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Orange County commissioner for District 1 Nicole Wilson (left) and candidate for District 1 Austin Arthur (right)
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Florida’s 15-week abortion ban two years ago in Kissimmee, public records show his office invited a lengthy list of anti-abortion politicians and advocates to show up for the celebration — including a Winter Garden Republican who’s now running for a seat on the nonpartisan Orange County Commission.
Austin Arthur, a candidate who’s running for the District 1 seat in west Orange, was specially invited by the Governor’s Office for the celebration, along with sitting Osceola County school board member Jon Arguello, a self-described “MAGA Patriot” who was identified on the invite list as a representative of Heritage Action for America (affiliated with the right-wing Heritage Foundation) and 40 Days for Life (an anti-abortion advocacy group).
Arthur, a political newcomer challenging incumbent Orange County commissioner Nicole Wilson this year, conceded that he’s “invited to a lot of things,” but said he sees abortion as an issue outside of the county purview and denied having any sort of personal relationship with DeSantis.
“I don’t have a particular relationship with the governor. I don’t think I’ve ever met the man,” Arthur told Orlando Weekly in an interview. “There’s nothing really there,” he said of the invite, “except for the fact that I’m doing everything I can to bridge the gap between Tallahassee and Orange County.”
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Public email records show Orange County Commission candidate Austin Arthur of Winter Garden was invited to the bill signing in 2022 for HB 5, banning abortion after 15 weeks.
Arthur, a gym owner and marketing professional by trade, advanced to the General Election this upcoming November by a bare-bones margin, with Wilson beating him only by (literally) a few votes. His background, nonetheless, has stirred concern among some.
Arthur, for instance, sits on the board of a religiously affiliated “pregnancy resource center” in Eustis, Florida called Life’s Choices Women’s Clinic. Such facilities, often mistaken for legitimate abortion clinics, aim to convince pregnant people not to get abortions. They offer free ultrasounds, STD testing and pregnancy tests, despite many (including Life’s Choices) lacking a state medical license.
Arthur, a dad of three small children himself, does not publicly tout his affiliation with Life’s Choices, despite openly proclaiming his involvement with other community organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, Central Florida YMCA and a veterans’ suicide prevention group.
As early as last year, Arthur began scooping up the support of local Republicans who have historically voted in favor of abortion bans, including state Rep. Carolina Amesty (who’s currently facing felony charges over alleged forgery) and state Sen. Dennis Baxley of Ocala, who has sought for years to ban most all abortions in Florida.
Arthur declined to tell Orlando Weekly what his personal opinion on abortion is, or how he plans to vote on Florida’s pro-abortion rights measure, which will appear on the ballot this November as Amendment 4.
Interjecting oneself into the issue of abortion as a local official, Arthur argued, is “unnecessarily dividing people” and “distracting from your actual job of what you should be doing as a commissioner.”
Nicole Wilson, a registered Democrat and the incumbent in a district that very slimly leans Republican, was more open about her position.
“I believe that reproductive rights are human rights and that individuals should be able to make decisions about family planning, contraception and abortion without government interference, coercion, or discrimination,” Wilson told Orlando Weekly.
Protecting public health, safety and welfare, she argued, is a “fundamental role” of an elected county official.
When abortion becomes a local issue
Abortion likely isn’t the No. 1 issue that comes to mind in considering candidates for County Commission races — as opposed to, say, transportation or infrastructure — yet it’s not entirely outside the local purview.
While abortion rights are more often framed as a federal or state issue, there are still a number of ways that the issue of abortion rights can show up in local government.
Some key examples include so-called sanctuary city laws established for the “unborn,” giving taxpayer funds to anti-abortion organizations, and establishing zoning and land-use laws that similarly aim to restrict abortion access.
Back in 1995, for example, Orlando’s sole private abortion clinic today, the Center of Orlando for Women, had to fight just to open.
As Orlando Weekly reported a few years after the ordeal, the city of Orlando’s planning board had initially denied the clinic’s founder a permit for the clinic’s operation after an anti-abortion critic complained that he was violating local zoning laws. Planning board members sided with the protester and reportedly felt that the clinic’s presence would be “disruptive,” correctly predicting demonstrations by protesters opposed to abortion.
Dr. John Pendergraft, a Black doctor who founded but no longer owns the clinic, ended up suing the city of Orlando over the zoning fight, and won. Other municipalities in recent years have similarly found creative ways to keep abortion clinics out of their communities, including through the creation of sanctuary city policies.
Such laws essentially seek to create pro-life sanctuaries, scholars report, and have been adopted by local governments in a number of states, including Texas, Florida, North Carolina and others.
Ironically, many of these cities and counties don’t even have abortion clinics within their local limits, yet still seek to outlaw or otherwise symbolically oppose them.
An ordinance in Lubbock, Texas, for example, declares abortion an “act of murder” and outlaws the act of getting an abortion, providing one, or aiding and abetting someone in the termination of their pregnancy.
Florida’s Santa Rosa County, near Pensacola, became the first county in the state to create a similar, if less aggressive, resolution through a 2020 ballot referendum approved by voters.
That resolution essentially allowed the county to adopt a symbolic stance against abortion. Two years later, Santa Rosa commissioner James Calkins led an effort to try to outlaw abortion clinics in the county, which (like Lubbock) isn’t home to any abortion clinics. Calkins’ proposed ordinance, which he called “All Lives Matter,” failed to get enough support from his colleagues, however. They ultimately shot down the proposal, declaring it a moot point.
A county commissioner in Lee County more recently launched an effort to have the county government formally denounce Florida’s Amendment 4, a proposed measure that seeks to write abortion rights into the state constitution and legalize abortion up to viability, or roughly 24 weeks of pregnancy. Currently, the limit is six weeks.
The measure, spearheaded by the nonpartisan political committee Floridians Protecting Freedom, needs at least 60 percent of the vote this November in order to pass.
On the flip side of local restrictive policies, there are also protective measures that local leaders can champion to support safe access to abortion care. One example that some state Democrats have unsuccessfully tried to establish statewide is buffer zone laws, which serve to help protect clinic patients and staff from harassment.
Such laws create fixed areas around abortion clinics to help keep protesters away, reduce disruption, and increase safety for clinic patients and staff. A local law in Melbourne, later challenged in the courts, created a 36-foot buffer zone around a local abortion clinic there a few decades ago.
A clinic doctor testified at the time that patients forced to confront protesters “manifested a higher level of anxiety and hypertension, causing those patients to need a higher level of sedation to undergo the surgical procedures, thereby increasing the risk associated with such procedures.”
Additional floating buffer zones the city had created in the law for patients and the homes of staff were ultimately struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994.
Where local candidates stand on the abortion issue
Orlando Weekly reached out to all six candidates on the ballot for Orange County Commission races this November over email to ask their positions on the issue. As of publication, three have responded.
Wilson, the District 1 incumbent, plainly admitted she plans to vote in favor of Florida’s Amendment 4. “I don’t want Tallahassee politicians or Washington politicians making health care decisions for my daughters, my sisters, or me,” she said.
Arthur, as previously mentioned, declined to share his personal views on abortion, but said that he wouldn’t support something like a ‘pro-life’ sanctuary city law. “I’m not in favor of that,” he said. “I’ve never made that part of my platform, because it’s not what I’m focused on.”
Arthur was previously identified on a website for the Florida Christian Patriots, a local Christian Nationalist group, as a co-founder, but has in recent months sought to distance himself, after word spread of his affiliation. The group encourages locals to “stand up for truth, liberty and Biblical values.” Several other co-founders listed have donated to Arthur’s campaign, records show. (Nathan Cassidy, still listed as a co-founder of Florida Christian patriots, defeated Pete Crotty and Randy Ross in the Sept. 4 election to become Republican State Committeeman.)
The only other candidate to get back to us ahead of publication was Linda Stewart, a term-limited Democrat in the state Senate who is campaigning for the Orange County Commission seat in District 3.
Stewart, who has voted against abortion bans in the state Legislature (despite occasionally voting with Republicans on other issues), said she’s an active supporter of Amendment 4 and trusts women to make choices that make the most sense for them and their families.
“They deserve the right to make personal private decision about their lives and future without the interference of government,” Stewart told Orlando Weekly in an email.
Stewart’s opponent in the race, incumbent Mayra Uribe, did not return our multiple requests for comment over the last week on this specific issue, nor did either of the candidates running for the open District 5 seat, Steve Leary and Kelly Semrad.
Arthur, eager to veer away from the issue of abortion, broadly chided his opponent Wilson for what he described as difficulty in securing her in engagement with communities in her district.
He used that claim to point out a slew of endorsements he’s received from local leaders in Winter Garden, Ocoee and Windermere. “It was almost impossible to ever get her engaged in the community, and a lot of frustrations came out of that,” Arthur claimed, sharing that initially, he was trying to recruit someone else to run for her seat before hopping into the race himself.
Wilson told Orlando Weekly, in response, that she’s held over 400 community meetings during her time in office, and often sees Arthur at these meetings, too.
Where she doesn’t see him, she said, is in county land-use meetings — where, Arthur claims, she is allegedly favoring certain developers for county projects over others.
“I’ve worked really hard in this office over the last three and a half years to move forward some more stringent guidelines in environmental protection,” Wilson said, admitting it’s possible those guidelines have removed some developers from consideration for projects.
“I treat everyone, whether [it is] the mayor, or somebody who works at the Convention Center — I treat them equally,” she added.
Wilson, an environmental lawyer by trade, said the primary pillar of her campaign back in 2020 and still today is environmental policy, hand-in-hand with sustainability and smart growth management.
She said it’s concerning that Arthur, who’s leading in campaign fundraising more than 5 to 1, is “being largely funded by the people who I’ve sort of tried to make sure we’re doing their part right: the developers, the tourism industry,” said Wilson. “These are people I’ve had relationships with, but I’ve required, you know, conversations about how to do a better job of taking care of their own people and taking care of the environment.”
Arthur has been endorsed by politically influential industry groups such as the Orlando Regional Realtors Association (whose state affiliate has lobbied in favor of laws threatening home rule) and the Central Florida Hotel & Lodging Association (a trade group that backed controversial changes to Florida’s child labor laws this year, as a pitch to increase the industry’s labor supply).
Arthur, however, rebuked claims in an interview regarding his campaign finance record, arguing that a good portion of the over $275,000 he’s raised so far comes from retirees in the community who just happen to back him for office.
Arthur himself donated $50 to DeSantis’ campaign for Governor in 2018, and donated $50 four years later to the campaign of State Attorney General Ashley Moody, an elected official who has neglected calls to beef up enforcement of Florida’s minimum wage, despite warnings from labor advocates of widespread wage theft in the state.
Wilson, who’s donated to state politicians who support abortion rights, described Arthur as a “slick marketer.”
“I wonder, without having an actual record of what he would do as a public servant, what his expectation is when he gets to the county,” she said. “I hope the public pays attention and they ask some questions. I hope that people continue to do their due diligence before they cast their ballot.”
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