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Smith saves Florida -- just this one time
© St. Petersburg Times It is bizarre. All of a sudden reporters are welcome in the office of Florida's secretary of state. The secretary of state actually answers questions and displays detailed knowledge of Florida's election law. What a difference a week makes. Welcome home, Jim Smith. Makes me wonder why we let him escape from state government to spend his days lobbying, practicing law and whiling away the summer at a house in Colorado. He has returned in the nick of time to save Florida from yet another embarrassing election. By accepting Gov. Jeb Bush's plea to briefly take the job he once held, he may have done more for Florida than a lot of the people we have elected. A week ago, it seemed that we stood on the precipice of a real disaster that could forever tarnish Florida's image. We cannot afford to have another election like 2000. Smith and the governor promise things will get better. New laws, new machines and more education will help, but the absence of a cool, knowledgeable hand at the wheel could have wrecked our ship of state. Former Secretary of State Katherine Harris is off running for Congress. She never did seem to care much or know much about the state's election laws. Maybe Congress will be a better fit. After serving as attorney general and secretary of state and twice running for governor, Smith says he no longer yearns for elected office. "I have been 100 percent cured," he insists. And he feels a little strange being back in the Capitol after a seven-year absence. Would he consider running the Division of Elections and handling the other duties of the secretary of state permanently? "Absolutely not," Smith said. All of the duties of the office will be distributed elsewhere come January, when the Cabinet shrinks from six members to three. Some of the faces will be familiar. Republican Insurance Commissioner Tom Gallagher will become the state's chief finance officer, handling the duties currently assigned to him and Comptroller Bob Milligan. We'll have a new attorney general, selected from a field of seven candidates, and Republican Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson is likely to be back, despite an unexpected challenge from millionaire Republican-turned-Democrat Mary Barley. Power will be consolidated in a Cabinet of three plus the governor, a big change from the past. As 2003 dawns we'll also be losing Milligan and Attorney General Bob Butterworth to term limits. Butterworth is trying to become a part-time occupant by running for a state Senate seat, but Milligan's departure leaves a big hole. Florida government is losing some very decent people who have worked long and hard to make this state a better place to live. Besides the elected people forced out of office by term limits, we are losing some longtime state employees. They include Ed Montanaro from the Office of Economic and Demographic Research. He is making a midcareer move after 22 years to return to Florida State University for a Ph.D. in Spanish. At age 49 he plans to leave behind the world of numbers and seek a teaching job at the college level. Montanaro says his departure is totally voluntary. But he and others could read the handwriting on the wall. Independent thinkers might be an endangered species. The Legislature is becoming a very different place to work. It seems to matter less that staff members know the law and are really smart. More and more they also must share the ideology of members. It has become much harder to tell the emperor that his clothes are missing. They are leaving that to us.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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Times columns today Lucy Morgan Sandra Thompson Bill Varian and David Karp From the Times State news desk Lucy Morgan |
