Miami Herald - September 19, 2004
Nathalie Gouillou, ngouillou@herald.com

For the past two elections, State Rep. Marco Rubio has been unopposed for the District 111 seat.

But this year, a Democratic businesswoman says she wants to put her knowledge of healthcare issues to work in Tallahassee.

Laura Leyva, who owns Physician Consultants Inc. -- a company that provides consulting to healthcare organizations -- is challenging Republican Rubio in the Nov. 2 election.

The district, which is nearly 75 percent Hispanic and majority Republican, includes South Miami, west Coral Gables, West Miami, Virginia Gardens, Miami Springs and western Hialeah.

"There's a huge gap in Tallahassee for a female with healthcare expertise like me, and we need somebody with healthcare knowledge," Leyva said.

After earning an associate's degree in political science in 1989, the 35-year-old Leyva said she took some time off before heading to Santo Domingo, where she studied medicine at La Universidad Central del Este Medical School.

There, she said, she grew interested in the fight against HIV. So when she came back to Miami, she decided she would dedicate some of her time to the creation of Family AIDS Coalition Inc., a nonprofit agency that provides services for Hispanics affected by HIV.

Two years earlier -- and after a trip back to school where she earned a master's in health services administration -- Levya created a company aimed at providing advice to healthcare groups.

"Healthcare is my forte," she said.

Levya said she believes a discrepancy exists within the state's medical system, where too many foreign doctors are frustrated professionals without a license and yet the state "is crying for nurses because there aren't enough.

"We have them there. Get them papers."

If elected, Levya said she would work on ways to offer affordable insurance to people.

"I'm self-employed," she said, "and I'm having difficulties finding insurance for my company."

Rubio agrees that the healthcare system needs reform. He said if he is reelected, he hopes to help create the framework of a system that will allow every Floridian to have access to primary healthcare, including medicine and emergency care.

Rubio, 33 -- who is married and has two daughters -- received his bachelor's in political science in 1993, before earning his law degree at the University of Miami in 1996.

He said he believes laws that will provide an affordable and decent healthcare package to most Floridians need to be seriously studied.

Rubio, who was sent to the house after a special election in 2000 -- after spending four years as a city commissioner in West Miami -- said what led him to state politics was his desire to give leadership to the people of District 111.

"I feel that I'm starting to achieve that," he said. If he is reelected, he added: "I will be in a good position to address those issues."

Although both candidates feel strongly about the need to improve the education system, their main concerns vary.

Levya said she doesn't believe children should have to struggle with the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test each year.

"I don't think the FCAT is doing anything good," she said. "The system before FCAT was better."

Rubio, who described himself as a "huge believer in local control over education," said he is excited about some of the ideas he's heard from Rudy Crew, the new Miami-Dade schools superintendent.

He said he also believes legislators need to look for innovative ways to put -- and keep -- good teachers in the classroom.

"If you put it into football terms, you don't take a good player off the field," said Rubio, who plays flag football competitively. "But that's what happens with teachers; they move into the administration."

With a sizable campaign chest of about $150,000 -- nearly 12 times more than Leyva's -- Rubio said he still isn't sure how he will spend it.

"I'm still looking at the best strategies," Rubio said, adding that his goal is to tell voters what he has done and what he will do.

Part of the money raised, he said, will go to different types of advertising, such as mailers, street signs, television and radio.

Leyva, who has raised about $13,000, said she, too, plans on using different media. But the heart of her campaign, she said, will be more old school:

'It's going to be a lot of grass roots, walking and knocking on my neighbors' doors," she said.

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