Will a 10-year state legislator or a CPA and business consultant get a chance to unseat Karen Thurman in November?
By JIM ROSS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 5, 2002
During the redistricting process earlier this year, the Republican-led Legislature eliminated Gainesville and its reliable source of Democratic votes from the 5th Congressional District.
That move improved the chances of a GOP member winning the seat and displacing longtime Democratic incumbent Karen Thurman.
Republican voters will decide whether state Sen. Ginny Brown-Waite from Brooksville or semiretired businessman Don Gessner from Lecanto gets the chance to unseat Thurman in November.
Gessner said GOP voters should support him for two reasons.
First, he said he knows more than Brown-Waite about the issues -- health care, taxation, education -- that voters want addressed at the federal level. He cites his experience as a certified public accountant, a health care business consultant, an expert witness in Medicare/Medicaid fraud cases and a Board of Education member in Duluth, Minn., during the early 1970s.
Second, Gessner said Brown-Waite is too moderate. If she faced Thurman in November, voters wouldn't have a clear choice and hardcore conservatives might vote for Jack Gargan, an independent, instead of the Republican.
Gessner, on the other hand, touts himself as a strong conservative in the Ronald Reagan mode: less taxes, less government. That stance will energize the GOP base and attract the conservative Democrats prevalent throughout the district, he said.
"She's not conservative at all, except in name," Gessner said of Brown-Waite.
Brown-Waite said Gessner has a "massive ego" to think his business experience would even come close to trumping her 10-year stint in the state Senate, where she has chaired committees, sponsored legislation, debated issues on the floor and fought for constituents.
"I'm a learn-as-you-go expert," Brown-Waite said.
During her time in Tallahassee, Brown-Waite has sponsored reform of the welfare system and supported the state's effort to sue tobacco companies for smoking-related health problems. She helped reform health maintenance organizations and pushed through legislation that gave the public easy access to complaints and lawsuits filed against doctors.
The candidates differ significantly on some key issues. For example:
n Gessner is antiabortion while Brown-Waite said she is "in a state of flux" on the matter.
n Gessner would privatize Social Security but make the choice of private investment available to younger generations; Brown-Waite opposes privatization but wants the government to find ways to improve the yield it receives when investing Social Security funds.
The 5th Congressional District includes all of Citrus, Hernando and Sumter counties, central and east Pasco County and all or part of four other counties. U.S. representatives serve two-year terms and are paid $150,000 annually.
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, 58, was born in Albany, N.Y. She graduated from the New York state university system and later earned a master's degree in public administration from Russell Sage College in Troy, N.Y. Brown-Waite worked as a staff director for the New York legislature and later moved to Florida. She served on the Hernando County Commission and then won election to the state Senate in 1992, where she has served ever since. Brown-Waite is an adjunct professor at Springfield (Mass.) College's Tampa campus and does health care consulting work. She is married and has three grown daughters. ASSETS: rental property, mortgage, real estate, U.S. savings bonds, individual retirement accounts, stocks, vehicles. LIABILITIES: mortgage. SOURCE OF INCOME: legislator's salary, consulting contracts, state of New York pension. WEB SITE: http://www.brown-waitecongress.com/.
DON GESSNER, 61, is a native of Duluth, Minn. He studied prebusiness and geology/geography at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and then received his bachelor's degree in business-accounting from the University of Minnesota. Gessner was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Service Corps, and he served on active duty from June 1963 to March 1964 at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, and at Fort Carson, Colorado Springs, Colo. He completed his six-year military obligation in Duluth and received an honorable discharge. He also studied at the Institute on Federal Taxation at New York University. Gessner is a semiretired certified public accountant and a certified health care business consultant. He is married and has three grown children. ASSETS: stocks, individual retirement accounts. LIABILITIES: none. SOURCE OF INCOME: Gessner & Co. WEB SITE: http://www.gessner2002.com/.