor to be invited to serve on the board of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police. I was editor of a homeland security magazine in Washington, DC and “homeland security” was something new.

In my year on the board I tried to contribute some expertise in public communications and knowledge of the emerging discipline of homeland security.

My contribution was modest. But far more valuable for me was the insight I gained about policing from a command perspective. The veteran chiefs I worked with were professional, disciplined, prudent, completely committed to the rule of law and its impartial, sensible enforcement. I learned about their concerns with resources, retention, recruitment and community relations. I emerged from this experience with great respect for their mission of serving and protecting the public and the challenges they faced.

I’m reminded of that experience during this, National Police Week.

Sadly, that experience also makes me aware of just how far America and Florida have strayed from the ideals of those chiefs—and there’s one “law enforcement” agency in particular that’s guilty of this deviation.

I don’t know how any self-respecting, professional, experienced law enforcement officer can look at the agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directorate of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with anything other than horror and disgust.

Where professional police officers are open and transparent in their operations, ICE agents are secretive and opaque. Where professional police officers follow evidence to build a case that will win in court, ICE officers seem to detain anyone they want, mostly on the basis of race. Where professional police officers are paid by the communities they protect, ICE officers are mercenaries lured by bonuses (whose terms keep changing). Where professional police officers go through an academy and receive extensive, constantly updated training, ICE recruits walk in off the street and are barely trained at all. Where professional police officers operate according to the law, executing searches sanctioned by judicial warrants for probable cause, ICE officers perform warrantless, unsanctioned searches (and please spare me any arguments about “administrative” warrants, which are baloney, to use a polite term). Where trained, professional police officers understand the gravity of use of force and try to use it sparingly, ICE agents have proven trigger-happy and even murderous.

Even their appearance is an affront to professional policing; masked, motley, ununiformed, unidentifiable, with a bunch of random equipment clipped to their vests, they’re more like a bunch of drunken bros out for a hunting expedition than a cohesive, disciplined force.

What’s more, when its seizures are subject to judicial review, ICE has an astounding 90 percent failure rate in over 10,000 cases its agents have brought to court, what Politico called “a staggering rejection of a core piece of Trump’s immigration agenda.”

It’s long past time for the state government to take a hard look at ICE operations in Florida and the nature and extent of local law enforcement immigration operations.

My name is David Silverberg and I’m running for the Florida state Senate in District 28, which consists of Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County.

If elected, I intend to do whatever I can to take that hard look at ICE and state immigration operations. Policing should be open, honest, legal and impartial but that’s not what’s happening in Florida now. The terms and extent of local and federal immigration enforcement should be clear and transparent to everyone. Local governments shouldn’t be bullied and intimidated into participating in supposedly “voluntary” cooperation agreements. Nor should agreements between local law enforcement departments and ICE be cloaked in secrecy, which ICE is now attempting to do.

Floridians—immigrants and long-time citizens alike—shouldn’t be terrorized by a masked, undisciplined, paramilitary, mercenary mob unrestrained by legal limits or constitutional protections. The state should not be using taxpayers’ money to pay for immigration operations that are the federal government’s responsibility.

Nor should Florida be stuck with the costs of a blindly bigoted attempt to purge the United States of its Hispanic population, whether migrant or citizen, of which ICE is the chief tool.

That includes state support for facilities like Alligator Alcatraz, the concentration camp in the Everglades.

As this is written, it appears the camp may be shut down. It certainly should be: it’s performing a federal function that costs Florida taxpayers, who can’t afford gas for their cars or groceries for their tables, a million dollars a day. What’s more, despite the optimistic utterings of Gov. Ron DeSantis, it seems that President Donald Trump will welch on any promises to pay for it, the way he has welched on all promises all his life. Florida is unlikely to be reimbursed for the exorbitant costs of this sinkhole in a swamp.

The perversion of ICE and the whole homeland security enterprise is personally painful to me.

I was in Washington, DC on 9/11 and heard American Airlines Flight 77 strike the Pentagon.

With that and the threat to America as an impetus, I turned my journalistic focus from covering Congress to covering the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security. I covered its organization, its development and its sometimes awkward steps toward cohesion and effectiveness. I had the opportunity to personally interview the first three secretaries of homeland security: Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff and Janet Napolitano; all fine, qualified and very patriotic individuals.

Whether Republican or Democrat, the secretaries and the people who served DHS had one purpose and mission: to protect Americans and their homeland.

That included ICE, which incorporated the old Immigration and Naturalization Service and US Customs Service. The whole purpose of ICE was to prevent bad people and bad things (the Customs part) from entering the United States.

ICE was doing its appointed job when Donald Trump became president for the second time. But he and his first Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, decided to turn it into something else. They wanted to use it to purge America of all immigrants and especially those of Hispanic origin. They made no secret of this.

To do it, they have turned ICE into a paramilitary tool of terror. Its job now is not really to find criminals but to terrorize whole communities and drive out populations whom Trump hates for whatever irrational reason obsesses him. Now ICE is unbound by rules of evidence, court procedure, due process, citizenship protections, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the simple, decent principle that the innocent should never be punished for crimes they didn’t commit.

This is a perversion of the mission of ICE and homeland security. In its current form ICE is not a form of protection, rather it’s a form of state-sanctioned domestic terrorism—exactly what DHS was created to prevent.

What is more, as a politically-driven, unaccountable and unrestrained force, ICE has the potential to interfere in our elections and democratic governance, going well beyond any credible enforcement mandate it may claim and threatening our democracy.

This does not belong anywhere in America and especially not in Florida. Floridians should feel safe and protected by legitimate, professional law enforcement, the kind they get from their local police officers, led by 67 county sheriffs who are elected constitutional officers accountable to the people who elect them.

As I stated earlier, if I’m elected to the Florida Senate for District 28, I intend to take a hard look at ICE, its operations and its relationship to our communities as well as the agreements that were sometimes forced on our cities and counties—and I always intend to support legal, legitimate, professional policing in any way I can.

I hope you agree with me. If you do I hope you’ll vote for me for the Florida Senate on November 3rd.

Together, we can make life in Florida safe, happy and fear-free.

See Silverberg4Florida.com for more positions and opportunities to donate and volunteer.

To donate to the campaign, please click here.

To read other position papers:

Why I want to make Florida affordable again

Why I want to protect our teachers and end the war on learning

Why I want to defend our Constitutions – both Florida’s and America’s

Why I want to protect Southwest Florida’s water

Why I want to keep Florida’s local governments strong

Why I want to end Alligator Alcatraz

Why I am running for the Florida State Senate in District 28

Why I want to protect our teachers and end the war on learning

*In this illustration, teachers and students confront Florida lawmakers seeking to destroy public education outside the state capital. (AI for S4F/ChatGPT)*

It’s time to end the war on Florida’s teachers, schools and universities—and even on learning itself.

I’m committed to ending that war and making sure it never begins again.

My name is David Silverberg and I’m running for the state Senate in District 28: that’s Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County.

The school year is coming to an end just as Florida’s legislature goes into a special session to determine the state’s budget.

The prospects for Florida’s students at all levels are bleak. As they have for the past eight years, the governor and anti-learning legislators are likely to continue their assault on public education.

It’s time that stopped. All of it.

It’s time that we stopped treating teachers as criminals and instead respected them and paid them a living wage. It’s time that we stopped trying to destroy and dismantle public education and instead started supporting and fully funding it. It’s time that we stopped treating teachers’ unions as enemy organizations. It’s time that we stopped treating state colleges and universities as feeding troughs for greedy politicians and their cronies and their out-of-state consultants. It’s time that we stopped trying to legislate learning, restricting free expression and censoring thought.

Instead, it’s time for us to promote learning and the education that conveys it to new generations. It’s time to raise Florida to new heights in knowledge and explore new frontiers in thought. It’s time to give parents and children the robust and effective public education to which they’re entitled, supported by the tax dollars that they pay.

I want to reverse the trends of the past eight years toward ignorance and censorship and dismantling Florida’s public education system.

Effective education starts by supporting our teachers and paying them a living wage. Currently, Florida teacher pay ranks 50th in the nation. We won’t have effective teaching if we don’t pay teachers living wages. If elected I’m committed to doing everything I can to improve the wages of Florida teachers.

Our current legislature has been hammering the public education system by promoting private alternatives. In many cases lawmakers have direct financial stakes in for-profit charter and private schools. Many also serve an anti-public education ideological agenda and look for ways to manufacture crises that they can then blame on the public education system.

If elected, I intend to introduce legislation that prohibits conflicts of interest among state lawmakers who seek to profit from private schools at the expense of public schools.

The legislature created vouchers for parents to use in private schools, which in turn created a $400 million liability for the state when the vouchers went unused. An attempt to fix this problem died in the legislature at the end of this session. I intend to introduce a measure to revive these repairs and, preferably, to so reform the voucher system that it doesn’t cost the state money or damage our public school system.

So many of these problems were created by the pursuit of petty political gain by the governor and members of the legislature. They created a movement against public education that lined their pockets and catered to the most extreme anti-education elements of the extremist MAGA movement.

The solution to this situation was neatly summed up by the Democratic Public Education Caucus of Florida when it stated:

“Florida needs reinvestment, not more ideological warfare. Florida’s children deserve better than a system designed for privatization rather than learning. They deserve schools funded at levels competitive with the rest of the nation—not ranked near the bottom. They deserve a stable, respected teaching workforce—not a revolving door. They deserve a curriculum shaped by educators—not politicians chasing headlines.”

As the Caucus also states: “Public schools are not the enemy. They are the backbone of our communities.”

If elected to the Florida Senate from District 28, I intend to fight for our public schools, their teachers, parents, children and staff; to see that they’re properly funded and supported and to strengthen them in every way possible.

We want a smart Florida, not an ignorant, indoctrinated Florida because a smart Florida will be one that’s prosperous, free and fulfilled—and that’s what I intend to fight for if you’ll support me with your vote in November.

See Silverberg4Florida.com for more positions and opportunities to volunteer.

To donate to the campaign, please click here.

To read other position papers:

Why I want to make Florida affordable again

Why I want to defend our Constitutions – both Florida’s and America’s

Why I want to protect Southwest Florida’s water

Why I want to keep Florida’s local governments strong

Why I want to end Alligator Alcatraz

Why I am running for the Florida State Senate in District 28

Why I want to defend our Constitutions – both Florida’s and America’s

The Republigator, a Florida salute to Elkanah Tisdale and his original Gerrymander, showing the attempted devouring of Democratic congressional districts prior to the redistricting of 2020. (Illustration by the author © 2019.)

April 27, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28

This week sees the beginning of a special session of the state legislature. Theoretically, lawmakers are going to discuss artificial intelligence, vaccine mandates and maybe, just possibly, redistricting.

Redistricting is actually the big one. This is a mid-decade effort to redraw the state’s congressional district boundaries to benefit Donald Trump and his MAGA faction of the Republican Party.

*The original cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale published in 1812 that gave rise to the term “Gerrymander.”*

Make no mistake: this mid-decade gerrymandering is unconstitutional at both the state and federal levels. It is a blatant effort to rig the midterm congressional elections in Trump’s favor. In fact, it is so overt and so obvious that I’ve dubbed it “The Big Rig.”

I’m David Silverberg and I’m running for the Florida state Senate in District 28. The district covers Collier and Hendry counties and Lee County east of Rt. 75, including the community of Gateway.

Since I’m not in the legislature now, I can only watch Tallahassee’s doings along with all other Floridians.

But one of the reasons I am running is to prevent these kinds of power grabs and despotic overreaches.

The Big Rig violates two constitutions.

The first is the United States Constitution, the law that governs the entire country.

Under that Constitution, Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, calls for an “Enumeration” of the American population “within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct”—i.e., as Congress determines. Over time, this became more widely known as the Census and its collection has been steadily honed, refined, and improved.

Having a regular, dependable, predictable census was a tremendous benefit to the United States. It not only apportioned seats in Congress—and every other office—it was used for tax purposes, resource allocation and informed governance. All parties could agree to it and abide by its findings.

But most important of all, the decennial census is enshrined in the founding document of the nation and no one questioned that—until now.

In the absence of a law prohibiting it (and even if there was a law, he’d probably ignore it), Trump is trying to engineer an end-run around the Constitution in order to force a preordained electoral outcome in the midterms. As part of this he’s also trying to discredit the last Census.

So far his efforts have sparked an intense backlash. Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina have rigged their maps to please Trump but California, Virginia and Utah are redistricting to counter it. Indiana rejected The Big Rig altogether.

Besides the partisan advantage that Trump is trying to gain to stay in power, The Big Rig unnecessarily divides the country, shakes its institutions and exacerbates existing partisan tensions. It’s an act of bad faith, bad intentions and bad thinking.

Now, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his legislative pawns are going to try to rig Florida’s districts.

That brings us to the other Constitution, that of Florida.

In 2010 the people of Florida passed the Florida Fair Districts amendments to the state Constitution. They were intended to prevent partisan gerrymandering in Florida’s electoral districts. Article 3, Section 20 states, plainly and simply: “No apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory.”

It is exactly this that Gov. Ron DeSantis and his enablers and accomplices in the legislature (what I call “Big Tallahassee”) are going to try to violate and overthrow in this special session.

This effort is unconstitutional on a state level. It is also unnecessarily harmful, hurtful and divisive. It will not benefit Florida. It will create ill will and distrust over the long term. It will also tie up Florida governance in litigation for years because anti-gerrymandering groups will instantly sue the minute new maps are presented. It will create uncertainty throughout Florida government, upend local governments and simply cause chaos when there’s already too much chaos anyway.

As a state Senate candidate I want to uphold both the national and state constitutions. They need to be respected and honored. The kind of rampant unconstitutionality we’re seeing on the national and state levels is unacceptable. I will fight that kind of desecration every way I can if elected to office in Tallahassee.

But I also believe in offering solutions, not just criticisms.

If elected to the state Senate, I intend to introduce the Digital Districting Act, ensuring that when redistricting next occurs (2030, according to the Constitution), the legislature must consider a map drawn by computer based purely on Census data, without regard to party, incumbency, race or language.

It won’t require that the map necessarily be adopted, only that it must be considered. I would hope that it will provide a model and baseline for fair, unbiased redistricting.

Will it pass? Who knows? But I believe the effort needs to be made.

In the meantime, I’ll be watching the tangle in Tallahassee just like all my friends and neighbors.

We may have to endure this now but if elected to the Florida Senate from District 28, you can be assured that I intend to do something about it so that it never happens again.

See Silverberg4Florida.com for more positions and opportunities to volunteer.

To donate to the campaign, please click here.

To read other position papers:

Why I want to make Florida affordable again

Why I want to protect Southwest Florida’s water

Why I want to keep Florida’s local governments strong

Why I want to end Alligator Alcatraz

Why I am running for the Florida State Senate in District 28

Why I want to protect Southwest Florida’s water

*There is no doubt that Floridians want clean water. (Illustration: AI for Silverberg4Florida.com/ChatGPT)*

April 22, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28

Water isn’t Republican or Democratic, or conservative or liberal. It’s something essential to human life regardless of race, creed, religion or national origin. Clean, fresh water needs to be protected and cherished.

This is particularly true in Southwest Florida and state Senate District 28, consisting of Collier and Hendry counties and Lee County east of Rt. 75—which I am running to represent.

This is being published on Earth Day 2026, a day when we should all be particularly mindful of our relationship to the planet and the natural environment on which we depend.

If elected state senator representing this district, I am determined to protect Southwest Florida’s waters from depletion, pollution and destruction.

Why?

All of what we take for granted as modern human life here in Southwest Florida—our buildings, roads, businesses—are built on a thin layer of concrete and asphalt imposed on a foundation of sand and swamp.

Without human intervention, this is an environment hostile to human life. Without human order and technology, people simply could not live amidst the extreme temperatures, the swarms of mosquitos and ravenous wildlife, all of it drenched by tropical downpours when not baked by tropical heat.

A plentiful supply of clean, fresh, drinkable water makes possible our life in this “built” environment. Without it, not only would we have no form of hydration, the plants and animals of this region could not flourish. Southwest Florida would be an arid, burnt, desert and unlivable for humans and most anything else.

Our fresh, drinkable water comes primarily from underground aquifers. The aquifers are replenished by seasonal rains and tropical storms. It is absolutely essential that these aquifers be protected from pollution and depletion. If they’re polluted or degraded, there’s no going back.

Last year we had no major tropical storms to bring water from the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico to the aquifers. As a result, as this is written, Southwest Florida is in the midst of an intense, extreme drought. Wildfires are breaking out and no one can tell where they’ll flare next. Homes have been evacuated. To the north of the 28th District, the City of Cape Coral has imposed restrictions on water use and irrigation due to depletion of its Mid-Hawthorn Aquifer. Unless there’s replenishment the rest of the region could face the same constraints.

The aquifers are precious and must be kept pure.

But it’s not just aquifers that sustain life in Southwest Florida. The region’s lakes, streams and the massive wetlands of the Everglades are also critical to human and animal life. What is more, they’re foundational to the region’s economy, lifestyle and habitability.

Most people are vaguely aware of their presence. But it isn’t until something goes wrong that many people fully recognize the importance of these waters in their daily lives.

That’s what happened in the fall of 2017 and spring of 2018 when massive algal blooms occurred both in the Caloosahatchee River and the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve long called this incident “The Big Bloom” and it had a devastating effect on the region’s economy and local life. People were driven from their houses by toxic algae in the air. The economy, tourism, jobs, and property values took tremendous hits.

We have to fight the pollution that poisons our waters and gives rise to harmful algal blooms and that is what I intend to do as state Senator, based on the best scientific findings and clear, convincing evidence.

We also have to realize that pollution and degradation goes beyond just our region and extends throughout the state. Water quality needs to be addressed holistically and comprehensively. I look forward to working with senators and representatives across the state—and across the aisle—as we tackle these issues.

Obviously, protecting the purity of our waters is tied to the reality of climate change, federal action and oil exploitation. These are issues that I will be discussing in future statements.

Perhaps my intentions were best expressed by another Floridian:

“We will fight toxic blue-green algae, we will fight discharges from Lake Okeechobee, we will fight red tide, we will fight for our fishermen, we will fight for our beaches, we will fight to restore our Everglades and we will never ever quit, we won’t be cowed and we won’t let the foot draggers stand in our way.”

Those are great sentiments, I share them completely and they’re what I intend to do if elected to the Florida Senate.

By the way, those are words spoken by, of all people, Ron DeSantis, when he gave his inaugural speech as governor in 2019.

DeSantis certainly seems to have dropped the torch and lost the urgency of those words in the years since. I have not. He and his allies are now the “foot draggers” delaying progress.

But in November, with the votes of the people of Southwest Florida and my election, that foot dragging won’t continue. We will never ever quit, we won’t be cowed and we will always guard the purity of Florida’s precious water.

To make a donation, please click here.

See Silverberg4Florida.com for more positions and opportunities to volunteer.

To read other position papers:

Why I want to make Florida affordable again

Why I want to keep Florida’s local governments strong

Why I want to end Alligator Alcatraz

Why I am running for the Florida State Senate in District 28

Silverberg pledges ‘Colorful Crosswalks Act’ if elected to Florida Senate

*Before and after photographs of the crosswalk in front of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in August 2025. (Photo: Florida Phoenix, with permission of Ryan Anderson)*

David Silverberg, candidate for the Florida state Senate in District 28, pledged today that if elected he will introduce a bill called the “Colorful Crosswalks Act.”

“There’s no reason that communities can’t show their pride with multiple colors in their crosswalks as long as it’s compatible with public safety,” said Silverberg. “My Colorful Crosswalks Act will make that possible and spell out the details.”

Background: Last year Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Department of Transportation prohibited all “surface art” at Florida intersections, a form of expression that had been permitted since 2017. In August and September 2025 state workers began painting over multicolored crosswalks across Florida despite protests and resistance from residents and city governments. This included a multicolored crosswalk in Orlando honoring the victims of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting.

“The prohibition of colorful crosswalks was a petty and intrusive act of overreach by what I call ‘Big Tallahassee,’” stated Silverberg. “It was yet another attempt to stamp out freedom of expression by this governor and his cohorts and suppress home rule. If elected I intend to do all I can to encourage freedom of expression and community pride, not suppress it.”

Silverberg is running to represent the 28th Senate District of Florida, which includes Collier and Hendry counties and Lee County east of Route 75.

Silverberg is a Naples resident and retired journalist.

See Silverberg4Florida.com for more positions and opportunities to volunteer.

To donate to the campaign, please click here.

Why I want to keep Florida’s local governments strong

Freedom of speech in Florida, with respect and appreciation to Norman Rockwell. (Illustration: AI for Silverberg4Florida/ChatGPT)

April 13, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28

Most people don’t know this but until now America had a secret superpower.

That superpower was the relationship of its federal, state and local governments.

They were like the three legs of a stool, each one contributing to the strength of the whole. Each one could provide support for the others and fill in if gaps appeared.

This was especially true when it came to disasters and nowhere more so than in Florida.

If a local government couldn’t cope with a disaster—like a hurricane—then the state government could step in. If the state government needed assistance, it could count on the federal government. Each form of government, by being autonomous and making its own decisions, by functioning in a democratic fashion according to law, and by cooperating together, created a remarkably strong whole that served the needs of all the people, especially in emergencies or under duress.

Until now.

Unfortunately, the stool has been broken. At the federal level Donald Trump bullies and threatens all other governments in his quest for complete domination and dictatorial power.

In Florida a governor seeking to rule in the Trump mold, an ambitious, ideologically-driven attorney general, a rapacious chief financial officer and an extremist legislature are waging war on “home rule,” the ability of town, city and county governments to make their own decisions.

Overruling home rule is usually called “preemption,” in the sense that state government preempts local government powers and takes decisionmaking out of their hands.

I call it “Big Tallahassee”—and it’s been going on far too long.

If elected state Senator from the 28th District, the area including Collier and Hendry counties and the Lee County area east of Route 75, I intend to do everything I can to protect, strengthen and respect local governments, not just in my district, but in all of Florida.

We just had an example of Big Tallahassee bullying right here in the 28th District; the state took away the City of Naples’ power over the airport within its city limits. The city will no longer name the commissioners on the airport’s board. Instead, they’ll be elected by the surrounding county.

This was proposed in House Bill 4005 by Florida House Rep. Adam Botana (R-80-Estero), whose district doesn’t include the City of Naples. He had no relationship to the airport. He just decided to strip the Naples city council of its authority and the rest of the Republican legislature and the governor went along with it. Naples’ desires were simply ignored and overridden.

(Botana is being challenged this year by Meg Titcomb, whose website, VoteMegTitcomb.com, will soon be operational.)

Another example occurred last year when members of the Fort Myers City Council voted not to participate in the 287g immigration enforcement program but were subsequently threatened and bullied into surrendering to Big Tallahassee.

Other examples of Big Tallahassee overreach are passage and enactment of bills preempting local governments from planning land use changes after disasters (Senate Bill (SB) 180, 2025), stopping local governments from trying to reduce harmful environmental emissions (Committee Substitute (CS) /House Bill (HB) 1217, 2026), prohibiting local governments from using non-gasoline power tools (SB 290, 2026), or from seeking diversity in hiring decisions (CS/CS/SB 1134, 2026).

Big Tallahassee even stopped local governments from mandating heat breaks for workers (CS/CS/HB 433, 2024)—and that’s really saying something in Florida’s sunbaked fields. I swear, Big Tallahassee would have denied water to Jesus on the way to Calvary.

I’m not the only one saying this. On Sunday, April 12, in the Naples Daily News, in an op-ed titled “Naples is losing its constitutional right to local control,” authors Gregory Fowler and Stacy Vermylen pointed out that, “Taken together, these actions point to a clear shift. Home rule is no longer functioning as a broad constitutional right. It is becoming a shrinking space in which cities can act only where the state ban has not yet intervened.”

Even legislation with relatively benign intent, like the Live Local Act, which was introduced and shepherded to passage by Sen. Kathleen Passidomo in 2023, has preemptive provisions—prompting the Sarasota County Commission to challenge it in court.

So far, these preemptions have had three overall purposes. The first is to end home rule and strip local governments of the power to make land use decisions, like determining their own zoning and preserving the natural environment.

The reason for this is simple and obvious: developers, their legislative puppets (and in many cases legislators who are also land speculators, realtors and developers themselves) don’t want any interference as they pursue profits by paving over Florida. They truly don’t care what we local residents want, think or need.

A second purpose is to prevent any effort to prepare for the effects of climate change. Big Tallahassee, following Donald Trump’s dictates, denies that climate change exists. But it’s not enough that they themselves deny it, they want to force everyone else to deny it and ignore it—and this particularly means crippling local governments that are more alert, aware and awake to the dangers climate change presents.

Nowhere is this truer than in Collier County, part of the 28th Senate District I’m running to represent. With its over 20 miles of shoreline along the Gulf of Mexico, Collier County’s beaches are ailing and eroding, after being battered by repeated hurricanes, sea level rise and salt water intrusion.

But if Collier County ever tried to change its zoning or planning in order to cope with this, it would be stopped by Big Tallahassee.

The third reason for preemption is to aid Donald Trump’s efforts to turn back the clock to fossil fuel use and stop any kind of renewable energy. Trump is insisting on fossil fuels, fossil wars, fossil pollution and fossil costs—no doubt to pour fossil cash into his own pockets.

Big Tallahassee is completely on board with this. What else are we to make of a law that prohibits local governments from requiring use of electric leaf blowers or any other non-gasoline landscaping equipment to tend its lawns? Big Tallahassee is seeking a new Florida fossil age and it’s trying to send all of us the way of the dinosaurs.

It’s time we were no longer led by dinosaurs with fossilized thinking.

If elected to the Florida Senate I intend to do everything I can to preserve, protect and defend the integrity and autonomy of our local governments.

I can’t say I’ll be able to stop all preemption but I can certainly say that I’ll be on the look out for it. I’ll fight it any way and any time that I see it. I want the people of Florida to have a say in how they’re governed; that’s just Democracy 101.

When it comes to the City of Naples, I will certainly explore ways to rescind HB 4005.

The next assault on home rule will come in a special session of the legislature that is likely to be held in the coming weeks. In that session Gov. Ron DeSantis and his cohorts will attempt to end property taxes.

They’re painting this effort as an anti-tax way to improve affordability for Floridians. But that’s because they don’t dare criticize the real reason Floridians are in an affordability crisis—Donald Trump’s wars, tariffs and mismanagement of the economy.

So don’t buy their bull: it’s a trap and a con—and another assault on home rule and Florida’s local governments.

If property taxes are eliminated, local governments will be starved for revenue along with the policemen, firemen and school teachers they employ. Local services—think of your water supplies and sewerage, repairs to roads and bridges, even things like marriage and business licenses—will be crippled. Public schools, already under assault by Big Tallahassee, will be further damaged.

What is more, ending property taxes will only mean that everyday Floridians will ultimately pay more, adding to their affordability woes. The revenue lost by ending property taxes will need to be made up somehow. That will likely be in the form of sales taxes. Those taxes will hit everyday Floridians hard, while billionaires with huge mansions taking up large tracts of property will get off Scott-free and avoid paying their fair share to support the services and facilities that make their lavish lifestyles possible.

Ending property taxes is a bad idea hatched by Big Tallahassee to crush home rule and local governments. Floridians should fight it and I certainly intend to do so.

America’s strength has always been in its local governments where people have the most say. We shouldn’t let Big Tallahassee bully and order our towns around. If elected, I can’t promise a perfect outcome—but I can certainly promise a vigorous effort.

Florida should be run by and for Floridians; not developers, not speculators, not dinosaurs—and certainly not for the convenience and profit of Big Tallahassee.

I hope you agree and you’ll join me in this fight. Please volunteer and donate and in November vote for David Silverberg for state Senate from District 28.

To donate to the campaign, please click here.

See Silverberg4Florida.com for more positions and opportunities to volunteer.

To read other position papers:

Why I want to make Florida affordable again

Why I want to end Alligator Alcatraz

Why I am running for the Florida State Senate in District 28

Why I want to end Alligator Alcatraz

*Oh happy day! Imagining the Alligator Alcatraz sign being removed. (Illustration: AI for Silverberg4Florida/ChatGPT)*

April 9, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28

The issue, more than any other, that moved me to run for the Florida Senate sits directly in the district I am running to represent.

It is named Alligator Alcatraz. Make no mistake: it is a concentration camp.

It is a concentration camp because it concentrates detainees and inmates in a single location, whether for processing, deportation, punishment or incarceration. No one can be sure what’s happening there because outside observers cannot get in. American citizens—even as young as 15 years old—have been detained there without due process, a hearing or a chance to establish their innocence.

There have been reports of cruel and unusual conditions and appalling treatment that doesn’t meet basic American standards of justice or incarceration.

As if the injustice, indignity and injury of Alligator Alcatraz were insufficient, the monstrosity in the swamp has already cost the state of Florida over $600 million in taxpayer dollars, which the governor and his accomplices do not know if they can get back from the federal government.

Even if the state gets reimbursed for its past expenses, Alligator Alcatraz is costing Florida a million dollars a day to operate. That’s money coming straight out of our pockets at a time when we’re struggling to put food on the table and gas in the tank.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the money being spent on Alligator Alcatraz is coming from funds designated for emergency management—responding to and cleaning up disasters like hurricanes. This state money is now extremely important because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been gutted for funding and personnel. Donald Trump wants the states to handle emergency response and even wants to do away with FEMA.

Given that, there’s no telling if there will be federal funding help us if the worst happens this hurricane season in Southwest Florida. So every cent needs to be reserved for state emergencies—not thrown away in a swamp.

Nor are the direct costs of this concentration camp the only concern; there are also the ancillary costs of defending it in court from its many legal challenges.

Additionally, there is no telling how much money went to contractors in sweetheart, no-bid deals and grotesque overcharges—like $92 million for porta-potties—and continue to go there.

Alligator Alcatraz was hastily constructed without the consultation or consent of the people of Florida. It is the brainchild of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who promoted and took credit for it. It was created without any regard to its impact on the sensitive environment of the Everglades or its effect on the people of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians whose lands are adjacent to it.

The history of concentration camps is not reassuring: if not closed, Alligator Alcatraz is likely to go from a temporary facility to a permanent installation, and its capacity will likely expand. It will devolve from holding migrants with criminal records, to imprisoning innocent immigrants, to jailing US citizens, then dissidents, then political opponents, then factions in the ruling regime. And its mission will transition from detention to incarceration to death.

*A dangerous progression: A patch worn by guards at Alligator Alcatraz bears an ominous similarity to a Nazi SS ‘Totenkopf’ insignia from World War II. (Photo: Miami Herald and historic archives)*

What is more, Alligator Alcatraz is the first concentration camp in a string of concentration camps that the Trump administration is building to create an American gulag on the Soviet model. There’s Deportation Depot in north Florida, the Lonestar Lockup in Texas, the Speedway Slammer in Indiana and the Cornhusker Clink in Nebraska. On top of these are warehouses being obtained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directorate of the Department of Homeland Security to hold the people it purges in cruel and unusual conditions.

Alligator Alcatraz is not making Americans safer. If it were really just for rounding up criminal aliens then its mission would be fulfilled by now and it would be dismantled.

Instead, Alligator Alcatraz and the gulag system of which it is a part is a clear and present danger to all Americans, regardless of citizenship status. It threatens all Americans all the time and is an attack on our freedom and fundamental rights.

There is the possibility that if Donald Trump tries to overturn the results of the 2026 midterm elections and Americans protest in large numbers, they will be rounded up and held in this American gulag.

If elected, the very first bill I will introduce to the Florida Senate will close Alligator Alcatraz.

Nor do I want Alligator Alcatraz merely closed—I want it scraped from the face of the earth and replaced with a restored Everglades environment.

There is the possibility that Alligator Alcatraz might be closed by court order. This already happened once but it made no difference as the state appealed the ruling. There’s no telling how long the court process is going to take to resolve these issues.

If elected, I’ll not only introduce legislation to close it, I intend to investigate the contracting waste, fraud and abuse that went into its building and operation. I will work to claw back any ill-gotten gains and return them to taxpayers and hold guilty parties to account.

To his great credit, Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly has just committed to closing Alligator Alcatraz if he’s elected governor. I applaud that position and endorse it. If Jolly wins his race and I win mine, I will do all I can in the Florida Senate to assist and support his efforts to close this camp.

As Alligator Alcatraz was the first concentration camp in a would-be Trump gulag, so it should be the first to be removed. Its termination will lift a dangerous threat to every American, whether native-born or immigrant.

Alligator Alcatraz is a moral stain, a financial drain—and it cannot remain.

See Silverberg4Florida.com for more positions and opportunities to volunteer.

To donate to the campaign, please click here.

Why I want to make Florida affordable again

*AI illustration for Silverberg4Florida/ChatGPT*

April 8, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28

Like every Floridian, I’m being squeezed from above and below.

The “above” is the price I’m paying at the grocery checkout and fuel pump because of insane presidential decisions by Donald Trump: a war started without my knowledge or consent; gas prices skyrocketing because of his bad planning and lack of forethought; ridiculous tariffs that are turned on and off like a light switch, prompted by his whims and rages.

It’s not just me saying this. Sean Snaith, the Director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting at the University of Central Florida told an Orange County Commission meeting yesterday, April 7, that the “biggest cloud of uncertainty” facing Florida’s economy is the Iran war. Just as people were recovering from a previous round of inflation, “now here we go again with some costs of living being impacted by the conflict here with Iran.” Snaith said.

“The impact we’ve seen immediately [is] certainly at the gas pumps. We’ve seen it in the price of oil, price of natural gas. We’re starting to see it work its way through the economy, these higher prices,” he said, noting that all forms of transportation have already been hit, with everything from airlines raising their baggage fees to delivery companies adding fuel charges for shipping packages.

Thanks a lot, Donnie!

The “below” is the cost imposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and an extremist Republican legislature—what I’m going to call “Big Tallahassee” from now on— driving up the prices of everything that we all need to live.

It’s not as though I’m living extravagantly or using hundred-dollar bills to light cigars. I’m trying to be frugal and sensible and keep my expenses within limits. Every other Floridian I know is trying to do the same.

But Big Tallahassee sees the everyday Floridian as its enemy and is doing everything it can to make us all poorer, sicker and sadder. It’s waging war on the state’s economy and every Floridian’s wallet.

Big Tallahassee’s war against all immigrants, whether documented or not, is bleeding Florida of the critical labor it needs for construction, farms and basic services at reasonable costs. That means higher prices in the grocery cart and just about every other business activity.

Big Tallahassee’s refusal to face climate change and help Floridians prepare for the worst that can happen is driving up insurance rates at the very time that we need more helpful insurance we can rely upon.

Big Tallahassee won’t face climate reality so living in Florida becomes riskier and more dangerous every year and insurance companies either leave the state, charge higher premiums or fail to pay out when the worst happens. And in its last session, Big Tallahassee batted away all Democratic proposals to relieve or help homeowners cope with what is increasingly becoming a crushing burden.

Even if new insurers have entered the state, there’s no telling if new mom-and-pop insurance companies will be able to pay out in the event of a disaster—and their newness and small sizes lead them to charge higher premiums, putting another burden on Florida policyholders.

On top of all this, Big Tallahassee’s hatred of foreigners and Donald Trump’s threats, insults and attacks on the rest of the world are driving away the international tourists and seasonal residents who pumped money into Florida’s economy.

So Floridians are being crushed by these two sides of a fiscal vise.

I am determined to do everything I can to end this squeeze if I’m elected to the Florida Senate from District 28.

There was a time when life in Florida was not only affordable, it was inexpensive. It’s what brought retirees and lots of other new arrivals to the state. It made possible a reasonably comfortable lifestyle to those of less than extravagant means. It also created a prosperous middle class and let immigrants start businesses and flourish, lifting everyone.

But now, Trump’s lunacy and Big Tallahassee’s wars on Floridians are creating a Florida that’s divided into billionaires versus everyone else. No doubt in many of those billionaires’ minds, they see a Florida divided into masters and servants, with themselves as the masters.

This is not a good outcome. It’s not an American outcome. It’s not a fair outcome.

If elected to the Florida Senate in District 28 I am determined to do everything I possibly can to make Florida affordable again. That includes close scrutiny of the insurance industry and its rates, premiums and payouts. It means facing the reality of climate change and helping Florida families and businesses build in resilience so that insurance rates can come down. It means ending the war on immigrants and labor, so that it costs less to produce Florida’s food, goods and services.

It also means resisting Donald Trump’s crazy and destructive decisions and tendencies rather than sucking up to his hatred, prejudice and rage. We may not be able to stop the war in Iran from the Florida state capital but where we can we must protect Floridians.

This is what I hope to do if elected. If we all work together, I actually believe we may succeed. I hope you’ll agree and join me by donating, volunteering and in November, voting, for David Silverberg for Florida Senate District 28.

Together, let’s make Florida affordable again.

See Silverberg4Florida.com for more issue positions and opportunities to volunteer.

To donate to the campaign, please click here.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Why I am running for the Florida State Senate in District 28

Dear reader,

I am running for public office, seeking the Florida Senate seat for District 28, covering Collier, Hendry and Lee counties. This encompasses the towns of Naples, Marco Island, Immokalee, Ave Maria, Gateway, LaBelle, and Clewiston—and the Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp.

You should now consider this a partisan website and blog, committed to advocacy rather than non-partisan coverage and analysis.

This is nothing I ever anticipated doing. Indeed, if I were pursuing a political career, I would have started this effort last year.

But, as the Declaration of Independence put it, “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them”—the American people— “under absolute Despotism,” it is time to take action, even if that action takes one outside a previous sphere of activity.

Donald Trump and, in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, have invariably been pursuing the object of reducing the American people and the residents of Florida to a state of absolute despotism.

Our political system still affords us the means of resistance. One of those means is the pursuit of elected public office. For the past eight years in The Paradise Progressive blog I have used logic and language to cover and expose their “abuses and usurpations,” particularly relating to the region of Southwest Florida. The moment has come for me to pursue the power of public office to take that resistance to new levels and battlefronts.

These “abuses and usurpations” are reaching a critical point, indeed one where the very existence of the United States and the future of Americans as a free people is at stake.

Nationally, Donald Trump, reigning as though he were a monarch and ignoring the laws, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, has committed the nation to war without any consultation or consent. Every time Americans have to fill their gas tanks they’re being robbed by a war they had no say in starting. When you watch your wallet drain as your tank fills, that’s Trump at the pump.

He has so mismanaged the economy that everyday Americans are being reduced to poverty despite their most strenuous efforts and hard work.

His actions have robbed Americans of their freedom from fear by sending a masked, murderous, motley mob of mercenaries into towns and cities to terrorize and abuse them.

In Florida, Ron DeSantis, reigning in the style of Donald Trump, has waged war on learning and thought, on science and public health, on public education and teachers at all levels. He and his enablers are waging war on the very water, air and soil that makes life in Florida possible for everyone regardless of their political affiliation, beliefs, or national origins. He has attacked institutions and industries that previously welcomed and depended upon visitors from all over the world and disparaged and insulted innocent people of foreign origin.

In a state that is one of the most environmentally vulnerable in the world, he and his extremist legislature have deliberately and purposefully denied and dismissed the clear and present challenges of climate change, to the detriment and danger of all Floridians.

He and his political followers have also sought to eliminate the autonomy and authority of the state’s local governments, especially when it comes to land use and management, in an effort to override responsible planning and governance.

The ultimate end of these actions will be an oppressed nation and a Florida that is poor, paved and polluted.

For all these reasons and many more, I will try to change the current course of events through the system in place.

That’s why I’m running for state senator in District 28. My campaign website is Silverberg4Florida.com. And yes, I’m taking donations (a link is on the site).

My heartfelt thanks to the people who have already made this possible.

In the days ahead I will be elaborating in this space on my reasons for running, the solutions and actions I intend to pursue, and the end state I hope to achieve for Florida and the nation.

This campaign is a race to restore decency, dignity and democracy to Florida and the life we all lead. It’s a race to conserve our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our freedom from fear, and our pursuit of happiness. It is a campaign to make Florida affordable again. And it is a campaign to end Alligator Alcatraz.

The path to victory is steep. The odds are long. But I believe the journey is worth making.

I hope you’ll make it with me.

And, as always…

Liberty lives in light

State of the stampede: Where’s Collins? Fratto falls; Lauf leaves? and more machinations in Florida’s 19th Congressional District

The state of the stampede in Florida’s 19th Congressional District. (Illustration: AI for TPP/ChatGPT)

March 6, 2026 by David Silverberg

For an ordinarily quiet corner of Florida, the 19th Congressional District certainly generates a lot of ferment when a seat is open—and the stampede to succeed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) reflects it.

The 19th covers the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island.

Last October when the race was last covered by The Paradise Progressive, there were nine Republicans competing for the Republican Party nomination for Congress and one Democrat.

As of this writing, there are still nine Republicans but one has dropped out, one seems to have disappeared and there’s a new entrant. On the Democratic side, there are now two candidates seeking their party’s nomination.

Where’s Chris?

*Chris Collins (center) leaves a New York courthouse following his conviction for insider trading in 2019. (Photo: AP/Seth Wenig)*

By far the most active Republican congressional campaigner is Christopher “Chris” Collins, 75, who has been sending campaign mailings to Republican voters and running numerous television advertisements, including a very pricey one during the Super Bowl.

But despite the significant amounts of cash this campaign is already spending, there are no records of it or of his candidacy on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website tracking federal candidate expenditures for the 2026 election.

Under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 candidates for federal office are obligated to file quarterly reports of their fundraising and contributors, including the specific names of individuals and organizations donating and the amounts. Collins filed as a candidate with the Florida Department of State in June 2025. If he started raising and spending campaign money last year he should have begun filing reports then.

*The Federal Election Commission’s spreadsheet of candidate finances as of March 4, 2026. Chris Collins’ campaign is missing. (Chart: FEC)*

The Paradise Progressive reached out to the Collins campaign to ask directly about its absence from FEC records but received no response. A similar query to the FEC also failed to receive a response.

If Collins or his campaign failed to file their required reports they could be subject to investigation, audits, fines and other penalties.

It wouldn’t be the first time Collins has been in hot water.

Unsurprisingly, in his campaign literature and advertising Collins never mentions his 2019 guilty plea to insider trading—and his conviction and imprisonment.

Instead, Collins is touting his record as the first congressman to endorse Trump in 2016—and that’s pretty much it. All the issues and policy positions listed on his website are national and his positions are pro-Trump. He pounds the message home with every communication, whether print or broadcast. His TV ad features a clip of Trump saying: “Chris Collins, right from the beginning, he said, ‘Trump is gonna win.’ Now, I love him.” Collins’ mailing touts a “100% pro-Trump voting record” and he calls himself a “successful businessman & job creator.”

The label “successful businessman” might not quite stand up to scrutiny, in light of his prior history.

As previously recounted, Collins is a convicted inside trader who was tried and sentenced to 26 months in prison in 2020. He only served two months and nine days of the sentence—in federal prison in Pensacola—before being pardoned by Trump.

It’s also worth mentioning the exact nature of the crime, the trial and the punishment. (The full press release with the detailed story from the US Department of Justice is available for reading and download at the conclusion of this article.)

From 2013 to 2019, Collins represented New York’s 27th Congressional District, the area around Buffalo, NY.

While in office he recruited investors for an Australian company called Innate Immunotherapeutics, which was developing a drug to treat multiple sclerosis. It was the company’s only product and its entire fortune was based on it.

On June 22, 2017 Collins was attending the Congressional Picnic on the White House lawn when he received an e-mail that the drug had failed its trials.

As the DoJ press release stated: “The negative Drug Trial results were highly confidential, and, as an insider who owed duties of trust and confidence to Innate, CHRISTOPHER COLLINS was obligated to keep the Drug Trial results secret until Innate publicly released them.”

Instead, 16 minutes after he received the e-mail, Collins called his son from the White House lawn and told him to sell their stock. The son passed on the inside information to relatives and other parties, saving around $800,000 in losses when the stock plummeted 92 percent the next day.

Insider trading this blatant did not go unnoticed and Collins was charged while he was campaigning for re-election in 2018. He won that race, took office in January 2019 and mounted a combative, Trump-like defense against the charges. However, in September he resigned the day before he pleaded guilty. As part of his punishment the Security and Exchange Commission barred him from serving as an officer or director of any public company.

Collins purchased a home on Marco Island and told a judge in 2019: “I’m now a Florida resident and will be FL for a while as the press settles down and moves on.”

Apparently Collins decided the press had settled down and moved on or that Southwest Florida Republicans were too ignorant or indifferent to a criminal record for it to matter. Perhaps taking a cue from a presidential felon, he decided that jail time was no impediment to election.

Beyond his past, it bears mentioning that nowhere in his literature, ads or website does Collins focus on or mention issues specific to the 19th District and Southwest Florida. There’s no mention of water, or insurance, or—most notably—affordability, the difficulty of Southwest Floridians to keep up with constantly rising prices.

Collins is attempting to coast to victory solely on his loyalty to Trump. Obviously, he is hoping that takes him over the finish line in the Republican primary election on Aug. 18.

Fratto falls

*Johnny Fratto from his 2024 campaign video in District 26. (Image: Campaign)*

John “Johnny” Fratto, 46, is the first candidate to officially call it quits.

In 2024 Fratto sought the seat of incumbent Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.) in the neighboring district but was crushed in the primary. His chief moment of fame came with the release of an energetic but barely coherent rap video touting him as a “bloodline mafioso.”

Last year he declared his intention to run in the 19th. According to the FEC, he raised $630.51 and spent $1,168.90 as of the end of 2025.

However, this candidacy didn’t last long.

On Wednesday, Feb. 25th, Fratto announced that he was suspending his campaign and endorsing fellow Republican Madison Cawthorn, 30, a former representative from North Carolina. Fratto said that Cawthorn, who has a criminal record, crushed his competitors in a debate in Naples, sponsored by the Women’s Republican Club of Naples, according to Jacob Ogles, writing for the news site, Florida Politics.

Fratto is instead going to concentrate on his latest entrepreneurial startup: MAGA Beer.

The beer is noteworthy not only for its political promotional approach but for what it reveals about the Make America Great Again mindset. As it states on its website: “MAGA Beer isn’t just a drink, it’s a time machine back to America’s golden era.”

And when was that “golden era?” According to MAGA Beer, “In the 1980s, America was bold, proud, and full of ambition. It was the era of muscle cars, blue jeans, backyard barbecues, small-town diners, and Friday night football games. The beer industry was at its peak, with brands like Budweiser and Coors defining the working-class American experience. That’s the spirit we’re bringing back.”

It does indicate somewhat where MAGAs want to go but those who actually lived through the 1980s might have a different view. Survivors of the decade might also remember a recession, 14 percent inflation, Federal Reserve prime rates of 20 percent, a savings and loan crisis followed by a market bubble and a stock market crash.

That’s a lot to get into the taste of a beer. But who knows what ingredients can be thrown into a vat these days?

The loss of Lady Liquid Death?

*Catalina Lauf at a natural foods exhibition in 2023. (Photo: Campaign)*

Catalina Lauf, 32, is no longer on the Florida Department of State’s list of congressional candidates for the 19th District, creating uncertainty about the viability and continuation of her candidacy. However, there has been no formal announcement of suspension of her campaign.

Lauf gained some attention on Jan. 11 when she accused the “liberal leadership” of WINK-TV of firing popular meteorologist Matt Devitt at the behest of “RINO hack, possibly a closet DEM” Jim Schwartzel, a competing Republican candidate. She stated Schwartzel owned WINK, which he adamantly denied.

While her website is online it appears inactive and lacks any policy positions on any subject. Nonetheless, she has posted on Facebook, where she announced endorsements from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-13-Fla.) on Feb. 11, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-4-Utah) on Feb. 6 (he subsequently announced his retirement), and Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) on Jan. 22. FEC figures show her raising $433,749.57 and spending $218,005.45 as of the end of 2025.

Attempts to reach the Lauf campaign for clarification of the campaign’s status by this author were unsuccessful.

The nuclear entrant

As though to fill the gap created by the withdrawal of Fratto, on Jan. 29, Richard “Ricky” Stephen Youschak III, of Fort Myers, filed to run.

There’s no campaign website, policy positions or public statements from Youschak. A LinkedIn profile and Facebook postings mention a Richard Youschak III who graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville last May with an advanced degree in nuclear engineering. While he’s listed as a candidate in the Florida Department of State website and there is a candidate by that name in the FEC, there are no campaign contribution filings.

“Growing up, I lived in the Sanibel – Fort Myers area and attended Canterbury School,” states the LinkedIn profile. He earned a private pilot’s license and is an avid flyer. “When I’m not building hours in my Texas Aircraft Colt, I enjoy hiking, diving, and exploring Florida’s forests and coasts.”

A Democratic duo

While District 19 Republicans will have nine candidates to choose from in the Aug. 18 primary, as of this writing, Democrats will have two.

Howard Sapp, 60, is a lifelong Fort Myers native with a distinguished local lineage: the nephew of activist Fort Myers Councilwoman Veronica Shoemaker and son-in-law of former Lee County Commissioner Melvin Morgan.

A retired air traffic controller, Sapp graduated from Fort Myers High School and then earned a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from Edward Waters College in Jacksonville. He then went on get a second bachelor degree in theological studies from Northwestern University and is a credentialed minister.

Sapp is currently chief executive officer for the Source of Light and Hope Development Center, a non-profit support center for at-risk youth in foster care, and he’s long worked on community building and improvement. He ran for the Florida House District 78 covering Fort Myers in 2024 and was defeated by Republican Jenna Persons-Mulicka, 59.9 percent to his own 40.1 percent. As of the end of last year he had raised $35,700 for his campaign, according to the FEC.

Remarkably, of all the candidates and certainly in contrast to all the Republicans, Sapp is putting his campaign’s focus on local issues: cost of living, affordable housing, clean water, quality education, reasonable insurance and effective healthcare. He wants to restore the integrity of federal agencies like the Department of Education, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He supports unions and opposes workplace immigration raids.

He’s the only candidate to explicitly take a stand in favor of women’s right to choose abortion and have access to low or no-cost contraception.

Victor Arias, 65, is an attorney in Fort Myers.

He was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in the Douglas Housing Projects in Manhattan, New York. Rising from the projects, he earned his bachelor of arts degree from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY and his law degree in the State University of New York Buffalo Law School. He moved to Florida and was admitted to the state bar in 1991.

For seven years he served as school board staff attorney in Lee County and also in St. Lucie County.

Given his familiarity with school issues, in 2024 Arias ran for Superintendent of Lee County Schools after that was made a partisan, elected position in 2022. He was defeated by Republican Denise Carlin by 68 percent to 32 percent. He has not filed any campaign finance reports in 2025.

On his campaign website, Arias states that he’s running “to cut the red tape for veterans, protect Medicare for seniors, defend the water quality that drives our economy, and bring real representation to Florida’s 19th District.”

A forum featuring Howard Sapp and Victor Arias, moderated by this author, is scheduled on Tuesday, April 7, at 5:30 pm, at the Bonita Springs Public Library, 10560 Reynolds St, Bonita Springs, Fla.

To read the full text and download the Department of Justice release:

“Former Congressman Christopher Collins Sentenced For Insider Trading Scheme And Lying To Federal Law Enforcement Agents”

Click here.

Southern District of New York _ Former Congressman Christopher Collins Sentenced – US DoJ Download

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!