Hudson, Passidomo tangle in big-money battle

By LLOYD DUNKELBERGER
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, August 26, 2016.......... Two Naples Republicans are locked in a costly primary battle to succeed state Sen. Garrett Richter, who has represented the Collier County area since 2008.

Rep. Matt Hudson, 50, who has led the House budget subcommittee on health-care spending for the last half-dozen years, is facing Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, 63, who chairs the House Civil Justice Subcommittee, in the primary Tuesday in Senate District 28.

The winner is virtually certain to replace Richter, a Naples Republican who is leaving the 40-member chamber because of term limits after serving as a top lieutenant to Senate President Andy Gardiner.

Senate District 28 includes all of Collier and Hendry counties and a chunk of Lee County. It is diverse, ranging from Naples, one of Florida's wealthiest communities and the hometown of Gov. Rick Scott, to rural areas of Hendry County linked to Florida's sugar and citrus industries.

"This has been a very, very tough campaign with two people who really want this position," Passidomo said at a recent candidate forum hosted by the Naples Daily News.

The campaign has been tough, at least in part, because the candidates have used a blitz of television ads and campaign mailers to question each other's conservative credentials, although each lawmaker has been well within the conservative mainstream of the Florida House.

Passidomo has been forced to defend a contribution by her husband to Democratic President Barack Obama's campaign. She said her husband, who, like Passidomo, is a lawyer, did it at the request of a client who was a friend of Vice President Joe Biden, who was holding a fundraiser. She said she had nothing to do with the check, saying it was "chauvinistic" of Hudson to bring her husband into the campaign rather than focusing on her six-year House record.

Passidomo has also had to explain several votes against abortion bills, including opposition to a measure requiring women to have ultrasounds before the procedure. She said she was "misled" about the bill, assuming it was imposing a financial mandate on women. She said she would vote for the bill if she had another chance, while pointing out her support for another half-dozen measures placing restrictions on abortions, including requiring a 24-hour waiting period.

Hudson, a real-estate broker, has been criticized for voting for more than $2 billion in taxes and fees, including a $1-a-pack cigarette tax, as part of the 2009 state budget. Hudson said he was in the GOP majority in supporting the budget, which used motor-vehicle fees and the tobacco tax to make up for a deep revenue decline caused by the recession. Lawmakers later rolled back some of the vehicle fees as state finances improved.

Hudson has also been slammed for voting for some of former Gov. Charlie Crist's climate-change legislation, including a bill to create a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions. Hudson said the measure never took effect because it was contingent on the adoption of regulations, which never occurred.

And he took umbrage at being linked to Crist, a former Republican who is now a Democrat, repeating his observation that Crist is "more devoid of principles than any other human I have ever met."

The charges and countercharges are being amplified in the race because each candidate is well financed, with Hudson estimating a total of $3 million may be spent in the primary before it's over. The winner of the primary will face only write-in opponents in November.

The candidates have combined to raise more than $1.1 million, with Passidomo at nearly $620,000 in contributions as of Thursday and Hudson at $520,000. Passidomo's total included a personal $100,000 contribution, which she said she made to underscore her commitment to the race.

Those totals are bolstered by another $1.3 million in contributions flowing through political committees linked to the candidates. Hudson's committee had raised $946,000 through Thursday, while Passidomo's committee had raised $400,000.

On the issues, neither candidate has endorsed incoming Senate President Joe Negron's proposal to buy specific tracts of land south of Lake Okeechobee to try to address problems with polluted water being discharged into rivers east and west of the lake.

Hudson said he would like to see other projects related to the Everglades and the lake completed before embarking on another major initiative.

"Why don't we finish all the things we have started to see if, in fact, those things work," he said.

He also noted the state's commitment to provide $200 million in funding for Everglades restoration each year as part of the new "Legacy Florida" law, which he said the state can use to urge a greater financial commitment from the federal government for the projects.

Passidomo said she wants to see a "holistic approach," with more cooperation and less "finger-pointing," noting the lake and Everglades problems have evolved over a number of decades.

"There is not one silver bullet or magic bullet. We have to try a myriad of things,” she said.

Both candidates support a Richter bill that would have allowed the state to regulate "fracking" as a technology for extracting oil and gas in the state. The legislation, which faced heavy opposition from environmentalists who worried it could open the door to the controversial drilling method, failed narrowly in the Senate.

Hudson said he supports developing a Florida-based study of the chemicals used in the process to guide the regulations, while adding he views fracking as a "property rights" issue for landowners.

Passidomo said she supports fracking regulation along with allowing local governments to regulate the activity through zoning.

Both candidates oppose the expansion of Medicaid in the state under the federal Affordable Care Act, although Passidomo said she is interested in finding a way to provide health care to the "working poor" who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to use the federal health-care exchange.

Among his accomplishments in the Legislature, Hudson has been an advocate for programs aimed at helping Floridians with Alzheimer's disease and other dementia conditions, saying state funding has increased by nearly 60 percent for those programs in the last six years. The state awarded $3 million in research funding last December as a result of legislation that Hudson supported.

Passidomo has played a major role in passing legislation to reform the state's guardianship system, where seniors who cannot care for themselves end up with legal guardians. Along with Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, Passidomo help craft bills in the last two sessions to improve the guardianship system and curb abuses.

Passidomo has won the support of key Senate leaders in her primary campaign, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, and Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, two potential future Senate presidents.

Although he has not formally endorsed her, Gov. Scott has appeared in a Passidomo commercial and has released a statement in support of her.