Florida House — District 72: Alex Miller

Age: 43 

Hometown: Long Island, N.Y.

Previous political offices: Sarasota Memorial Hospital board member from 2012-2016. 

Political party: Republican

About: I moved to Sarasota from New York in 1995, right after graduating from the University of Rhode Island. I began working with my mother on a start-up medical supply company called Mercedes Medical that she had started the year prior. Learning the business inside and out, I eventually became CEO of Mercedes Medical in 2005. I started my family here, and am truly blessed with two middle-school aged boys, Steele who is 13, and Kannon, who is 14 and attends Sarasota School of Arts & Sciences. We also have two awesome rescue dogs, which I adopted during my 6 year term on the board for the Humane Society of Sarasota. 

In 2009 I completed my MBA from Johns Hopkins, and in 2012 I was elected to the Sarasota Memorial Hospital Board where I served for almost 4 years. I am so grateful to now have the opportunity to give back to the community in an even more significant way by representing Sarasota’s District 72 in Tallahassee. 

Why do you think you’re the most qualified candidate for this position? 

I’m a mother, community volunteer, and a local business owner, who has lived in Sarasota for more than 20 years — all of my adult life. I’ve built a successful company here from the ground up, which now employs 70 people. I’ve also served on numerous nonprofit boards and fundraising committees in our community supporting a number of causes such as animal welfare, child advocacy and learning and healthcare. 

I believe that our founding fathers envisioned a citizen legislature, not one that is filled with only attorneys and professional politicians. We need more outsiders, more business people in Tallahassee, who have real experience in the private sector and understand what it means to sign the front and back of a check, practice fiscal restraint, embrace limited government, take personal responsibility, and find common-sense solutions to problems, while also taking care of our most vulnerable populations with quality services and human dignity. 

If elected, what are the top three priorities on which you will focus? 

If elected, my priorities are to help create a world class public education system with lots of options and choices for our children, a business friendly climate for today’s business community and tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, and finding free market solutions to our ever increasing health costs and demands. 

Parents need more local control over what their children learn and where they learn it. No matter how big or how small, our businesses deserve a climate that promotes growth, where taxes are lower, jobs are created, and government regulations aren’t repressive and stifling. Finally, free market solutions, not government control, will ultimately deliver the most affordable and accessible quality health care on the planet. We need to find solutions to lower cost and increase access to health care. 

What role should the state play in education? 

Our children deserve world-class public schools that employ the latest and most innovative learning techniques and technologies. Competition and greater local control will ultimately ensure that this goal is met. School choice and competition, not a bureaucratic mentality, drives excellence in education. And parents and teachers, not the government, should control our children’s education. 

If elected, I am committed to: (1) increasing emphasis on early-childhood education; (2) ensuring more of every dollar gets directly into the classroom; (3) increasing teacher pay to bring the best and brightest to Florida; (4) giving parents and teachers more local control by repealing Common Core; (5) eliminating high-stakes testing; and (6) increasing funding for vocational and training programs. 

Do you support using tax dollars toward economic incentives to bring businesses to Florida? Why or why not? 

We must create a pro-growth business climate in Florida that attracts businesses here to create jobs. The tax code is a powerful tool that, if properly utilized, can do that. I fully support tax incentives and property tax abatements to entice new companies to move to Florida, create jobs here and grow our economy. 

However, while I support tax incentives, I do not support direct subsidies to companies to entice them to move here. Direct corporate welfare payments are easily abused. Our tax dollars should be used to ensure we have world class schools and quality, affordable health care, not distributed in cash corporate giveaways. 

Every 20 years, the House speaker, senate president and governor appoint a committee to review the state constitution. That process will begin this year. If you were selected to be on that committee, what changes would you like to see to our constitution? 

If I were selected to serve, I’d hope the commission would exercise extreme caution and restraint in choosing whether to suggest amendments to the Florida Constitution. Our state constitution, like its federal counterpart, is a sacred document, which should be rarely amended. To put it into some perspective, the Constitution of the United States has been amended only 27 times in the two centuries since the founding of our republic. By contrast, five amendments to the Florida Constitution have been put before voters just this year. The amendment process has far too often become a tool to force issues on the ballot that have no businesses being there, and which are properly dealt with by the legislature. Voters should not be forced to decipher poorly worded and confusing amendments that don’t benefit Floridians. 

What are the three biggest issues facing the state of Florida, and how would you deal with one of them? 

I think the three biggest issues facing Florida coincide with my legislative priorities: public education, jobs and health care. 

The issues of education and job creation are closely intertwined. We need to focus more on job training programs for Floridians of all ages to create a better educated and more highly skilled work force. Many students choose an alternate path besides college, and it is our job to arm those individuals with the tools to succeed. 

Providing the best possible environment for new entrepreneurs to succeed will be one of my fundamental goals. I believe if you combine the right targeted educational opportunities that prepare people for the occupations and markets of tomorrow, with business-friendly fertile ground, the result will be a new generation of local entrepreneurs which will create jobs. Government just needs to get and stay out of their way. 

Locally, we’ve seen right here in Sarasota that pro-growth policies can attract businesses and encourage development, creating jobs. For example, sports tourism has thrived in Sarasota. We’ve attracted world-class businesses like the IMG Sports Academy, and Benderson Park has become one of the country’s premiere rowing destinations after the site was redeveloped by the county. If elected, I will work tirelessly to continue to promote our community as a business-friendly environment.