Candidate With Past Election Law Issues Challenges Vern Buchanan

SARASOTA, FL — Martin Hyde, a Sarasota businessman who was fined for election law violations when he previously ran for the Sarasota City Commission, announced his campaign to challenge U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan for his District 16 seat in the 2022 election.

On his Facebook page, Hyde, a Republican and staunch pro-gun advocate, said Buchanan’s recent support of background check requirements for nearly all gun purchases, including those involving private or unlicensed sellers, inspired him to run for senate.

Buchanan was one of eight Republicans to break rank and vote in favor of the Bipartisan Background Check Act, a U.S. House bill spearheaded by California Democrat Rep. Mike Thompson, The Hill reported.

“It's time for a change as the voters of (Florida) House District 16 did NOT vote for gun control or kissing up to other Leftist policies either. Settle up Vern, as you've had a good run, but it's coming to an end August 23rd next year,” Hyde wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. “I'm doing this because it's the RIGHT thing to do for all RIGHT thinking conservatives. The Constitution was written by way smarter people than Vern and I'm not going to sit quietly by while he's paid a fat salary to destroy it.”

He also said Buchanan’s vote to override former President Donald Trump’s veto of a defense police bill in early January “was an act of betrayal.”

A regular attendee at Sarasota City Commission meetings, where he often speaks during the public comment period, Hyde spoke against face masks at Monday’s meeting ahead of the commission’s vote to nix a citywide mask mandate a second time.

During his three minutes in front of commissioners Monday, he told them that “for various reasons, this will be the last time (he spoke at a meeting) for a while.”

Hyde previously ran for city commission in 2017, losing to Jen Ahearn-Koch and Hagen Brody in a bid for an at-large seat.

He also challenged Commissioner Liz Alpert for the city’s District 2 seat in the 2020 election but dropped out of the race when allegations of his involvement in racially charged incidents surfaced.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that in a February 2019 incident, Hyde yelled at two construction managers near his home, telling them, “You need to tell your f---ing Mexicans to turn off their Spanish music,” according to a police report.

A viral video from a November 2019 incident at Sarasota’s Bath & Racquet Club shows Hyde confronting a group of Puerto Rican junior tennis players, the Herald-Tribune reported. In the video, one of the young men accuses Hyde of being racist for telling him “to cut grass.”

Hyde was also fined $1,500 for election law violations stemming from his 2017 commission run, reports said.