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A Times Editorial
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 8, 2002
It can be an ugly sight when a big man falls flat on his face. On Monday, Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, was heard to remark that his job as Senate majority leader is "to do whatever the Senate president tells me to do." Well, not exactly. Just two days later, King deserted John McKay amid the climactic struggle of his career, announcing his opposition to the $1-billion in instant tax reforms that would balance the Senate's budget. Unlike the Jim King everyone thought they knew, he wouldn't even talk about it. Confirmation came in a written statement that cited an "outpouring" of opposition from his district.
Much of that "outpouring," as he knew, was artificially generated by Gov. Jeb Bush, who had also been personally lobbying other susceptible senators to kill the Senate plan. Privately, to other senators, King displayed a hometown editorial incredibly denying the existence of any financial crisis in the schools. But he convinced no one that the real reason wasn't simply the primal political fear of alienating one's special constituency, which in his case comprises the Jacksonville business community and the big lobbies based in Tallahassee. His fall was anything but pretty. That King is also the Senate president-designate was the ugliest aspect.
McKay and those who remain loyal to him may still muster enough votes to pass the budget, especially if today's revenue estimating conference predicts any appreciable windfall from a recovering economy. But with the conspicuous defection of McKay's successor as president, the chances of persuading the House to accept the budget or any tax reforms to balance it range somewhere between very remote and utterly fanciful. Gone too, most likely, is the hope of persuading the House to reconsider any version of McKay's long-range tax reform proposal, even though King voted for that.
The greatest damage is to the Senate itself. McKay and his allies have set a heroic example of asserting the Senate's independence. But in King, the governor, the House and the lobbies can now reasonably perceive a successor president who will collapse like a house of straw whenever they huff and puff strongly enough.
Bush shouldn't gloat too much, however. Neither should Tom Feeney. Their victory, like that of King Pyrrhus against the Romans, will have come at a price they cannot afford, if it convinces the public that the Republicans cannot responsibly govern the state that they sought so long to control, and have squandered their chance.