Florida Senate District 19 Democrats face off

The Republican National Convention began Monday; on MidPoint we continue our look at this year’s election with audio from candidates running for a Florida Senate seat that covers parts of four counties.

Four Democrats are running for a state Senate district that’s been gerrymandered to snake through parts of South Pinellas, Central Hillsborough and northwestern Manatee Counties.

Term-limited Democrat Arthenia Joyner currently represents District 19, which has a large proportion of African-American voters. The winner of the August Democratic Primary is expected to easily beat Republican John Houman. The four Democrats participated in a forum last week hosted by the local NAACP at the Enoch Davis Center in St. Petersburg.

We played audio of the beginning of that forum, including introductory statements and questions about vouchers for private schools, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and the restoration of voting rights for ex-felons.

The forum was moderated by La Gaceta publisher Patrick Manteiga. You’ll hear first from State Representative Ed Narain, then State Representative Betty Reed, then Attorney Augie Ribeiro, and finally, State Representative Darryl Rouson, who spoke further away from the microphone; the audio was slightly for time, including fading out some applause.

Thanks to WMNF News volunteer Samuel Johnson for the audio. You can watch video of three of these candidates speaking at a different forum on Friday.

Here’s a bit more from the NAACP Florida Senate candidate forum with questions about prison privatization, police shooting of black men.

We have a special show planned next week during the Democratic National Convention: WMNF News MidPoint Monday will interview a Stetson University College of Law professor about corporate power and corporate personhood. That’s at 12:06 p.m. ET on Monday July 25.

At the beginning of this show we played listener comments about our last show; we talked about the Florida algae blooms — an ongoing environmental disaster in south Florida. We also heard from Tampa’s Mayor and Police Chief about the Black Lives Matter movement and police killings.