For the Florida House D71 Seat, We Recommend Adriaan DeVilliers

The Florida House D71 race will see Democrat Adriaan DeVilliers challenge incumbent Republican Will Robinson.

When Rep. Robinson was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2018, we had high hopes that he would be an effective representative for our community. Robinson was articulate, highly educated, and had deep ties to the district. He also brought some much-needed youth to an aging Republican majority.

We were hopeful that Robinson could act as a bulwark against a party that had largely abandoned its core tenets in favor of pursuing the agendas of special interests, often in direct opposition to traditional conservative principles. We have been immensely disappointed to see him fall in line and enthusiastically serve those special interests at nearly every turn, particularly when they benefited developers.

Robinson consistently voted for policies in Tallahassee that would limit home rule despite Republicans’ supposed commitment to prizing “small government.” Furthermore, he disregarded the will of his constituents to conspire with like-minded local officials in ill-fated feuds with island cities, pushing legislation to allow Manatee County to permit its own overpriced and unwanted parking garage on Holmes Beach and to study the annexation or consolidation of the three island cities.

Adriaan DeVilliers is a civil engineer who became a U.S. citizen after immigrating from South Africa. He is running a grassroots campaign to return the district's representation to one that focuses on the constituents and not special interests. He advocates for responsible growth and protecting our community’s environmental resources. We find Mr. DeVilliers to be honest, thoughtful, and intelligent. We believe that he would represent a significant improvement over Robinson in representing D71’s interests in Tallahassee.

Mr. DeVilliers was recently a guest on The Bradenton Times podcast. The episode is embedded below.