A.G. Gancarski
The race for the Democratic nomination in Florida’s 5th Congressional District is getting more crowded, with yet another candidate filing last week.
In addition to Rontel Batie, a former Corrine Brown staffer who jumped in this month, Shanton Detrell Edwards has also entered the fray.
Edwards, a 33-year-old from Greenville, has never run for office before. By trade, he’s the Area Director for the Boys and Girls Club.
He knows that he’s the longest of longshots.
“Maybe I’ll get 500 votes, maybe I’ll get 200,” he told us Friday.
So why is he running?
“I’m disgusted with the way everything is going,” Edwards told us. “We lost touch on how things work.”
Edwards decried career politicians who “get elected and on their first day start running for re-election.”
We asked if that applied to Lawson, a legend in the western part of the sprawling east-west district in North Florida.
“Al’s a little laid back,” Edwards said, adding that he’s a “good man” and “we agree on a lot of stuff.”
One of those issues on which they agree: the Republican tax bill that just cleared the House.
Lawson said Thursday that the bill “will have a negative impact on thousands of residents in Florida’s 5th Congressional District and millions all across this country.”
Edwards sounded similar notes in our interview Friday, noting that the tax reform bill is “clearly going to raise the deficit.”
“The American people need to know,” Edwards said, “that this bill is not for you.”
Edwards also told a story about a conversation with an octogenarian in his home town who asked him straight up why he’s running against Lawson.
While he knows he doesn’t have “the name, the money, the fame, or the fortune,” Edwards is running as a “call to action” on some issues that aren’t being addressed currently.
One such issue: crime.
Edwards, who works with youth, believes that “a lot of the crime is coming from young people with too much free time on their hands,” and that “getting young folks off of the street and into classrooms” is key to stemming the tide of violence.
As well, the criminal justice system is an issue in need of reform.
Edwards notes the disparity in prison time for young black men and young white men, with the former being “incarcerated for minor drug offenses, you name it.”
“We need criminal justice reform,” Edwards said, as the current schematic is “unfairly spiked against us.”
“That’s why you see Black Lives Matter, and people kneeling for the National Anthem,” Edwards said. “Prison is a business. It’s got to stop being a business.”
