Friday, June 24 is the qualifying deadline for state and federal candidates. We've known about many for months. A few jumped into their races at the last minute (Marco Rubio, anyone?)
But one candidate who wasn't necessarily on our radar — though he has run for office a couple of times — was Joe Redner, the outspoken activist who earned much of his fame through his ownership of the Mons Venus, a well-known strip club on North Dale Mabry.
On Friday, Redner qualified to run as a non-party-affiliated (NPA) candidate in the race for the newly created Senate District 18 seat.
That seat's heir apparent is State Rep. Dana Young, a Republican currently representing Florida's 60th District in the Florida House, though the district's demographics may favor Democrat Bob Buesing, a Tampa lawyer.
Redner said he's running to challenge special interests that influence lawmakers to write laws that are bad for the environment, education and society as a whole. He said the state of affairs has gotten so bad that voters may rail against the status quo.
“Every time I open the paper I see a problem,” he told CL Friday. “I think people are tired, they're looking for an alternative, they've got the same stuff over and over and over again…We've got legislators who don't care to read the budget. And they can't… because they don't have enough time before they vote. So many things up there are so glaring, and are so pressing, and that we need to deal with right now because people are suffering.”
The first thing he mentioned, was the spate of policies that are detrimental to the environment, namely the release of fertilizer and algae-ridden storm water runoff from Lake Okeechobee into coastal waterways on either side of the state as well as Governor Rick Scott's administration's refusal to use the words "climate change."
“Our environment is going to hell in a handbasket,” he said. “What they're doing to the Indian River Lagoon, what they're doing to Lake Okeechobee, what Scott and the Kochs are doing to… St. John's River. I think he's in cahoots with Georgia Pacific (the paper company).”
He said leadership's partiality to large utility companies and other polluters is why the state's approach to renewable energy is backwards.
“Some of the richest people are writing the legislation," he said. "That keeps them in business, and that's why they don't want to promote solar, and we can't have it in the Sunshine State.”
The race has four candidates (Sheldon Upthegrove, another NPA, also qualified). Redner said it's not really fair to view his candidacy as potentially splitting the Democratic vote even though his positions are more similar to those of Buesing than those of Young.
And, he said, while those candidates will likely benefit from party money and extensive fundraising, he feels strange asking supporters for money to help his run — yet he's not a fan of being labeled as a self-funding candidate.
“After Trump I don't think I like the words 'self-funding,'” he said. “I have a problem asking people that I have more than for money. I have a link for donations. I will not take special interest money. I'm not going to actively solicit the money."
Plus, he said, he's not convinced he's going to need all that much money to pull it off.
"I don't believe it's going to actually take as much money as people think to run this thing,” he said.
This article appears in Jun 23-30, 2016.