Endorsement: In Democratic primary for Senate District 33, vote for Rosalind Osgood
Voters in central Broward will soon elect a new state senator to replace one of the Broward legislative delegation’s most experienced members, Perry Thurston, who resigned in the middle of a term to run for Congress.
In a special primary election on Jan.
11, Democrats in District 33 will choose between Rosalind Osgood and Terry Ann Williams Edden.
The superior choice is Osgood, a nineyear member of the Broward County School Board and its current chairman. Along with her colleagues, Osgood was targeted for political retribution by Gov. Ron DeSantis for her insistence that teachers and students wear masks at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Osgood was right to make public health priority, and she will be an advocate for improved public education in Tallahassee.
Osgood, 56, of Fort Lauderdale, is an associate pastor of New Mount Olive Baptist Church, one of the oldest and largest Black churches in Broward, and CEO of Mount Olive Development Corp., which operates community-based programs. She disclosed a salary of $119,584 in that position.
Williams Edden, 55, of Pompano Beach, is a legal assistant in the domestic violence unit of the Broward state attorney’s office and owner of Edden Consulting, which she said helps people navigate legal problems such as evictions. She has run for office three times previously, most recently for this Senate seat in 2020. She also ran for the County Commission in 2014 and for state Senate in 2008.
The Y-shaped district, which will soon be redrawn in redistricting, covers the heart of Broward County. It is bisected by I-95 and Florida’s Turnpike and includes all or part of 11 cities. The half-million residents of this majority Black and Democratic district will have no representation during the upcoming legislative session, which begins Jan. 11, the same day as the primary election.
Osgood has overcome severe hardships. Much earlier in life, she battled cocaine addiction that led to two drug arrests and has been drug-free since Dec. 2, 1989, as she noted on her Sun Sentinel questionnaire. She was ordained in 2002, and received a master’s and Ph.D. in public administration from Nova Southeastern University.
Voters elected her three times to the School Board, and she has been a community volunteer for many years.
In a one-hour recorded interview with the Sun Sentinel editorial board, Osgood said she would try to work cooperatively with Republicans in Tallahassee, which will be harder than it sounds.
“We don’t talk,” Osgood said, “and we know that that’s not in the best interests of our citizenry.”
She is right that excessive partisanship often works to the detriment of Floridians and does not accurately reflect the reality that the state is closely divided between both parties, and that nearly a third of all voters don’t identify with either party. Florida needs more legislators who will sincerely understand different viewpoints without compromising their principles.
Williams Edden offers herself as an advocate for equal rights, fair housing, better economic opportunity and health and criminal justice reform. In our editorial board interview, she expressed anger and hostility toward Osgood and said Broward needs more new faces in Tallahassee.
“I’m just as qualified as anybody else,” Williams Edden said. “It’s time to bring in somebody new, not the same recycle bin.”
Osgood has broader public support. She reported $59,351 in campaign contributions through Nov. 30, including dozens of individuals who gave $100 or less, a sign of grassroots support. William Edden reported contributions of $7,850 for the same period.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Joseph Carter in the general election March 8. The 2022 legislative session is scheduled to end three days later, on March 11, and that’s no coincidence. By delaying this special election, DeSantis created an empty Senate seat and reduced the Senate Democratic caucus from 16 to 15 members, which could make it harder for Democrats to slow the Republican agenda.
The learning curve in the Legislature is steep, but Osgood’s experience gives her a strong head start. We encourage the Democratic nominee to spend time in Tallahassee this session to learn the issues, get to know her colleagues and gain a head start on serving the people of Broward County, who are wrongly and unfairly being denied representation through no fault of their own.
Besides, the winner of this special election will serve only through November. The redrawn seat, possibly with a different district number, will be up for election again in the fall.
In the Democratic primary for District 33 in the Florida Senate, the Sun Sentinel recommends Rosalind Osgood.