Rep. Dave Hood, R-Daytona Beach Shores
Date of Birth: April 24, 1954
Birthplace: Fort Polk, La.
Residence: Daytona Beach Shores
Education:University of South Carolina School of Law, Juris Doctor
Occupation: Attorney
Previous Public Office(s): City of Ormond Beach, Mayor 1994-1999; City of Ormond Beach, City Commissioner 1992-1994
Family: Wife, five children
Did you know?Plays the violin, cello, guitar, and clarinet; terrible at golf.The Republican freshman representing the Volusia County coastline is a seasoned attorney with an eye on criminal justice reform. He tells Sunshine State News the entire system needs an overhaul, and that everything -- including the decriminalization of nonviolent drug use -- is on the table.
Dave Hoods election to the Florida House of Representatives in November he received 61 percent of the vote in a race the Democrats did not bother to field a candidate for is not the Daytona Beach Shores attorneys first foray into public service. He sat on the Ormond Beach City Commission from 1992 to 1994, before going on to serve two terms as mayor, from 1994 to 1999.
Not having come from a political family, he tells the News he decided to run for office after the city of Ormond Beach failed to pass a bond bill, which would have enabled the city to borrow funds for the construction of new facilities for youth and seniors.
I felt that I could build everything that had been in that bill without raising taxes and without bond money, and everyone laughed at me, he says.
But the last laugh was his.
At the end of the day we built every one of those facilities, and we never raised taxes and never borrowed a dollar to do it, he says of his mayoral term, adding that these are the same governing principles he intends to bring to Tallahassee.
Hood is admittedly big on ideals but short on specifics at this point in the pre-legislative process. He has set for himself a personal deadline of Dec. 30 for the drafting of specific legislation he plans to introduce for the 2013 session.
Youve got this situation where you have these states that have had a lot of manufacturing jobs Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, California and which have managed to screw up their tax system so badly that we have an opportunity to bring quality economic development to Florida, he tells the News. And from that [potential increase in revenue] flows a great deal of the ability to fix the problems we have in criminal justice, to invest the money that needs to be invested in education and make our state the most desirable place to work, live, and play.
A managing partner at a law firm that deals with criminal justice, and with 30 years of legal practice under his belt, Hood has many friends and associates who are criminal judges, and he has been discussing with them what can be done to reform what he says is a broken system. He hopes to bring some of these suggestions to his colleagues who sit with him on the Criminal Justice Subcommittee, to which he has been assigned by House Speaker Will Weatherford.
In 1988 we were imprisoning close to 111,000 people in state prisons at a cost of $300-to-$400 million; in 2011 we had 110,000 people in those prisons at a cost of $2.2 billion, he says. Does anyone truly believe were any safer today than we were in 1988? The entire system needs a top to bottom overhaul.
While he declines to specifically commit to decriminalization of marijuana whether for criminal or recreational purposes he tells Sunshine State News that the war on drugs has been, if we were to grade it, an enormous failure, and that no proposed solution is above scrutiny.
I think everything is on the table, he insists. You dont fix the problems with the same thinking that created the problems. We need to look at the overall system and have a fresh viewpoint on it.
A member of the K-12 Subcommittee, Hood says his efforts there will focus on analyz[ing] what were doing with administrative positions in education, so we can put more of that money in the hands of teachers.
Hood also sits on the Government Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, the Health Innovation Subcommittee, and the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee.
Asked to disclose some factoid about himself that is unknown to most pf his associates, Hood reveals his talent for both music and the art of self-deprecation.
I was given a musicians scholarship to go to what we call the Harvard of the South, he says of his undergraduate college experience. Some people call it the University of South Carolina.
"Im a very bad golfer, however. If you watch my swing you have to do everything to keep from vomiting ... but its workable.
Reach Eric Giunta at egiunta@sunshinestatenews.com or at (954) 235-9116.
