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Florida's Bush Legacy

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By Frank Shannon

Published: December 6, 2006

Brandon, FL - Brandon, FL - Governor Jeb Bush closes out his eight-year term as arguably the most popular chief executive in Florida history, and possibly the most highly-regarded and principled governor in the U.S. today.

All good things must come to an end, they say, and the clock's ticking down on the administration of Governor Jeb Bush. As someone who's been to Tallahassee numerous times over the last eight years, whether it be through the Republican Party or Citizens for a Sound Economy, for Florida Catholic Conference goings-on or as a legislative candidate myself, Tallahassee's become indelibly marked as Bush country. This is especially in light of Jeb's role in the Republican takeover of state government and the transformation of Florida into a red state. After eight years it'll be strange. It's going to seem strange saying Governor Crist instead of Governor Bush.

Of course, Jeb's arrival in the governor's mansion followed considerable effort. It seems like just yesterday that Jeb lost the 1994 gubernatorial race to none other than the "He-coon," Democrat Lawton Chiles, after elderly voters received calls from the Chiles campaign scaring them out of voting for Jeb. Four years later, in 1998, Jeb beat Chiles' Lt. Governor, Buddy McKay, to become Florida's 43rd governor.

In the two terms he's served as Florida's chief executive, Jeb's proven himself to be far more than the rich son of a former president and brother of the current President Bush. He's brought a high degree of bona fide leadership and genuine conscientiousness to the job.

One issue close to Jeb's heart has been education. He's been strongly in favor of school vouchers, providing parents with the opportunity to keep some of their hard-earned dollars, for the purpose of putting their children in private or religious schools, thereby freeing up resources in the public schools.

He's also made a big push for charter schools, publicly-funded schools that have been freed from some of the rules and regulations under which public schools normally labor. Mind you, before becoming governor, Jeb was a co-founder of the Liberty City Charter school in Miami. Jeb and hasn't been without his critics, but Florida's never had such a pro-active governor when it comes to education.

Environmentally, the centerpiece of Jeb's policies has been Everglades restoration. In 2000, Jeb made Florida party to a fifty-fifty partnership with the federal government in instituting an $8 billion Everglades Restoration Plan, characterized as world's largest ecosystem restoration effort. Jeb's also been consistent in opposing oil drilling off Florida's coast, in recognition of the vast amount of tourism dollars that pour into Florida through its beaches and its status as the Sunshine State. Under the Bush governorship, Florida has set aside more than one million acres of land for conservation. Florida Forever, a 10-year, $3 billion  program established by Jeb and the Republican-controlled legislature, conserves environmentally sensitive land and restores waterways. One of these waterways is the Kissimmee River, the natural channel of which was diverted decades ago in an ill-conceived canal plan.

Jeb's also been one of the more outstandingly pro-life political leaders that American politics has seen in a long time. A devout Catholic, he's been solidly in favor of parental consent before a minor can get an abortion and against partial birth abortion. In the case of Terri Schiavo, Jeb was a supporter of Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri's parents, in their efforts to prevent their son-in-law, Michael Schiavo, from removing the feeding tube from his brain-damaged wife. In 2004, Jeb signed "Terri's Law" into effect in an attempt to keep her alive. The Florida Supreme Court subsequently ruled the law unconstitutional, and in 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, thereby allowing Michael Schiavo to starve and dehydrate Terri to death with judicial approval. There was some isolated criticism of Jeb for not having done more, but in fact he got much more personally involved than one would normally expect a governor to do, doing everything he could in his gubernatorial powers in support of Terri and the Schindlers.

Jeb has proven himself to be a conservative's conservative, even more so than his presidential brother and certainly more than his father, on fiscal as well as social issues. Under Jeb's stewardship, Florida's economy has flourished, even when other parts of the country have suffered under heavy taxation, lost jobs, and rising gasoline prices. Florida's fiscal conservativism, under Jeb's leadership, has resulted in unprecedented growth and prosperity, and the state's largest-ever budget surpluses, allowing the state to prepare for emergencies.

And Florida hasn't been without its share of emergencies, mainly in the form of a number of hurricanes that have struck the state in recent years, some in particularly harsh fashion. With Jeb's hands-on approach to managing hurricane relief and aid, however, Florida's impacted communities recovered much more quickly and fully than New Orleans did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, in large part due to the mishandling by Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. New Orleans would have been well-served had they taken a few pages from Jeb's book.

Jeb's future very well may include a third Bush presidency, if not in 2008, then perhaps further down the electoral road. He's only 53, after all, downright youthful in political terms. While most media sources rate a 2008 Jeb presidential run as an uphill battle at best, mainly as a result of supposed public disapproval of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, it's those same media sources that have fanned the flames of discontent by misrepresenting the situation in Iraq. Imagine a Jeb vs. Hillary match-up in 2008, the official conservative of the Bush family against the arch-liberal senator who once tried to socialize American health care. My instincts tell me that Jeb would have a genuine shot, and he certainly makes more political sense than liberal Rudy Giuliani or erratic John McCain.

So as Jeb Bush prepares to hand over the keys to the shop to Charlie Crist, as well as a big pair of shoes for the governor-elect to try to fill, Florida prepares for the new, post-Jeb political era. While history may ultimately demonstrate that Jeb has greater political heights to which to aspire, it may also show that to which we Floridians have borne witness these last eight years as a golden age of state government, the likes of which we may not see again for a very long time.     

Frank Shannon is a longtime conservative activist writer. He can be contacted at FXIShannon@aol.com

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