Row, Row, Row Your Vote
for Clean & Healthy Water
For more than 20 years, Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson has fought to protect what makes North Florida special — the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers, our springs and aquifer, and the farms, forests, wetlands and communities that depend on them. Merrillee isn’t simply fighting for water; she’s fighting for the land-water connection that makes North Florida’s water possible. On November 3rd, she is asking North Florida to send that experience and determination to the state legislature.
North Florida water
the Sabal Trail pipeline
she helped found
2026
Why Merrillee
Everybody says they are for clean water.Ask them for dates.
Here is the record, in the order it happened. Every one of these fights started long before there was a ballot involved.
Water bottling plants
2006 – 2012Four bottling operations proposed on and around the Santa Fe. All four stopped. She started that fight, and it took the community eight years to win it.
Ginnie Springs
A bottler came back for 1.1 million gallons a day. The group she co-founded intervened.
The Sabal Trail pipeline
First Florida citizen on record to actively oppose it.
Fracking in Florida
Founding member, Floridians Against Fracking.
Phosphate mining
Founding member, Citizens Against Phosphate Mining in Union and Bradford.
Now it is data centers.
Florida’s 2026 data center law says a water management district cannot permit a large-scale data center’s water use if it is harmful to the water resources of the area. The Suwannee River Water Management District is one of the boards that makes that call.
That is the same board Merrillee has been sitting in front of for twenty years.
Who is Merrillee
She did not come to this from politics. She came to it from the river.
Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson co-owns Rum 138 in Fort White — a canoe and kayak outfitter, art gallery and cafe a few hundred yards from the Santa Fe River. Watching that river change is what pulled her into two decades of water advocacy, long before anyone put her name on a ballot.
- Founding member of Our Santa Fe River (2007–2024)
- President of Save Our Suwannee
- Executive Committee, Suwannee–St. Johns Sierra Club
- Founding member, Floridians Against Fracking and the Florida Springs Council
- The first Floridian to publicly oppose the Sabal Trail gas transmission pipeline
- BFA, Ringling College of Art and Design · AA, University of South Florida
The whole platform in one line
Make better decisions.
Build better communities. Live better lives.
Clean water, clean air.
Freedom to thrive, learn, speak, criticize, praise, and love.
All flourishing is mutual.
Her platform, in six points
Life. Liberty. The Pursuit of Happiness.
Not a slogan — the actual framework she is running on. Three pillars, six commitments, all of it in her own words.
Clean water and clean air
“Life begins with clean water and clean air. Without them, nothing else is possible.” Defending nature’s rights as a practical foundation for human health and survival.
Read the platform
Healthcare that does not bankrupt families
“I support single-payer, Medicare-for-all reform. It saves money, eliminates unnecessary middlemen, and treats healthcare as what it is: a basic condition of a decent life.”
Read the platform
Building that does not poison the ground
“Life means building and planning in ways that do not poison the ground beneath our feet. Sustainable building design is not a luxury. In Florida, it is a necessity.”
Read the platform
Freedom to, not only freedom from
“Freedom to learn. Freedom to thrive. Freedom to speak, to criticize, to praise, to love. Freedom to control your own body. Freedom from fear.”
Read the platform
Equal justice under the law
“Equal justice is not a political position. It is the foundation of a free society.” The rule of law applying equally regardless of skin color, wealth, or fame.
Read the platform
Public education and community
“Public education is the foundation of democracy.” Arts education, multicultural education, honest history — these are not extras. They are the core.
Read the platformWhat is actually at stake
This is the District.
Not a talking point. Springs, river, timber, pasture and farm — and the wells that every house, every herd and every field in five counties draws from. One aquifer underneath all of it.
“We cannot do what we did in South Florida.”
Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson
The receipts
Twenty years of showing up
“Your candidate may be familiar with their own county meetings, but Merrillee is familiar with them all — and has attended them all.” Baker, Union, Bradford, Alachua and Columbia, plus the Suwannee River Water Management District.
At the podium
Testifying at hearings most people never hear about, on permits that decide how much water leaves the aquifer.
In the street
Organizing neighbors to protect the springs when the permits were already written.
At the state level
Founding member of Floridians Against Fracking, and the first Floridian to publicly oppose the Sabal Trail pipeline.
On the Santa Fe
Fighting bottled-water withdrawal permits on the river she lives beside.
With the next generation
Water sampling with kids who will inherit whatever we leave in the aquifer.
With the coalition
Our Santa Fe River, Save Our Suwannee, the Florida Springs Council and the Suwannee–St. Johns Sierra Club.
All parties
She talks to all parties. On purpose.
In a single week last July, Merrillee was in all three of these rooms.
The Bradford County Republican candidate forum.
Seven-minute speech, broadcast live on WEAG-FMThe Democratic Women’s Club of the Lakes Area.
Guest speaker, Melrose CenterThe Baker County Livestock Association.
Ranchers, at the county extension officeThe aquifer under these five counties does not check anyone’s voter registration, and neither does she. Merrillee is on the ballot as a Democrat for Florida House District 10 — and she is running to represent every person who drinks the water, however they are registered.
Where to find her
Come meet Merrillee
Dems and Dogs
Dems of Santa Fe · Rum 138, Fort White · 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Endorsements
People who have worked beside her
This section grows through the campaign. Every new endorsement gets added here and to the Contact page.
“Placeholder quote — two sentences on what Merrillee did for this river, this county, or these families.”
[Name], [Title][Organization or county]“Placeholder quote — ideally from a currently seated elected official, per the campaign’s note.”
[Name], [Office held][County]“Placeholder quote — a farmer, a small business owner, or a neighbor works well as the third voice.”
[Name][Town], FL