The composite picture above tells the story of my legislative service as well as my motivation for seeking office in the first place. We must protect our unique and sensitive environment while seeking to create clean jobs and a vibrant economy, all while seeking excellence for our children and their grandchildren. Each is possible if we have the political will.

Since I first began running in 2006, I have championed the idea of excellence in all we do. Our state is ranked at the bottom of so many indicators.  From infant mortality and child well being to high school graduation rates, our state is settling for mediocre.

I have offered solutions that include collecting the billions in taxes our state is already owed from internet purchases.  I have also proposed creating bigger incentives for film production through the Film, Entertainment and Television Caucus, which I formed in the state legislature. This bipartisan caucus is designed to focus legislative energies on bringing more film production to Florida. 

The University of West Florida says Florida will reap $1.44 in tax revenue for every $1.00 it gives in film incentives, and it doesn't have to spend the dollar until the $1.44 is already in the state treasury.

Some have misconstrued my vote on HB1219 in 2009.  I am not in favor of drilling for oil near our coasts. Anyone who suggests otherwise is wrong. I am the leading proponent of renewable energy funding in the Florida House, and I was the only member of the Legislature to pass money for renewables during the 2009 session.  

I encourage you to learn more about how I have voted and where I stand on many issues by clicking on the MY View tab to the right.

            

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          Thanksgiving Proclamation

As we turn to families and friends this Thanksgiving, I want to share with you the original proclamation by Abraham Lincoln, who on October 3, 1863 asked all Americans to acknowledge our blessings as one people. Happy Thanksgiving. 

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day

October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.  To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. 

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.  Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.  Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people.  I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.   And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

A. Lincoln