Ryan Ray
When Rep. Brad Drake agreed to step aside and allow Rep. Marti Coley to finish out her tenure in the House following 2011 redistricting, he probably figured her former HD 5 seat was all his for four terms.
But Bev Kilmer has announced she will not extend Drake the same professional courtesy Coley received when she and Drake were drawn into the same district.
Kilmer, a former fellow Republican state representative, filed paperwork to run for the deep-red Panhandle House seat on Wednesday according to Division of Elections records.
Kilmer’s candidacy was first noted by Legislative IQ powered by LobbyTools.
Kilmer represented a similar district from 1999 until 2005 before leaving the Legislature to pursue the Congressional seat then held by Democrat Allen Boyd.
Boyd trounced Kilmer by 62 percent to 38 percent margin in a 2004 presidential cycle which saw Republicans gain three seats nationally.
Drake has represented the broad mid-Panhandle seat since 2014. HD 5 takes in four and a half largely rural counties: Holmes, Jackson, Walton, and Washington, plus part of Bay.
The first-term legislator is on his second go-around in Tallahassee, previously serving from 2008-2012 in a different incarnation of HD 5 altered by redistricting.
Drake is perhaps best known for his support for bringing back the electric chair and firing squads as form of capital punishment, an idea he says he got from a constituent at a local Waffle House.
“I say let’s end the debate. We still have ‘Old Sparky.’ And if that doesn’t suit the criminal, then we will provide them a .45-caliber lead cocktail instead,” Drake said in a statement back in 2011.
Drake defeated relative political novice Jan Hooks in a GOP primary last years 76 percent to 24 percent, but Kilmer is poised to bring considerably more campaign cash to bear in the 2016 contest along with her substantial experience in the House.
Kilmer will likely look to appeal to the district’s coastal areas for support, including Seaside and Santa Rosa Beach, since there isn’t much room on Drake’s right flank. He is popular with the inland, rural aspect of the district, where Republican nominee Mitt Romney took 73 percent of the vote against President Obama in 2012.
A plurality of the population lives in such I-10 metropolises as Marianna, Chipley, Bonifay, and DeFuniak Springs.
One comment
Mitzi Prater
March 4, 2016 at 3:16 pm
Representative Kilmer will likely take more than just the coastal areas of District 5. The economy of the rural inland counties has suffered much since she left office and there hasn’t been anything done to help bring it back. In speaking with voters across the district, they are not having much luck getting the help they need in any way, shape or fashion. Kilmer often worked day and night to not only bring economic growth to the lovely people she served, she also brought attention to the education problems of the area and worked as the K-12 Education Committee Chair in the legislature. Working with her colleagues and with the governor they pulled Florida’s children into the millinial era.
When Kilmer did not win the congressional seat in 2005, she was asked to run for her legislative seat once again, since she had two years left to serve before terming out. Following the untimely sad death of Representative David Coley in 2005 his wife, Marti, decided to run to replace him. Kilmer stepped aside to allow Coley to run unopposed on the Republican ticket. As life happens, timing would not have been on Kilmer’s side since her brother was murdered just before that election. Later her father became ill, her mother passed away and her husband was diagnosed with cancer and, as a result, later died in Texas.
She has returned to her district and as determined as ever to bring these wonderful people the voice they need to be heard once again in Tallahassee.
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