Do-over in District 23 …

This is odd, but a turn of events compels us to revise one of our recommendations for the Aug. 30 primary. 

It’s the Republican District 23 Senate primary, a race that appears to feature no indisputable, runaway frontrunner. 

The candidates: two sitting representatives, Greg Steube and Ray Pilon; a former state representative who reached his eight-year limit in the House and now wants to serve in the Senate, Doug Holder; a former Sarasota city commissioner and Sarasota County commissioner, who also reached term limits (in the county), Nora Patterson; and a little known businessman from Charlotte County, Rick Levine.

Manatee and Sarasota voters — mostly Republicans — obviously have expressed their confidence in Steube, Pilon, Holder and Patterson by virtue of their being elected and re-elected multiple times. Their re-elections are endorsements that their performance and votes pass voters’ approval.  

But now the four of them are vying for that one seat, and voters must decide which of these four candidates is best suited to do what is right for the taxpayers and voters of District 23 and Floridians. The district includes all of Sarasota County and a northern slice of Charlotte County.

On this page last week, we used what amounted to a process of elimination. We cited dismay at the mud-slinging between the political action committees favoring Holder and Steube, calling it a turn-off. Levine is unknown. We cited Patterson as having probably the largest following of Sarasota County voters; but her voting record over the past 25 years — while fiscally solid — has tended to drift too far toward government regulation and intervention and away from capitalism. That left Pilon, a mostly conservative moderate Republican, a man of solid character and a representative willing to challenge House authority and stand for what he believes.

But then came a candidate forum this past Saturday, sponsored by the University of South Florida and the Observer. Holder’s assistant called a few hours before the event to say Holder would not attend — a not-so-subtle message. And during the forum, the contrast in political philosophies became clearer: Steube is the staunchest advocate of the freedom agenda — our litmus test on supporting individual liberty, low taxes, less government intrusion and laissez-faire capitalism.

When Rep. Pilon sided with Patterson in favor of expanding the Obamacare Medicaid system in Florida and bringing back stricter growth management at the state level, those positions triggered a series of thoughts for evaluating candidates:

• For two centuries, the trajectory of American government has contracted your freedoms in favor of a continuously growing and more powerful, interventionist state. Reversing this starts with sending the right people to city hall, county commissions, legislatures and Congress. As Thomas Jefferson once said: “Most bad government results from too much government.”
• At each election, we are reminded of the philosophy a former state legislator from Lakeland applied in Tallahassee. Before voting, she asked: “Will my vote increase freedom or reduce it?” And she voted accordingly — for freedom.
• Here’s a question to ask everyone running for office: “Why are you running — to be somebody, or to do something?” If it’s the former, no way. But even if the answer is the latter, that can be dangerous.

“To do what?” To expand the power of the state over you or your neighbor? To tilt “the law” to favor one group over another? These are dangerous motivations — because when the state intervenes, one law begets another and another and another. Look at the messes Washington politicians have created.

When French economist-journalist Frederic Bastiat produced his classic book, “The Law,” in 1850, he wrote: “… [N]othing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force [e.g. a government] for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties and properties; to maintain the right of each; and to cause justice to reign over us all.”

That’s what the law is supposed to do. But as Bastiat also wrote, elected officials pervert the law: “[The law] has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder.”

In summary, who then is most predisposed to go to Tallahassee to work to limit the reach of government, to defend and expand freedom and shrink the state?

When Patterson and Pilon want “the state” to manage more people’s health care and do more to manage your community’s population and growth, they are advocating less freedom, more government. When Rep. Steube proposed to allow permitted gun owners to carry their weapons in the open on college campuses, he was widely criticized — too extreme, they said. Regardless of your stand on guns, philosophically, Steube proposed a measure to increase your freedom.

Rep. Steube isn’t perfect; he knows that. He doesn’t have landmark legislation named after him; he didn’t make it into the ranks of the leadership in his six years in the House. Nor did Pilon or Holder. And we’ll repeat what we said last week: All four candidates — Holder, Patterson, Pilon, Steube — would serve acceptably in the Senate. But if you embrace our nation’s principle idea that government is to protect your liberty and not infringe on it, Steube has demonstrated he is more likely to do that than the others. We recommend: Greg Steube