New Blue America Endorsement: Olivia Babis In Florida

Florida's 23rd state Senate district includes all of Sarasota County and coastal Charlotte County. It's 91.6% white, very red. Trump beat Hillary here 55.26% to 40.86%. This year one part of the district went through a widely publicized GOP lunatic episode/political scandal that shook up the whole area. Florida Republicans expected their candidate, Joe Gruters, to waltz into the Senate. It's not working out that way, despite his 4-1 cash advantage over Olivia Babis, a magnetic first time candidate whose life story and progressive policies have caught fire. If Olivia wins, she will be the first person with a disability ever elected to the Florida legislature. Her campaign is Blue America's newest endorsement. We invited her to write a guest post about why she's running and how she can win. Please watch the video above and give guest post a read... and if you like what you see, consider contributing to the campaign by clicking on the thermometer below.


Guest Post by Olivia Babis

I never set out to try to make history. Six months ago I didn’t even expect to be running for office this year! I’ve worked on plenty of political and advocacy campaigns, usually running the field program,. Running for office is one of those things I thought I might do one day, but I work at a non-profit so I don’t exactly have extra money to dump into a campaign. I also just started a graduate program, another one of those things I had been telling myself I was going to do “one day” and I was finally doing it! Juggling work and classes was challenging enough. How did I decide that now was a good time to throw a run for the Florida State Senate into the mix???

Not only do I have a disability, but I work at a Center for Independent Living where I work with other adults with disabilities. The worst days ever are when I have to tell someone, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.” A piece of my soul dies every time I have to say that to someone because as a member of the disability community I understand all too well the consequences of those words. I’ve heard them myself. I know the wave of desperation and panic that washes over you when those words are spoken and I see it in the faces of others when I have to say it to them.

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do,” means there is no source of transportation for you, or I’m sorry you’re about to be homeless, that there’s a 10 year wait list for that service you desperately need, you make slightly too much money for this program but not nearly enough to pay for this really expensive thing that you need to function, you might end up in jail because our criminal justice system wasn’t designed to deal with disability, or you may die before funding for something comes through. I have to say this phrase that feels like I’m issuing a death sentence to someone far more often then I should have to.

I couldn’t continue having to say that to people without trying to do something about it. I have more policy experience than most people I know. I have worked extensively on healthcare policy at both the federal and state level. I have worked on transportation efforts, corporate tax policy, wage issues, women's reproductive rights, just to name a few. I frequently help other campaigns with their talking points and platforms, I help coach other candidates on policy. I’m the person others call to speak at press conferences. Why was I continuing to try to get others to act on issues that were important to me when I had all of the skills needed to do this myself?

Florida has one of the oldest populations in the country, but we rank near the bottom when it comes to accessibility. People are often surprised when they hear that; having lived here the majority of my life I’m not. Florida has absolutely zero disability representation. If I win my race I will be the first person with a disability ever elected to the Florida legislature. Even advisory boards that are supposed to represent the disability community are stacked with “experts” who have never personally experienced disability and parents of a person with a disability. I know some parents who are incredible advocates for their kids and I’m in no way saying that parents shouldn’t occupy some space at the table, but there are more than enough members of the disability community who are more than capable of speaking for themselves. Stacking advisory boards in this manner and leaving the disability community without a voice has led to paternalistic policies and left Florida with some of the longest waiver wait lists in the country.

When Greg Steube announced he was vacating the State Senate District 23 seat to run for Congress earlier this year, my opponent, Joe Gruters, quickly filed to take his place. After a couple of months had passed and no one on Team Blue had filed to run yet I inquired with our local DEC Chair if anyone had expressed any interest in running. I was asking out of curiosity because I couldn’t believe in the year of the Blue Wave that someone wasn’t going to at least try. The response I got back was, “Are you interested?”

Was I interested??? This had to be a joke right?! I couldn’t run for State Senate! I wasn’t qualified for this!… Was I? Well, actually... I was, I am. Nobody else was volunteering to do it. If not me, then who? I wasn’t striving to make history. I started this journey to ensure that my government is doing what it is supposed to do; protect its people. All of them. Right now it’s doing a pretty lousy job at that.

The issues affecting my district don't just affect the disability community. Many in my district are struggling to survive. My district has no middle-class of which to speak. We have those who are extremely wealthy and those who are extremely poor with very few occupying the area in between. Approximately 40% of people in the district are housing insecure. Over 30% of people age 60 and older are on food stamps because their savings and retirement haven't been able to keep up with the cost of living. We're all paying for the lack of investment in infrastructure and public transportation through high car insurance rates due to high incidences of accidents, traffic congestion, decreased property values from widening roads, poor air quality, and public health issues due to poor air quality. Due to lax environmental regulations, the state is experiencing one of the worst algae blooms in history. This is the second time we've experienced an historic algae bloom since the rollback of water quality standards. This has affected my district particularly hard; impacting our water quality, increasing doctor's visits for respiratory issues by approximately 20%, and devastating our local economy which is largely dependent on tourism. If I didn't run for this seat knowing that I had the ability to address these issues, but didn't even try then I would be saying, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do” to my entire district. It wouldn't even be that I couldn't do something. I would be refusing to do something. That's even worse. I don't have enough pieces of my soul left to look hundreds of thousands of people in the eye and turn my back on them.

So, here I am running a campaign I never expected to be running, for a seat that wasn’t supposed to be open, in a race I wasn't expected to be able to win. Yet, according to recent polling I currently hold a 4 point lead over my opponent. This shouldn't be. I'm in an R+14 district running against the County Chair of the Republican Party, the Co-Chair of Trump's Florida Campaign, and current Florida House Representative. I'm out-funded and understaffed. I don't have any giant road signs. I've just spent the past 5 months ordering palm cards and knocking doors; trying to make sure I can pay the small staff I do have. Nevertheless, I'm giving my opponent who expected to just walk right into the State Senate, who has ten times as much money as I do, a run for his money.

This actually couldn’t be more perfect. I wasn’t expected to leave the hospital after I was born. My grandparents were told to put me in an institution because doctors believed I would never have any quality of life. I definitely wasn’t supposed to be self-sufficient, have the capacity to learn, or the ability to live on my own. I was already taking college classes in high school. I currently live with my boyfriend, but moved in with him from my apartment where I lived by myself. I went skydiving on my 40th birthday and swimming with dolphins in Playa del Carmen last Christmas. All of these things were supposedly things I would never do. What’s one more impossible task? Perhaps it takes an impossible person to win an impossible race.