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House makes history with choice of speaker

Marco Rubio of near Miami is slated in 2006 to become the first Cuban-American in the post.

By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published September 14, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - The Capitol reverberated with a sense of history in the making Tuesday as House Republicans chose as a Cuban-American as the next speaker for the first time.

Rep. Marco Rubio, 34, a lawyer and father of three from West Miami, won votes from his fellow Republicans to lead the state House in 2006. The boyish-looking Rubio will be the second-youngest speaker of modern Florida - a testament to his meteoric rise.

His success is viewed as a larger triumph of assimilation by Hispanics, who are nearly one-fifth of Florida's population. Rubio was born in Miami to Cuban-American parents, and he spoke of how they escaped a "thug," Fidel Castro, to make a better life for their children in America.

"On Marco's shoulders rest the weight of a generation of hopes, dreams and aspirations," said Rubio's friend, Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami.

About 170 of Rubio's hometown supporters came to Tallahassee, paying their way on a jet chartered by the Republican Party. They wore laminated floor passes around their necks with a quotation from Ronald Reagan: "There's no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."

Adding to the symbolism, the U.S. government-sponsored Radio Marti broadcast the ceremony across the Florida Straits to Cuba.

The first Cuban-American state lawmaker won a Hialeah House seat in 1982, and others soon followed. "In a few short years we've gone from renegades to being the speaker," said Luis Rojas of Hialeah, a lawyer, lobbyist and former House member. "For the Cuban-American community, that's a historic event."

In a speech that brought an emotional reaction from Gov. Jeb Bush, Rubio laid claim to the Bush legacy of bold ideas and big change. He distributed hardcover books with the pages empty, challenging lawmakers to write in 100 new ideas during his term.

He warned against his party's becoming complacent after a decade of dominance.

Rubio talked of a single mother with little hope who depends on the state to provide her and her child with a future.

"Who will speak for her?" Rubio asked. "Who will defend her dreams for her child?" He added: "If our goal is simply to win elections, or to use our service here as a springboard to another office, then her cause will be of little interest to us."

With Bush seated a few feet away, Rubio discarded the predictable life-is-good message often given by politicians. He sketched the future in unusually bleak terms: crowded schools and roads, rising costs of housing and financial insecurity. His single mother is "trapped in failing schools. She reads at a fifth-grade level."

The message touched Bush, whose voice cracked as he followed Rubio to the lectern.

"I can't think back on a time when I've ever been prouder to be a Republican," Bush said. "We can't stand pat and say we're the party of power: "Come, lobbyists, give us more money, so we can just stay in charge."'

Bush's eight years as governor will be nearing a close as Rubio takes over for Speaker Allan Bense of Panama City. With Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, poised to be the next Senate president, the state's future "is in good hands," Bush said.

Even Democrats were gleeful. Rep. Eleanor Sobel, a liberal Democrat from Hollywood, said of Rubio: "He has a good social conscience."

In less than a decade, Rubio has risen from a foot soldier in Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign to a Miami-Dade County commissioner to a state lawmaker to speaker-designate. He will be 37 when his two-year stint ends in 2008, and people already are speaking of him as a future candidate for governor or senator.

But Rubio, like most legislative leaders, will face problems he cannot yet know.

"Marco can be all he wants to be," said Al Cardenas, the lobbyist and former state GOP chairman who hired a young Rubio to clerk in his law firm. "He just needs to take care of tomorrow first."

--Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or 850 224-7263.

[Last modified September 14, 2005, 02:15:34]