ORLANDO, Fla. – In the race to be Florida's next attorney general, the two front-runners Democrat Sean Shaw and Republican Ashley Moody, have very different views.
The race has been largely overshadowed on by U.S. congressional races, but the next attorney general will make decisions on big issues impacting the state, including lawsuits involving the NRA, the Affordable Care Act and large pharmaceutical companies.
Shaw is a Democratic representative in the Florida House and previously was the insurance consumer advocate for Florida.
"Which meant I protected consumers from bad practices of insurance companies," Shaw said during an interview with News 6. "I stood up for them in the legislative process, went to rate hearings to keep their rates low, all of those sort of things."
He will bring his background of fighting for consumers to the attorney general's office, he said.
Moody is a former federal prosecutor and later became a Hillsborough Circuit Court judge. She said her years as a prosecutor have prepared her to be Florida's attorney general.
"I am the only candidate running to be the top prosecutor who has ever prosecuted a case," Moody said.
However, the candidates even disagree on that.
"The attorney general's office does not directly prosecute a lot of cases," Shaw said. "There are other things that the attorney general does."
Both candidates were asked their thoughts about Markeis McGlockton, an unarmed black man who was shot in a parking lot by a white man in Clearwater. The shooting was captured on surveillance video and spurred debate over Florida's "stand your ground" law.
Shaw said what he saw in the surveillance video was "murder." Moody, a supporter of stand your ground, said we should wait to hear "all the facts."
"There is an absolute need to be able to codify the natural right of self-defense," Moody said. "We've done that in Florida."
Shaw feels otherwise.
"I am in favor of repealing stand your ground," he said.
There is a third candidate in the race, Jeffrey Siskind, who is running as an independent. Siskind has been virtually inactive.