By Matt Wiley
Lisa Montelione’s second term as the District 7 Tampa City Council member has just begun, but murmurs have arisen about a possible bid to take on Dist. 63 Rep. Shawn Harrison (R-New Tampa, see story on page 4) for his seat in the Florida Legislature in Tallahassee in the 2016 election. Rep. Harrison also served two terms on the Tampa City Council representing New Tampa, before taking a run at what is now the Dist. 63 seat in 2010. He was followed by fellow New Tampa resident Joseph Caetano in 2007, who lost to Montelione in 2011.
Although she has not confirmed that she is running, Montelione (who would run as a Democrat) says that she hasn’t yet ruled out the possibility.
“It’s a consideration for me to leave the City Council, which I absolutely love,” she says. “But, I haven’t made a decision yet about whether or not to jump into that (Dist. 63) race.”
She says that the previous legislative session is a reason that she would want to head to Tallahassee, with its impasse about whether or not to accept billions of dollars in federal funds to expand Medicaid, which kept the state legislature from approving a budget during the regular session, which officially ended May 1 (although the Florida House actually went home early, on April 28).
“People need to step up and care about the citizens and the functioning of the government,” Montelione says. “I think the City Council has done that in the last four years and has gotten more engaged with its constituents, and that comes first. I don’t think that the current (state) legislature feels the same way.“
She says that if she decides to run, her goal would be to always put her constituents’ needs first.
“Somebody needs to go to Tallahassee with one thing in mind, and that’s the citizens that (they) were elected to represent,” Montelione explains. “I don’t think there’s a whole lot of that going on up there.”
If Montelione were to run and win, she’d officially be our area’s representative the day after the election and would no longer be able to retain her Tampa City Council seat.
“It’s a big decision,” Montelione says. “I’d be giving up a lot. I don’t know that I’m finished yet (on City Council). I like taking my time to make the right decision, so I’m not going to rush in just for the sake of rushing in.”
According to the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections office, already filed for the 2016 District 63 race are Rep. Harrison (the incumbent, of course), who already has $23,000 raised for his next campaign, and Democrat Mike Reedy, who filed in January and so far has raised nearly $8,000.
Reedy currently serves as the statewide business organizer for Equality Florida, a non-profit LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender) advocacy group. Reedy already has endorsements from Florida Dist. 70 Rep. Darryl Rouson (D-St. Petersburg), Dist. 68 Rep. Dwight Dudley (D-St. Petersburg), Dist. 65 Rep. Carl Zimmermann (D-Palm Harbor), former Dist. 63 Rep. Mark Danish (D-New Tampa) and former Dist. 2 Tampa City Council member Mary Mulhern.
For more info about the Dist. 63 Florida House race, please visit DOS.Elections.MyFlorida.com.
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