Mitch Perry
To date, Winter Park affordable housing executive Chris King has been the lone Democrat in the gubernatorial race boasting an entrepreneurial business background.
But that could change later this week if Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine enters the fray.
While Levine has served in public office for the past four years, his entire career before that was in business, where he started up in the cruise industry as a port lecturer before creating a company that ultimately sold for several hundred million dollars.
King doesn’t sound fazed.
“I don’t think anyone’s like me in this space,” the recently turned 39-year-old insisted while speaking with Florida Politics on Saturday afternoon in a conference room at the Disney Coronado Springs hotel, hours before he would join Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham in a candidates’ forum for only the third time this year.
“I’m the only non-politician in this race who hasn’t been part of the political establishment in Florida for decades. I can’t call a former President of the United States. I have not been part of this system (that) really has not been good for people. I am an entrepreneur, but I’m also a lifelong progressive, and somebody’s who really been (a) very strong Democrat.”
That was an undeniable shot at Levine, who is on friendly terms with former President Bill Clinton, and also discussed the possibility of running as an independent earlier this year.
King is proud of his campaign, saying his proposal to offer free community college and trade school for qualifying students he debuted last week is a “game changer.”
He said he wouldn’t be reinventing the wheel in doing it, citing states like Tennessee and New York that also have such programs.
And he says despite the likely criticisms of how could he pay for it, King says Florida definitely can afford it, citing approximately $1 billion in taxes that he says have been cut out of state corporations in the past few years alone.
“It’s not a liberal or progressive idea. It’s not conservative. It’s just basic, good economic sense,” he says.
King announced his candidacy for governor in April and said he’s spent the last six months working hard to prove that he belonged on the same stage as Gillum and Graham.
“I think we’ve proved by all the major metrics, in terms of the money we raised, in terms of the crowds we’ve attracted, the team we’ve built, the excitement we’ve created.”
Now he’s at the second stage, where King says he must prove he’s the man Democrats should nominate for governor when they go to the polls next summer.
If nothing else, King has made the issue of affordable housing front and center in the campaign. He boldly asserts that he not only wants to be “the housing governor” in Florida, but a model for the nation, where the lack of affordable housing is also prevalent.
King has made the GOP-led Legislature’s annual raiding of the Sadowski Housing Trust Fund front and center of his campaign. Those are the funds that come from a locally collected “doc” stamp on real estate sales transactions sent to the state.
Seventy percent of that is sent back via the State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP) to all 67 counties, based on population, to primarily aid low-to-moderate-income residents in buying a home. The other 30 percent goes to the State Apartment Incentive Loan (SAIL), which the state uses as an incentive for developers to build affordable apartments.
King says that more than $1.7 billion has been cut from the Sadowski funds over the last 15 years, which he calls an attack on seniors, law enforcement, recent college graduates, anyone who wants to make a life here in Florida.
King is president and CEO of Elevation Financial Group, which builds affordable/workforce housing in six states. He says his company provides a private solution to a public policy crisis and says that his decision to run for governor was predicated on the fact that he could do much more to improve the housing situation as governor than he can in the private sector.
“We determined I can work for the rest of my life in the private sector and not have as much impact in housing as one term as governor, simply by winning based on stopping the housing sweeps, (which alone) contributes almost a billion (dollars) in housing investment in first time home buyers, the homeless and the large aging population,” he says.
“None of that is being served well, and we would do it very differently.”
King has often talked about how “back of the pack” Florida is on so many issues, and how it’s time for a Democratic change in Tallahassee to reverse that. While Republicans like Rick Scott, Richard Corcoran and Adam Putnam talk about how Florida’s economy is the envy of the nation, King says he has to refute that without coming across like a doomsayer.
“If Putnam came out and said, ‘I am going to stop sweeping those (affordable housing) funds, it would be incredible,” he says. “But they have gotten more brazen and more bold.
“Just as I argue that the sugar industry has got almost near-total regulatory capture of environmental policy, he takes more and more money,” he added. “As we get into goofier and goofier gun issues, we’re now saying we’re not just for the NRA, we’re a sellout for the NRA, there has been no competition towards the reasonableness, and that’s what I hope I can bring.
“I argue that my victory serving as a Democratic governor will make the Republican party more impactful and effective in Florida, because this is small ball what they’re doing up in Tallahassee, and we’re going to make the whole system work better.”
