Two former state representatives are vying for the Florida Senate District 26 seat being vacated by Lori Berman in Palm Beach County in the Nov. 3 election.
Rick Roth, R-Wellington, and David Silvers, D-Boca Raton, each served in the Florida House from 2016 to 2024 and were term-limited. Berman is leaving because she, too, was term-limited.
Roth, 73, of Wellington, owns a vegetable and sugar cane operation, Roth Farms, east of Belle Glade. He is married and has three adult children and six grandchildren.
Silvers, 47, of Boca Raton, is president of a publishing company, Tekno Books. He and his wife have one daughter.
Both are native Floridians.
The district spans from the Palm Beach/Hendry county line to the coast and from Southern Boulevard south to Boca Raton. It includes Belle Glade, South Bay, Boynton Beach, Briny Breezes, Delray Beach, the Village of Golf, Highland Beach, Ocean Ridge, Wellington and most of Boca Raton.
The party breakdown is as follows: 37.4% registered Democrats, 32.7% registered Republicans and 26% no party affiliation.
As of late September, Roth had accumulated $323,980 from 167 contributors. Of that, $250,000 are loans to his campaign. The majority of the donations are from people in agricultural and related industries. Others cover a range of contributors such as Associated Builders and Contractors, and Conservatives for Effective Government, a political action committee.
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Silvers has received 161 contributions totaling $178,087 and 57 contributions totaling $257,400 to the PAC Friends of David Silvers. The donations include $11,500 to his PAC from Brighter Florida, a political committee funded by Disney, General Motors, Progressive insurance, the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association and the Florida Operators Association. Brighter Florida also contributed $1,000 to Silvers’ campaign.
Among the contributors to Friends of David Silvers are Comcast Corp., $5,000; Publix Super Markets Inc., $15,000; NextEra Energy Capital Partners, $15,000; and from PACs, the Voice of Florida Business, $7,500, and Citizens for Law, Order and Ethics, which contributed $40,000.
Silvers on mental health issues
If elected, both want to work on issues they focused on in the Florida House from affordable housing to mental health reform and government accountability.
“I became a leader in the House on mental health reform,” Silvers said. “I want to do whatever I can to improve the mental health system in our state.”
He was inspired by his sister, who is a clinical psychologist and told him about the need for reform, especially when it comes to children.
“I peeled back the layers of what was going on in our state when it comes to the Baker Act and mental health safety nets, and it’s lacking. It really is,” Silvers said.
Silvers sponsored a bill passed in 2020 that established de-escalation protocols for Mobile Response Teams at schools. He worked with the Florida Mental Health Institute on the measure aimed at preventing unnecessary or traumatic Baker Act initiations for children.
A Baker Act is an involuntary, 72-hour psychiatric commitment when the person is showing signs of a mental illness and is deemed a threat to themselves or others.
Silvers co-sponsored the 2019 expansion of the state’s 911 Good Samaritan Act. It protects those under 21 from arrest and prosecution for drinking and drug possession during medical emergencies.
“If you call for help for someone experiencing an overdose, you will not be charged with possession. When Andrew Coffey passed away at FSU, his friends propped him up on the couch and said, ‘Let’s let him sleep it off.’ He passed away. They were afraid of getting arrested,” Silvers said of the fraternity pledge who died in 2017 of acute alcohol poisoning.
Silvers also sponsored legislation allowing approved apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs, such as those for skilled trades, to count toward high school graduation requirements.
In 2024, Silvers was involved in legislation establishing the Office of Children’s Behavioral Health Ombudsman with the Department of Children and Families and requiring information be given to parents when minors were transported to behavioral health facilities.
Legislation aimed at protecting seniors from scams and exploitation was another accomplishment. Several changes were made to the Adult Protective Services Act, such as requiring securities dealers and investment advisers to report abuse, neglect or exploitation of vulnerable adults.
Roth on overdevelopment
Roth, a Palm Beach County native, said overdevelopment is one of the area’s most pressing issues.
“We are not building roads as fast as people are moving into Florida. We need to fund the infrastructure. There should be impact fees on new residents,” Roth said.
He said he will push to change the concurrency formula back to the pre-2012 formula so roads can be built as homes are built. Concurrency refers to a legislative framework requiring transportation systems to be built or funded at the same time as new development.
“It is criminal that the turnpike is not eight lanes from Miami to Orlando,” Roth said.
Palm Beach County needs to find better ways to move people, and the Florida Department of Transportation should work with state agencies to make the necessary changes, he said.
“We need to be building and widening roads as we build houses,” Roth said. “In Palm Beach County in the 1980s and ‘90s, they widened major arteries such as Lantana Road and Southern Boulevard to six lanes. Twenty-five years ago, we were ahead.
“We want planned development in Florida. We need to make sure we are not doing urban sprawl. I do not want to see houses all the way from Tampa to the coast in Melbourne,” Roth said. “We need to conserve some of our agricultural lands so we are not having urban sprawl.”
Roth also worked on issues within Palm Beach County’s horticultural industry and what he considered Palm Beach County Code Enforcement’s overzealous treatment of nurseries and other agricultural businesses.
“The nursery and landscaping industry was under attack by code enforcement for 10 years,” Roth said. “Owners had to sell and move on because of harassment by county code enforcement. We just asked the county to do better.”
Roth wrote and worked on a food recovery bill for five years that became law in 2025, after he was termed out. The bill requires nonprofit food banks to purchase food from Florida farmers, and the Florida Department of Agriculture reimburses them based on invoices.
Affordable housing is a major issue, and Roth said he was instrumental in getting changes made to the Sadowski Trust Fund. The fund, created in the 1990s, was intended to pay counties for affordable housing, but the Florida Legislature began using some of it for other projects.
“We were sweeping some of the money out of the Sadowski Trust Fund and putting it into general revenue,” Roth said.
The 10-year average for the fund’s revenue was $60 million a year before the law was changed in 2021. Today the fund receives an average of $300 million a year.
The affordable housing funds need to be distributed fairly and where they are most needed, Roth said.
“If we are giving money to Washington County, if they are not growing very much, why are we giving them all this money?” Roth asked. “What counties are supposed to be doing is subsidizing housing to build new projects.”
Amendment 3, data centers
Contentious issues facing Floridians include Amendment 3, data centers and federal immigration enforcement.
Amendment 3, a proposed constitutional amendment, is on the November ballot. It would increase the homestead exemption for non-school taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, with the amount tied to inflation starting in 2029, as well as some other provisions.
“I don’t think anybody wants to pay more taxes. I don’t think a lot of people are looking down the road and asking, ‘How is it going to impact my safety?’” said Silvers, who opposes the amendment.
Services such as fire and rescue would be harmed, Silvers said.
Silvers said a possible scenario is a city needing to add an ambulance because of population growth, but because of reduced property tax revenue, it cannot. The impact will be an increase in emergency response time.
Roth, who favors Amendment 3, said: “ I just want a government we can afford. No one cuts payroll or taxes unless they are forced to.”
He added that if the amendment passes, it will affect poorer counties with lower property values the most. In Palm Beach County and other counties with many homes valued at $1 million or more, the owners would still be paying taxes on much of the value.
However, Roth said property tax relief is needed.
As for data centers, Silvers said experts who work in the industry told him Florida is not suited for the facilities because of its unpredictable weather, thunderstorms, hurricanes and heat.
“It doesn’t make sense to put them in Florida,” Silvers said he learned.
Roth said he also opposes data centers unless they provide some of their own power and water.
“I am totally against data centers until we figure it all out,” Roth said.
Public outcry led county commissioners to oppose a data center at the Project Tango site near 20-Mile Bend. The commission also recently passed a one-year moratorium on the centers.
Immigration is a federal issue, but some have questioned the need for targeting people with no criminal record.
Effects of immigration enforcement
Increased immigration enforcement has not affected his farm, Roth said, because it is a seasonal operation that qualifies to hire H2-A workers. The employer must provide transportation from the foreign country to the U.S. and to the workplace, and must pay housing costs.
Roth said the H-2A program needs to be expanded to include the nursery landscape, dairy and beef cattle industries. Since they operate year-round, they do not qualify for the federal program.
Some workers are leaving Florida because they fear deportation. Roth believes solutions can come from Congress once the illegal immigrant population returns to pre-2020 levels.
Roth’s advice to workers? “If you like your job, keep your job. The state E-Verify requirement only applies to new hires.”
Silvers said that recently a friend reached out to him after the friend’s relative, in the U.S. on a temporary status, was detained in Florida. The friend contacted his U.S. representative, who said there was nothing that could be done.
“Only the attorney for the individual can speak to the individual. It is really horrific what they are doing,” Silvers said “These are not criminals. These are individuals that are paying taxes and are law-abiding citizens.”
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
