Gov. Bush has been spoiled by his success. Now, through his refusal to compromise, he wages a civil war that threatens his own party's viability.
Published July 18, 2003
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, That he is grown so great? - Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I
The medical malpractice issue is no longer simply an uncommonly bitter political controversy. Gov. Jeb Bush is making it into a constitutional crisis by waging civil war against senators of his own party who don't want to vote as he demands. The escalation is entirely his doing, and his responsibility.
Senate President Jim King and his leadership team have given ground throughout the process in a good-faith attempt to come to terms with Bush over the issue of arbitrary restrictions on noneconomic damages. But even as they signalled yet another orderly retreat, Bush was calling on lobbyists to help him extract an unconditional surrender.
Florida governors of both parties have been known to play rough on occasion, but never to the extent of trying to starve their own senators of campaign contributions. If this is how he treats his friends, how would he treat his enemies? The answer is right at hand: No one can be his friend who does not hate as he hates; in this instance, who does not share his enmity toward the plaintiffs' lawyers who constitute the principal organized opposition to the malpractice bill. The friend of his enemy is his enemy. Both must be destroyed, along with anyone or anything else that stands in the way.
This sort of attitude is Nixonian.
Any objective reading of the offer that King sent to Bush Wednesday night would recognize the great extent to which the Senate leadership has tried to accommodate him. A reasonable politician would have recognized this immediately and welcomed it as a hard-won compromise. Not Bush. He's taking his time, even as yet another special session marks off more unproductive days.
It appears that to this governor, compromise is not as others see it - the essential art of politics. It is, rather, a sign of weakness. Not once in five years has Bush failed to get his way on something of importance to him. The success that has spoiled him is now a clear and present danger to constitutional government in the state of Florida. What's at stake is nothing less than the independence of the legislative branch, which only one of the two houses, at this moment, is attempting to defend.
There is a threat as well to the viability of the Republican Party, which must show that it is capable of governing. To his assertion that a $250,000 cap is a "Republican principle," the only proper answer is, "Since when?" Throughout American history, Republican principles (or Democratic principles, for that matter) have been the product of whatever a majority of the party say they are. The last we looked, there are 25 more Republicans in the Florida Senate than in the governor's chair. Some happen to agree with Bush on the malpractice bill. Most do not. They have given him enough. For Florida's sake, they should give not an inch more.
