The Ideological Tourist: Why Josie Tomkow is the Wrong Prescription for Tampa

Politics, at its most cynical, is a game of maps. When a career politician finds themselves term-limited or politically boxed in, they don’t look for a way to serve; they look for a new zip code. Representative Josie Tomkow’s sudden interest in the voters of South Tampa and Downtown is a textbook example of political opportunism. But for the residents of Senate District 14, this isn’t just a change of address. It is a fundamental collision between a rural rancher’s record of institutionalized cruelty and the sophisticated, urban reality of Hillsborough County.

As the Chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, Tomkow has been the primary legislative engine for what can only be described as a “campaign of terror” against Florida’s most vulnerable. She has consistently overlooked the shared civic value of public compassion, which should be at the heart of our policies. Now, she is asking the most diverse and scientifically literate part of our region to forget that record and grant her a promotion.

A Record of Institutionalized Cruelty. In our political analysis, we regularly speak of the “joy of inflicting harm”—a specific kind of governance that delights in using the law as a weapon of exclusion. Under Tomkow’s gavel, the Health Committee has been the laboratory for this approach. While Tampa’s medical community—anchored by world-class institutions such as TGH, Moffitt Cancer Center, and USF Health—strives for evidence-based care and inclusiveness, Tomkow has weaponized the healthcare system during her tenure.

She presided over the implementation of the six-week abortion ban, a draconian policy that stripped reproductive autonomy from millions, ignoring the complex medical realities that doctors in this district face every day. She was the gatekeeper for laws that banned life-saving gender-affirming care, even for adults, and criminalized the medical professionals providing it.

The data is damning: over 60% of transgender persons in Florida have delayed or avoided medical care because they are terrified of the very system Tomkow oversees. When a “Health Chair” creates a climate of fear so pervasive that citizens are afraid to see a doctor, she isn’t governing; she is presiding over a “patrimonial” decay where loyalty to an extremist brand is more important than the lives of the citizenry.

The War on Science in a Medical Hub. Perhaps the most dangerous element of the Tomkow record is her role as a silent enabler of medical misinformation. South Tampa and Downtown are home to thousands of physicians, researchers, and families who rely on the trustworthiness of public health data. Yet Tomkow has been the primary legislative shield for the state’s descent into a medical dark age.

As Florida’s Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, continues to spread “anti-vax” rhetoric that threatens the herd immunity of our schools and retiree communities, Tomkow’s committee has offered no oversight—only complicity. She has stood by as the state government branded life-saving public health measures as “hoaxes.” In a community that understands the value of vaccines and rigorous research, Tomkow’s “science-free” leadership is a liability we cannot afford to import. She is asking to represent a district of scientists while running on a platform of superstition.

The Rural Abandonment Exported. There is a serious irony in Tomkow’s campaign. She presents herself as a “rancher” who understands the struggles of the working class, yet her leadership has been disastrous even for the rural communities she is leaving behind. Under her watch, nearly one-third of Florida’s rural hospitals have been pushed to the brink of financial collapse. She has supported budgets that prioritize corporate tax breaks over the stability of the Medicaid system, which both rural clinics and urban safety-net hospitals rely on.

If Josie Tomkow could not—or would not—protect the healthcare lifelines of her own neighbors in Polk County, why would the voters of Hillsborough trust her with ours? She is an ideological tourist, hoping that a few glossy mailers can mask a record of systemic failure. She is a “carpetbagger” in the truest sense, bringing a failed rural model of “politics as warfare” to a district that demands thoughtful, expert-driven representation.

The Choice: Predators vs. Neighbors. We are at a point in our history where the government is treated as a private fiefdom—a system in which power is used to reward the loyal and punish the “other.” Josie Tomkow is a product of this machine. She doesn’t represent the independent, forward-thinking spirit of Tampa; she represents the Tallahassee status quo that views the law as a tool for “othering” anyone who doesn’t fit a specific ideological mold.

We are not meant to live as “predators” seeking political advantage through the suffering of others. We are meant to be neighbors committed to the common well-being of our city. The special election on March 24th is a referendum on whether South Tampa and Downtown will allow themselves to be annexed by this politics of cruelty.

Josie Tomkow is bringing a “campaign of terror” to our doorstep, packaged in the friendly branding of a seventh-generation rancher. But Tampa deserves a Senator who views healthcare as a sacred public responsibility, not a political cudgel. We deserve a leader who understands that in a modern city, science is not a matter of opinion, and healthcare is not a weapon of war.