Offering one bright spot for LGBTQ Floridians in today’s grim political news landscape, former Orlando-area representative Carlos Guillermo Smith, a local champion of equal rights issues, has filed to run for the Florida Senate in 2024.
Smith, the first openly gay Hispanic person elected to the Florida Legislature back in 2016, filed his candidacy with the Florida Division of Elections on Friday, which was first reported by the Orlando Sentinel the same day.
On Saturday, however, Smith formally shared his plans to run for state Senate outside City Hall in downtown Orlando, with fanfare.
“You deserve a champion in Tallahassee that you know and you trust, who will represent working people not corporations, who will fight back against the GOP's extreme agenda and who will stand up to bullies,” said Smith, flanked by a crowd of supporters on the steps of City Hall including Orlando-area politicians, labor leaders, and advocates for LGBTQ issues, education, gun safety and disability rights.
“We have a massive teacher shortage made worse by an extreme Legislature that has turned our classrooms into political battlefields,” Smith added, later giving a shout-out to Orange County teachers union president and art teacher Clinton McCracken, who was present in the audience. “This community needs someone who's willing to put people over politics and willing to put in the work to solve these problems — and you can always count on me to be that person.”
“You deserve a champion in Tallahassee that you know and you trust, who will represent working people not corporations”
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Smith, who served as a state representative in the Florida House from 2016 to 2022, is running for Senate District 17, to replace outgoing state Sen. Linda Stewart (D), who’s restricted from filing for reelection in 2024 due to term limits. As of Monday morning, Smith’s the only person to file candidacy for the seat, which represents a heavily Democratic constituency in Orange County.
On Saturday, Smith was in good company. Democratic leaders such as Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani, as well as Rep. Johanna Lopez, Sen. Victor Torres, Rep. Rita Harris and U.S. Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost were in attendance to show support for Smith’s bid for State Senate.
“When I look at people like Carlos, when I look at people who have survived gun violence, when I look at people who have taken trauma and turned it into action, I have the utmost respect for it because that is how we're going to change this state. That is how we're going to change this country,” Frost shared.
“They threw all types of corporate money at him [Smith], all sorts of lies, bigotry, homophobia, to take him out of the state House, but what they didn't know is they were putting him in the state Senate,” Frost added, earning both applause and laughter from the crowd gathered.
Last year, Smith lost his bid for reelection to the Florida House to Republican Susan Plasencia after the Gov. Ron DeSantis’ redistricting plans in 2022 shifted his district to include parts of eastern Seminole County, which leans Republican. Smith garnered 48% of the vote to Plasencia’s 52%.
Eskamani, who has also often described fellow progressive Smith as her “work husband” (Smith is happily married to husband Jerick Mediavilla), said Smith’s absence in the Legislature has been felt this year. Democrats have been drastically outnumbered in deeply partisan fights over abortion access, housing affordability, public education, LGBTQ+ rights, gun safety and union-busting legislation.
“We are fighting to increase access to gun safety and to reduce community violence, to push back against efforts to erase the LGBTQ+ community, on efforts to ban drag shows and to ban books. We need Carlos’ voice — his representation matters,” said Eskamani.
During his time in the Florida House, Smith was an advocate for gun safety reforms, disability rights, workers’ rights, equal rights for LGBTQ+ Floridians, and public education.
He was one of the most vocal critics of DeSantis and the GOP in the Florida Legislature, and — if his speech on Saturday is any indication — he’s not planning to back down.
Citing recent drama with Disney and the DeSantis administration’s messy state takeover of the Disney corporation’s Reedy Creek tax district, Smith said DeSantis could “probably learn a thing or two” about holding corporations accountable from Disney World’s frontline workers, who recently fought for and won an $18 minimum wage with their unions at the Orlando theme park last month.
“The way that you hold corporations accountable is not through hostile government takeovers, vindictive authoritarian policies and temper tantrums,” said Smith. "You hold them accountable by demanding fair wages and benefits and requiring corporations to pay the taxes they owe.”
Some Florida Democrats, like Eskamani, have been pushing for corporate tax reform to close corporate tax loopholes and to ensure that highly profitable companies pay their fair share of Florida taxes.
As the Orlando Sentinel has reported, Florida has one of the easiest-to-avoid corporate taxes in the nation. And companies like the Walt Disney Co. benefit.
With his track record as a progressive, Smith is politically to the left of Sen. Stewart, the sitting District 17 senator. Despite a progressive history as an Orange County commissioner in the early aughts, Stewart was the only Democratic senator to vote in favor of a GOP-backed property insurance bill passed last December that offered no guarantees that rates will actually go down.
Last month, Stewart was also the only Democrat to vote for a Senate bill that'd make it easier for private businesses to sue to stop local ordinances from going into effect.
Florida Republicans gained a supermajority in the state Legislature last year, making it that much easier for them to push through the political priorities, even when there is Democratic resistance.
This means Florida Democrats (and their constituents) have less power over state policies, and honestly makes Democrats' jobs (and thus, running to hold that job again) less appealing and a lot harder.
“This is return of the Jedi, y’all,” Eskamani said on Saturday, with a laugh, just hours after posting a photo that morning with some Star Wars stormtroopers on social media. Standing side by side with Smith, she added, “The Empire is striking back, and we are coming. We are the resistance.”
