Bev Kilmer says she meets residency requirements

Former Florida Rep. Bev Kilmer is hosting a conference that promotes protecting children from ‘the dangers of the LGBTQ ideology.’ Image via CQ Roll Call

Former state Rep. Bev Kilmer says she meets the residency requirements needed to again serve in the House.

Kilmer, a Republican who was in the Florida House of Representatives 1998-2004, moved back to the Panhandle from Texas to run for House District 5.

The mostly rural district includes Holmes, Jackson, Walton and Washington counties and northern Bay County.

But surrogates for her opponents have been privately rumbling she hasn’t lived in Florida long enough to qualify.

A story first appeared in the Washington County News and Holmes County Times-Advertiser earlier this week.

The state constitution says “(e)ach legislator shall be at least twenty-one years of age, an elector and resident of the district from which elected and shall have resided in the state for a period of two years prior to election.”

In a phone interview with FloridaPolitics.com, Kilmer explained she had moved to Texas so her husband could undergo medical treatment for cancer. Larry Kilmer later died from his illness.

She has since remarried to Cecil Powell and returned to Florida. They were married in October 2014 and moved into his Marianna home in the district a few days later.

That, she says, qualifies her for two years’ residency in the state by the November general election.

The primary, however, is Aug. 30. She’s up against incumbent Republican Brad Drake and former state Rep. Jamey Westbrook, a Democrat-turned-independent who served one term in the 1990s.

Kilmer, an author and motivational speaker, also admits she was registered to vote in Texas until mid-2015 and voted in elections there throughout 2014: “I’ve always been a voter and I see nothing wrong with that.”

She says she’s asked the state Division of Elections for a determination on her residency. A spokeswoman for the Department of State, which includes the division, later said the agency “has not received a formal request for an advisory opinion.”

Kilmer left the Legislature to unsuccessfully pursue the congressional seat then held by Democrat Allen Boyd. After that race, she went through a string of sorrows.

Her mother and brother died within three weeks of each other in 2005, with the latter having been murdered. Kilmer’s father died after a rare illness in 2011 and her husband died in 2012.

Now, “I’m laughing again; life is good again,” she said. “And because of that, I have more determination than ever.”