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Moderates dilute Gov. Bush's pull

As the 60-day session shows, the conservative ideology has lost some of its influence among state lawmakers.

By ADAM C. SMITH
Published May 8, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - There's an increasingly potent force in Florida government and it's closing the curtain on Jeb Bush's era of extraordinary power.

It's the moderate Republican. As the 2005 Legislature showed, the conflict between moderate and conservative Republicans is the underlying political battle in Florida today.

By the time state lawmakers concluded their annual 60-day session near midnight Friday, Republican state senators had driven home the new reality: Gov. Jeb Bush no longer calls the shots.

More than ever, independent-minded Republicans are willing to rein in the more conservative instincts of Bush and state House leaders.

What's more, the session's end effectively kicked off a new gubernatorial race lacking a clear ideological successor to Bush. All the Republican prospects to succeed him are widely viewed as moderates, even as they begin to move to the right for the coming primary battle.

"It'll be a new era," said state Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Treasure Island, noting that all the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor will be more pragmatic than Bush. The governor's diminished pull in the Legislature, Jones suggested, was largely Bush's doing by antagonizing lawmakers.

"In the first couple years when you have a new governor, I think everybody tries to make him look as good as you can to get out of the starting blocks," Jones said. "But you're only as good as your word, and as time goes on and you see promises broken and deals that don't come together, that marriage has to stop."

Bush, accustomed to getting his way in sessions past, saw lawmakers kill many of his top priorities, including his plans to scale back the class size amendment, expand school vouchers and further restrict lawsuits against businesses.

Lawmakers reduced his plans for sweeping changes to Medicaid to small pilot programs and watered down his and Senate President Tom Lee's growth management proposals.

Bush said Saturday he had "a pretty darn good session" despite some losses. "This year I had some big, bold initiatives," Bush told reporters at an education writers conference in St. Petersburg. "It doesn't bother me at all that they were not all embraced."

Still, nobody in Tallahassee underestimates the power of a popular governor with a brother in the White House. Nor is he expected to pull back from his ambitious policy goals as he prepares to exit office in early 2007.

Bush even showed a pragmatic side on growth management with a proposal to allow counties to raise optional sales and gasoline taxes without voter approval, which smacked of support for tax increases to vehemently opposed House Republicans. "He was swinging for the fences this year in a way a first-term governor would have been afraid to do," said lobbyist J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich.

At the same time, some of Bush's fellow Republicans in the Senate were swinging back in a way no one would have even tried a few years ago.

Senators in particular vented pent-up frustration with Bush. Lee at one point accused the governor of trying to "plagiarize" the Senate's growth management work and effectively told him to butt out.

A sitting governor's political capital inevitably shrinks near the end of his term. Getting controversial policies passed next year, Bush's last legislative session, will be even tougher because in an election year everything is viewed through an electoral prism. By next spring, the race to succeed Bush will dominate state politics.

Lee and House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, worked together more amicably than their predecessors. But that didn't prevent a near meltdown on the final day that left major issues hanging.

The state House remains overwhelmingly conservative, while the Senate has a core of Republicans willing to buck Bush and team with Democrats to block bills, from intervening in the Terri Schiavo case to scaling back the class size constitutional amendment to making it harder to sue businesses.

Sometimes, it might be more than a dozen Republicans bucking the governor and House, other times half that. But over and over, those independent-minded Republicans proved to be decisive in diluting or halting Bush's priorities.

The most consistent moderates are from the Tampa Bay area: Sens. Jones, Nancy Argenziano of Dunellon and Mike Bennett of Bradenton. Lee has emerged as the John McCain of Florida politics.

"You're seeing a trend in the Senate that we hope will come over to the House," Democratic leader Chris Smith said.

Senators tend to represent a broader spectrum of constituents than those in the House because their districts are larger. Bense, who found some of his priorities thwarted by fellow Republicans, seemed to appreciate the dynamics. "While I wish the Senate was as conservative as we are, if I were an ordinary citizen I might be heartened that there are some checks out there," he said.

Democrats found House leaders fairer and friendlier than before, though Smith said "the agenda was no less extreme."

While the House is unlikely to become more moderate, some observers see the executive branch moving that way after Bush.

All three prospective Republican candidates - Attorney General Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher and Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings - are viewed as less ideologically conservative than Bush. Both announced Democrats, state Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua and U.S. Rep. Jim Davis of Tampa, are widely viewed as centrists.

"Bushism went to its extreme and now you're beginning to see it unravel," said Jade Moore, executive director of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association and a staunch Bush critic. "Every person that's running for governor is an improvement times two over the current governor."

Others say it's simply impossible to compare Bush to normal politicians.

"Jeb Bush is quite different probably from any governor we'll have in a long time. No. 1, because his name is Bush," said former Secretary of State Jim Smith, a Republican.

"He does have a very conservative approach to government and well-reasoned arguments, and he's been able to advance an agenda. But every time you have a new governor you'll see a different approach, and a different agenda," Smith said.

Bush made it clear Saturday that he's not done. "I'm not going to step back," Bush said. "As governor I have a duty to lead. I'm not going to put it in cruise control."

Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727 893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 8, 2005, 00:46:16]