Herald recommends: In the Florida House District 118 Republican primary, the less far right, the better | Editorial

In the Republican primary in Florida House District 118, Rep. Juan Fernandez-Barquin faces two challengers, Daniel Sotelo and Francisco Rodriguez. The winner will go up against a Democrat, Johnny Gonzalo Farias, in the November general election.

The district covers a stretch of unincorporated southwestern Miami-Dade County, mostly west of Florida’s Turnpike running south from Southwest Eighth Street to Southwest 232nd Street.

All three Republicans have staked out far-right positions, even though there is a sizable chunk of independents in the district: about 33% compared to about 35% Republicans and 28% Democrats.

Fernandez-Barquin, an attorney, has been in the House since 2018 and was reelected in 2020. He was representing District 119, but now is running in District 118, because of redistricting. He is a member of the Public Health Trust, the governing body for Jackson Health System, and was on the board of the Children’s Trust from 2020 to 2022.

His name is tied to some of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ key legislation — bills that the Editorial Board has opposed. He sponsored HB1, the “Anti-Riot” bill, currently blocked after a judge said it violated the First Amendment. He co-sponsored the Parental Rights in Education bill, also known as the Don’t say gay” bill. And he sponsored the Stop WOKE Act that limits how race-related issues are taught in public universities, colleges and during workplace training.

He said education and parental rights are among the most important issues in the district, along with the cost of homeowners’ insurance and taxes and making sure that homeowners’ associations aren’t operating “in an unscrupulous manner.” Homeowners in the Hammocks, a vast community in Kendall with Florida’s largest HOA, revolted this year over massive fee hikes.

He also counts as an accomplishment his work during the May special session to help pass a package of reforms on homeowners’ insurance, telling the Editorial Board that he knows a lot of work remains to be done on that issue. He’s right about that part, anyway — the legislation to shore up the struggling property-insurance industry likely will make only the slightest of dents in premiums for actual homeowners. And the state’s insurance market remains precarious.

Sotelo, who joined the U.S. Air Force when he was 18 and served for four years, has run unsuccessfully for office twice before, once for House District 119 in 2018 as a no-party-affiliation candidate and again in 2020, for Miami-Dade Community Council, a non-partisan seat.

A small business owner, he said crime, education and home insurance are the issues most consistently raised by residents of the district. He would increase funding and training for police officers, offer more vocational education in schools and reduce the cost of homeowners’ insurance by cracking down on fraud and reducing litigation.

He said he is running because he thinks the unincorporated area within District 118 doesn’t get good enough representation in Tallahassee. He also feels veterans are forgotten by elected officials. “I want to fight and represent my community,” he said.

Rodriguez, a systems analyst at Miami-Dade County Public Schools, described himself as a homeowner, a taxpayer and a 25-year resident of the area. He volunteered for DeSantis’ campaign for governor.

He said people in the district are unhappy about encroachment of government, especially as it related to pandemic closures. He also identified election integrity as a key issue.

He said he’s running to “continue the fight that they’ve started in Tallahassee and carry the torch forward.”

Topics he would like to work on if elected include bills declaring that life begins at conception, allowing “constitutional carry” for guns and ensuring educational funds follow the child to allow parents increased school choice.

When asked about the Proud Boys — labeled an extremist group by the FBI — and their presence in the local Republican Party, both Sotelo and Rodriguez said they didn’t know enough about the Proud Boys’ influence on the Miami-Dade GOP to hold any real opinion on them. Fernandez-Barquin’s response was slightly more specific. He said he didn’t “personally know” any Proud Boys in the GOP and that the group doesn’t have any influence in the local party. When pressed about the Proud Boys’ participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — at least six members have been charged by federal prosecutors — he offered only this: “If you break the law, it doesn’t matter if you’re white, Black, left, right. . . . You should suffer the consequences. I’m all for applying the law equally.”

On abortion, Sotelo and Rodriguez said they believe in no exceptions for any reason. Fernandez-Barquin said he would consider exceptions in the case of a mentally incapacitated person who might not be able to report being raped — now that he has had a conversation with a constituent about such a case. He said he is “pro-life,” but he understands, “There are certain exceptions and certain hard calls.” He said he would have to consult with medical professionals but he would be “open-minded” about situations where young girls are raped but may not understand that they had become pregnant.

That slight flicker of what passes for reasonableness in Florida’s GOP, along with Fernandez-Barquin’s apparent belief in the rule of law when it comes to prosecuting Proud Boys, offer the only bit of hope for real representation in a race where every candidate seems to be trying to outdo the others in their embrace of the far right — even though a third of voters in the district identifies with neither party.

Fernandez-Barquin is the better informed of the candidates, in part because he knows the territory; he is neck-deep in the angry, dehumanizing policies of DeSantis. But sadly, his opponents hold positions just as extreme or even more so, while also being less knowledgeable.

The Herald recommends JUAN FERNANDEZ-BARQUIN in the Florida House District 118 Republican primary.

This story was originally published August 4, 2022 at 9:48 AM.