State Sen. Perry Thurston, former Commissioner Priscilla Taylor enter race to replace Alcee Hastings
State Sen. Perry Thurston said Monday he’s formally entering the race to succeed the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings.
Thurston, who lives in Broward County, has been an unofficial candidate for months.
“The residents of District 20 deserve to have a proven Democrat in Congress that will continue the fight for social and racial justice, income inequality, safer neighborhoods, strong public schools and access to healthcare. My record in the Florida Legislature shows I am ready to be the champion of District 20 and take our fight to the halls of Congress, so our community continues to be heard clearly,” Thurston said in a written statement.
Former Palm Beach County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor is also running.
Hastings died on April 6, accelerating the plans of multiple elected officials who had, in effect, been running in the district which takes in most of the African American and Caribbean American communities in Broward and Palm Beach counties. In late 2018, Hastings was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Thurston, a former state representative, was elected Democratic leader in the House by his colleagues when he served there. Now a state senator, he was slated to become the Democratic leader there following the 2022 elections.
But running for Congress means giving up that position and leaving the Senate. Under Florida’s resign-torun law, Thurston will have to submit an irrevocable resignation from the Senate to qualify as a congressional candidate. Gov. Ron DeSantis hasn’t set an election schedule.
One side effect of Thurston’s decision will be a scramble among candidates who will want to replace him in the Florida Senate.
Thurston,
60, whose base of support is in northwest
Fort Lauderdale, comes from a well-known political family in Broward County.
He is the nephew of Lauderhill Mayor Ken Thurston.
An attorney, Perry Thurston was an unsuccessful candidate for the 2014 nomination for Florida attorney general, and previously was an unsuccessful candidate for judge. He is widely seen as a top-tier candidate for the congressional seat, along with Broward County Commissioners Dale Holness and Barbara Sharief.
MSD controversy
As a senator, Thurston was involved in the controversy over the removal of former Sheriff Scott Israel.
DeSantis removed Israel in 2019, citing failures before and during the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre.
When the issue came before the Florida Senate, Thurston — like most Democratic senators — sided with Israel and voted against upholding the Republican governor’s suspension of the Democratic sheriff.
Hunter Pollack, whose sister Meadow was killed at Stoneman Douglas, posted a picture of Thurston on the Senate floor while senators were debating Israel’s fate. It showed Thurston leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, generating outrage from family members who said Thurston was sleeping. He said he wasn’t asleep. “I was thinking about my speech,” he said at the time.
He also got into a dispute with Max Schachter, whose son Alex was killed in the shooting. During the debate, one of the arguments Thurston made against removing Israel was that the commission investigating the Parkland shooting voted against removing the sheriff from office. “When the issue came of removing the sheriff, they unanimously voted not to,” Thurston said during the debate. “So we’re going to second guess them? We’re going to disregard them.”
Schachter, a member of that investigatory commission, said Thurston wasn’t telling the truth because the commission never voted on the question of removing Israel. “He lied,” Schachter said.
Thurston pushed back hard against what he characterized as an “unmitigated attackbythestridentvoices” on the commission.
Priscilla Taylor
Taylor is also running, according to a filing last week with the Federal Election Commission.
She’s long been interested in running for Congress. In 2016, she announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in a congressional district that takes in northern Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties, but withdrew before the primary.
Taylor, 71, was an elected Port of Palm Beach commissioner before winning the first of three terms as a state representative. When Palm Beach County Commissioner Addie Greene resigned, then-Gov. Charlie Crist appointed Taylor to the county position in 2009. Taylor was elected to the County Commission in 2012 and ran unopposed in 2012. But in 2016, she was defeated in the Democratic primary by Mack Bernard, who was then a state representative and remains a county commissioner. In 2019, Taylor ran for mayor of West Palm Beach. She finished third in a threeway race.