Thousands of religious conservatives across the country cheered when Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature bypassed court orders to force a feeding tube back into brain-damaged Terri Schiavo.
But the vast majority of Florida voters aren't applauding.
A new poll shows 65 percent of voters oppose the unprecedented move to pass a law that required the Pinellas County woman's feeding tube to be reinserted over the objections of her husband, who had just won a long-running court fight to have her feeding tube removed. The overwhelming opposition cuts across party lines, religious affiliation, age groups, income levels and most ethnic groups.
"The governor clearly is in the wrong in terms of public opinion," pollster Rob Schroth said. "Two-thirds of voters disagree with the policy, and 75 percent of voters think that these types of decisions should be made by the spouse."
The St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll found the governor's approval rating slightly lower than it was in May, overwhelming support for allowing Americans to travel to Cuba and strong opposition to gay marriage.
Fifty-two percent of Florida voters approve of the job Bush is doing as governor, and 41 percent disapprove. In May, the governor enjoyed a 56 percent approval rating. His latest Florida approval ratings are nearly identical to those of his older brother, President Bush.
In Pinellas County, 49 percent of voters approve of the governor's performance and 49 percent disapprove. In Hillsborough, 55 percent approve and 41 percent disapprove.
Schroth, a pollster whose political clients are primarily Democrats, attributed Bush's slide to the Schiavo controversy. But Kellyanne Conway, whose political clients are Republicans, said she doubts the issue had much effect and that the 4 percent drop was insignificant.
The poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday by the Washington polling firms Schroth & Associates and the Polling Company. The statewide telephone survey of 800 registered voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The margin of error for totals in Pinellas and Hillsborough is 7.9 percent.
Floridians are evenly divided on the governor's boldest initiative of the year: persuading a major biotech research facility, Scripps Research Institute, to expand to South Florida with $350-million in public money. Forty-two percent of voters said they agreed with spending taxpayer money that way, 41 percent disagreed and 17 percent were undecided. Voters, however, are overwhelmingly opposed to using tax dollars to build a new stadium for the Florida Marlins. Schroth and Conway said voters see a better chance of high-paying jobs from the Scripps deal than a sports stadium.
But voters support Bush and the Legislature in opposing gay marriage, an issue that has been pushed to the forefront nationally by a recent Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that declared homosexual couples have a constitutional right to marry. The major Democratic presidential candidates also oppose gay marriage, but they support "civil unions" that would grant gay couples most of the same benefits and rights as married couples.
Florida voters oppose gay marriage 66 percent to 28 percent, with 6 percent undecided. The state forbids homosexuals from marrying and does not recognize gay marriages performed out of state. The poll did not ask about civil unions.
"I don't believe in gay marriage, but I do believe in domestic unions," said Robert Guilford, a Zephyrhills Republican retired from the Air Force. "If two persons can make a household and live together and have all their civil rights, that's fine, but I don't believe in two gay people being married under a church entity."
Voters soundly reject the governor's staunch opposition to Americans traveling to Cuba. Sixty-four percent of voters support allowing U.S. citizens to travel to the communist country, despite a decadeslong federal ban. Twenty-six percent oppose travel and 6 percent are undecided.
Support for travel to Cuba crosses party lines and covers the entire state. Even 58 percent of voters in South Florida favor travel to Cuba despite the heavy presence of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans there. Hispanics were the only group opposed, with 55 percent against easing travel restrictions.
Guilford of Zephyrhills would ease restrictions on more than just travel to Cuba. "I'd like to see them get back to having trade with Cuba, so the farmers could ship their crops and the Cuban people could have goods and services," he said.
The law that allowed Bush to order Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted was passed by the Legislature in late October after the tube had been removed for six days. The governor and lawmakers were deluged with calls and e-mails pushing them to intervene.
"I like George Bush, but I'm not too crazy about his brother Jeb," said 47-year-old Darla Murray, a karate teacher and independent voter from St. Petersburg. "The governor should have kept his nose out of the Terri Schiavo case. It's ridiculous."
Mrs. Schiavo collapsed nearly 14 years ago from a suspected chemical imbalance that some doctors believe was related to bulimia. She had no living will, but her husband said she had told him she would never want to be kept alive by artificial means, and courts have concluded she is in a persistent vegetative state. Michael Schiavo believes his wife is beyond recovery, but her parents disagree and have been fighting to keep her alive.
The poll found three-quarters of Florida voters believe that when a person does not have a written living will, the spouse should assume responsibility for a person's decisions regarding life support, not the parents. That view essentially mirrors Florida law.
Without written directives about a person's health care care wishes, the state relies first on the spouse, then adult children, then parents.
Mrs. Schiavo's parents have pushed to have their daughter's feeding tube maintained. Her husband says his wife would not want to be kept alive if she were in a persistent vegetative state and has won every round in court.
Fifty-four percent of Florida voters said they have a living will, more than double the rate found in national studies. With its older population, Florida outpaces most other states on living wills, and the Schiavo case sent thousands scrambling to fill out the forms. Still, 54 percent is a remarkably high number.
Gov. Bush and many lawmakers stress that politics had nothing to do with their helping Schiavo, but activists lobbying for the move noted clear political implications heading into the presidential election year. Republicans are eager to mobilize religious conservatives who lobbied aggressively to keep Mrs. Schiavo alive.
All the major announced Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate strongly supported the law, although the poll found only a third of Republican voters agree. Just 16 percent of independent and Democratic voters support it.
"The governor stepped over the line. It wasn't his place to get involved in that personal, family decision," said Suzanne Pearce, a Democratic Bush supporter from Oveido. "It's the spouse who should have the say-so."
The issue could remain on the political radar screen in coming months as state lawmakers revisit Florida's right-to-die law.
Among Democratic presidential candidates who have been asked about the case, only former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean strongly criticized Bush's position. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman supported it, and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said he saw both sides of the debate.
Opposition is as broad as it is deep. Sixty-three percent of voters ages 18-34 disagree with the Schiavo law, and 68 percent of voters at least 65 years old disagreed. Fifty-seven percent of Catholics, 64 percent of Protestants and 85 percent of Jewish voters oppose the law.
The only demographic exception was Hispanic voters: 47 percent agreed with the decision by the governor and Legislature and 38 percent disagreed. Although three-fourths of all voters say the spouse should make the decision for someone without a living will, only 45 percent of Hispanic voters agreed with that, and 36 percent said the parents should.
"The explanation is religious and cultural," said Miami pollster Sergio Bendixon, who specializes in Hispanic voters but was not involved in this poll. "There is simply no precedent in Latin American countries for even considering ending someone's life before they have to go."
- Times staff writers Stephen Nohlgren and Steve Bousquet contributed to this report. Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727 893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com
