Democratic incumbent State Rep. Bruce Antone, 63, is asking voters to send him back to Tallahassee for his eighth term in the Florida House. He is fending off a challenge from first-time candidate and former convenience store general manager Janét Marie Buford-Johnson.

The Aug. 20 election will decide the winner of the solidly Democratic District 41. Early voting takes place Aug. 5 -18, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., daily. Check our list for locations. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is Aug. 8 and it must be returned by 7 p.m. August 20 to the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office to be counted.

District 41 includes a sliver of Ocoee and the neighborhoods of Parramore, Orlo Vista, Oak Ridge and Washington Shores — a largely African American, mostly working-class community.

Antone served six terms in the Florida House before term limits pushed him out in 2020. He was re-elected in 2022 to represent the current district. For the veteran lawmaker, re-election is all about wrapping up unfinished business. “I am running again because the district needs good, quality representation, someone that knows what they’re doing,” Antone told VoxPopuli in an interview. “And then, I have some unfinished things I need to do.”

Those priorities include re-introducing legislation to reduce Black women’s maternal mortality as well as securing the town of Eatonville — the first and oldest all-Black municipality in the country, established in 1887 by free Black men — as the location for his special project, the Florida Museum of Black History.

Florida Museum of Black History

In 2023, Antone and State Sen. Bobby Powel of Palm Beach County sponsored a bill that created a task force to develop plans for the museum, including its location, and submit them to Gov. Ron DeSantis by June 30. The task force, chaired by State Sen. Geraldine Thompson, ultimately chose St. Augustine as the museum site.

Antone, who was not a member of the task force, called on the group not to make any recommendations because, he said, the task force “met nine times and did not complete any of the tasks required by the legislation.”

Moving the museum location from St. Augustine to Eatonville during the next legislative session is now his “number-one project.”

“The place they’ve chosen is on the western edge of St. Augustine,” Antone explained. “It’s a two-lane road, there is no infrastructure out there. It’s just trees and grass.”

A feasibility study determined that the St. Augustine facility could be no larger than 10,000 square feet, which Antone said didn’t meet the original vision plan, which was to build a museum that would have exhibit halls plus archival research and storage facilities, meeting rooms, a performing arts theater and a banquet hall with a kitchen capable of serving at least 250 guests.

“The intent from the start was a very big Black history museum that would be world-class and showcase the accomplishments of Black people and Caribbean immigrants,” he said. “What better place than Orange County, where we have 74 million tourists, one of the largest airports in the country and SunRail.”

Black women’s maternal mortality bill

Re-introducing a maternal mortality protection bill initially sponsored last session is another Antone priority. The legislation would create a $5 million program to reduce maternal mortality rates, particularly among Black women and other women of color, by providing grants to raise awareness and increase education about the elevated risks for complications women of color can face during and after pregnancy.

Black women die from pregnancy-related complications at two to three times the rate of white women giving birth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Black women over 30, have a mortality rate that’s four to five times that of white women. And for those who put off pregnancy till their 40s, it’s eight times.

Antone’s proposed legislation never made it out of the Healthcare Regulation Subcommittee in March, he isn’t ready to let it go. “Women that are pregnant, regardless of race or ethnicity, need to be having doctor’s visits monthly,” he said.

Crime, safety, gun violence

Antone’s legislation to establish an urban gun violence and crime task force didn’t make it out of committee during the legislative session earlier this year. But he plans to refile the bill during the next session, because he sees public safety intertwined with District 41’s economic development, he said.

He points to Ocoee’s once-thriving West Oaks Mall where empty stores in the nearly 1.1 million square foot building have not been replaced with new businesses.

“Every shopping center in my district, except for Millenia Mall, is facing the perception of crime that causes businesses not to move into District 41 and surrounding areas,” he said. “So the people that live in District 41 that don’t have certain education or levels of skill have to commute farther and farther to work.”

Antone explained this perception leads business owners  to believe rampant crime in the area will hinder the investment and experience of opening up shop in locations like West Oaks Mall.

Property insurance, housing and homelessness

Antone knows he doesn’t have all of the expertise to solve the insurance problem, but he also  knows that as Floridians are paying the highest premiums in the nation, legislators need to find some answers.

“We’ve got to lower the cost of property insurance. For everyday people that own a home, their property insurance has gone up 300 percent. I mean, that is a significant hit. That is something the experts, the insurance companies and the Department of Insurance are going to have to address with some kind of legislation.”

Antone also addressed the increase in homelessness. New data from Homelessness Services Network shows a 28 percent increase in homelessness in the tri-county region this year over 2023, with the number of unsheltered individuals more than doubling. At the same time, a new law, which prohibits homeless people from sleeping and camping in public spaces, goes into effect Oct. 1.

Antone opposed the law, which forces municipalities to round up homeless individuals in their areas and put them into camps if shelters are full or risk lawsuits from residents, businesses, even the State Attorney General.

“We have to do something, because the numbers of homeless folks are growing exponentially,” he said. But he said the anti-public sleeping law is not the answer because it will end up “forcing folks away” and create "vicious cycles” that cause additional hardship for people who are already struggling. He wants to see more money allocated for homeless shelters.

Teacher retention, school choice

Education is another priority for Antone, who said teachers are exhausted by the current educational climate — teaching students while simultaneously coping with heavy testing schedules, disciplinary matters and book bans, new history standards, weaponized social media and worrying what they can and can’t say in the classroom about gender and identity. [A March settlement removed the harshest aspects of the Parental Rights in Education law (colloquially known as Don’t Say Gay law.)]

“My mother, my two sisters and my dad are retired educators,” Antone said. “My sister walked off the job after 36 years at nine o’clock on the first day of school. She said, ‘I cannot do this anymore.’”

Part of the problem is that educators are expected to shoulder huge responsibilities but are paid a pittance. Florida now ranks last in the nation for teacher pay, according to new data from the National Education Association. The national average pay for teachers, pre-K through college is $69,544; Florida teachers earn just $53,098.

“We don’t pay our teachers enough, and somehow, we’re going to have to deal with these discipline issues in schools,” Antone acknowledges. “Pay is always something that will entice folks to stay around. So, do they [the legislature] have the appetite to pay teachers and principals more money?”

Also under the education umbrella is school vouchers, which Antone backed. But he wants to see some accountability with alternative schools, demonstrating that students are making academic progress. He explained that some “alternative” schools in his district are enrolling as many students with vouchers as they can to reap the economic benefits of the program. But he’s heard from public school advocates that assessments are showing that when students at alternative schools want to return to public school, they can be one to two years behind their public school peers. Parents in District 41 and beyond have also told him that alternative schools can suddently disenroll students, sending them back to public schools, unprepared and academically lagging behind their peers.

“We’ve implemented this universal voucher program at the expense of accountability,” he said.“I mean, they wanted to do universal vouchers. But let’s talk about accountability: are these kids learning?”

Reproductive rights

A strong advocate for women’s reproductive rights, Antone supports the Amendment 4 initiative  that limits government interference in decisions about abortion that will be on the ballot in November.

“This six-week ban creates hardships,” he said, referring to the law prohibiting abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy (before many women realize they’re pregnant), which went into effect May 1. While the law makes certain exceptions for rape, incest and human trafficking, medical emergency and fatal fetal anomaly, women still need to produce documents attesting to the conditions — police reports, physicians reports — and physicians may still refuse to perform abortions out of fear of criminal prosecution.

“[The ban] took away 50 years of women having the freedom to decide what was best for them and their family,” Antone said. “I mean, we are rolling back rights that we have given women and minorities, and I just think we’re heading in the wrong direction. And it’s not that the majority of the country is asking for these changes.”

Ethics complaint and residency issues

Following reporting in the Orlando Sentinel that suggested Antone lived outside of District 41, his opponent Buford-Johnson filed a claim with the Florida Ethics Commission, stating that he hasn’t lived in the district for years. Antone updated his voting registration and later told VoxPopuli that Buford-Johnson is “copying” what other opponents have done in previous election years by alleging he lives out of district.

“Every time I run, they bring this up,” Antone said. “And they’ve never proven that I do not live in the district.”