Josie Tomkow’s Record Shows Tallahassee Comes First
A strange thing is happening in Florida politics. The same politicians who talk endlessly about freedom keep voting to take power away from the people closest to the problem.
That is the real story of Josie Tomkow’s record in the Florida House.
Tomkow is now asking voters in Senate District 14 to send her to Tallahassee as their State Senator. But before Tampa voters hand her that authority, they should look carefully at how she used it when she represented Polk County in the State House. Her record is not just conservative. It is a record of state control over local communities, with real impacts on Tampa and Hillsborough County. From restricting our city’s ability to address housing affordability to limiting tools for local oversight of law enforcement, her decisions in Tallahassee have made it harder for local leaders to act on the issues that matter most to our neighborhoods.
That matters.
Home rule is not some dry procedural phrase. It means local people, through local governments, should have the ability to solve local problems. Tampa is not Polk County. South Tampa is not Tallahassee. Hillsborough’s neighborhoods, schools, housing pressures, workforce needs, traffic patterns, stormwater concerns, and public-safety issues are not identical to every other community in Florida.
A real representative understands that. A Tallahassee loyalist ignores it.
Tomkow’s House votes show us which kind of legislator she has been.
She voted yes on HB 1417, which preempted local tenant protections and gave the state control over residential tenancy and landlord-tenant regulation. That vote matters in a place like Tampa, where housing affordability is not theoretical. It is the monthly anxiety of working families, seniors, young professionals, and people who simply want to stay in the community they helped build.
And she did not stop there.
Tomkow also voted yes on SB 102, the 2023 Live Local Act, which included major state preemptions over local housing and land-use authority. The bill removed local authority to adopt rent-control measures and imposed state-level rules on how local governments must handle certain affordable-housing developments. Supporters may call that housing policy. But from a home-rule perspective, it was another case of Tallahassee telling local communities how they must govern their own land.
Then, in 2026, Tomkow voted in favor of SB 1434, the Infill Redevelopment Act. That bill required local governments to permit certain qualifying parcels to be developed for residential use and barred them from adopting or enforcing local laws, ordinances, or regulations that would restrict those developments.
Again, the issue is not whether infill development can be useful. Of course it can be. The issue is whether Tallahassee should override local planning, local zoning, local hearings, and local judgment.
For Tampa voters, this should ring every alarm bell. Development decisions shape traffic, drainage, schools, neighborhood character, infrastructure, affordability, and quality of life. Those decisions should be made as close to the affected community as possible, not dictated by legislators who do not live with the consequences.
She voted yes on HB 433, the 2024 bill that blocked local governments from adopting certain employment protections, including local heat-safety rules for outdoor workers. In a state where summer heat is not an inconvenience but a workplace hazard, Tomkow sided with Tallahassee over local communities that wanted the freedom to protect their own workers.
Tomkow also voted yes on HB 601, which restricted local civilian oversight of law-enforcement misconduct complaints. That was another case in which Tallahassee decided that local communities could not be trusted to determine how accountability would work in their own neighborhoods.
This pattern also extended into public schools.
Tomkow repeatedly voted for state-level interference in local public education and in local school board authority. She voted yes on HB 1557, the so-called Parental Rights in Education bill, which imposed state rules on how school districts handle sensitive student and classroom issues. She voted yes on HB 1467, which imposed term limits on school boards and rewrote rules governing instructional materials. She voted yes on HB 7, the “Individual Freedom” bill, which dictated from Tallahassee how schools and educators may address certain topics involving race, history, and discrimination. And she voted yes on HB 1069, another sweeping education bill that affects pronouns, classroom and library materials, human sexuality instruction, and school-board duties.
That is not a one-off vote. That is a governing philosophy.
Again and again, Tomkow voted as if local governments cannot be trusted. Local school boards cannot be trusted. Local teachers cannot be trusted. Local voters cannot be trusted. But Tallahassee can.
Progressives should reject that, but so should anyone who believes their own community deserves a voice.
The irony is that Tomkow now wants to represent a district she has only recently made her political home. Until she resigned from the State House, we were assured that she lived in the Polk County district she represented, as required by law. Now she is suddenly presenting herself as a South Tampa-area candidate with a deep understanding of Senate District 14’s issues.
Forgive voters for being skeptical.
This district deserves someone who understands Tampa and Hillsborough County because they live our problems, not someone who arrived with a Tallahassee voting record and a campaign brochure. We need representation rooted in this community, not imported politics wrapped in local slogans.
An effective representative for our district would be locally rooted, consistently present in our neighborhoods, and responsive to residents’ needs. They would listen to community voices, collaborate with local leaders to tailor solutions to Tampa and Hillsborough’s unique challenges, and trust local judgment on issues like affordable housing, school priorities, and public safety. Rather than enforcing one-size-fits-all dictates from Tallahassee, the right senator for District 14 would fight to keep decision-making as close to home as possible, ensuring that our schools, housing, and local policies reflect the values and needs of the people who actually live here.
The question for voters is simple: if Josie Tomkow voted this way as a House member, why would anyone expect her to vote differently as a State Senator?
When communities needed tools to respond to housing pressure, she chose preemption. When local governments needed room to make their own zoning, infill, and land-use decisions, she chose preemption. When communities wanted civilian oversight, she chose preemption. When school boards and educators needed room to serve their own students, she chose Tallahassee mandates. And when local governments might have wanted to respond to workplace conditions in their own communities, she chose preemption again.
That record tells us what kind of Senator she would be.
Tomkow can call it conservative leadership if she wants. But voters should call it what it is: a steady vote against home rule and against the right of local communities to govern themselves.
Senate District 14 does not need another rubber stamp for Tallahassee control. It needs a Senator who trusts Tampa, trusts Hillsborough, trusts local school boards, and trusts the people who actually live here.
Josie Tomkow’s record says Tallahassee knows best, and she’s not the only one from South Tampa who goes along with preemption (I’m looking at you, Karen Gonzalez Pittman).
Senator Brian Nathan believes that local communities know best.
