Years of service, killed in a minute

MORGAN

© St. Petersburg Times
published January 11, 2002

The men and women who work for the Florida Legislature have always known it is possible for them to lose their jobs on a whim, but the peril under which they work was again made clear this week in the Florida Senate.

Sarah Jane Bradshaw, a state employee for 29 years and six months -- just a half-year short of having the 30 years she needs to collect decent retirement benefits now -- was fired late Tuesday.

No one will say why it happened, just that Senate President John McKay was exercising his prerogative to dismiss a Senate employee who served at his pleasure. McKay sent chief of staff Greg Krasovsky to deliver the news.

"I made the decision that I thought we needed a change in that position," McKay said. "Those are personnel issues that aren't supposed to be in the press."

It was McKay's pleasure to fire the staff director at the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee after all of her years of service. Before her chair was cold, the job was filled by Wayne Rubinas, a lawyer who happened be a high school classmate of McKay's. But McKay hastens to add that he wasn't just trying to find a job for a friend.

Some legislative staffers saw a connection between Bradshaw's dismissal and opposition to McKay's tax plan by Sen. Debby Sanderson, R-Fort Lauderdale. Sanderson is the first Republican to publicly oppose McKay's plan and is chairwoman of the committee where Bradshaw worked.

"As God is my judge, it had absolutely nothing to do with this," McKay said, referring to his tax plan.

Sanderson, visibly upset, said she doesn't know why Bradshaw was ousted, and learned of it only five minutes before it happened when Krasovsky told her McKay had "lost confidence" in Bradshaw.

McKay said he will try to help her find another state job.

Bradshaw has spent her entire career in state government working with Florida election laws, first at the State Division of Elections, then in the House and for the past five years in the Senate.

The Legislature has some of the state's best workers hidden away in offices who frequently burn the midnight oil while lawmakers party and play and then claim the credit for the work.

Some of these staffers make pretty good money and get things like free insurance benefits and a coveted parking place inside the Capitol. But believe me, most of them earn it.

A few of them can up and tell individual legislators when the train is running off the track, but many of them simply bow and say "yes sir" when the lawmakers on their committees speak.

Legislative staffers are almost never quoted in news stories. The golden rule of working in the Legislature is to quietly provide the technical background and let the lawmaker take the credit.

Bubbling beneath the surface of every day is the certain knowledge that they can be fired or moved for any reason any time. Maybe the speaker of the House or the Senate president doesn't like the color of their hair that day or the clothes they are wearing.

Out they go.

Bradshaw sat through a routine meeting of the Elections Committee on her final day at work. A few hours later, she and her $75,000-a-year job were history. She would not discuss it afterward, but friends hope she will find another state job.

A lot of legislative staffers are suffering from dropped jaws and open mouths. They don't know why it happened. Bradshaw doesn't know why it happened.

We are left to wonder what Bradshaw did to disturb the president's sleep. Did she fail to kiss the ring, or was McKay merely looking for a place to put a friend?

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