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Representative in Congress, District 16

Federal

Photo of Kelly Kirschner

Photo: kellykirschner.com

Kelly Kirschner

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Position on major issues

Agriculture and rural policy

Give small businesses, farmers, manufacturers, and commercial fishermen stable, predictable rules so they can invest, hire, and grow with confidence.

kellykirschner.com ·

Artificial intelligence

Make sure the AI revolution — which billionaires like Elon Musk are building with our data and our labor market — works for the middle class, not just for them. Workers deserve protection. Consumers deserve rights.

kellykirschner.com ·

Protect Tampa Bay, Sarasota Bay, and our coastline by prohibiting offshore drilling, stopping open-water fish farming, and enforcing the Clean Water Act. Keep public lands public. Invest in more conservation land upstream to protect our water and wildlife, and stop the push to privatize state and federal lands for golf courses, development, and additional resource extraction. Hold phosphate companies accountable and strengthen clean air protections, so toxic waste and dirty air don’t become the taxpayers’ cleanup bill. Keep AI hyperscale data centers out of District 16 until they prove they won’t drain our aquifers, raise utility costs, contaminate our air, or override local control. Fix stormwater systems and stop rewarding the kind of overdevelopment that causes flooding and polluted runoff

kellykirschner.com ·

Workers deserve protection. Consumers deserve rights. The future of this country should not be engineered by a handful of unelected tech oligarchs.

kellykirschner.com ·

Economy, jobs and wages

Give small businesses, farmers, manufacturers, and commercial fishermen stable, predictable rules so they can invest, hire, and grow with confidence.

kellykirschner.com ·

Make sure the AI revolution — which billionaires like Elon Musk are building with our data and our labor market — works for the middle class, not just for them. Workers deserve protection. Consumers deserve rights.

kellykirschner.com ·

Restore the workforce opportunities our Manasota region lost by supporting nursing, teacher preparation, veterans’ education, workforce training, apprenticeships, and affordable four-year degree pathways. Oppose federal funding that rewards states for dismantling successful public institutions through political patronage. Federal investments should strengthen communities—not political agendas, nor line the pockets of the well-connected.

kellykirschner.com ·

Workers deserve protection. Consumers deserve rights. The future of this country should not be engineered by a handful of unelected tech oligarchs.

kellykirschner.com ·

Protect the Gulf Coast that powers our economy. Clean water, healthy beaches, and resilient coastlines protect tourism, commercial fishing, home values, and thousands of local jobs.

kellykirschner.com ·

Education

Restore the workforce opportunities our Manasota region lost by supporting nursing, teacher preparation, veterans’ education, workforce training, apprenticeships, and affordable four-year degree pathways. Oppose federal funding that rewards states for dismantling successful public institutions through political patronage. Federal investments should strengthen communities—not political agendas, nor line the pockets of the well-connected.

kellykirschner.com ·

Elections and voting

Energy

Invest in affordable energy that lowers your bills.

kellykirschner.com ·

Support affordable, reliable alternative energy that lowers utility bills, strengthens our electric grid, and gives families and businesses more certainty.

kellykirschner.com ·

Environment and climate

A fully funded, proactive FEMA so that when hurricanes strike, our region isn’t left waiting for help.

kellykirschner.com ·

Protect Tampa Bay, Sarasota Bay, and our coastline by prohibiting offshore drilling, stopping open-water fish farming, and enforcing the Clean Water Act. Keep public lands public. Invest in more conservation land upstream to protect our water and wildlife, and stop the push to privatize state and federal lands for golf courses, development, and additional resource extraction. Hold phosphate companies accountable and strengthen clean air protections, so toxic waste and dirty air don’t become the taxpayers’ cleanup bill. Keep AI hyperscale data centers out of District 16 until they prove they won’t drain our aquifers, raise utility costs, contaminate our air, or override local control. Fix stormwater systems and stop rewarding the kind of overdevelopment that causes flooding and polluted runoff

kellykirschner.com ·

Protect the Gulf Coast that powers our economy. Clean water, healthy beaches, and resilient coastlines protect tourism, commercial fishing, home values, and thousands of local jobs.

kellykirschner.com ·

Government reform

“Working families were promised relief eighteen months ago. What we got instead are skyrocketing prices for property insurance, taxes, medical care, gasoline, and groceries, while a far-right majority in Washington openly debates cuts to Medicare and Social Security.“ “For decades, billionaires, lobbyists, and corporations have treated Congress like a vending machine: insert dollars, receive influence. The result is a system in which we pay more for groceries, medical care and housing while they pay less in taxes. Our kids inherit the debt while big donors gobble up the tax breaks. I’ve spent my life serving my family and our community. I have taken on FPL, sweetheart marina deals, and special interests – and won. I did it for our families in Sarasota, and I am ready to do it in Washington.”

kellykirschner.com ·

Kelly Kirschner condemned President Donald Trump’s illegal use of taxpayer money for political propaganda promoting himself and called on his opponent, Sydney Gruters, to reject the corrupt misuse of public power for private gain, including her husband’s – Joe Gruters, RNC Chair.

kellykirschner.com ·

Healthcare

Lowering insurance, healthcare, and prescription drug costs by creating an insurance backstop, repeal cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and allow government to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices.

kellykirschner.com ·

Protect people with pre-existing conditions, and keep Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the promises they’ve always been – an earned right.

kellykirschner.com ·

“Working families were promised relief eighteen months ago. What we got instead are skyrocketing prices for property insurance, taxes, medical care, gasoline, and groceries, while a far-right majority in Washington openly debates cuts to Medicare and Social Security.“ “For decades, billionaires, lobbyists, and corporations have treated Congress like a vending machine: insert dollars, receive influence. The result is a system in which we pay more for groceries, medical care and housing while they pay less in taxes. Our kids inherit the debt while big donors gobble up the tax breaks. I’ve spent my life serving my family and our community. I have taken on FPL, sweetheart marina deals, and special interests – and won. I did it for our families in Sarasota, and I am ready to do it in Washington.”

kellykirschner.com ·

One in three people in this district depend on Medicaid or Medicare. These aren’t handouts — they are promises. Medicare and Medicaid are pledges made to seniors who worked their whole lives, to families doing their best, to veterans who gave their bodies and minds in service. Congress just broke that promise, stripping healthcare from nearly 280,000 of your neighbors in this district alone. Restore every cut. Protect every patient with a pre-existing condition. Make crystal clear to every hospital along the Gulf Coast: we are not abandoning you. When Congress guts Medicaid, it isn't some abstraction — it's our brother or cousin choosing between medication and groceries. That ends.

kellykirschner.com ·

Housing

Expand affordable housing and stop Wall Street from buying up single-family homes and gouging renters.

kellykirschner.com ·

Make sure disaster and insurance dollars reach every community based on need, not zip code or political influence.

kellykirschner.com ·

Affordable home and flood insurance — and an end to the price-gouging and “business-as-usual” corruption that lets insurers lobby for immunity while your premiums skyrocket.

kellykirschner.com ·

“Working families were promised relief eighteen months ago. What we got instead are skyrocketing prices for property insurance, taxes, medical care, gasoline, and groceries, while a far-right majority in Washington openly debates cuts to Medicare and Social Security.“ “For decades, billionaires, lobbyists, and corporations have treated Congress like a vending machine: insert dollars, receive influence. The result is a system in which we pay more for groceries, medical care and housing while they pay less in taxes. Our kids inherit the debt while big donors gobble up the tax breaks. I’ve spent my life serving my family and our community. I have taken on FPL, sweetheart marina deals, and special interests – and won. I did it for our families in Sarasota, and I am ready to do it in Washington.”

kellykirschner.com ·

Infrastructure and transportation

A fully funded, proactive FEMA so that when hurricanes strike, our region isn’t left waiting for help.

kellykirschner.com ·

Protect Tampa Bay, Sarasota Bay, and our coastline by prohibiting offshore drilling, stopping open-water fish farming, and enforcing the Clean Water Act. Keep public lands public. Invest in more conservation land upstream to protect our water and wildlife, and stop the push to privatize state and federal lands for golf courses, development, and additional resource extraction. Hold phosphate companies accountable and strengthen clean air protections, so toxic waste and dirty air don’t become the taxpayers’ cleanup bill. Keep AI hyperscale data centers out of District 16 until they prove they won’t drain our aquifers, raise utility costs, contaminate our air, or override local control. Fix stormwater systems and stop rewarding the kind of overdevelopment that causes flooding and polluted runoff

kellykirschner.com ·

National security and foreign policy

Under the Constitution, Congress — and only Congress — has the power to declare war. It’s a moral outrage that when we face the prospect of “wars of choice,” leadership in Washington often ducks debate, choosing to take two-week vacations before even beginning a serious deliberation on “excursions” that cost American lives and billions of taxpayer dollars. These poorly thought-out conflicts, funded with blank taxpayer checks and met with a Congressional blind eye, are eroding decades of trust throughout the world and putting our children’s future in peril. No more blank checks. No more blind eyes. If it’s worth American blood, it is worth a full, public, and rigorous debate in the halls of Congress.

kellykirschner.com ·

Social Security and retirement

Protect people with pre-existing conditions, and keep Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the promises they’ve always been – an earned right.

kellykirschner.com ·

“Working families were promised relief eighteen months ago. What we got instead are skyrocketing prices for property insurance, taxes, medical care, gasoline, and groceries, while a far-right majority in Washington openly debates cuts to Medicare and Social Security.“ “For decades, billionaires, lobbyists, and corporations have treated Congress like a vending machine: insert dollars, receive influence. The result is a system in which we pay more for groceries, medical care and housing while they pay less in taxes. Our kids inherit the debt while big donors gobble up the tax breaks. I’ve spent my life serving my family and our community. I have taken on FPL, sweetheart marina deals, and special interests – and won. I did it for our families in Sarasota, and I am ready to do it in Washington.”

kellykirschner.com ·

Taxes and government spending

Tear up the tax breaks that let billionaires pay less than we do.

kellykirschner.com ·

Close those loopholes and pay down the debt. Put the savings to work for working families instead of offshore accounts.

kellykirschner.com ·

“Working families were promised relief eighteen months ago. What we got instead are skyrocketing prices for property insurance, taxes, medical care, gasoline, and groceries, while a far-right majority in Washington openly debates cuts to Medicare and Social Security.“ “For decades, billionaires, lobbyists, and corporations have treated Congress like a vending machine: insert dollars, receive influence. The result is a system in which we pay more for groceries, medical care and housing while they pay less in taxes. Our kids inherit the debt while big donors gobble up the tax breaks. I’ve spent my life serving my family and our community. I have taken on FPL, sweetheart marina deals, and special interests – and won. I did it for our families in Sarasota, and I am ready to do it in Washington.”

kellykirschner.com ·

Congress just raised the national debt — and used the money to hand tax loopholes to corporations that already pay zero in federal taxes. Zero, while our kids and grandkids are handed the bill.

kellykirschner.com ·

Kelly Kirschner condemned President Donald Trump’s illegal use of taxpayer money for political propaganda promoting himself and called on his opponent, Sydney Gruters, to reject the corrupt misuse of public power for private gain, including her husband’s – Joe Gruters, RNC Chair.

kellykirschner.com ·

Technology and privacy

Make sure the AI revolution — which billionaires like Elon Musk are building with our data and our labor market — works for the middle class, not just for them. Workers deserve protection. Consumers deserve rights.

kellykirschner.com ·

Protect Tampa Bay, Sarasota Bay, and our coastline by prohibiting offshore drilling, stopping open-water fish farming, and enforcing the Clean Water Act. Keep public lands public. Invest in more conservation land upstream to protect our water and wildlife, and stop the push to privatize state and federal lands for golf courses, development, and additional resource extraction. Hold phosphate companies accountable and strengthen clean air protections, so toxic waste and dirty air don’t become the taxpayers’ cleanup bill. Keep AI hyperscale data centers out of District 16 until they prove they won’t drain our aquifers, raise utility costs, contaminate our air, or override local control. Fix stormwater systems and stop rewarding the kind of overdevelopment that causes flooding and polluted runoff

kellykirschner.com ·

Workers deserve protection. Consumers deserve rights. The future of this country should not be engineered by a handful of unelected tech oligarchs.

kellykirschner.com ·

Veterans

Restore the workforce opportunities our Manasota region lost by supporting nursing, teacher preparation, veterans’ education, workforce training, apprenticeships, and affordable four-year degree pathways. Oppose federal funding that rewards states for dismantling successful public institutions through political patronage. Federal investments should strengthen communities—not political agendas, nor line the pockets of the well-connected.

kellykirschner.com ·

We owe our veterans a VA that answers the phone, a crisis line that works at 3 a.m., and a government that doesn’t make them fight a second war just to get their benefits. Fully staff VA clinics. Restore the Veterans Crisis Line to full 24/7 operation. Make sure no veteran ever has to choose between their dignity and their bureaucracy.

kellykirschner.com ·

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General Election, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026

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