Incumbent Challenged In Sprawling District
Published: Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 11:34 p.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 11:34 p.m.
LAKE WALES | In the Nov. 6 election, U.S. Congressional District 17 will be one of the few in which there will be a three-way race.
And those three candidates have very different ways of attacking the issues.
Republican Tom Rooney, an incumbent member of the U.S. House, currently represents the 16th District, but since district lines were redrawn earlier this year, he is running in the District 17 with Democrat William Bronson and write-in Socialist Workers Party candidate Tom Baumann.
It's a large district that includes parts of 10 South and Central Florida counties, including southwestern and southeastern Polk County.
Congress members serve two-year terms and are paid $174,000 per year.
Rooney, 41, lives in Tequesta with his wife, Tara, and three children.
He has a law degree from the University of Miami, and before taking his seat in Congress in 2009, he practiced law and was CEO of a mental-health center. Previously, he worked as an assistant state attorney general and a prosecutor in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps.
His major issues are cutting spending, reducing the size of government, balancing the federal budget and strengthening national security.
He said he learned some of his policy as an honorary board member of Home Safe and Place of Hope, a home for abused and neglected children in Lake Worth.
While there, Rooney said, he learned how to balance a budget with what the organization had, and he says that more government is not the answer; better management is.
Rooney defeated Joe Arnold of Okeechobee in the Republican primary with 74 percent of the vote in the district as a whole and 69 percent of the vote in Polk County.
As of the Sept. 21 financial reporting deadline with the Federal Election Commission, Rooney reported having $564,716 in campaign money on hand after collecting $930,248.
No financial data was available from the Election Commission on Bronson or Baumann.
Bronson, 73, lives in Lehigh Acres with his wife, Christine. They have five grown children.
He served in the U.S. Navy and then became a commercial pilot. He earned several advanced degrees, including a doctorate of ministry from Episcopal Divinity School.
Bronson ran for Congress in 1976 and 1978 in Massachusetts and in 1984 in Georgia. He was initially a Republican, then an independent and now is a Democrat.
This year, he ran unopposed in the 2012 Democratic primary.
He has vowed to introduce legislation to increase the top tax rate to 46 percent, to break up media conglomerates, to mandate shareholder approval of corporate campaign contributions and to prohibit government-insured banks from certain controversial practices.
He said he would also beef-up regulation of financial practices to ensure corporations are not taking excessive risks or using predatory lending practices.
Money gained from raising the top tax bracket and taxing capital gains as regular income would bring in $450 billion per year, Bronson said.
That could create an opportunity for 11.3 million people at $40,000 a year to perform public-sector jobs, he said, and their consumer activity would stimulate the economy.
Baumann, 26, currently lives in Miami — part of the former District 17 — but said he would move inside the redrawn district if elected.
A high-school graduate from Jersey City, N.J., Baumann is not married and has no children. He has worked for six years in the warehousing and meat-packing industries.
He joined the Socialist Workers Party five years ago, he said, and ran unsuccessful campaigns for lieutenant governor of Minnesota in 2007 and Manhattan Borough president in 2009.
Baumann said neither of the two major political parties have workable solutions. He said both parties' proposals are based on a capitalist system that doesn't serve human needs.
He said he supports public-works programs to rebuild infrastructure and end unemployment.
Also, as means to create equality in the workplace, he supports a woman's right to an abortion and universal health care.
[ Phil Attinger may be reached at 863-401-6981 or phil.attinger@newschief.com. ]
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