Meet Joanne Terry, running for U.S. Congress in Florida’s 8th District.
This district holds the Space and Treasure Coasts which feature the Kennedy Space Center and Cocoa Beach!
Joanne is running against Bill Posey, who is entering his 8th term uncontested. After working as a campaign manager within her district 2 years ago, Joanne saw that they needed a leader who was truly honest and had integrity—so she decided it was her turn to run! Like many candidates we speak to, the 2016 election results were also a motivating force behind her decision to run.
Joanne joined the Board of League of Women Voters and realized she wanted to be a leader who steps up to unite people. Her slogan is that we need to “be neighbors again”.
Joanne also mentioned to us that her district has the 6th most arrests from the January 6th Insurrection attempt. Because of this, she feels as if her district needs help making progress towards lessening hate and taking more time to listen to neighbors. She strongly believes that the people in her community need to tune out what the media is telling them and try to unify with one another instead of turning against each other.
One pressing issue in this district is the Indian River Lagoon. This lagoon, which is home to endangered manatees, is going through an ecological crisis. Joanne wants to work to restore this lagoon and create a long term restoration plan to ensure the job gets done. She sees this happening through partnerships with state and local representatives, all working together to protect the land. Joanne says their sign of success would be being able to see the bottom of the lagoon again. Another focus of Joanne’s is the large population of senior citizens and the population of social security and medicare recipients. If elected, she aims to protect these programs and ensure they are available to future generations. There is also a growing population of young professionals who are currently working and trying to build careers within this district. Joanne believes these people need much better access to affordable housing and tax breaks, so that instead of struggling to pay bills and rent, they can actually work on creating their futures. Aside from this, Joanne also wants to focus on solving flooding issues during tropical storms, helping get people off the streets, and raising public school teacher’s pay.
Overall, Joanne doesn’t want to participate in “dirty politics”. She just wants to be a leader with integrity who works to unite others and get things done! Joanne was drawn to the Elect Good People message because it represents the unity that we all need in a time where many people are divided.
Joanne wants you to know that while her community is growing into a large city, many people who live there still hold a friendly, small town mentality. She says that although neighborhood togetherness has decreased during the shaky world events of the past few years, she knows that her community’s sense of unity will rebound stronger than ever. Something unique about Joanne is that she and her husband are avid sailors and spent a few years sailing the Caribbean together!