I will stand up for Democrats, Independents, and NPAs in Florida’s Legislature | Curt Bender
I am Curt Bender, and I declared my candidacy for State Representative District 8 because I found a way for Tallahassee to net potentially millions of dollars by selling renewable energy credits. Being a candidate allowed me to meet the right people to charge forward with that and other initiatives and becoming a state representative would allow me to scale.
I ask you to evaluate my goals, skills, and experience on Bendercampaign.com, then vote for me on the issues facing District 8 – e.g., economic development, absurd utility prices in Gadsden County, youth violence, and drug overdose.
In District 8, we must be honest with ourselves: the elected officials we sent to the Legislature over the past 30 years promised economic prosperity, but instead, they slow-walked District 8 from the podium of prominence to winning the prize for the poorest zip code in Florida. We cannot afford to continue down the same road.
We must evaluate candidates based on merit, skills, and experience rather than popularity, institutional support, and dollars raised/spent.
The first year I chaired Tallahassee Startup Week (TSW), I brought funding into Tallahassee to host TSW’s first pitch competition, and the winner successfully pitched on Shark Tank. I volunteered monthly for 15 months in an entrepreneurial program at Tallahassee Community College, which led to the first black woman-owned title company in Florida and many other entrepreneurs.
But to tackle economic development, I will focus on trade schools because most people of District 8 do not attend universities and colleges. Still, each of us should have the opportunity to learn skills and earn a livable wage.
To provide a long-term solution to utility prices, I have plans in play to leverage trade schools, Florida A&M University, Florida State University, to make District 8 the downtown of the U.S. for energy storage development (non-EV).
To curb the violence in our community, I will continue to support organizations that address the violence issue, and I will continue to do my part in mentoring vulnerable at-risk youth. Similarly, I would leverage my experience as one of three (often two) attorneys responsible for regulating every single manufacturer and distributor of prescription drugs in Florida. I have already suggested specific tools to law enforcement to help get these overdose-causing drugs off our streets.
Additionally, I aim to improve District 8 by 1) leveraging trade schools and opportunity zones (championed by Pastor Gregg James, which could help alleviate food deserts, too); 2) working intimately with law enforcement to curb the distribution of the fentanyl-laced drugs that are killing us; and 3) working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reduce our mass-incarceration issues in our jails and prisons, which are the largest providers of mental health services in Florida.
After we have been honest with ourselves and thoroughly evaluated each candidate, we must acknowledge that sending me to the Republican-led Legislature best positions District 8 to do better.
In closing, we must vote regardless of who we choose. One out of three registered voters in Leon/Gadsden does not vote in midterm elections. Still, Stacy Abrams’s lawsuit emphasizes the importance of voting by highlighting that it was the vote not cast that ensured “[t]he election at issue resulted in a tie.”
Vote “Curt Bender” so that we can change the guard and have a fresh, new type of public servant charge forward District 8’s goals to the Legislature. As the underdog, I need your Democrat, Independent, and NPA vote to help me stand up for District 8.
Stay Awesome.
Curt Bender is a candidate for State Representative District 8, florist at Bouquets at Bender, and business law attorney at Bender.legal, PLLC.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: I will stand up for Democrats, Independents, and NPAs in Florida’s Legislature | Curt Bender
