By Dale M. King
Three candidates for office in the Boca Raton area are breathing a sigh of relief today. Because no one filed nomination papers to run against them, they have “won” their offices.
Steven Abrams
Two politicians are moving up. District 86 State Rep. Maria Lorts Sachs, a Delray Beach Democrat, has won the District 30 State Senate seat.
Also, Steve Perman, a West Boca Raton chiropractor, is the new state representative in District 78.
District 4 County Commissioner Steven Abrams keeps his seat for lack of a challenger. There are races in Commission Districts, 2, 6 and 7 later this year.
“I am honored to represent the district, and to be returned to office,” said Abrams, who served for seven years as mayor of Boca Raton. “It has been a productive term, and I look forward to returning.”
Known for his quips, Abrams added: “I have run opposed and I have run unopposed. Guess which one is better.”
Abrams was appointed to the Palm Beach County Board of Commissioners by Gov. Charlie Crist in 2009 to replace Mary McCarty, who was convicted of honest services fraud and sentenced to five years in jail.
The former Boca mayor, who left that seat in 2008 due to term limits, also served five terms as a City Council member in Boca Raton from 1989 to 1999 and was a member of the city’s Planning and Zoning Board between 1987 and 1989.
In the meantime, Perman gets ready to take over the seat he has sought for several years. He succeeds Kevin Rader, who is running for the Lake Worth-Greenacres area State Senate seat currently held by David Aronberg.
Aronberg is also looking to move up and is running for the attorney general’s seat being vacated by Bill McCollum, who is running for governor.
Active in the community, Perman is a longtime member and past president of the Boca Raton Rotary Sunset Club, where he was named “Rotarian of the Year” in 1999. He was named “Chiropractor of the Year” in 2005 by the Broward County Chiropractic Association.
Sachs, first elected to the District 86 State Rep. seat in 2006, succeeding Anne Gannon when she became county tax collector, is an attorney by trade and is also married to an attorney, Peter Sachs, head of Sachs, Sax & Caplan, located in Boca Raton.
She will take over the currently vacant seat of former State Senator Ted Deutch, who was chosen in a special election this year to succeed former U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler in congressional district 19. Wexler stepped down to take a job with a Washington think tank.
Sachs is a graduate of the University of Maryland and Boston University, and has a juris doctorate degree from the University of Miami. She and her husband have three children.