For Florida House District 72, we recommend Harvey Shifrin

The Florida House District 72 race features incumbent Bill Conerly and challenger Harvey Shifrin.

Incumbent Republican William “Bill” Conerly has been one of the most reliable votes for legislation seeking to limit home rule, voting time and again for an onslaught of preemption bills that defy the conservative principle of small government while consolidating power at the top. 

Big Development fully supported Conerly when he won the seat in 2024. In his two years in office, Conerly has consistently represented developers' interests over those of his community and its constituents.

Conerly voted in favor of the disastrous SB 180 legislation that has prevented our local government from reinstituting vital wetland protections that were stripped by a previous board, reinstituting sensible impact fees, or reversing a policy that has allowed for rampant development east of the future development area boundary.

Before returning to Tallahassee for this year’s session, Conerly repeatedly acknowledged what he called unintended consequences of the legislation when pressed by Manatee County citizens who were angry that, despite voting out the majority of county commissioners who voted to remove wetland protections, the preemption bill he voted for was preventing them from being restored.

A Pinellas County Senator filed legislation to cure most of the woes caused by SB 180. Rather than file a companion bill in the House, which would have made passage much more likely, Conerly not only sat on his hands but also voted for more legislation to preempt home rule, including the sprawl-inducing SB 399.

Conerly, who works for Kimley-Horn and Associates—a planning, surveying, engineering, and design consulting firm—is clearly in Tallahassee to represent his industry's interests and the special interests within it that supported his campaign.

Shrifin is an accountant and attorney who spent most of his career working for pension funds and much of his spare time volunteering in schools through the  Odyssey of the Mind program. In our interview, we found him to be a thoughtful man running for office because he wants to restore local control so our local government officials can pass ordinances that best serve our community while working to fix the actual problems in the legislature's purview. 

District 72 desperately needs a representative who will go to Tallahassee and fight for this community and its residents.  Bill Connerly has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is not the man for the job.