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An old hand comes back to provide a new touch
© St. Petersburg Times Jim Smith was at his vacation home in Steamboat Springs, Colo., at midday last Friday when the governor of Florida called. Jeb Bush asked Smith to return for one more stint as secretary of state, which is the same elected job that he held between 1987-1995. (Smith also served eight years as Florida's attorney general before that.) It speaks well for Smith and his wife, Carole, that they chose to drive the 1,900 miles because they could not fly the family dog, a wire-haired griffin named Ernie, nor their Maine coon cat, Blue. They hurried to close up their Colorado house. They did 700 miles Saturday, 800 miles Sunday and the rest on Monday, staying in touch with Tallahassee via cell phone to work out Smith's first crisis on the job -- yet another screwed-up Florida ballot. Smith, a Republican, started Saturday morning on the phone with Bob Poe, chairman of the state Democratic Party, who was complaining about the ballot. Smith then called his new employees at the state Division of Elections and had them talk to Poe. Just as the Smiths were closing in on Tallahassee early Monday afternoon, the cell phone rang again. Poe was coming over to meet with the Division of Elections. He was going to bring the press with him. What to do? Let them in. Smith decided to hustle over there as soon as he reached town. He stopped by his office, changed into clean jeans and a fresh shirt, and attended the meeting himself. The result was that Smith decided to send out a letter to those getting absentee ballots, with more explanation to reduce confusion. He decided to put out an emergency state rule to fix the ballots that will be used on Sept. 10. The Democrats agreed to settle their lawsuit. "Hey," Smith said when I talked to him Tuesday afternoon, "we ought to be able to sit down and work these things out." Now, that's news. That's man-bites-dog. No hiding behind lawyers and no-comments. No undisclosed locations or South American trips as the crisis built. He did not try to double-talk his way through state law. Just the opposite. ("It's the Democratic primary, their primary," he said. If a solution "doesn't fly in the face of constitutional or statutory provisions, it seems like kind of a no-brainer.") He threw open the door to his office and even agreed to have the press inside to watch. Neither, in our brief conversation Tuesday, did Smith say anything uncomplimentary of his predecessor, Katherine Harris, nor the staffers that he has inherited from her -- including the snakebit Division of Elections. Instead the elections staff immediately became, in Smith-speak, "our people." It was our people who got together with their people and worked things out. "I thought some of the suggestions Bob's people made were helpful," he said. Though only 62, Smith comes from a different generation of Republican and Democratic office holders than the ones who so bitterly inhabit Tallahassee today. Of course he would like to win, and would like his party to win. But it's not a matter of all-consuming contempt. If our people and their people can work things out, then all the better for everyone. The office of secretary of state, as an independently elected Cabinet position, goes out of existence next January, thanks to a reform passed by Florida's voters. Smith will be the last to hold the position, which is fitting. One of the duties of the job is to be custodian of the state seal, which is stamped on official documents. There is an actual, physical seal, which is kept to the side of the secretary's desk. As simple a job as this sounds, in the past there was said to be one secretary who misplaced the thing. So when Smith arrived at work, he had two immediate questions. The first was whether Harris had wallpapered the bathroom (she hadn't). The second showed an appreciation of constitutional duty: "Where's the seal?" It was right where it was supposed to be. -- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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Times columns today Howard Troxler Ernest Hooper Robert Trigaux Gary Shelton Bill Maxwell From the Times Metro desk Howard Troxler |
