The race for District 45, which includes far western Osceola County areas like Celebration, Reunion and ChampionsGate along with western Orange County, is on the ballot for the first time, as the incumbent Democrat faced just one Republican challenger.
The questions below are based on voter questions and expressed priorities. Each of the candidates within a race were asked the same questions and given the same amount of time to respond. The candidates' answers were fact checked and only edited for space considerations.
Leonard Spencer (Democrat incumbent)
Campaign website: leonardspencerfl.com
Why should voters of District 45 elect you to another term?
Two years ago, I promised to be a strong voice in Tallahassee for the issues that matter most to the people of House District 45. I am committed to addressing the affordability crisis, expanding educational and economic opportunities for our children, supporting our veterans, and delivering practical solutions for our community. I have worked to fulfill that promise through the legislation I sponsored and co-sponsored, with a focus on lowering costs, strengthening public education, improving transportation, and creating pathways to good-paying jobs. I have also remained accessible and responsive to the residents I represent, ensuring their concerns guide my work in the Legislature. I am asking the people of House District 45 to send me back to Tallahassee so I can build on this progress and continue fighting for the families and communities I am proud to represent.
If elected, what are the three most pressing problems you want to address, and what do you suggest to solve them?
The affordability crisis is the most pressing issue facing families in House District 45 and across Florida. Rising prices, higher costs for everyday necessities, and a shortage of affordable housing are forcing Floridians to stretch their budgets further just to make ends meet. Addressing Florida’s property insurance crisis is essential to providing meaningful relief. Soaring premiums do not only affect homeowners. They also increase housing costs for renters and make it more expensive to build and maintain affordable housing. I sponsored and co-sponsored several proposals aimed at lowering insurance costs and creating a more stable market. One would establish an interstate insurance compact, allowing Florida to spread hurricane-related risk across a larger pool of insurers and policyholders. Another would transition Citizens Property Insurance into the state’s sole provider of windstorm coverage, removing the difficult-to-price risk of catastrophic wind damage from private policies. These proposals would help reduce premiums, strengthen Florida’s insurance market, and address one of the underlying causes of our broader affordability crisis. Floridians need practical solutions that lower costs and make it possible for working families, seniors, and young people to continue living in the communities they call home.
Transportation is a major issue for residents across Central Florida, where worsening congestion and limited public transit options affect daily commutes and quality of life. Addressing these challenges requires a truly multimodal transportation system that expands reliable public transit while investing in new ways to move people throughout the region. That is why I sponsored HB 1093, which supports the development of vertiports and prepares Florida for advanced air mobility. Vertiports are only one part of the solution, but they could help reduce congestion by moving some regional trips off our roads. Combined with expanded bus service, passenger rail, and other transportation investments, this technology can help build a more connected and efficient Central Florida.
Ensuring every child has access to a quality education is a top priority for families across our community. Public schools are facing declining enrollment and potential closures while teachers continue to struggle with inadequate pay and limited resources. We must increase teacher salaries, improve retention, and ensure educators receive the support and compensation they deserve. We must also bring greater transparency and accountability to the voucher system. Parents should have the freedom to choose the educational setting that best meets their child’s needs, but that choice cannot come at the expense of the public schools that serve the vast majority of Florida’s students. Florida must fully fund its public schools while holding every institution that receives taxpayer dollars to consistent standards of financial transparency, academic accountability, and student safety.
According to a University of North Florida poll, Floridians say affordability is their top issue. What are your solutions for dealing with Florida’s affordability issue?
Beyond addressing the property insurance crisis, Florida must increase the supply of housing that working families can actually afford. This includes offering targeted tax incentives for developments that produce and preserve genuinely affordable units, while ensuring public investments result in long-term affordability. The state must also restore greater flexibility to local governments. Communities across Florida face different housing challenges, and local leaders should be able to respond with solutions tailored to their residents, including tenant protections, rent stabilization measures, and incentives for affordable development. Addressing this crisis requires both statewide action and the freedom for local governments to use the tools that best meet their communities’ needs.
Please vote yes or no on the constitutional amendment to slash property taxes and explain your position: No.
I voted against this proposal on the House floor. Floridians deserve a well thought out plan that provides meaningful relief from the affordability crisis without jeopardizing the essential services our communities rely on. This proposal does not provide adequate relief. Instead, it shifts the tax burden onto renters, seniors, small businesses, and our most vulnerable residents through higher fees and reduced services. I do not support replacing lost revenue by cutting essential services or placing resources like libraries and parks behind additional fees.
Utility costs are rising for customers in Florida, and the proliferation of data centers is expected to exacerbate that issue. How should Florida’s utility regulators respond?
First, data centers must be responsible for the full cost of the energy and infrastructure they require. Those expenses cannot be passed on to residents and small businesses that are already struggling with rising utility bills. Florida’s utility regulators must prioritize existing ratepayers by requiring data centers to demonstrate that they can meet their energy needs without increasing costs or reducing grid reliability. Any proposed development should undergo a thorough review of its impact on utility rates, energy capacity, water resources, and surrounding communities before receiving approval. Economic development should benefit Floridians, not force them to subsidize the operations of large corporations.
What do you think is the biggest environmental issue the government should address in Florida?
The most pressing environmental issue Florida must address is protecting our clean water. In Central Florida, our drinking water, lakes, rivers, and springs are all connected through the Floridan aquifer. Rapid growth, aging wastewater infrastructure, septic systems, and polluted stormwater runoff are placing greater pressure on these resources. The state must invest in modern wastewater infrastructure, support septic-to-sewer conversions where they are most needed, reduce harmful runoff, and protect wetlands and aquifer recharge areas from irresponsible development. We must also ensure these improvements do not place an unaffordable burden on homeowners or local governments. Protecting clean water is essential to public health, our economy, and the long-term future of Central Florida.
With the Florida legislature over the last few years, local government's ability to make decisions has been tested — regulating everything from plastic straws and gas-powered leaf blowers to building height and density. What are your thoughts on the state preemption of cities and counties' ability to govern themselves?
A government closest to the people is best able to serve the needs of the people. That's a fundamental truth that comes from our founding fathers, which is why our structure is the way it is in the first place. What we've consistently seen from this legislature is an erosion of local home rule, which is actually ingrained in the constitution of the state…In my opinion, a lot of these decisions, including the property tax debate, really should be something that's decided at the local level versus something that is made in Tallahassee, and local governments should not have to lean on Tallahassee to fund things that are pertinent to their respective communities. That's something that should be decided by those communities. That's why you elect local officials at the county and city level.
How would you work to protect election integrity and voting rights?
This isn't a Republican or Democrat issue — I think it’s a democratic issue. I think most voters, [non-party affiliates] included, would think that gerrymandering is wrong, and we should not have politicians electing their electorate, which is kind of what we're saying. Politicians are choosing who gets a chance to choose their representation. It should be the other way around.
When you take a step back and look at what has happened, it's been a blatant disregard of the Constitution, in my opinion, and so I think it's something that we should be looking at really closely in trying to ensure that we're doing things that actually are for the people, not for politicians. I really consider the work that I do a public service. I go to Tallahassee trying to make the lives of the folks who elected me better, and I take that as both an honor and a privilege that the folks here in House District 45 believed enough in me to go to Tallahassee to represent them, and I try to advocate vigorously for them every opportunity around affordability, around opportunity, around transportation infrastructure, education, all the things that they tell me are most important. I would really support and encourage everyone to continue to look closely at this gerrymandering issue and to make sure that the voters are the arbiter of who goes to Tallahassee, who goes to D.C. to represent this district in this state, and not the politicians.
Is there a single biggest issue that you think the government needs to address when it comes to public education in Florida?
I think in Florida, we’ve built a strong foundation through educational opportunity in a number of ways. When you think about Bright Futures, we made significant investments in our colleges, our universities. With CareerSource, we’ve got a good workforce training program right across the state. I think these resources have really helped a lot of Floridians pursue higher education and really have prepared them for successful careers. But that same commitment, I don't think, has been consistently extended to our traditional public schools. If you think about Orange County public schools, they're being asked to serve a growing and increasingly diverse community, while also at the same time they face financial pressures, decline in enrollment and the threat of school closures.
I believe personally that every student deserves access to a well-funded, high-quality neighborhood school, which is what many of us had growing up. They should have access to that regardless of their zip code, regardless of their family income. And when you think about that high-quality education, we’ve got to increase teacher salaries because we've got to recruit and retain talented educators.
We've got to reduce classroom vacancies, and we have to ensure that our experienced teachers can afford to live in the communities that they serve. We talked about the home affordability crisis, and so you’ve got teachers who are getting paid 50th in the nation, unable to live in the communities where they work. I think we've also got to protect funding for classroom instruction, like student support services.
I think one of the big things that we've heard a lot about and that we see is that the state's voucher system has to be subject to meaningful financial and academic accountability. We're seeing billions of dollars go into this voucher system that are being pulled from our public schools, which we've talked about are underfunded. I think the basic thought should be that any institution that is going to receive public funds, they have to be held to clear standards. They have to have transparent reporting on how taxpayer dollars are being spent, and they have to show that the students that are attending them are receiving a quality education. The bottom line is you can't expand educational choice, which by the way I support, at the expense of accountability.
Almost 90% of our kids here in Florida are educated in the public school system. You're talking about vouchers, you're talking about private schools, but you're talking about taking money out of the resource that educates almost 90% of our kids. I mean, what kind of sense does that make? I'm for a common sense solution. When my counterparts are talking about how they want to fix the system, they've been in power for 30 years. They broke it. It becomes really important for us to really think about where we are today, how we got here and then what the path forward is — and we need to do it together.
School districts across the state are facing declining enrollment and the closure of public schools. What do you believe, if anything, is the cause of that declining enrollment, and are there any specific actions you’d plan to take to address the issue?
I think there could be a number of issues that are driving it. This is something that I queried my team to dive into and make sure we better understand it, but there are some anecdotal things that I've heard around folks actually leaving the area to go to different states. There's been some discussion around some of our folks who may have come from other countries who are leaving, so there could be a number of issues.
What is your position on maintaining vaccine mandates for either public or private school entry, and do you believe that vaccines are related to or cause autism directly?
I think that the science has been clear relative to vaccines, and we've seen the benefits of what vaccines have done. We don't have to worry about polio today because of vaccines. It seems like people forget a little bit. When you think about measles, there hasn’t been, up until recently, measles outbreaks. We don't have to worry about polio or smallpox, which were killing kids or crippling kids in the mid 1900s.
There is no credible data that says that vaccines are attributable to autism in kids. So I firmly believe that we should follow the science here, and not just follow the science, but I mean look at public health and all of the advances that we've had in public health around infant mortality, around infectious diseases — I think if you really look objectively at the data, it becomes clear that these things work, right? I can understand where folks feel like that they want to have some autonomy and ability to make decisions, but we also have to take a step back and ask how those decisions affect other Americans. Is this creating a dangerous environment for others?
In terms of abortion restrictions in the state, do you believe those should be more strict, less strict, or stay the same?
I think women should have the ability to make decisions around their own body. But I also think, when we talk about just medicine in the state, we've got to decrease the overall cost of medicine in the state. With the administration in D.C. cutting the funding for healthcare in the Big Beautiful Bill — it's hundreds of thousands of Floridians who lost their healthcare through the exchanges. So you really have to think about how we bring medical costs down because when people get sick, it hurts our economy. It hurts families, and it really could bankrupt people because now they don't have insurance. People going bankrupt because of medical expenses is one of the highest reasons that people are going bankrupt today.
Do you support or not support expanding the eligible uses of the Tourist Development Tax (TDT) under the state law, such as public infrastructure, transit and affordable housing?
Those things are currently within the purview of the TDT, some of them with limited means. I think a lot of times we think about some of these issues from the standpoint of the TDT itself has done some great things for Central Florida, the Dr. Phillips Center being an example. When we think about the benefits that the TDT has brought to our community, it's been significant. And when we think about some of the things that the TDT could do, I think we can have some conversations about some of the things that are already within statute and maybe do more of those. But in terms of fundamentally changing the TDT, I think we should also really get into [the fact that] when we create these funding mechanisms for certain things, I'm a firm believer that we should use the funding for those certain things.
You think about the Sadowski Fund that is specifically supposed to be used for affordable housing, [but] we're using it for all different types of things outside of affordable housing. I do not want that same thing to happen to the TDT because of all the things that it has done for our community. For those who start to think about [expanding TDT funding use,] understand that you're opening a Pandora's box where this will be used for all kinds of other things and not for the significant benefits that it has brought to our community. If we're looking to use it for other things, I think Mayor Demings talked about and was working on a one cent tax to start to build reliable funding to adequately change and upgrade our transportation infrastructure, and that becomes a funding mechanism that is used specifically for things that are going to make our life better. Because the other thing about the TDT, it's going to ebb and flow with tourism and that is not a reliable funding source. We're doing well now, but we also had periods like during COVID where it bottomed out. Because we had the TDT, it really helped many of my constituents in Osceola County, because we have funding from the TDT that was able to help sustain them in that significant downturn. We have to think very carefully around that particular issue.
Regarding the Hope Florida controversy, if reelected, do you have any specific actions you plan to take regarding the findings from the grand jury report that came out, and would you pursue the disputed funds being recovered or efforts for that?
The short answer is yes. No one is for corruption…so what I would hope is that as we come back, we would continue our oversight responsibilities within the House to make sure that we get to the bottom of actually what happened and hold those responsible if wrongdoing is actually identified and adjudicated, that we would hold those folks responsible and make sure that they're held accountable.
Do you agree with the current federal and state government’s approach to immigration enforcement, and if so, why or or why not?
This has been an issue for my lifetime, and it was probably an issue before my lifetime, right? I think everyone would agree that we need real pathways for citizenship for people who are willing to work hard, pay taxes and follow the rules. I believe and I support strong laws that are really going to help our borders stay secure from violent criminals. We don't want dangerous drugs coming over the border, and I am 100% in support of that. If you're a violent criminal, there is no place for you in the United States, and that's how we keep people safe — not by the current [methods] that we're seeing under this administration.
We've got a lot of the things that have been done to really put citizens across the United States in really difficult situations. When we talk about some of the untrained ICE agents who are in a lot of ways instilling fear in some of our communities because of some of their actions that we've seen and that have been documented…there has to be a more focused way and better way.
Erin Huntley (Republican)
Age: 46
Campaign website: voteerinhuntley.com
Education: James Madison University, MSEd., Adult Education, Human Resource Development, 2005; James Madison University, B.A., Marketing, Education, 2002
Why should voters of District 45 elect you as a candidate of change?
I'm running for State House to be a voice for the families of District 45. As a community leader and a mom, I know the challenges Florida families face, and I am ready to fight for their future in Tallahassee.
If elected, what are the three most pressing problems you want to address, and what do you suggest to solve them?
Affordability: I believe we need to address the affordability crisis head-on. We can do this by enacting property tax reform, expanding educational opportunities that don't require large amounts of debt, and fighting fraud to cut insurance costs. The average HD 45 resident has seen their property tax bill skyrocket. I support reducing homestead property taxes, while protecting schools, emergency services, and infrastructure. I also think that we should make vocational opportunities available to all students who want them, recognizing that college is not for every student. Finally, I would work to reduce fraud in insurance to lower the cost for Floridians.
Education: Every student deserves a path to success, but as a mother of a child with special needs, I understand that path looks different for everyone. I will fight to ensure every child gets the education they deserve. This includes expanding vocational training in schools to show students all paths available and supporting a parent's right to have a voice in their child's future. By connecting our students directly with high-paying jobs straight out of high school, it encourages them to stay living and working right here in HD 45 long after they graduate.
Infrastructure: Our district has exploded in population recently because of the great quality of life provided in HD 45, but the local infrastructure has struggled to keep up. As your Representative in Tallahassee, I pledge to work tirelessly to bring home money to the district to invest in our community and address the congestion head-on. Also, I have been honored to be endorsed by every local police and fire department in the area, highlighting my commitment to prioritizing first responders and public safety.
According to a University of North Florida poll, Floridians say affordability is their top issue. What are your solutions for dealing with Florida’s affordability issue?
As talked about above, I plan to reduce homestead property taxes, expand debt-free vocational and educational pathways, and crack down on insurance fraud to lower costs for HD 45 families.
Please vote yes or no on the constitutional amendment to slash property taxes and explain your position: Yes.
I support reducing homestead property taxes, while protecting schools, emergency services, and infrastructure. Homeowners need relief. I understand the concerns of our first responders, and they trust me to take care of them no matter what happens. That’s why all local law enforcement and firefighters have endorsed me in this race. If the changes to the Property Tax amendment pass, we must find solutions for cutting wasteful spending first.
Utility costs are rising for customers in Florida, and the proliferation of data centers is expected to exacerbate that issue. How should Florida’s utility regulators respond?
As someone who has talked with thousands of voters, I understand affordability is the #1 concern across our district. I support any way to lower that cost for people in HD 45 and plan on working hard to build on the legislation already passed on data centers.
What do you think is the biggest environmental issue the government should address in Florida?
Building on the success of the Everglades restoration, I believe now we must move towards protecting our local water resources. My focus will be environmental appropriations for septic to sewer nearby our local lakes. Additionally, I am supportive of water infrastructure innovations including nonpotable water and desalination. For water quality, we can benchmark from other successes across the state as well as locally. In Central Florida, Lake Apopka was one of Florida’s most polluted lakes, and now, with the conservation efforts, wildlife is returning to the area.
In recent years, the Florida Legislature and the governor's administration has acted more than 50 times to take away the ability of local governments to make decisions about everything from the use of plastic straws or gas-powered leaf blowers to the height and density of buildings for affordable housing. Do you support state preemption of cities and counties to govern themselves?
I'm a home rule person. I may not like all the home rule decisions that are being made, but I'm a home rule person because I think the smallest government, the most local government, knows the people best. One thing that I do like to clarify with that is not taking away the rights of private property owners to sell their land. I think that's kind of been one of the little sticky points that we've had recently. People are like, Okay, you have all this land in West Orange and you want to sell it, but you can't sell it because the county doesn't want it to be developed. So kind of people get in a weird scenario, but you have a right to sell it. You have a right to own it. So kinda get in a little bit of a sticky place. But I think the local government knows what's best.
Do you support expanding the eligible uses of the Tourist Development Tax under state law? If so, how would you allow local governments to use the TDT (i.e., for public infrastructure, transit, affordable housing, public safety)?
I'm open to talking about transit because that would be a direct support. I know we've talked a lot about airport to I-Drive and airport and attraction areas and what that could look like. But that's pretty much what I'm thinking about right now.
People are coming here. Whether they come here to live, whether they come here to work, whether they come here to vacation. So we need to move them around and make sure they get where they want to go and have a great time and taste the Florida freedom while they're here.
School districts across Florida are facing declining enrollment and public schools closures. What do you believe are the causes of the declining enrollment and how would you address those causes?
Populations change and shift. Some of the places in Central Florida that had a lot of younger families out by UCF, they just have reduced amount of families and children that are in schools in some of those areas now than they did 20 years ago when my 20-year-old was going to birthday parties out there. Some of those neighborhoods are now more rentals for college students rather than young families. So it's a natural progression that some of those schools may have less enrollment. There are more homes being built in Apopka and Lake Nona. That's where the schools are being expanded. So I think it's kind of more of a shift of where people are moving ... and people have young kids where their jobs are because they want to live, work, go to school all in a small radius. So I think we're just watching a little bit of a shift in some of the parts of the county.
What's the biggest issue that government should address in public education?
Education is a path to the future, so what does that path look like? What can we do to show multiple paths for everyone? I'm a big supporter of making sure we get as many options in front of students as possible so they can, while they're in high school, say, Hmm, yeah, I might wanna be an accountant. And then they take accounting in high school, and they're like, Ugh, this is not what I thought it was. But then they're not doing it in college. They're not incurring debt over it. We're taking care of some of that exploration when they're supposed to be doing it as young adults. And then also make sure we have all the choice programs as well, so everyone can be exposed to multiple careers whatever their background is to find something that they love and just put their passion and talent to work.
The reliance on digital media in education is troubling to [voters]. A lot of people would rather kids have paper books in their hands because the research is very clear that that is what works well. A lot of what I hear from parents is we have kids that have many different needs, and how can the public school system or any other school system address those needs? And making sure teachers have the training to deal with reading difficulties, behavioral difficulties, making sure people have the training that they need.
Do you see the need for more accountability measures for education quality and/or financial stewardship at the private schools that now collectively receive more than $4 billion each year in public funds? If so, what accountability measures do you recommend?
All of this came out of parents wanting options for their kids because they weren't getting what they wanted in the public school offerings. If we're gonna have standards, it's gotta be across the board because we have challenges in all systems. But I think it all really comes back to empowering parents.
Florida is currently seventh in the nation for measles cases because of declining vaccination rates among children. The Florida Surgeon General recently re-introduced a rule that would eliminate vaccine mandates not required by law. Where do you stand on maintaining vaccine mandates?
I haven't looked at the specifics of that, and I'd like to. But I think, generally, the way we have everything set up right now — that if parents would like to opt out, they can do that — seems to have worked well in our state. But I do understand where parents are questioning the amount and frequency and additional vaccines that have come on the scene since they were a child. They're 25 and have their first kid; you have your own vaccine records from when you're a child, and you're like, Wow, my kid's getting a lot more than I ever had. So I understand where people are questioning and have concerns over the frequency and additional vaccines. But we do have a system in place that allows people to opt out if they'd like to.
Regarding the Hope Florida controversy, would you take any specific actions regarding the findings from the grand jury report that came out? Would you pursue recovering the disputed funds?
I haven't read through the whole report, but I know generally that we do need to protect our tax dollars, and that's really important to me. You know, I've seen the headlines. It's been investigated twice, led by both Democrats and Republicans, and we should be always fiscal hawks, but this is one of those cases where we have conflicting information on all sides. But I do think we need to protect our tax dollars. This is an opportunity for us to see if anything else comes out. I haven't seen anything beyond just those two, and I haven't read the latest one. So I'm just kind of … I am not, you know, completely … I haven't read that second report, so I don't have all of that information.
What will you do to protect voting rights and election integrity?
If you look at from 2000, when we had the hanging chads, to now, it’s like we were the laughing stock of the country and now we are the gold standard. If you think about when you have a challenging circumstance, and then you have leadership that's able to make sure our elections are secure. And we've done that here in Florida. We have other states that take days, weeks, months to get their election results. And mostly on election night, very quickly, Florida has completed the election results, which makes people feel secure in voting and by the three methods that are available: vote by mail, early voting, and voting on Election Day. So I think we've done a good job. There's been a lot of citizen participation as far as people becoming poll workers or poll watchers, being involved in the process, and that builds trust in the process. I think that's something we can really be proud of. And each of the supervisors of elections implements the laws that are being passed in Tallahassee and they do that in a way that's best for their area, whether it's urban, suburban, rural. I think we should be really proud of our state that we've come so far in 26 years, and now we're the gold standard for the country.
Do you agree with the current federal and state governments’ approaches to immigration enforcement?
If you look back at the 2024 election, that was a major issue for voters. We had record participation in the election because of that. I believe in strong borders and enforcing the law. That's what people have voted for continually across the nation as well as our state. I think that's just something that's been a concern of people for safety purposes, especially in this area. You know we’re part of a federal system, so it's a federal issue that's being implemented in the state level. But the voters did want us enforcing the law and making sure we have strong borders. And clearly, you know, our borders here are different because they're water. But, you know, we do a good job protecting that as well.
In terms of abortion restrictions in the state, do you believe those should be more strict, less strict, or stay the same?
So I'm a conservative. I'm pro-life. I think when we're talking about this, I think we can do a better job here in this state with you know, supporting people that are in, you know, a pregnancy situation, whether it be, you know, unwanted or a surprise or, you know, wanted. You know, I was a working mom when I first got pregnant, and, I think it's, you know, it's challenging to receive prenatal care when you're working during the hours and, you know, the constant appointments and everything. So something that's really interesting to me as we live in this environment is making sure we're taking care of the babies that are being born here and the women who are pregnant. So that's something that I'm more focused on than you know, each law and restriction.
