Florida House District 14 candidates Garrett Dennis, Iris Hinton and Mincy Pollock (left to right) participate in the Jacksonville Today/Jacksonville Bar Association forum on Aug. 2. The fourth candidate, Kimberly Daniels, was unable to attend.
Published on August 4, 2022 at 9:25 pm
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Four Democrats are on the August ballot for the newly drawn state House District 14. The previous District 14 was represented by Democrat Angie Nixon, who is now running in District 13 after the Florida Legislature’s redistricting.
The race is closed, meaning only voters registered as Democrats can cast a ballot. That’s because of a last-minute, write-in candidate filing from Patrice Wynette Jones. No Republicans qualified in the race.
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Meet the candidates
Candidates are in alphabetical order; answers from three candidates are from the Jacksonville Today and Jacksonville Bar Association forum held on August 2. Kimberly Daniels was unable to attend the forum and provided emailed responses.
Kimberly Daniels (D)
Candidate bio: Kimberly Daniels represented District 14 in the Florida House from 2016 until she was defeated by Angie Nixon in 2020. She’s a former Jacksonville City Council at-large member and Army veteran. She’s also the founder of Spoken Word Ministries.
On her legislative priorities: “The Florida Chamber of Commerce named me the Legislature’s top Democrat for business and job growth. I funded several workforce training programs as a legislator and I’ll continue to invest in these programs. These programs are what prepare our workforce to thrive in jobs paying competitive wages while raising strong families. They also ensure our businesses continue to grow and thrive through the kind of innovation that will bolster our state’s economy.”
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On her local funding priorities: “As a legislator, I never forgot the reason I was in the room—the people who sent me there. As I’ve talked with my neighbors throughout HD14, they’ve shared with me they want to be free from housing and food insecurities. I look forward to delivering representation resulting in a fully funded Sadowski Fund and maintaining other programs that ensure everyone can access a strong quality of life.”
On affordable housing: “I’m prepared to go to work on day one to champion affordable housing opportunities like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program. This program awards incentives to developers who build new housing but commit to at least 50 years of affordable rent prices for lower-income families. Moreover, I will provide leadership in ensuring landlords honor this 50-year commitment, as well as addressing predatory landlords who engage in price gouging. It is a fact that some landlords are taking advantage of our most vulnerable families in these hard times. On top of this, investors are invading Black and brown neighborhoods in communities across the state. For example, investors own most of the properties in ZIP code 32209, which displaces the citizens who’ve lived here for years. It’s unfair; it needs to stop; and with my strong record of getting results in Tallahassee, I’m the most prepared to offer leadership on the issues impacting HD 14.”
On property insurance: “Florida’s homeowners need relief now. Insurance companies have been aggressive in increasing rates and reinsurance costs. As an experienced legislator, I firmly believe the Legislature must aggressively do what it takes to find additional funds to ensure relief.”
On abortion: “I am a woman and I’ve made serious decisions regarding my own body. I had an abortion at 15 years old. We cannot outright ban all abortions. For example, we know that some are medically necessary. These difficult decisions should not be left up to the government or politicians.”
On gun control: “The Constitution grants law-abiding citizens the right to bear arms. However, assault rifles in our streets are unneeded. Bottom line, guns are bad when they’re in the hands of people who do bad things.”
Legalizing recreational marijuana: “A person with a small amount of marijuana in Colorado or D.C. would have no criminal issues, but in Florida, he could be arrested. Marijuana usage is equal between all racial groups; yet blacks are disproportionately arrested and criminal justice-impacted. It’s past time for us to do the right thing for all people.”
Campaign cash: $17,975 reported to Florida Division of Elections
Campaign website: Kimberly Daniels Campaign
Garrett Dennis (D)
Candidate bio: Garrett Dennis has represented District 9 on the Jacksonville City Council since 2015, after working for more than a decade in the Duval Supervisor of Elections Office. He’s a former public school teacher and owns a construction company and a restaurant.
On what laws he’d file: “I’m in construction, and right now, we are having a problem with the workforce. And let me tell you, everybody that’s in school, they’re not going to college. And thank God that my parents instilled in me and I was able to go to Florida A&M University, but what if I was that child that didn’t have the means, resources or even the smarts to go to a university? I still needed to be a productive citizen in our city. … I will introduce legislation to where we have two tracks in our school system: a skilled track, where that child can learn a skill and they can go out and be a productive citizen, and an academic track where they go off to college.”
On his local funding priorities: “The Sadowski [Housing Trust] Fund generates about a half a billion dollars a year, and this year, the state Legislature gutted and only allocated $100 million for the entire state. … Some of that money can help build affordable housing, affordable apartments. So I will be geared and focused on legislation to increase the affordable housing stock.”
On affordable housing: “One of the first things that I would do when I can get to Tallahassee is to encourage the governor, along with the members of the House and members of the Senate, to declare a housing emergency. … Number two, we need to have serious insurance reform. Let me tell you what’s happening, the insurance rates are going up, and up, and up and up. When the insurance rates are going up, if you’re a landlord, guess who’s going to absorb that cost? It’s not going to be the landlord. The landlord is going to push those costs over to the tenant. So we need to have true insurance reform.”
On how to reform property insurance: “You have insurance companies that will only want to write for auto insurance, but they don’t want to write insurance for homeowners’ insurance. So they’re cherry picking who they want to write for, and what policies they want to write for. One of the things that we can do is force insurance companies, if you’re going to write an insurance policy for auto insurance, you also have to write an insurance policy for homeowners’ insurance. Why is that so important? Because you get a multi-line discount when a homeowner or individual is buying insurance. … That brings down the cost.”
On abortion: “It’s so unfortunate, the reversal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. Let me be clear, I support a woman’s right to choose. Under no circumstances, no vote, will I ever vote against a woman’s right or anyone’s right for their body. I think government needs to stay out of it and it’s a shame on the Supreme Court for their decision a few weeks ago. And if there’s a vote that comes before the House while I’m there, I will unequivocally vote against any other restrictions to abortions.”
On gun control: “I think there should be an absolute ban on assault rifles here in our state, period. Our family was struck with violence with an assault rifle, and until it hits home, you really don’t know the magnitude in which it affects a family, it affects a community. … When I go to Tallahassee, if legislation comes before me banning assault rifles, I will vote for that ban every single time.”
Legalizing recreational marijuana: “On City Council, several times, I ran a bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana here in our city. It wasn’t successful, but when I get to Tallahassee, I plan on taking it to the state. And let me go a little further. Marijuana usage between minorities and non-minorities are equal, but minorities, they’re arrested more than non-minorities as it relates to marijuana. Not only that, we’re talking about the economic issue, we’re talking about crime issues. When a police officer pulls someone over [for marijuana] it takes a police officer off the street for four hours when they could be out fighting real crime.”
Campaign cash: $116,093 (includes $54,493 reported to Florida Division of Elections and $61,600 for his PAC, Forward Progress)
Candidate website: Garrett Dennis for State House District 14
Iris Hinton (D)
Candidate bio: Longtime community activist Iris Hinton was involved in efforts to clean up and protect the neighborhood surrounding Northwest Jacksonville’s Fairfax Street Wood Treaters Superfund site, which was contaminated by arsenic-based industrial materials.
On what laws she’d file: “One thing I would like to introduce to my counterparts will be addressing unserved communities and move forward. Not just addressing it, let’s do it. … I would like to see a generation of people change the next generation, so they won’t have to go through all this negative that is going on now. Our children deserve better, and the only way our children gonna have better is that we have to do better. We have to make the laws, force the law and even argue with it.”
On her local funding priorities: “One of my priority projects is always the environment. This city still has not addressed contamination sites, and they’ve been here too long. So before we can get affordable houses, we need to get clean land, clean water. Then affordable houses. That issue is one that’s long overdue; I will be pushing, let’s get this contamination cleaned up in the city of Jacksonville, especially on the Northside.”
On affordable housing: “We really need to do the research and see how we got in this situation. … I think during the COVID, when we had the COVID here, it made a lot of difference in where we are right now. So to address that, we need to look at how the state can really sit down and enforce laws, rules and regulations to make the change to cap increase. It’s something that we all need to sit down, and talk about and address. It’s just not a one person issue here, it’s an issue that has to be addressed, and we need to sit down and address it.”
On property insurance: “The insurance [companies] should be held liable for not doing due diligence towards the client simply because they pay all year. They pay. So when it comes to a claim, it’s just so many people’s hands in there. In this claim, you got the insurance, policy holder and the risk management person. So they have to go through all these entities. … It’s something that we all need to sit down and look at it because there’s red tape everywhere, and now our people, in this community, everywhere, is suffering.”
On abortion: “Every woman, no matter what — who she is, what she is, what color, nothing — she has a right to make our own decisions. … It’s the right of the woman. She knows what’s best for her, whatever went on in her situation, her life. We are on the outside and we can’t judge people. This is the United States of America. Why are we judging people? People are people. So, no, I won’t be part of taking a woman’s right. She has the right. It is her God-given right.”
On gun control: “I think a person who owns a gun, they need to have a permit. You need to have a permit to carry a gun, that’s very important. The reason why I say that, because if it gets stolen, it’s used in crime, whatever, then that gun owner, it can be traced back. … The way the gun violence is here in this city, and all over, there should be a law to continue to have everyone have a permit.”
Legalizing recreational marijuana: “You need rules, regulation and health. When you got your health you can do about anything. But when you see people now in 32209 and 32208 ZIP codes, we have a lot of males and females walking around, spaced out. And I’m saying to myself, what are they on? So, it has its good and it has its bad. For me to go forward on it, I want to see the research, what it does, truly, and the economic advantage, the money that will come with it. Would it help us? Would it help us really grow or would it cause us to have more problems?”
Campaign cash: $1,801 reported to the Florida Division of Elections
Candidate website: N/A
Mincy Pollock (D)
Candidate bio: Mincy Pollock is an insurance brokerage owner and is pursuing an executive master’s degree in public policy from Jacksonville University. He’s served on Jax Chamber boards and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Community Engagement Task Force.
On what laws he’d file: “One of the things that stimulates our state is economic development, and one of the ways that that happens is through workforce development. And so for me, it would be from the standpoint of projects derived around designing workforce programs that lead with public-private partnerships and early intervention in schools. … I’m letting you know now I’m not going to Tallahassee to fight; I’m going to Tallahassee to win, have conversations and come up with some programs designed around workforce reform.”
On his local funding priorities: “We still have millions of people uninsured in the state of Florida. I’ll take my experience in that space, and work toward making health insurance available for all. One of the ways that we can work in that space is in the Medicaid expansion or Medicaid reform. … I’m the only candidate to lead a Medicaid expansion initiative before. I’ve been there. I’ll go back and finish the work that we started to make sure that everybody in Florida can have quality healthcare.”
On affordable housing: “I can relate to the scary times that [Floridians] are definitely facing right now, because I’ve been there. We’ve got to treat this like the crisis that it really is, like a triage and the trauma situation. … When I get to Tallahassee, I want to take a look at the Sadowski Fund. It was a fund that was raided. It was a fund that was set aside for times like this, to have subsidy and rent relief for people. I want to take a look at that for some reforms.”
On property insurance: “We’ve got to find a happy medium, a way that we can make it attractive for other insurance companies to come to our market. … Citizens, our pseudo insurance company, becomes the only choice. But if we can make it more friendly for other insurance companies to come here, we can have a competitive market and then homeowners will have the ability to make choices. All about choices. And then they can have affordable policies, and be able to stay in their homes and have that peace that they need.”
On abortion: “I want women to be able to have that right for choice, and nothing stopping them, whatsoever. I’ve got a wife and a daughter and I understand. I don’t want anybody making decisions for them, for my grandbaby. I don’t want anybody making decisions for them.”
On gun control: “I used to be that person that was like, ‘Oh I don’t need a gun, nobody needs a gun, you know, the angels will just protect me.’ Until that one late night I was working, I was attacked outside of my office. That was a wake-up call for me. I went and took some lessons. I went and got my concealed weapons permit, and I stand with people that believe, and I agree, that we all deserve the right to be able to bear arms. But … just like I don’t think that somebody needs a rocket launcher or a tank, I don’t think that individual citizens need assault weapons.”
Legalizing recreational marijuana: “That would be a great opportunity for Florida as we look at bouncing back from COVID, and the possible deficit that our state could possibly be in, having an additional source of revenue like the legalization of marijuana is something that is worth exploring. If you look at criminal reform as well, as you take a look at the legalization of marijuana, our jails or prisons are filled with people that shouldn’t necessarily be there. … We lose millions of dollars every year out of our state for arrest and for housing people who shouldn’t be there.”
Campaign cash: Campaign cash: $77,671 (includes $58,905 reported to Florida Division of Elections and $18,766 for his PAC, All Things Common)
Candidate website: Vote Mincy
