Democrat John Navarra hopes to spoil state Rep. Tom Leek's reelection, leadership plans

The Republican-led Legislature, to Tom Leek's mind, has in recent years embodied "The Florida Way."

"I would say we have been successful in preserving your personal liberties, your freedom from government," he said in a recent interview. "I expect that will continue for a long time. Not only over the next two years, but for a long time.”

Leek, who chaired the House Redistricting Committee last year and is in line for another top leadership role next year, has served six years of a maximum eight in the Florida House of Representatives. To reach his term limit, he will have to defeat Democrat John Navarra, who argues he has more of a commitment to Daytona Beach and to prioritizing economic development.

Clear Path: Right-wing journalist Alex Newman of Ormond Beach drops challenge to Tom Leek

Florida Legislature 2022: When DeSantis zigged, GOP lawmakers from Volusia, Flagler did too

Charlie Crist's Running Mate: Karla Hernández-Mats wants accountability for charter schools

Approaches to job creation

Deltona High School has private-public partnerships that link students with businesses, giving them experience and mentorship.

This kind of program, in combination with job fairs in economically disadvantaged areas, will help people discover the kinds of training and educational opportunities that are available to help them boost their incomes and make their lives better.

"They can double their incomes like I did when I went back to school to become a teacher," said Navarra, a Pine Ridge High School teacher. "Many people could provide for their families and better their lives."

Leek says he has supported job creation by voting in favor of lower taxes and eliminating "job-killing regulations."

He stood with Gov. Ron DeSantis at a recent appearance at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University touting millions of dollars of investment in the Florida Pathways to Career Opportunities Grant and the Job Growth Grant Fund programs, making money available for students in high-demand fields.

For instance, Daytona State College received $1.3 million to start a new CDL driver training program at its Advanced Technology College in Daytona Beach.

Tackling Daytona's flooding issues

For Navarra, a second priority is "to do something about the flooding in Volusia County, especially in Midtown."

He said he wants to work with engineers and experts to help assess how the problems can be fixed. It's an issue, he said, Leek has failed to address in his previous six years.

"My argument is I don't see evidence that he has reached out to the city of Daytona Beach or that he has reached out to that community to see that their needs are being met," Navarra said.

To be fair, Leek's district prior to the current election cycle covered Ormond Beach, the coastline, Port Orange and part of New Smyrna Beach, but did not include any of Daytona Beach west of the Beachside. The district has been redrawn to cover more of the Ormond-Daytona area.

Leek said he's talking with city managers and mayors in his district about what Tropical Storm Ian-related problems they have, whether they can be solved and what it’s going to take to solve them.

“Downtown Daytona has been flooding ever since I have been here. I don’t know if that’s a problem that can be fixed," Leek said. "But we need to look at it and see if we can fix it.”

Approaches to abortion

Leek voted in favor of a bill earlier this year that reduces the number of weeks of gestational age in which abortions can be legally performed, from 24 to 15. Some Republican lawmakers have called for further restrictions on abortion following the Supreme Court's overturning of the protections offered by the Roe v. Wade precedent in ruling this spring in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case.

Leek didn't say whether he supports more restrictions on abortion. But he did say the matter is more complicated in Florida, where the state Constitution guarantees a right to privacy. The Supreme Court's ruling was based on the argument that the Roe decision — which established that abortion falls under a right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment — was flawed.

"Until we know whether the fact that the Florida Constitution, the fact that it was different from the federal Constitution is meaningful or not meaningful, I don’t think you will see any changes in the law," Leek said.

Navarra is a full-throated supporter of a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.

In a Facebook post from September, he wrote: "It’s so disappointing that we have to return to the past and fight this fight all over. But we will do just that. We will not accept going back to era where woman and minority rights don’t exist."

Affordable housing opinions

The candidates have differing views on another major issue: affordable housing.

Navarra said the free enterprise system is "the biggest impediment" to solving the shortage of affordable homes.

"The things the government can do are some measures to work with the private sector to get more affordable housing," he said. "Cities have tried to do that themselves, but that's a real difficulty because we have a free enterprise system and basically, the free enterprise system, it's not working if the incomes don't match the cost of renting an apartment and buying a house."

Navarra said he sees no sign of incomes aligning with housing costs.

"I don’t see an easy fix on that one, other than to get incentives (to developers) for affordable housing," he said. "I will look to find a real, tangible incentive in order to get affordable housing built in District 28."

Leek said he prefers to use the phrase "attainable housing."

"As long as we have 1,000 people moving into the state of Florida a day, we are going to be stressing our housing supply," Leek said. "And I don’t know that government or anything else can solve that with that kind of influx of people moving in here today."

He said the Legislature has created the "Hometown Heroes" program for people in certain fields, such as teachers, law enforcement officers, firefighters and municipal workers, to get assistance with a down payment on a home.

On Florida's property insurance woes

Both candidates agree there's no easy fixes to the state's problems with property insurance. Carriers are dropping homeowners and raising premiums by sometimes double the amount paid in the previous year.

Leek, an attorney who works as chief legal officer and executive vice president for Foundation Risk Partners, a Daytona Beach-based middle market insurance brokerage, voted in support of two bills introduced in a special session this year to add a layer of reinsurance to help insurers with their risk portfolio and ease requirements for homeowners to repair roofs. He acknowledged there's more work to be done.

"Forgive the crassness of this but I’ve always described it as a 12-step program," he said. "We’re probably six steps into it. I think you’ll see us continue to, over the next two years complete the program.”

Bills must be crafted to bring more carriers into the Florida market, which has been thinned by rampant fraud, he said.

"Right now, of every dollar that’s spent on property insurance claims, 8 cents of it goes to the consumer. Seventy-one cents of it goes to the plaintiffs lawyers. And the rest of it gets eaten up by defense lawyers and experts," Leek said. "So you’ve got to take the fraud out of property insurance or carriers will be unwilling to come back into the market. Secondly, you’ve got to have proper claims processing by the insurance carriers."

The claims process has been bogged down by an adversarial model of back-and-forth on how much will be paid, he said.

"We’ve got to get where carriers process claims efficiently and effectively, which means you have to take the fraud out of the market.”

Navarra said he watched the special session and believes another one is needed, as costs have shot up.

"Every Floridan was affected," he said. "I was affected. ... When I opened my new bill I was shocked. ... I was dropped and wound up getting a new insurance company."

He said opening an insurance bill is now "one of the scariest things I'll do for the rest of my life."

Navarra said he doesn't know what the remedy is, but believes more study and listening to experts can lead the Legislature down the right path.

Parents' rights in education

Navarra has been critical of lawmakers' passage of bills they say support parents' rights in education. The bills limit what teachers can say in the classroom about race and gender identity, while requiring school districts to involve parents in the review and adoption of textbooks.

"As a teacher, I am for parents being very involved with their school," he said.

But he said school districts, including Volusia County's, already have "open doors" for parents to speak at board meetings and participate on textbook committees.

The Stop WOKE Act — supported by Leek — bans the teaching in schools and training in workplaces of critical race theory and indoctrination of students on issues such as white privilege and theories about race that make people "feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress" for events in which they did not participate.

When the bill was being debated in the Legislature, Navarra spoke out against it, saying it will have a chilling effect on teachers.

He said he feared teachers will think: “If I don’t ever mention African American history in the classroom, I will be safe.”

Leek disagrees.

"History should always be taught and the Stop WOKE Act allows history to be taught," Leek said. "What it does not allow is indoctrination. Indoctrinating kids with a political viewpoint, or with a teacher’s social mores is inappropriate and just shouldn’t be done. Those are things that are best left for home."

Correction: The high school where John Navarra teaches was incorrectly identified in an earlier version of this story.

Never miss a story: Subscribe to The Daytona Beach News-Journal using the link at the top of the page.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Election 2022: Tom Leek, John Navarra stand for Florida House 28 seat