Tallahassee has become adept at passing anti-trans legislation without even having a transgender member in either the state House or Senate. Ashley Brundage is looking to change that.
“I tell people I’m from Florida, and they’re like, ‘Wait, are you staying?’ I tell them that Florida is safe. Florida is open for business. Florida is an amazing place,” she told OutSFL in an interview during a campaign event.
Brundage won the democratic primary for District 65 in August and, if elected in November, will become the first trans person elected to the Florida House of Representatives. The primary was tough, and the general election will be even harder.
The district is purple, and money is tight. Brundage says she needs to raise $200,000 before the state party will step in to help win the seat. But she believes a win in November would flip the script on Florida.
“When I get elected, every single news agency will be reporting that Florida is changing. People are going to be thinking of that. They’re not going to be thinking about LGBTQ tourism not on the website. They’ll be thinking about how the voters said Florida can be inclusive.”
Brundage is running against Republican Karen Gonzalez Pittman, an incumbent, who first won election November 8, 2022.
Brundage’s district is in the Tampa area and is filled with a diverse constituency that she loves.
“I love [my district]. It has almost all the waterfront parks of Hillsborough County. We have McDill Air Force Base. In 2015, I was a keynote speaker on the base talking about LGBTQ rights.”
Brundage travels the state and the world, speaking to businesses and organizations about leadership and empowerment.
She is ready to get to work. Brundage is already drafting her first piece of legislation, the Insurance Accountability Act. “The property insurance crisis isn’t being addressed.”
Indeed, premiums and deductibles continue to rise unchecked.
Brundage says Pittman is a pawn of insurance industry lobbyists who voted for a billion dollar insurance bailout. “My opponent had the audacity to go on the news and brag about having three town halls with a consumer insurance advocate and then said ‘maybe’ she’ll pass something next session.”
Coming from a business background and being a small business owner herself, Brundage says she understands the squeeze put on small businesses. Rising insurance rates are just part of the problem. High rents (for commercial and residential) and increasingly expensive capital investments are pricing the little guys out of the state.
The election is Nov. 5.
