Wives drawn into campaign fray

ST. PETERSBURG -- When politicians want to skewer their opponents, they turn to high-paid consultants skilled in the art of attack ads.

But in House District 52, the most bitter legislative race in Pinellas County, the two Republican candidates have turned to someone else.

Their wives.

Cary Burns wants to unseat incumbent Rep. Frank Farkas in District 52, which includes northeast St. Petersburg and portions of Largo and Clearwater, partly because Farkas sponsored health insurance legislation that Burns abhors. So Burns had his wife, Kendra, wrote a letter to voters.

In it, she told the story of Pat, a friend who discovered she suffered from non-Hodgkins lymphoma after a routine mammogram.

Kendra Burns wrote: "Last legislative session, Representative Frank Farkas introduced HB913, which removed mammograms and other vital health coverage from the law." So she urged voters to support her husband, because it "just might be the vote of your life."

Before long, many of the same voters received a letter in cursive script on light blue paper signed by Toni Lee Farkas, the wife of the legislator.

She tells how distressed she was to come home one day and listen to a recorded phone massage from the Burns campaign, "talking about how my husband Frank did such-and-such in the Legislature to prevent women from receiving mammograms."

She said that was untrue and added:

"Frank lost his mother to breast cancer so he knows personally the critical role mammograms play in the health of so many women. Losing his mother isn't something Frank likes to talk about too much. In fact, he did not think he was ever going to need to. But Cary Burns is lying about Franks record and it's time for the lies to stop."

The intense campaigning shows no sign of stopping before Sept. 10, primary election day. Afterward, the winner in the Burns-Farkas race will go on to face Democrat Chris Eaton and Alison Lipscomb, a Libertarian.

It's not the first time Burns and Farkas have clashed in a Republican primary. In 1996, the two faced off in a more genial campaign for the House seat. After losing the primary, Burns threw his support to Farkas. Farkas lost in the general election to Margo Fischer but ran again and unseated her in 1998.

Burns, who formerly bought and remodeled homes and ran a gourmet store among other endeavors, said he wasn't planning to run again. But Farkas' insurance bill HB913 angered him so much that he felt compelled to run. Powerful Republicans tried to talk him out of the contest, he said, but he couldn't say no.

"I have lost friends. It has cost me a great deal of money. My family has suffered," Burns said. But he said this election was about "Whether or not we're going to (give) our legislative business to the highest bidder."

Farkas, meanwhile, says he's never endured such negative campaigning and accuses Burns of misstating his record. "That's misleading the public. This isn't even close to a campaign of issues."

Farkas describes his insurance bill as a compassionate attempt to find low-cost alternatives for people who can't afford health insurance.

Under current law, insurance policies must cover a variety of procedures, including mammograms and treatments for HIV-related diseases and cleft palate. Farkas said he reasoned that insurance would cost less if companies did not have to provide all these types of coverage.

So he introduced a bill that would have let insurance companies provide stripped-down coverage that did not pay for those procedures.

He acknowledged these low-cost policies would have been less than ideal. Still, he argued, isn't some insurance better than none?

Nothing would have required companies to offer these plans if they didn't want to. Nothing would have required consumers to buy them. Nothing would have prevented insurance companies from continuing to cover mammograms.

The bill prompted a firestorm of protest -- including a demonstration in which protesters carried doctored photos of Farkas made to look like he needed a cleft palate operation. After a meeting in February, a crowd of consumers erupted in anger when a House committee voted on Farkas' bill without letting them testify.

Farkas later worked to amend the bill. All the procedures, including mammograms and cleft palate treatment, remain mandatory for insurance coverage. That's why Farkas said it was misleading for Kendra Burns' letter to say mammograms had been "removed" from the law.

Sitting in a campaign office behind his chiropractic clinic on Fourth Street N, Farkas bristled when asked if he had sponsored this legislation at the request of insurers.

"I have to fight insurance companies every day in my personal practice. So why in the world would I carry their water?"

As the challenger, Burns takes an aggressive stance. In public meetings he asks Farkas why he favored a program to inject untreated wastewater underground, why he favored a bill that would have raised some customers' telephone rates, why he voted in favor of a bill requiring women giving up babies for adoption to place newspaper advertisements listing the names and descriptions of all the possible fathers.

In an interview, Farkas said the wastewater program involved runoff water, not sewage, in a pilot program endorsed by scientists. The telephone bill was considered "revenue neutral," raising rates for some, lowering them for others. He said the adoption bill was designed to prevent excruciating custody battles like the case of "Baby Sam."

But in public forums, Farkas generally does not respond to questions from Burns, focusing instead on his own views. He says he's proud of working on Gov. Jeb Bush's education plan and the standardized testing that he said shows "yearly learning gains." He also mentions working on anticrime legislation such as the "three strikes and you're out" law and maintaining an antitax stance.

Republicans have an edge in this district, but it's a slight one. A total of 41.6 percent of the registered voters are Republicans, compared to 37 percent Democrats and 21.4 percent who are independent or members of smaller political parties.

Farkas has has the fundraising advantage, having amassed $130,407 in campaign contributions. Burns has raised $35,776, including $20,000 he loaned the campaign. Farkas also received an endorsement from Gov. Jeb Bush, a rare plum in primary season.

If elected, Burns said, he will push for a low-cost insurance program to help the uninsured that he said would be more equitable than Farkas' plan. And he said he wanted to work on a public-private partnership that would raise money so teachers don't have to buy supplies with their own cash.

He said he was running because "Frank Farkas doesn't consider the voters his constituency. He considers the lobbyists and the special interests his constituency."

Farkas brushes that off and says he is working to improve the lives of people in his district.

"Look at my record, look at what I've accomplished and then look at my passion," Farkas said. "I want to make this state better."

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