Incumbent Republican State Rep. Carolina Amesty, 29,  faces Democrat and Amazon executive Leonard Spencer, 53,  in the House District 45 race on Nov. 5. The district includes Oakland, Winter Garden, Windermere, Horizon West and parts of Osceola County. State representatives serve two-year terms and earn $29,697 annually.

Early voting takes place daily from Oct. 21-Nov. 3, 8 a.m.- 8 p.m. Check our list for locations. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is Oct. 24. Mail-in ballots can be returned to any early voting location but must be received by the Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m. on Nov. 5.

Many scandals

The self-described “common sense candidate,” Amesty has been beset by scandal throughout her freshman term in office. Most recently, in late August, she was indicted on four counts of felony forgery connected with attempts to secure a state license to allow her family’s unaccredited Christian university to offer secular courses. While no one in the GOP has publicly called for Amesty to step down, Jason Garcia of the political newsletter Seeking Rents reported that the Republican Party bought airtime for TV ads in every Orlando area race in play — except Amesty’s.

However, the social conservative group Florida Family Action, which lobbies for “pro-family” legislation, endorsed Amesty, the first to do so since news of the indictments broke. Florida Politics reported that the group’s support was based on Amesty’s “pro-life and pro-family” policy decisions.

Amesty could not be reached for an interview despite multiple attempts to contact her through her Capitol and district offices by both phone and email.

In a statement released by her campaign on X, formerly Twitter, Amesty said she “looks forward to her day in court,” which is Oct. 28, and “is confident of her public vindication.”

Amesty also came under fire this year for her attempt to divert $3 million in taxpayer money to a Wellington, Fla.-based Hispanic chamber of commerce, a 2022 campaign donor, by falsely claiming the village of Key Biscayne had requested the funds for a storm water technology pilot project.

The Orlando Sentinel has reported that Amesty dodged more than $19,000 in taxes and more than $6,400 in utility bills on her shuttered chicken restaurant. (The bills were paid after the story published.) Last year, Amesty and her family also failed to pay $18,000 in property taxes and fees for the $1.3 million, five-bedroom Windermere home purchased by Central Christian University where Amesty lived for three years with her parents. The family attempted to claim the home as a tax-exempt educational facility, but was denied by the Orange County Property Appraiser who said the residence did not provide an educational purpose.

Taxes

Amesty champions several issues in the name of "freedom and rights.” On her website, Amesty states that she plans to “continue to fight for more tax and regulatory reform so that we can do our part to make Florida the easiest place in the world to start and maintain a business.”

In the last two years, Amesty sponsored two bills related to tax cuts and exemptions: House Bill 727 sought to double the maximum property value amount a qualifying ex-servicemember could claim as a tax exemption, boosting it from $5,000 to $10,000. House Bill 717, would have specified certain tax refund entitlements for veterans and surviving spouses and would have allowed spouses to transfer certain tax exemptions. Both died in their committees.

Education and families

On the education front, as an administrator at a private Christian school that would benefit from universal school choice, Amesty supported the expanded private school voucher program that drained funds from public schools across the state. She also supported House Bill 931, which allows volunteer chaplains into public schools. After pushback from groups like the ACLU and an editorial in the Orlando Sentinel that called the move a “direct affront to the separation of church and state,” the law went into effect in July.

On family-friendly legislation, Amesty had mixed success. One win was the passage of a bill she sponsored, House Bill 461, which updated the Florida statute to allow women who had a baby within six months of being called for jury duty to be excused, regardless of employment status. Previously, only women who didn’t work or had children under six could be excused. This measure went into effect in April.

Amesty also supported lowering the age to purchase firearms from 21 to 18 with House Bill 1543, which died in the Rules Committee. A bill she supported allowing minors (16- and 17-year-olds) to work the same hours as adults, House Bill 49, became law in July.

Healthcare and abortion

Amesty sponsored House Bill 255, which relied on pseudoscience from the Church of Scientology in an effort to ban the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for minors. The National Institute of Mental Health, UCLA and Johns Hopkins, among others, endorse ECT for kids with severe autism and self-harming behaviors. Amesty did not consult any physicians in the field using ECT before drafting her bill. The bill died in March in the Health and Human Services Committee.

Amesty supported Senate Bill 1580, which allows healthcare providers (and payors) to avoid providing services they object to based on personal beliefs and shields them from any liability from the consequences of denying care. Critics of the bill said the law was too broadly written and “will call into question everyone’s trust in their medical care.” 

Avowedly prolife, Amesty voted in favor of the state’s six-week abortion ban —  the most restrictive in the state’s history. The law prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which is when anti-abortion proponents claim a fetal heartbeat can be detected. It’s usually before many women are even aware they are pregnant. However, medical experts have long said that, at six weeks, the embryo develops irregular electrical impulses, and the heart doesn’t actually begin to fully form until it is at least nine to 10 weeks old.

In theory, the law allows for exceptions up to 15 weeks in cases of rape, incest, or human trafficking, but survivors must produce documentation, like arrest reports, and with the legal uncertainty around the circumstances in which an abortion can be performed, it can be difficult to find a physician to do the procdure.

The Amendment 4 ballot measure, which limits government interference with abortion to allow women to make their own healthcare decisions in consultation with their physician, would repeal the six-week ban.

Civil rights, human rights

Even as heat is the leading weather-related cause of death, Amesty backed Republican efforts to block municipalities from requiring employers to provide heat protections, like water breaks and shade, for outside workers. The law went into effect in July.

Before Amesty was elected in 2022, she made it clear that she supported DeSantis’ War on Disney, a result of the company’s push back on the governor’s Parental Rights in Education law, which she also supported. (A settlement between Florida education officials and civil rights attorneys in March reversed much of the law.)

This year, Amnesty lent her support to fellow State Rep. Doug Bankson’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation to bar trans people from changing the gender on their driver’s licenses and require healthcare plans that cover gender-affirming care, like hormone treatments, to also offer plans that don’t and to cover “de-transitioning” and anti-trans conversion therapy, which has been widely debunked.