Statewide police union throws support to Bush

In a renewed emphasis on his law-and-order record, the governor touts the endorsement in four cities.

By ALISA ULFERTS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 12, 2002

TAMPA -- As a probation officer, Robert Sweeney spends his days tracking and counseling parolees. It's a career move he didn't make until a year and a half ago, when Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill into law improving retirement benefits for parole officers.

"That was the big issue for me," said Sweeney.

So on Thursday, Sweeney joined 30 representatives of the Florida Police Benevolent Association to endorse Bush's re-election. The change in law, a promise Bush made as a candidate in 1998, increased by about a third the amount that goes into probation officers' pensions.

"The PBA fought for it for years but it fell on deaf ears," added Sweeney, who spent nearly a decade as a corrections deputy before he switched and now works in Pinellas Park.

Tampa was the third of four cities Bush toured Thursday touting the endorsement of the state's largest law enforcement association. The swing continues a subtle shift in the campaign as it broadens its message beyond Bush's education record. At every stop, the governor mentioned enhanced pensions, disability benefits, family support and the lowest crime rate since 1972.

"If I was Janet Reno, I'd be worried," Bush said to a crowd of police supporters in Miami.

Reno, a former U.S. attorney general, leads the Democratic candidates in all opinion polls.

Bush also said he has no plans to further privatize the state's prison system, an issue that has divided him from his law enforcement supporters. The state recently turned over prison food service to a private company.

At stops in Tallahassee, Orlando, Tampa and Miami, police union representatives repeated the same message: Bush's push to toughen criminal penalties, improve retirement benefits and curtail what he views as an activist judicial system has improved public safety in Florida.

"He's been the best governor we've had in my 27 years of law enforcement," said Ernest George, president of the association, which represents more than 30,000 officers throughout the state.

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