The History of Florida (92 page)

the last days of Chiles’s term, having already lost his bid for governor to

Republican Jeb Bush.

John Ellis “Jeb” Bush-R (1999–2007)

Bush won the governorship in 1998 by defeating Buddy MacKay using a

catchy TV ad with the tag line, “Hey Buddy, you’re a liberal.” After his loss

in 1994, Bush had repositioned himself as a “compassionate conservative”

who reached out to minorities and sought to help the poor through inno-

vative programs, while still keeping taxes low. Bush’s finest moments were

in crisis situations—first, the economic crisis that struck Florida’s tourism

industry after 9/11 when his creative fiscal policies helped jump-start the

industry. Second, when powerful hurricanes ripped apart the lives of many

Floridians. Bush also made his mark in several key policy areas—education

Florida Politics · 439

(the A+ Plan), law enforcement (10-20-Life), and fiscal policy (tax cuts)—

al controversial reforms he successful y pushed through the Republican-

controlled legislature. Supporters credited the state’s impressive economic

growth and job creation during his tenure to the tax cuts, while critics saw

them as delaying attention to major unmet growth-related needs of the state

including education, welfare, and the environment. Bush had his share of

other negative moments—the controversial 2000 election and a large pro-

test march on Tal ahassee by minority groups opposed to his “One Florida”

program eliminating racial preferences in college admissions and govern-

ment contracting. Yet he handily defeated Democrat Bill McBride in 2002

and became the first Republican Florida governor to be reelected. For
the

first
time
in
Florida’s
history,
Republicans
control ed
the
governorship,
al
three
cabinet
posts,
18
of
25
congressional
seats,
26
of
40
state
Senate
seats,
and
81

of
120
state
House
seats.
Jeb’s success in garnering votes from both Cuban

and
non-Cuban
Hispanics was aided by his fluency in Spanish, demonstrat-

ing the necessity of Spanish language-based political appeals in Latino-rich

Florida.

Charles “Charlie” Joseph Crist Jr.-R, then NPA (2007–2011)

proof

Crist became Florida’s forty-fourth governor when he defeated Democrat

Jim Davis. With no incumbent in the race, both major parties had a highly

contested primary. Each nominee was from the Tampa Bay area—the state’s

largest media market. Crist ran as a populist, promising to be “the people’s

governor” and to govern by adhering to the core principles of fewer taxes,

less government, and more freedom. The race was a classic “pocketbook”

election driven by the high costs of growth in the form of rising homeown-

ers’ insurance rates and escalating property taxes. While a fiscal conserva-

tive, Crist was a social moderate, having expressed support for civil unions

and embryonic stem cell research during his campaign. His governance

style was more bipartisan than his predecessor’s. But in reaching out more

to Democrats, he often alienated the more conservative Republicans with

such actions as restoring the voting rights of nonviolent felons, providing

a paper trail for voting machines, hosting a major conference on global

warming, vetoing a Republican-passed law that would have tied teacher pay

raises to student performance as measured by test scores, and unapologeti-

cal y taking federal stimulus dol ars to stave off deep cuts to the state budget.

His popularity was sky-high while he was dealing with the BP oil spill in

the Gulf of Mexico and its cleanup, putting pressure on BP to provide more

440 · Susan A. MacManus and David R. Colburn

financial help to Florida families and businesses hurt by the spil . Eventual y,

his popularity among Republicans plummeted. Crist decided not to run for

reelection as governor, but rather for the U.S. Senate—and as an indepen-

dent. Although he lost, his switch reflected the state’s growing rank of No

Party Affiliation (NPA) voters.

Richard “Rick” Lynn Scott-R (2011–)

Rick Scott took office in the midst of a serious economic downturn. Flor-

ida’s unemployment and foreclosure rates were among the highest in the

country. The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (April) had wreaked havoc

on the state’s coastal counties’ economies, particularly those in the Pan-

handle. It was a nationalized election, largely decided by voters, including

Tea Party activists, who were angry at Washington and took it out on Demo-

crats running for office at all levels. For those voters, Scott, the outsider, had

more appeal with his “Let’s Get to Work” anti-Washington message than

his Democratic opponent Alex Sink, the insider (chief financial officer),

with her honesty, integrity, and accountability message. The centerpiece of

Scott’s campaign was his 7-7-7 Plan that promised to create 700,000 new

jobs over seven years using seven steps. Once elected, Scott faced a state

proof

legislature (Republican-controlled) that was
less
conservative than he and

more interested in redistricting than focusing on the governor’s pledge to

put Florida back to work. The business community was Scott’s strongest

al y as he proposed regulatory relief, along with tax breaks, and spending

cuts. He was highly unpopular with Democrats, local government officials,

and other advocacy groups upset with his anti–public sector actions—pre-

employment and random drug testing for state employees, increased state

employee contributions to their pensions, and rejection of $2.4 bil ion in

federal grant money to build a $2.7 bil ion high-speed rail line from Or-

lando to Tampa. While Scott and his supporters thought that the project

was wasteful, inefficient, and would be underutilized, thus putting the State

of Florida on the hook for major building and operating expenses in the

future, supporters saw the federal money going to other states, not saving

taxpayers any money, and costing Florida thousands of construction and

service jobs to build and operate the system. Whether because of the budget

cuts, conservative social policy, or the bad economy, Florida citizens gave

Governor Scott the lowest approval rating, 29 percent, of any governor in

the country just four months after he was sworn into office. Scott’s initial

response was that he was not seeking to be the most popular, but rather to

Florida Politics · 441

do what he said he would do—make hard choices that can no longer be

avoided. The early Scott years affirmed what happens in periods of eco-

nomic distress in a political y divided state—serious disagreements about

the best way to reinvigorate the economy.

More Change to Come

Florida’s political landscape wil continue to change, especial y its racial,

ethnic, and age composition. The U.S. Census projects Florida will continue

to grow over the next several decades, with growth rates among Hispanic

and Asian populations exceeding those of blacks and whites. The age com-

position will change as wel , along with the political party affiliations of the

young and the old. The young wil become the most solidly Democratic

cohort, while the old will lean more Republican, mostly a consequence of

the Baby Boomers replacing the solidly Democratic FDR generation of se-

niors.30 The younger generations are more racial y and ethnical y diverse

than the older generation—and more social y liberal—but they are increas-

ingly more fiscal y conservative.

Politics in the Sunshine State will always be different in boom times than

during economic downturns. Governors wil stil do battle with the state

proof

legislature, urban area representatives with those from rural areas, liber-

als with conservatives, and Republicans with Democrats. Independents, the

swing voters, wil continue to be the “king”- or “queen”-makers, but the

most difficult to sway. And Florida wil become an even more important

battleground state in national politics, while most likely retaining its “fis-

cal y conservative, social y moderate” flavor.

Notes

1. See Gary R. Mormino,
Land
of
Sunshine,
State
of
Dreams:
A
Social
History
of
Modern
Florida
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005).

2. David R. Colburn,
From
Yel ow
Dog
Democrats
to
Red
State
Republicans:
Florida
and
Its
Politics
since
1940
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007), p. 4. The quote about Florida being the “real deal” was made by Dan Rather, former CBS Evening News anchor,

during the 2000 election.

3. V. O. Key Jr.,
Southern
Politics
in
State
and
Nation
(New York: Knopf, 1949), pp.

86–87.

4. Ibid., pp. 82–105.

5. Jerrell H. Shofner, “Florida and Black Migration,”
Florida
Historical
Quarterly
57, no.

3 (January 1979):267–88.

442 · Susan A. MacManus and David R. Colburn

6. Susan A. MacManus, Aubrey Jewett, Thomas R. Dye, and David J. Bonanza,
Politics

in
Florida
, 3rd ed. (Tal ahassee: John Scott Dailey Florida Institute of Government, 2011):

pp. 3–5.

7. John Higham,
Strangers
in
the
Land:
Patterns
of
American
Nativism,
1860–1925

(New York: Athenaeum, 1965), pp. 149–57; Papers of the NAACP, pt. 7, Anti-Lynching

Campaign, 1912–55, Lynching Ocoee, Florida (Series A: Anti-Lynching Investigative Files,

1912–53, reel 9, group 1, ser. C, Administrative Files, Box C-353, Microfilm, 1987, Univer-

sity Publications of America). See also Lester Dabbs Jr., “A Report of the Circumstances

and Events of the Race Riot on 2 November 1920 in Ocoee, Florida” (master’s thesis, Stet-

son University, 1969).

8. “A Documented History of the Incident Which Occurred at Rosewood, Florida, in

January 1923,” by Maxine D. Jones, Larry E. Rivers, David R. Colburn, R. Thomas Dye,

and William W. Rogers (submitted to the Florida Board of Regents, 22 December 1993),

93 pages.

9. David R. Colburn and Richard K. Scher,
Florida’s
Gubernatorial
Politics
in
the
Twentieth
Century
. (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1980), p. 190.

10. Ibid., pp. 191–92.

11. Ibid., p. 193

12. MacManus, Jewett, Dye, and Bonanza,
Politics
in
Florida
, 3rd ed., pp. 3–5.

13. James Clark, “Death Found Suspects before Justice,”
Orlando
Sentinel
, 17 October

1992.14. Wiliam C. Harvard and Loren P. Beth,
The
Politics
of
Mis-representation:
Rural-Urban
Conflict
in
the
Florida
Legislature
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1962), pp. 50, 62; see also Colburn and Scher,
Florida’s
Gubernatorial
Politics
, pp. 173–77.

proof

15. David R. Colburn, “Florida’s Legacy of Misdirected Reapportionment,”
Ocala
Star-

Banner
, 13 May 2012.

16. David R. Colburn,
Racial
Change
and
Community
Crisis:
St.
Augustine,
Florida,
1977–1980
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), pp. 104–9, 178, 187–88.

17. David R. Colburn, “Florida’s Legacy of Misdirected Reapportionment,”
Ocala
Star-

Banner
, 13 May 2012.

18. Bureau of Economic and Business Research, Florida Population: Census Summary

2010. Gainesville: University of Florida, April 2011.

19. Bureau of Economic and Business Research, Florida Population: Census Summary

2010, p. 5.

20. Scott K. Cody, “Florida’s Population Center Migrates Through History,”
Florida

Focus
2
(April 2006).

21. MacManus, Jewett, Dye, and Bonanza,
Politics
in
Florida
, 3rd ed., pp. 6–9.

22. Ibid., pp. 20–24.

23. Ibid., pp. 26–31.

24. Ibid., p. 106.

25. See Edward Kallina,
Claude
Kirk
and
the
Politics
of
Confrontation
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993); and Mark Stern, “Florida’s Elections,” in
Florida’s
Politics

and
Government
, ed. Manning J. Dauer (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1980),

pp. 73–91.

Florida Politics · 443

26. Susan A. MacManus. “Florida Overview: Ten Media Markets-One Powerful State,”

in
Florida’s
Politics:
Ten
Media
Markets,
One
Powerful
State
, ed. Kevin A. Hil , Susan A.