(Video) Lois Frankel - Congressional Candidate for FL - District 23
- Indivisible Boca Raton
- Jul 6
- 6 min read
Thirteen-year incumbent, Lois Frankel, presents her platform and takes questions on campaign finance, gun violence, the Democratic party, and more.
Indivisible Boca Raton reached out to all candidates in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District who support democratic values and the protection of our democracy to give voters a direct opportunity to hear their platforms. Candidate forums should not be interpreted as endorsements.
Meet Lois Frankel
Lois Frankel has been in Congress since 2013, representing Palm Beach County under several different district numbers as the lines have been redrawn over the years. This year, thanks to Ron DeSantis’ 2026 mid-decade redistricting, her district was moved into a reconfigured District 23, and she’s running there in a Democratic primary against Victoria Doyle. At an Indivisible Boca Raton forum, she spent most of her opening remarks running through a list of accomplishments and warnings about the Trump administration, then took nearly thirty minutes of audience questions.
She opened by thanking the room for showing up, and returned to one line throughout the night: “Silence is acceptance.” She told the crowd that “democracy is not a spectator sport,” and reminded them she would be flying back to Washington the next morning for a hearing where she planned to question Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
She also described being in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. “I was there, folks. I went in the Capitol for six hours with doors barricaded,” she said. “I saw Capitol Police men and women lying there, out of breath and bleeding. It was pretty awful.”
Later in her remarks, she credited a lesson from her son Ben, a Marine veteran who later worked overseas for USAID. She quoted him directly: “The way to peace is not through bombs and bullets. It’s through soft power, helping people, building relationships, creating opportunity.”
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Thirteen Years In, And The Record She Ran On
Frankel is a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and has said she would be positioned to chair it if Democrats retake the House majority next year. She framed that seniority as leverage for the district: “We will use that money to get the vaccines out across the country. We will use the money to educate kids so they do not run off to terrorism.”
She listed a set of accomplishments from her time in Congress: “We delivered the largest investment in infrastructure in generations. We capped prescription drug costs for seniors. We made the largest investment in clean energy in American history. We strengthened care for veterans. We passed the CHIPS Act to bring manufacturing back. We passed the first major gun legislation in thirty years, and we protected marriage equality.”
She also pointed to her outside political work. In 2018, Frankel co-founded and now chairs Elect Democratic Women, a PAC dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to Congress. At the forum, she told the room the PAC had “raised over sixty million dollars supporting over two hundred candidates” and helped elect roughly thirty additional women to the House since its founding.
One accomplishment Frankel described emotionally was securing a Congressional Gold Medal for Benjamin Ferencz, a Delray Beach resident and the last living Nuremberg prosecutor, who died in 2023 at 103. The medal was awarded posthumously in a Capitol ceremony this April. “One of the greatest honors of my time in Congress,” she called it.
What Happened During Q&A
During Q&A, Frankel took questions on gun violence, USAID, Israel, Trump family finances, immigration detention, party messaging, housing, and her own campaign donors.
On gun violence, a resident described getting a call from his college-age daughter during an active shooter scare on campus and asked Frankel directly what she had done to stop it. “I have voted for every anti-gun violence bill that has come my way,” she said, “but we do not have the votes right now, because some Republicans believe that everyone should have a gun.”
On military aid to Israel, she was unambiguous. “I have fully supported Israel’s security for my entire life,” she said, and pledged to keep voting for it. She paired that with a caveat aimed at the humanitarian toll in Gaza: “Two things can be true. You can want Israel to be secure, and you can also want humanitarian support and an opportunity for the children in Gaza to grow up and have a decent life.”
Asked whether she believes Trump is being influenced by Netanyahu, given reporting on former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Frankel called it “the most interesting question I’ve ever gotten” but did not answer it. Instead, she said she has long felt Trump is influenced by Vladimir Putin, adding, “I cannot make any sense of this president.”
On immigration, a resident pressed her on Red Cross access to detention facilities. Frankel said she did not know the answer, then condemned the conditions she has heard about, comparing federal detention warehouses to the state’s “Alligator Alcatraz” facility as “inhumane.”
On Democratic Party messaging, multiple people in the room pushed Frankel on the same point: that the party’s message is not landing. "People want lower costs... they want an honest government." She pointed to Democratic wins in elections since Trump's inauguration and to efforts in committee meetings, floor amendments, and media appearances, while acknowledging, "we do not have the votes yet." She closed by turning the question back on the room, telling residents that they, and the protest signs they carry, are themselves "the message."
The sharpest exchange of the night came over campaign contributions. A resident, citing FEC filings, told Frankel she continues to accept money from sugar industry donors and votes for federal sugar subsidies, while sugar farming runoff contributes to phosphorus pollution in local waterways. “Which one is it,” the resident asked her, “big sugar or clean drinking water?”
Frankel did not concede the premise. "Nobody pays me to make a vote," she said. "You can look at my record. You've got thirty years to look at, and I am very proud of it." She went on to note that she accepts money from "a lot of different groups," and framed that funding as necessary to compete with wealthy, self-funded opponents she has faced over her time in Congress, including some who have spent millions of their own money to campaign against her. She continued, "My choice is I can try to raise money so you can have someone who shares your values, or I can put one hand behind my back." "Just because you write your own check does not mean you are independent," Frankel said. Importantly, she is not running against a self-funded millionaire in this current primary.
On the Florida ballot measure to eliminate property taxes, Frankel walked through the fiscal consequences. Palm Beach County alone stands to lose an estimated $360 million a year in revenue, which she said would force cuts to garbage collection, libraries, and emergency services. The measure will need 60% voter approval in the fall.
On housing affordability, she pointed to specific programs her office has funded: housing built through Habitat for Humanity, housing for foster youth aging out of the system, and housing for domestic violence survivors, along with her push on the Appropriations Committee for more housing funding in the next federal budget.
Closing Argument
Frankel closed by returning to her own history as an activist, tracing a line from student protests at Boston University to her current seat in Congress. “I am still the same person who carried the ‘power to the people’ sign at Boston University,” she told the room, adding that ordinary people showing up, not any single officeholder, are responsible for what her office has been able to do.
The primary is scheduled for August 18, 2026. Voters in the newly redrawn Florida’s 23rd District will decide between an incumbent running on more than a decade in Washington and a challenger arguing that time in office has not translated into results.
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