Going head-to-head with state house candidate just prior to a photo shoot with Beth Tuura at Langford Park, just south of downtown, could seem more intimidating than it actually is. After all, her background is in sports broadcasting, a career that has seen her covering eight Olympics, the Kentucky Derby and the Super Bowl.
As a broadcasting veteran, Tuura has seen her share of fouls and bad behavior, but given the recent controversies involving the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his flaring penchant for insulting women and their physical privacy, her very presence as the Democrat in the hotly contested race for Orlando’s District 47 is impressive. Tuura, who is a married lesbian (“My wife wants nothing to do with this,” she jokes when we notice her wedding band), finds the recent appearance of “locker-room banter” into the political fray amusing and horrifying, but only to a certain point.
“I’ve only been in a few locker rooms, from Major League Baseball to the National Basketball Association to the National Football League, and I don’t really like to go in there, because who wants to be in a stinky locker room?” she laughs. “But I’ve never encountered any talk like that,” she adds, referencing the recent Trump-meets-Billy-Bush leak of audio and video revealing sexism – even assault – to be the words du jour.
“They go into the locker rooms, they get prepared, they study their notes, they study their films, they do what they need to do to get ready for the game,” Tuura says. “As far as I’ve personally witnessed, I’ve only seen professional athletes performing professionally. … It sets a bad example, and it’s just not right.”
In true competitive fashion, Tuura is running as a relative amateur for a seat against incumbent Mike Miller for District 47. Miller has already been endorsed by the usually liberal Democratic Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, an act that seemingly came out of left field (or right, if you’re measuring), but Miller also carries the conservative baggage that comes with conservative linchpins like the National Federation of Independent Business, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Florida, and for those minding the LGBTQ rights held up in the air by an election year, Miller also maintains a 67 percent rating by the Florida Family Action group that continually seeks to roll back the rights of our community. Manwhile, Tuura is running on an environmental platform (anti-fracking), supporting reproductive rights, a redesign of the over-testing of children in schools and LGBT rights in the workplace and beyond, She’s also a proponent of common-sense gun reform, a proponent who lives in the shadow of the June 12 Pulse Orlando massacre.
“As I tell people, you know that we have a long history in the United States of owning guns in this country and even our founding fathers thought it so important that they put it in the Second Amendment,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean that just because you have the ability to bear arms in your home, to protect your home and property, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have the right to purchase weapons that are based for military use and their only purpose is a maximum amount of kills in the shortest period of time. That is a marketing and commerce issue.”
Tuura is, effectively, a died-in-the-wool progressive with ambitions to penetrate the wall of ultra-conservative beliefs that currently holds Tallahassee in paralysis. She’s also realistic about her chances to make a revolution occur amid an effective supermajority carved by the gerrymandering of Florida’s vastly different districts. When speaking of Medicaid expansion – something the legislature has yet to achieve, even with the howls of public protest, she remains optimistic.
“You just have to stand-up and say, ‘This is not OK. Health care is a right, and people are hurting,’” she says. “You can’t turn this money away; it’s coming from the feds; it’s a good deal. And just to be on the political side of saying ‘no’ because you’re the party of no, that’s not OK, because it affects real people.”
If it seems like a stretch for Tuura to pull the election off, especially given the endorsements from the left and right against her and for Miller, that hasn’t silenced Tuura’s apparent resolve. She isn’t some revolutionary riding high against the forces of governance. She is, rather, somebody working from her own position in life to try to make life better for Central Florida. She isn’t playing, and she isn’t disillusioned.
“Honestly, when I get out and talk to people, that’s very inspiring to me,” she says. Because I get to actually connect with voters and hear their stories and see that governments can do good things. Yesterday, Sen. Bill Nelson endorsed me, and I was so excited, because if anyone is an example of good governance and leadership, it’s a guy like that.”
Also, as a member of the LGBT family, she hopes to set the same example being proffered by those struggling alongside in the door-knockings, canvassing and phone-banking.
“Think back to where we were in the 1980s, living in the shadows and not being able to come out at work, and hiding from people all the time, and AIDS, and the seminal moment that Rock Hudson died and how that just brought everything to the surface,” she says. “So we’ve been marching forward to taking our rightful place at the table. We are tax-paying citizens; we are members of a community; we give a lot to our community; we’re just regular people.”
As are we. We proudly endorse Beth Tuura for the Florida House of Representatives in District 47.
