Rosanne Dunkelberger
Ed. note — It’s almost time to say goodbye to several lawmakers, all moving on due to term limits. We thought now would be a good time for a curtain call, a chance to reminisce on serving their districts in Tallahassee.
In this series, which originally appeared in INFLUENCE Magazine, you’ll hear about highlights and challenges, how they pursued politics and where they’re headed now. You’ll also get a glimpse of the state as the coronavirus was kicking into a higher gear. The pandemic tests safety standards and hurts the economy, and ideas about how to handle it differ sharply.
The COVID-19 pandemic might have something to say about when lawmakers meet again, possibly sooner than anticipated.
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Hard to believe Rep. Holly Raschein — who grew up in Anchorage, Alaska before attending college at Florida State University — would end up living in the very different, and very far away city of Key Largo.
But while the disparities are obvious, the similarities are profound, the Republican representative for the state’s southernmost district (120) said in her farewell speech to colleagues in March after serving 8 years in the House.
“The contrast between my childhood home and the Keys could not be greater physically, nor could they be further apart,” she said. “But the people within could not be more similar. They’re resilient people of strong character who love where they live and are at one with nature.”
Raschein said despite her Alaska upbringing, her Florida roots run deep. She made her first visit to her Central Florida family when she was six weeks old and her great-grandfather served in the House in the 1940s. When it was time to choose a college, she was looking for an escape from the cold and a good political science program.
“I put the pieces together in my head, she said. “Tallahassee is the capital of the state of Florida. (I thought) surely after I graduate I can get a job. I kind of kept my eye on the prize when, bam boom, it happened.”
As a student, she worked for the late lobbyist Bob Levy, who helped her get a job as a district aide to Republican Rep. Ken Sorenson, which led to her relocation to Key Largo — and a nine-and-a-half-hour commute to Tallahassee. When he stepped down, she continued in the position under Democratic Rep. Ron Saunders.
“I’ve got both-sides-of-the-aisle experience,” she said.
Which has come in handy during her legislative career because, despite her political party, Raschein’s “libertarian-ish” leanings sometimes put her at odds with Republican orthodoxy. Some notable examples include her strong support for LGBTQ issues, affordable housing, VISIT Florida and, most notably, funding for environmental projects.
“Given the district I represent — one of the most unique districts in the state of Florida, if not the Southeastern United States — I think that leadership, throughout my entire elected career, has understood that,” she said. “On other issues, I’m happy to be a soldier and be on the team. But there’s just sometimes, given our uniqueness, that I thought I just had to go to bat for my community.”
Raschein’s district encompasses the entirety of Monroe County and the southern portion of Dade County, up through the Redlands agricultural area. She represents about 155,000 people and “a lot of birds and snakes and alligators because pretty much all of mainland Monroe is Everglades.”
She said she has passed 22 bills in her legislative career and “(brought) home tens of millions of dollars home to my district,” but does not hesitate when asked what her most significant achievement has been during her tenure: The Florida Keys Stewardship Act.
“It sets up a dedicated funding source for two equally important components of preserving our environment: land acquisition and water quality,” she said. The act sets aside Florida Forever money to buy state land and expands funding for not just wastewater treatment but also stormwater runoff and canal restoration.
“Since then, I’ve made it my mission to bring home as many dollars as I can for our community,” she said. “Knowing the appropriations process like I do, it’s been it’s been just very gratifying.”
Raschein said she has no political ambitions once her term ends.
“My intent is to remain with the state of Florida. Specifically? In what capacity? I don’t know,” she said. “Anywhere in the space of natural resources or the environment. Resiliency, that’s the topic du jour that’s not going to go away. Living in ground zero for sea-level rise and climate change, I know a little bit about that.”
She does have two jobs waiting at home. She consults for the locally-owned First State Bank of the Florida Keys and currently serves as project coordinator for Mariners Hospital in Tavernier and Fishermen’s Community Hospital in Marathon.
“My job is to sort of connect people,” she explained. “If there’s some miscommunication, or maybe people need contacts. I have a pretty good Rolodex, given my role in my life, my state job — connecting communities with the appropriate governmental entity and things like that.”
One of the biggest projects in her hospital work is connected to the biggest challenge of her public service career — the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Irma in September 2017, which decimated much of the middle and lower Keys. Fisherman’s Hospital was destroyed and construction will soon begin on a $43 million, 22-bed replacement.
“Save for the current coronavirus crisis, Hurricane Irma without a doubt was the greatest challenge my community has ever faced,” Raschein said. “It was debilitating. We have people that lost everything. We lost a hospital. Much of our workforce housing was wiped away. We lost many of our loyal community residents, and it was just a loss of communications.”
A poignant moment in Raschein’s farewell speech was directed at her son, Drake, who was sitting in the gallery with her husband and her parents.
“I know I have missed so much. Too many baseball games, too many fishing trips and too many movie nights. I know that’s been hard for you and hard for you to understand,” she told him. “But what keeps me going is the hope that when you were older, you might re-watch this speech and understand what your mom worked on and why she has been gone so much. I hope that when you scuba dive amongst our coral reefs in Pennekamp state park or fish off our dock in Key Largo — and when you do that with your own children decades from now — you will know that it was your mom that helped protect it for you and for them.”
