Random Article Summary #137

H. Marlene O’Toole (February 18, 1945 – January 30, 2024) was a Republican politician in Florida. She served in the Florida House of Representatives. From 2012 until her death, she represented the 33rd district. This district included Sumter County, northern Lake County, and southern Marion County, along with communities such as Webster, Center Hill, Bushnell, Wildwood, Lady Lake, and The Villages. Before that, she represented the 42nd district from 2008 to 2012. H. Marlene O’Toole was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, and started working at IBM in 1967. She later became IBM’s Regional Manager for the South, overseeing about 800 employees, and moved to Florida in 1992. After retiring from IBM in 1997, she became Director of Take Stock in Children, which helped provide scholarships to at-risk children in Lake County and Sumter County. After incumbent Hugh H. Gibson was barred by term limits, O’Toole ran for the Republican seat in Florida’s 42nd district. She won the primary with 59% of the vote, faced only a write-in in the general election, and won again nearly unanimously; in 2010 she beat an independent with 76%. After redistricting moved her to the 33rd district, she won unopposed in both the primary and general elections in 2012, 2014, and secured her final term. On January 23, 2015, the Florida Commission on Ethics found that O’Toole did not disclose a voting conflict when she voted on the state’s 2013 budget. The commission said she failed to disclose her dual roles—Chief Operating Officer of Take Stock in Children and vice chair of a House education committee that approved $6 million for the nonprofit. On March 11, 2015, the House decided she would not be punished, and O’Toole argued she had reported her income from Take Stock in Children on a required annual disclosure form.