State: Budget battle a family feud

He wrestles in the dark with real-life nightmares: poor people dying from health care cuts, doctors shutting their doors because they can't afford insurance, Florida classrooms needing 20,000 teachers.

He pads over to his computer to write notes to himself, shoots off predawn e-mails to colleagues, distracts himself on eBay.

Only when the soporific effects of hot chocolate tug at his eyelids does King crawl back into bed for two more fitful hours of sleep before rising to spend 14 or 15 hours in the Senate president's suite.

It's not easy being Senate president at a time of financial crisis. It's even harder when you're a moderate Republican in a state capital dominated by hardshell conservatives.

King doesn't like taxes any more than other millionaire Republican businessmen.

But he's also the child of blue-collar parents who never graduated from high school. He's a former Peace Corps volunteer who once sought food stamps.

"I've been poor a lot longer than I've been rich," says King, 63.

HOUSE SPEAKER JOHNNIE BYRD: The conservative's resolve put him on the fast track from small town to state power broker. Story

SENATE PRESIDENT JIM KING: Memories of poverty shape his "bleeding heart" conservativism, which is often unpopular. Story

But he's locked in battle with powerful members of his party, including the governor and the speaker of the House, who oppose higher taxes and are prepared to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in services to balance the budget.

The stress is taking its toll.

"It could kill me," he told his wife, Linda, "but if it does, know that I died happy."

* * *

King was a surprise to his parents, a propane salesman and homemaker who thought they'd missed their chance for children.

"They'd pretty much given up hope of having kids when they had me," King said.

The family moved to St. Petersburg from Brooklyn in search of better jobs and a better climate when he was 6. They settled in a modest neighborhood near Boca Ciega High School and began living the Florida Dream: sand, surf, and cheap cost of living.

But the move didn't make them rich, so King turned to a natural asset at home: his humor. His quips, jokes and pranks returned friends and favors, even as King worked to balance his innate need to be popular with his parents' wish for him to excel.

"I guess I struggled with the need to fit in," King said.

He was suspended for four days in 1955 after he and some classmates painted rival Northeast High School in the colors of St. Petersburg High.

Someone spilled the beans and when the group was caught one of them was ordered to apologize over the Northeast High intercom.

"Guess who they picked," King said.

The political bug bit him early: King served on the high school student council. He also was chairman of the Pom Pom Committee, a school spirit group. He graduated from St. Petersburg Junior College in 1959, working briefly for the St. Petersburg Times as a cub news reporter, and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in business at Florida State University.

Then, wanting to put his new MBA in practice, King signed on as a Peace Corps volunteer, completing his training in 1962. He was a few weeks from flying to Peru to help reform the country's banking system when the draft and the growing conflict in Vietnam pushed him toward the Coast Guard, where he spent six years.

King eventually settled in Jacksonville and devoted himself to work and, to a lesser degree, to marriage. His first two marriages lasted 4 1/2 years. Each produced a daughter. His third marriage has lasted more than 20 years.

King never wanted to taste poverty again -- or work for someone else -- so at age 30 he mortgaged his home to start a temporary labor and consulting company. He was at the forefront of a growth industry, though he came close to bankruptcy several times. He sold the business in 1997 and remains a consultant to the company that bought him out.

Today, his net worth is $5.5-million.

* * *

One thing King cherishes about himself is his empathy born out of poverty. But this "bleeding heart conservative" has a hard time saying no. So he surrounds himself with senators to do it for him.

"Jim never wants to say no to anyone," said Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie. "Medicaid recipients are not a Republican base, and yet Jim cares as much about them as anyone."

King was a successful Jacksonville businessman in 1986 when the state Republican Party came calling. They wanted him to run for the state House. King jokes that was the last he heard from them until they called to congratulate him.

His ambition led him to run for House speaker in 1995, but he lost to a more conservative Republican, Dan Webster of Orlando. In 1999 he was elected to the Senate and set his sights high again.

"The lobbying corps said he would never be president," Pruitt recalls. "I said, watch. You can never judge a book by the cover and they mistakenly judged Jim King by the cover."

That cover is a stout, nearly 300-pound man with gold jewelry, Irish blue eyes and an infectious, self-deprecating laugh. He's also a "master negotiator," said Senate Majority Leader Dennis Jones of Treasure Island.

In 2001, King was trailing Webster again in a bid to be Senate president. Few expected him to win, but he cut a deal with another contender, Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon. In return for Lee's support, King named Lee the powerful rules committee chairman.

"I think Jim is underestimated because he's so affable," Lee said. "People think he doesn't have the political acumen to know when to hold them and to fold them."

Last year, he folded.

* * *

It was 3 a.m. almost a year ago, the day before then-Senate President John McKay planned to count votes for his controversial plan to eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in tax exemptions.

King was wide awake.

He'd had a lot of sleepless nights wrestling with the tax issue. Gov. Jeb Bush and then-Speaker Tom Feeney were dead-set against the plan, which they described as the biggest tax increase in Florida history. Jacksonville Republicans were pressuring King, McKay's loyal lieutenant.

McKay called a meeting of his inner circle. "No," King said, "I just can't do this."

Stunned silence followed. As majority leader, King was expected to deliver for McKay.

"It was as if the oxygen was sucked right out of the room," said Pruitt.

The tax plan died then and there.

* * *

It's likely that King's sleepless nights will continue. The session begins Tuesday, and he has no plan to balance the state budget.

King can already feel the pain of Bush's proposed budget cuts. But he also worries about raising taxes. He points out that every Republican who defeated a Democrat in a legislative race last year used taxes as a weapon.

He's a man known for wearing his emotions on his sleeve and who has been caught weeping in public. He shares a religion -- Episcopalian -- with the deeply religious and conservative Republican House speaker, Johnnie Byrd of Plant City. But while Byrd talks openly of his faith and invokes it occasionally to explain decisions, King keeps his prayers to himself.

But he increasingly relies on them.

"I have found myself seeking divine guidance much more frequently as this presidency has evolved,' King said.

King is less ideological than Bush or Byrd, more pragmatic, less partisan. He relies on his easy-going humor to navigate between the two.

King once considered becoming a Democrat. T.K. Wetherell, then the speaker of the House and now Florida State University president, offered him the powerful post of appropriations chairman if he switched parties. King said he thought it over briefly -- Republicans were not in power then -- but declined. King said he would rather stick to his Republican principles than trade them for a seat closer to the power and the influence of the ruling party.

Now he has both, and King admits it's tougher than he thought. He's never home before 10:30 p.m. He has already weathered a full frontal attack by Byrd, who accused him, falsely, of trying to raise taxes by $11.5-billion.

His timing isn't great: He knows he must lead a "custodial" Senate, rather than an "innovative" one.

He wanted the job because it lets you "leave your mark" on the state. Instead, it's leaving its mark on him. He has started taking blood pressure medicine and carries aspirin in his breast pocket in case he has a heart attack.

"Would I have wanted to be Senate president if I had known ... " King's voice trails off and he doesn't answer his own question. He said he'll serve his two years as president, then finish out his four-year term and call it quits.

"I can't give the state any more than I am because I feel myself aging exponentially."

James Edward King Jr.: Senate president, Republican

PERSONAL: Born Oct. 30, 1939, in Brooklyn, New York. Moved to Florida in 1945. First in family to graduate high school and college. Married to Linda Braddock of Orange Park. Two grown daughters from previous marriages. Lives in Jacksonville.

PROFESSIONAL: Business consultant, state senator, six years in the U.S. Coast Guard.

EDUCATION: St. Petersburg Junior College, A.A (1959), Florida State University, bachelor's degree (1961) and master's degree (1962) in business.

2003 LEGISLATIVE GOALS: Improve biomedical research, bring more clean industry to Florida, set stage for increased teacher pay.

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