TALLAHASSEE - Four years after Florida voters approved a bullet train, Gov. Jeb Bush wants them to derail it.
With the Legislature unwilling to help, Bush and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher turned Thursday to a citizen initiative, hoping to collect the more than 488,000 signatures needed to put a repeal on the November ballot.
Bush wants voters to kill the train system they approved in 2000. He said the state can't afford such "a luxury item."
Hours after the announcement, the man who heads the state's High Speed Rail Authority said such drastic action is premature.
Tallahassee lawyer Frederick Dudley said the original amendment might have enough "wiggle room" to give the Legislature discretion on how much to spend on the rail system in a given year.
"If that's the case, then expense ceases to be an issue," Dudley said.
Thursday's announcement is the latest in a 20-year debate over whether Florida should build a high-speed train.
It marks a reversal for Gallagher, who in 1985 voted with the majority in the state Senate to recommend building a high-speed system between Miami, Orlando and Tampa.
But Gallagher said Thursday he became convinced after reviewing the state's negotiations with its private vendor that the train would be too big a drain on the public coffers.
"I've voted in the past for a train when I thought it would be a private venture," Gallagher said. "But this isn't going to be a private train, it's going to become a public train that will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars a year."
The sensitivity of the issue was apparent throughout Tallahassee.
Bush's decision to back the petition drive demonstrated that he can't rely on Republican leadership in the House and Senate to get the rail initiative on the ballot.
A House subcommittee on Wednesday voted 6-3 against a resolution that would have put the repeal question on the November ballot. A similar resolution in the Senate has not yet been heard.
A pro-rail group called the "Florida Transportation Association" bought a half-page ad in a local newspaper, praising House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, R-Plant City, for saying he had a constitutional obligation to uphold the rail project.
Byrd said he personally opposes the train, but declined to say whether he would sign a petition calling for the repeal.
The repeal effort also lacks the support of Sen. Jim Sebesta, R-St. Petersburg, the chairman of the Transportation Committee, who has been critical of spending too much public money on the project.
Without a significant contribution from the private sector, the state's obligation could be $155-million a year, into the foreseeable future.
Sebesta said Thursday he is still working with the rail contractor, Fluor Bombardier, to get a contribution of $350-million to $400-million to pay for infrastructure. Until those avenues are closed, Sebesta said he will not join Bush.
"I'm not ready to sign onto that yet," he said. "I haven't given up the ghost yet. I'm not going to join the governor."
Dudley's remarks Thursday raised questions about whether a voter initiative would even be necessary.
He said it is unclear whether the original amendment is a binding mandate to get the rail system built as quickly as possible.
The only deadline it sets is for the beginning of construction to come no later than Nov. 1, 2003. By naming a contractor last year, the rail authority believes it met that deadline.
Beyond that, the amendment says the state shall build the system "pursuant to state approval and authorization, including the acquisition of right-of-way, the financing of design and construction of the system, and the operation of the system, as provided by specific appropriation and by law...."
There is no timetable for completion.
"Why didn't the governor cross the street to the Supreme Court two years ago and get a ruling on whether this is a mandatory expense of state funds?" said Dudley, whom Bush appointed to lead the rail commission. "The fact that he has failed and refused to use the power only a governor has prompts me to think that cost isn't the real issue with him. What's his real concern?"
Bush has said in the past that he thinks the language of the amendment is binding. His office said Thursday he has no intention of taking the matter to the Supreme Court.
The team of Bush and Gallagher - an unusual alliance between sometime-rivals - is the biggest threat yet to the controversial and ambitious plan to build a five-city bullet train.
Together, they will bring significant fundraising power to the Derail the Bullet Train group, or DEBT, which has sputtered for two years since its founding by Palm Beach County leaders.
The alliance also puts Gallagher firmly in the spotlight as a fiscal conservative during a year when he's not on the ballot. Gallagher, a moderate Republican expected to run for governor in 2006, will serve as chairman of DEBT.
"This has nothing to do with anything other than I am doing my job as chief financial officer," Gallagher said Thursday. "I think when people see the cost and they think about it they'll realize we shouldn't do this."
Bush said he's convinced Floridians, if given the chance, will back the repeal, once they hear the cost estimates.
"I can't find a single person beyond those with the contracts...who say Florida will suffer if we don't have high speed rail," Bush said. "It is something that would be nice to have. It's a luxury item, but it's certainly not a priority."
Senate Democratic Leader Ron Klein, an original DEBT member who also is trying to get the Legislature to put the question on the November ballot, praised Bush and Gallagher.
"The more the merrier," said Klein, D-Boca Raton. "I'm glad the governor's figured out it's something he wants us to help us with."
But the response in Bush and Gallagher's own Republican ranks was far more circumspect. Some leaders were leery of a ballot question that asks voters to reconsider an issue they previously approved with 53 percent of the vote.
"This is something that I never supported and I spoke vehemently against it on the stump," said Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville. "But...I wouldn't (want to) insult some people who'd say, "You didn't ask me again when I chose President Bush, why would you now say you have to come back and do this?' "
To get the issue on November's ballot, DEBT will have to collect 488,722 signatures before Aug. 3.
Rep. Anne Gannon, a Democrat whose Delray Beach district overlaps with Klein's, says she supports keeping the bullet train in the Constitution, calling it a matter of philosophical consistency. In a House subcommittee Wednesday, Gannon voted against a repeal bill.
"I have to be consistent," Gannon said. "If I vote to put high-speed rail back on the ballot, I have to do that for class size and pre-K (education). They're just as unpopular in some places."
- Times staff writers Steve Bousquet and Alisa Ulferts contributed to this report.
