GOP’s Plasencia and Collins share views before District 50 primary
The race for the GOP nomination for the House District 50 seat is a rematch from 2016, when state Rep. Rene Plasencia defeated George Collins in the primary by about 500 votes.
Plasencia went on to win the general election that year and is now seeking a third term.
The district covering east Orange and northern Brevard is a near toss-up in registrations, with Republicans accounting for 35 percent of the electorate and Democrats at 34 percent.
The winner of the Aug. 28 primary faces Democrat Pam Dirschka in the Nov. 6 general election.
Plasencia and Collins both said education and the economy are crucial issues to their campaigns.
Plasencia said he wants to eliminate the “mandated merit pay system for teachers,” which counts 33 percent of a teacher’s merit pay based on students’ test scores.
“It hasn’t worked in Orange County and it hasn’t worked in the state of Florida,” he said. He sponsored a bill to do so this year — also making teacher evaluations a local issue — but it died in a subcommittee.
Collins said he believes in charter schools and increased technical and vocational school options for non-college bound students.
“That gives some young people more options,” he said, also creating a pathway for jobs in manufacturing connected to the space industry.
With the state’s unemployment rate hovering at 3.4 percent, Plasencia said the state needs to continue incentivizing the creation of high-wage jobs to boost stagnant wages, including on the Space Coast, at UCF’s modeling and simulation center and Medical City at Lake Nona.
Collins said he supports cutting regulations after hearing from small business owners who are bogged down in paperwork. One such measure he favors cutting is the tax on commercial leases. Florida is the only state with such a tax, according to Politifact.
He also favors campaign finance reform that would make spending by political committees transparent.
Plasencia cited an ability to get bills passed, including: the so-called “Scott Pine Bill” in 2016 that allows the spouses of law-enforcement officers killed on duty to opt into a defined benefit pension; a 2017 measure that allows parents to take kids out of class during the day to receive treatment for autism; and pushed a bill requiring mandatory recess for elementary-aged children, though that measure was ultimately lumped in with a larger education package.
Collins said school safety shouldn’t “include taking away gun rights,” a reference to Plasencia’s vote in favor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act.
The law brought forward by Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature banned bump stocks, limited rifle sales to those over 21 and required a three-day waiting period
“I think the bill was voted in haste,” Collins said. “I think a lot of things need to be looked at besides gun control.” to buy rifles. Plasencia said he wasn’t excited about everything in the bill but celebrated $67 million toward providing a mentalhealth counselor in every school.
“As a whole, it did more good than bad,” he said, noting legislators have to vote for or against a bill in full. “There is nothing in that bill that is putting any citizen in our state at a disadvantage.”
Collins also said he would oppose so-called sanctuary cities and counties, knocking Plasencia for not being present last year for the vote banning them.
Plasencia said he missed that vote when he missed a week of the annual legislative session because he had the flu.
Plasencia has far outspent Collins — nearly 18 to 1 — and has $43,369.62 on hand, while Collins has $7,256.33.