Rod Smith running for State Senate

KRISTINA ORREGO/Alachua County Today

Surrounded by supporters, Rod Smith announced his state senate candidacy Tuesday.

GAINESVILLE - Rod Smith is running for his former state senate seat.

The Alachua resident and previous gubernatorial candidate announced his candidacy for Florida Senate District 8 Tuesday morning outside the Alachua County Civil Courthouse.

Smith said he is tired of people yelling at each other to fix problems.

“We’re not getting things done because we’ve reached a point where too many people would rather see a problem go unsolved than see the other side get credit for solving it,” he told the gathered crowd

Alachua County is currently part of District 7, but redrawn district lines will include all of Alachua, Putnam, and a large portion of Marion counties in District 8.

Smith, a Democrat, is the second candidate to announce within the past week, joining current Florida Representative Keith Perry, a Republican, who announced his candidacy last Thursday.

Smith works as an attorney for the Gainesville law firm Avera & Smith.

His political career includes serving as State Attorney for the Florida Eighth Judicial Circuit from 1992 until 2000, when he was elected State Senator for District 14, an office he held until he unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2006.

In 2010, Smith ran for Lieutenant Governor on a ticket with Alex Sink as gubernatorial candidate, losing to Rick Scott. 

He was also the head of the Florida Democratic Party from 2010 to 2013.

Smith said that while most politicians now are motivated to please sponsors and succeed in polls, he wants to focus on issues that directly impact families.

Some of his goals include improving the public school system, promoting clean water and providing accessible and affordable health care.

Smith, who grew up on a farm in Alachua, said he’ll also be focusing on improving community colleges, praising them as the ultimate way to further higher education.

“I know what hard work can do, but I also know that some people have not had the opportunities that I’ve had,” he said. “Our job is not to fix the outcome for people, just to make sure that everybody gets to the starting line and [has] the chance to succeed”

He said his decision to run for senator again was driven by the need to see local areas, such as Putnam County and the east side of Alachua County, prosper economically.

“People at this university, the health care system, the public schools here locally - we are not moving forward at the rate we need to be moving forward,” he said.

Smith emphasized the importance he places on considering both the Republican and Democratic stances on issues.

Partisanship only leads to a deadlock, he said, and deadlock doesn’t move people forward in resolving issues.

“I think almost everybody, [even] my worst enemy, would say I tried to work hard to reach across the aisle to find people of talent, and they exist on both sides of the aisle.”

In an interview, Smith recalled several times he’s worked with members of the Republican Party to make important legal decisions.

He said one such decision was the passing of the Medical Malpractice Amendment in November 2004, when he and a coalition of Republicans brought it to fruition.

The amendment prohibits the issuing of medical licenses to doctors with multiple malpractice incidents.

Smith also said he and Tom Lee, a Republican, worked closely together during the Terri Schiavo case.

Schiavo’s case led to a vast number of legal ramifications dealing with whether the government should intervene in the decision to keep a comatose person alive.

After Schiavo, who suffered a cardiac arrest in 1990 that left her in a vegetative state, had her feeding tube removed for the second time, the federal court passed “Terri’s Law.”

The law allowed then-governor Jeb Bush to order that her feeding tube be re-inserted.

“Terri’s Law” was overturned in May of 2004.

“It turned out to be nine democrats and eight republicans [who] stood together on that issue,” Smith said. “We believe that families, and not governments, should make life and death decisions regarding their loved ones."

Smith said he’s even seen the effects of overly-strict partisanship on a personal level. When he attended the funeral of a chair of the Republican Party who passed away, people told him they were surprised he was there.

“I said, ‘Why would you be surprised?’” he said. “My view is that we are free men first, we are Americans next, we are Floridians next. All those things count before we start talking about which party we’re in.”

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