Chris Cate: Welcome to the Fluent in Floridian podcast, featuring the Sunshine State's brightest leaders, talking about the issues most important to the people of Florida and its millions of weekly visitors. I'm Chris Cate and in this episode created by SalterMitchell PR, our executive producer, April Salter, the CEO of SalterMitchell PR, will talk to Matt Caldwell, a Florida State Representative since 2010 and a current candidate to be Florida's next Agriculture Commissioner. In the interview, Matt talks about growing up as a seventh generation Florida native, about what motivated him to run for public office, and about what he hopes to accomplish if elected Agriculture Commissioner. And you can hear it all right now.

April Salter: Matt, welcome to the show and thank you so much for being here. You grew up in Gainesville and I know you're a seventh generation Florida native. When you were growing up, did you know that you always wanted to live in Florida?

Matt Caldwell: Well, absolutely I did. You know, my mom's side of the family goes back to 1826 when they came to Micanopy there, just south of Gainesville. My dad actually grew up in South Carolina, so we did travel a lot in the summer to go visit relatives and spend some time up in the mountains, get out of that Florida heat that a lot of people try to do.

But Florida really is just an amazing place. I've loved growing up here, we moved from Gainesville down to Fort Myers when I was still a baby and so I've actually grown up in Fort Myers nearly my whole life and everything that that part of the state has to offer — getting out on the water and enjoying the fishing and you've got all kinds of recreational activity — it's just a great place to grow up and really an amazing and diverse state.

April Salter: Absolutely. And Matt, you graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, and given your age, you must have been one of the first classes to graduate FGCU. So what made you want to attend such a new school other than it was kind of your home at that time? What made you give that a try?

Matt Caldwell: Well that is exactly right. I graduated in '04 ... I still remember when I was attending there were three little dorm buildings on the lake. For those that have been to the campus, significantly different than when I went there. It was probably about 3000-4000 students, 90 percent commuters. I was one of those commuters living at home and then towards the end, out on my own. Now of course it's roughly 15,000 students and 90 percent on-campus. It's a totally different experience from that perspective. But I was already getting involved working, myself as a real estate appraiser ... it's one of the last true apprenticeship careers, and so it just all made sense for me. I went to what was then Edison Community College, now Florida Southwestern State College, and then went to Florida Gulf Coast to finish up my degree in history. But really a great university. Its done just absolutely marvelously in terms of it's growth over the last decade and I'm certainly excited and proud to be their first alum in the Legislature. The first Eagle to...

April Salter: Is that right?

Matt Caldwell: Yes ma'am.

April Salter: That's terrific. Well congratulations on that, and go FGCU! And Matt, you've spent the past eight years representing your district in the Florida House. At what point did you start considering running for public office?

Matt Caldwell: It really was just something that grew out of opportunity. I was in the last couple years of college there and a buddy of mine recruited me to volunteer and help out on George W. Bush's re-election campaign. And that was a fun experience, got to work events where the Vice-President and the President came to Fort Myers and got asked to stick around and get involved in local politics. Like a lot of folks, I think, you just speak your mind and stand up and say, "Hey, I'll get involved and work on these issues that I'm passionate about," and opportunities present themselves. And so I got the chance to serve on volunteer boards throughout the mid-2000's, particularly involved in water policy with Lake Okeechobee issues on the South Florida Water Management District ... some of their sub-committees.

And then opportunity presented itself ... I got recruited to run for office actually the first time, for a state Senate seat in 2008. A crazy state Senate district ... went from the Gulf of Mexico and Bonita all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and Palm Beach. The incumbent was Dave Aronberg and interesting, 27 years old running against an incumbent, never run for anything before in my life. It was an incredible educational experience. The district itself is a real microcosm of Florida. Urban, rural, suburban ... went from coast to coast as I've said, and is a very competitive district in terms of partisan makeup and the issues then that you had to deal with and be cognizant of and ready to answer for. It really was a great educational experience.

So then two years later, my House member, the seat I've lived in my whole life ... he decided to not seek re-election and we threw our hat in the ring and really went to town working hard on a grassroots campaign to get there.

April Salter: And Matt, how much of your platform now as a candidate for Ag Commissioner were you able to advocate for as a House member?

Matt Caldwell: Well that really has gone hand in hand ... a very similar experience. The opportunity to get to the House was, I think, providential for me. We were not the favorite ... I went out and knocked on 4500 doors myself, got out-spent 6:1 ... but it was that grassroots campaign that really informed my decision making. Understanding what the voters wanted. What it was that was on their mind, and obviously in southwest Florida, water and the environment, natural resources is a huge, huge issue. So when I went to Tallahassee, that was my number one choice of committee and I got to serve on that. Ended up chairing it and chairing the full committee above it.

And so for the last eight years, really was directly involved in all of the issues that touched this office, particularly in Ag and natural resource policy making. Dealing with the Everglades, dealing with springs, water supply, water quality. A lot of very difficult issues in a growing state with a lot of legacy challenges that we have. And here again, I didn't lay out a plan in high school to run for President ... so if you'd asked me three years ago, "Are you gonna run for Ag Commissioner?" I would have said you were crazy. But opportunity presented itself, it opened up, and the passion I had for these issues I wanted to carry forward in state-wide basis. That really has been the foundation of our campaign.

One of the main pillars that I've talked about on the trail for the last two years has been water, and how we need to get it right. Not only for our continued economic success, but for the quality of life. The things we hold dear about Florida, what makes it so unique, and making sure we don't lose that. It's really been a huge focus of mine and I want it to continue to be, if I have the opportunity to serve.

April Salter: Well you certainly have very good and diverse experience, Matt, and you come from a lineage of farmers ... is that right? Seven generations, I understand? So I assume you've really experienced agriculture first-hand. What are your thoughts about the right strategy to protect the balance between the needs of the agriculture industry and the needs of our environment? I know you've dealt with some of that in the House, and certainly would as Ag Commissioner ... so can you talk a little bit about that?

Matt Caldwell: Absolutely ... and it is a balance every single day. This state is so incredibly unique and, even as recently as 80 years ago, was basically empty. And I use that kind of as a proxy ... my grandfather was born in 1934 in Wildwood, and we didn't even, as a state, have a fence law until 1949 - meaning that you didn't have to fence your cows in. We were one of the last states in the country ... most of the western states had already been tamed, for lack of a better word, by that point. So really, it's within one person's lifetime that this state has completely changed so radically, and that affects all of us, it affects the quality of the environment and it affects the sustainability of agriculture.

When you just look at the questions like water supply — the ability to rely on that for the future — if we don't invest in infrastructure for the urban growth, it's gonna cause, ultimately, a conflict that is not gonna be easily resolved. We need to invest seriously in infrastructure for areas like Jacksonville and Orlando, Tampa, Miami, and continue to get them off of the groundwater, get them off of the surface water supply. Because when you do that, and you do it successfully, it will leave more than enough available for both agricultural use — businesses that just aren't going to be able to capitalize hugely expensive infrastructure — but also, for the natural environment. For the springs and the lakes and the rivers that need that base flow that need that supply of water.

And then you've got the water quality question on the other side, and that's really a huge challenge. We've got a great success story, not only in Florida, but in this country compared to where we were in the 1960's. Back then, your big environmental challenges were point source polluters. A single factory with a pipe draining into a river ... and what was coming out of that pipe at that exact point was dangerous for human health and animal health and the quality of the water. That's almost non-existent today. And what we deal with now is much more difficult. It's non-point source pollution. No single farm, no single septic tank, no single parking lot has a negative impact. It's the cumulative effect of 22 million of us and all of that activity combined that's really having the challenges presented today.

As well as I mentioned, those legacy decisions, unfortunate decisions in the past of how we structured flood control and development. And so you're constantly trying to balance ... the policymaker hopefully is an executive officer ... how you fix the problems we've created for ourselves in the past and then continue to make sure we don't compound that with the decisions going forward. And that's certainly the monumental task, I think, to the head of whoever has the opportunity to serve.

April Salter: Yeah. Absolutely. Florida is such a complex state where we have so much to be thankful for, and yet, we have many challenges ahead. Thank you so much for that.

Matt, let me ask you. Now that you're running for Agriculture Commissioner, I know you've been traveling all over the state, and you now are using the hashtag, #2lanetravels. What does that #2lanetravels, what does that mean to you?

Matt Caldwell: Well, it really started, I think, all the way back in 2013. Again, just to show you it was a providence and happenstance that we ended up here, but I'm representing a district in Fort Myers. We don't have any direct flights to Tallahassee from that corner. And by the time you do the math on your time, it just makes the most sense to drive. And of course, six and a half hours, twice a week, I got pretty bored of the interstate.

And so I started to take the regular roads, the old country roads, back and forth, exploring different ways to go, and ended up deciding that a lot of my colleagues never have the opportunity to see any of that. So I started taking pictures of neat places, vistas, small towns, and rural areas that I thought people ought to see. And I would throw it up on my Twitter page with the hashtag.

And then when the campaign evolved over the last two years, it was just a natural fit. Here we were basing a campaign on a grassroots strategy, ultimately 90 thousand miles during our primary, and then making sure that we were conveying that, not just on the two-lane roads in rural communities, but everywhere we went, big and small, and really a great opportunity to show how amazing this state is, and hopefully share a little bit of that with the folks that, for whatever reason, aren't ever able to break out of their own neighborhood and see all the absolute beauty that we have around this state.

April Salter: Matt, since you have been traveling so much, is there a favorite small town or kind of an underrated place that you think people should celebrate in Florida?

Matt Caldwell: Well, there's two ways to think about that: one, of course, I don't have a favorite child. I love them all. And then if I tell everybody my favorite places, then they'll start going and visiting them, but there's places people ought to do and drives they ought to take.

You definitely ought to take a drive through the Ocala National Forest, and up along the St. Johns River, headed towards Jacksonville. You absolutely should take a drive along 98, through the Forgotten Coast, Apalachicola, Sopchoppy, all the way around there, just absolutely gorgeous vistas that you don't get a chance to see from a lot of the developed areas.

Everybody knows the Keys, I think, but it is always refreshing. They're kind of the hubbub of Dade County. As much as we love it, it is, everybody admits, pretty stressful to navigate the traffic through there, so when you do break out and you're headed south, and you get to open up and just see those vistas across the Keys. We really, really have an amazing state.

I would just tell people, there's no downside. Hop off the interstate, grab a two-lane road, see where it takes you. You'll find amazing barbecue joints, neat shops to take a stop and look at, find some art work, find some books. Just make sure you enjoy everything it has to offer, not just staying on the well-worn path that we're on.

April Salter: Matt, let me ask you. You've said that some of the most important issues of the campaign are jobs, water, and the Second Amendment, in that order. How do you see these issues playing out in Florida?

Matt Caldwell: Well, on the job side, this office is really unique in the country. Most Ag Commissioners are focused solely on agriculture, and that's not the case in Florida. In Florida, it's the Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services. So it oversees auto repairs, oil changes, surveyors, pest control, just a wide variety of blue collar jobs. It has the Consumer Services for fraud, consumer protection, Do Not Call list. It oversees charitable organizations. It has the forestry, Florida Forest Service, and all that that entails. Thirty-four hundred employees.

It really is an enormously impactful position on the day-to-day life of every single Floridian. There is no Floridian that goes a single day, I'd venture to guess, without interacting with one of the businesses that this department oversees. And I think it's critical that you've got someone in that position that understands that, understands how to interact with business, particularly small business, which is overwhelmingly what this profile looks like.

On water policy, we've covered already. I think it's the defining issue of Florida and it's our future success or failure. I take as our comparison, California, [inaudible 00:17:00] the politics. Just look at the policy question. They clearly did not plan for their future in terms of their water supply, and anybody who's followed it over the last ten years, the farmers in the Central Valley have been cut out of the water pie altogether. You've got [inaudible 00:17:17] farmers there that still ... they never luckily never sold their water rights under their farm, but for them to get water, they have to go down a couple thousand feet. And when it comes out of the ground, it's salty and it's a hundred degrees.

Much different scenario than those folks that live in Florida, and all you got to do is go down 80 or 100 feet and you get basically pure water you can almost drink straight from the pipe. It's a real challenge. And we could end up there, if we don't take it seriously, and just plan for the future as ants and not grasshoppers, to take the old tale.

But the last one, the Second Amendment. For me, I take the vow to uphold the Constitution very, very seriously. When you are sworn into office, whether it's legislative office or hopefully in executive office, you take an oath to uphold the Constitution of Florida and the U.S. Constitution. And so while the flash point, obviously, has grown over the last several years around the Second Amendment, I feel equally passionate about our First Amendment protection, the ability of people to worship as they see fit, the ability of people to speak freely, whether I agree with that speech or not.

I often use the example of the Third Amendment to really underscore that. It's not controversial. The Third Amendment says you can't be forced to house soldiers in your home during peace times, but I think it's a great proxy because I don't think any of us would allow an exception to that. It really ... the Bill of Rights particularly ... comes from a shared experience that the Founders had dealing with a government that directly was trying to put them down, both literally and figuratively.

And so there's absolutely challenges that we have to deal with, mental health. There's no one that should have any sympathy or excuse for school shootings or mass shootings. This is an absolute tragedy. I just don't believe that they are mutually opposed ideals to both support all of our constitutional protection and also work on solutions to stop the madness when it comes to those kind of tragedies. And I'm going to commit to continue to work towards that, as long as I have the opportunity to.

April Salter: Thanks for that, Matt. And just to go a little bit deeper into that, there does seem to be a deep divide in the state regarding gun rights. And I know you've consistently been awarded an A+ rating by the NRA, and I know you're very proud of that. Does this issue come up often on the campaign trail, and how do you respond to those who fear that guns are leading to the wrong people having access to them, and leading to deaths and even mass shootings? What do you say to those folks?

Matt Caldwell: Yeah. Absolutely. It does come up. And obviously, in a state as diverse as we are, the perspective, and the question, and the frame of the question varies depending on where we're at in the state, but my position has stayed consistent. We need to address mental illness. When you look at the consistent factors in mass shootings, almost one hundred percent involve young males who have fractured home lives and struggle with mental illness, whether diagnosed or suspected. Almost every single one of them already was prohibited from having a firearm. And as much as this is a challenging talking point or an issue to grapple with, they also have happened almost exclusively in areas that are designated gun-free zones.

How we address each one of those three issues is where we need to work through, and it may ultimately be that we agree to disagree, or aren't able to come to an exact agreement on how that should be addressed, but I think for us to actually take it seriously, we have to admit that those are the three most common factors. And a lot of the solutions that are put forward, don't address any of those three factors. They don't address how the family unit is a stabilizing force in society, how the basic premise of self-government has a number of presumptions that we're actively challenging as a culture and a society.

I think the Constitution, the founders did take for granted that the family unit would be the basis for society and that a religious ethic, although not dictated by the government but still existed nonetheless in society, would be the primary people enforced for how people govern themselves. It wouldn't be the government, the government officials do that.

We definitely have the problem of mental illness. We've tried to address this in a small extent in southwest Florida while I've been there, as a delegation, we supported, financially, appropriations for the triage center - trying to help law enforcement separate folks who are actively, willfully committing crimes from those that are struggling with mental illness. Homelessness and alcoholism and drug use and all the things get tied up in those questions that are really separate from purposeful criminal activity. As good as the triage center is, it's just a band-aid on a larger problem. and we haven't gone back to address mental illness in a big, big, big way.

Probably the most controversial point of the three is going to be the designation of gun-free zones and what that really means and whether it's really effective. The objective, reality of looking at that. Those are the three points we talk about the most. I think most people are receptive to it. They're real, just like all of us are, about looking at them and recognizing that these are the messy issues. These are not one plus two equals three kind of problems. It really involves ultimately more than just the government to address each one of them.

April Salter: Absolutely. Matt, let me shift gears just a minute and just ask you about medical marijuana. Obviously you and your opponent, Nicki Fried have agreed on the need to expand medical marijuana. The legalization won 71% of the vote, so what do you see as the potential of marijuana in Florida agriculture?

Matt Caldwell: It certainly does have a potential. Now, my perspective as a policy maker, and I was part of the team that wrote the Charlotte's Web the low-THC cannabis bill in 2014, legalizing that strength, that portion of the cannabis market even before the constitutional amendments. All of it for the time being I think has to be viewed through the lens of what the federal policies. I outspokenly advocated Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and he's pushed to change the schedule of cannabis. It's still a schedule one drug and that prevents not only doctors from prescribing it but also prevents researchers from doing true, effective, peer reviewed research so that we can rely on what's really happening. What are the beneficial effects of it? What is it about the plant that we can use to our mutual benefit?

Until that happens, whatever we do as a state, not only has to stay intra-state and that's the only way I think that those of us that have taken that oath to support the constitution, it's the only way that we can work out that challenge, is to keep it intra-state. It's going to be limited. That's just a natural result of what having a federal policy that still directly opposes it. As Commissioner, I would be in my role is continuing to advocate for that. I'm supportive of the current amendment to the farm bill in the Senate that would remove the prohibition on hemp in the country.

A related conversation we push forward and pass this last session. The industrial hemp pilot project so both FAMU and UF are studying the potential benefits of farming hemp in Florida, also really the big research focus is going to be on the invasive qualities. Where a state where you have almost no freeze line and so we don't want to run the risk of introducing a crop that could turn into a path like, for example kudzu has up in the upper south, South Carolina, North Carolina State. Once those challenges are overcome, you're going to see me continue to embrace them and look for the opportunity that presents for agriculture.

‍April Salter: Thanks, Matt. Finally, we always wrap up the show with four quick questions. The first question who is a Florida leader that you admire? This could be somebody from Florida history or someone still active in their work.

Matt Caldwell: This really is a huge question. As a history major, thousands of people come to mind. Keeping it focused probably in the political realm, folks like Reubin Askew, the governor in the 70's who really tried to rise above the partisan fray and focus on solid policy solutions: particularly creating the water management district, a really innovative feature at the time. From the campaign trail, Lawton Chiles. Having run a 90,000 mile campaign that has a lot of shadows or echoes I think of his Walkin' Lawton campaign. Jeb Bush, a lot of respect for how he as governor was really able to drive the agenda and have the legislature really respond to him rather than vice versa.

My last two years in the House, I was chair of government accountability and we dealt with the question of Statuary Hall up in Washington D.C. Your listeners might not remember, every state gets two statues. We as a legislature decided to remove one of those four years ago and ask the committee that we assembled to recommend some replacements. Ultimately, we decided on Mary McLeod Bethune. Founder of Bethune-Cookman College over in Daytona Beach and that was one of my prouder moments was shepherding that bill through my committee. Now, having the first African-American woman in the entire Statutory Hall be one of the two representatives for the state of Florida. Really, really awesome opportunity.

April Salter: Absolutely. Matt, what Florida person, place or thing do you think deserves more attention?

Matt Caldwell: The easy answer is water policy because I think we could pay attention to it forever but agriculture as a whole really needs to be valued and not just at the state level but I think we do a good job at the state level. We have a lot of challenges to federal policy. We're so much different than the other lower 48 states. Not only in terms of our climate, our soil, our variety of crops. Most states they've got three or four big crops they look at, we have 300 different commodities. We've got nearly a dozen ports and we have a huge profile in the import/export business. A large part of that is agricultural business.

When you look at the farm bill, the policy that are enacted there at the federal level, very few, if any of it, addresses Florida's farm profile. We really are kind of an island to ourselves and the challenges we're dealing with on trade, our challenges we're dealing with on labor, all of those issues are really I think although federally are going to require the Commissioner to be a strong advocate in Washington D.C. and push forward and say what's important to the third largest state in the country needs to be critically important to federal policy making.

April Salter: Thank you, Matt. What is your favorite Florida location to visit? This could be a city, a restaurant, a beach, whatever you like, whatever's important to you.

Matt Caldwell: Wow. That's a great question. Probably it would be my own piece of property that I have in Jefferson County. Primarily because it's nice and quiet. It's my chance to get away from the hustle and bustle. As I said earlier, so many great places, drive through Ocala, drive along the Forgotten Coast, go down to the Keys. In my own backyard getting out to Pine Island and Matlacha which really are hidden jewels in southwest Florida. If nothing else getting out to my quiet piece of land and having a chance just to reflect and spend a little time outdoors. That's always a plus.

April Salter: Finally, do you have a favorite sports team?

Matt Caldwell: I do. I do. You said born Gainesville, born at Shands. My great uncle, actually captain of the Florida Gators in 1932. We have been the Florida Gators through and through since day one.

April Salter: Okay. Well that's great. Thank you so much for your time today Matt. I really appreciate it and good luck as you continue to drive the back roads of Florida and thanks for being a guest on Fluent in Floridan.

Matt Caldwell: Glad to, appreciate the chance.

Chris Cate: Thanks for listening to the Fluent in Floridian podcast. This show is executive produced by April Salter with additional support provided by Heidi Otway and the team at SalterMitchellPR. If you need help telling your Florida story, SalterMitchellPR has you covered by offering issues management, crisis communication, social media, advocacy and media relations assistance. You can learn more about SalterMitchellPR at saltermitchellpr.com. You can also learn more about the Fluent in Floridian podcast and listen to every episode of the show at fluentinfloridian.com or by searching for the show using your favorite podcast app. Have a great day.