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Ex-senator to run for position in Cabinet
By Times staff writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 26, 2001
TALLAHASSEE -- Former state Sen. Rick Dantzler said Thursday he will run for state agriculture commissioner in 2002.
Dantzler, 45, resigned from the Senate in 1997 to run for governor. He later became the running mate for Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay on a Democratic ticket that lost to Gov. Jeb Bush in 1998.
Dantzler will seek the Democratic nomination in a race that two Republican senators have indicated they will make.
Sens. John Laurent, R-Bartow, and Charlie Bronson, R-Satellite Beach, both sought the appointment this month when Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford announced he was leaving to take a post at the Florida Citrus Commission.
Instead of appointing a senator and setting off a chain of events that would have made a special election necessary, Bush appointed Deputy Commissioner Terry Rhodes as an interim replacement for Crawford.
Dantzler said he believes his work in the Legislature makes him qualified to hold the job.
"I consider this to be one of the most important jobs in state government right now," Dantzler said. "Farmers from all across the state are in the red, and I want to help."
A Winter Haven lawyer who was elected to the House in 1982 when he was 26, Dantzler moved on to the Senate in 1990 and served as chairman of the agriculture committee and the committee that handles the department's budget.
Since leaving office in 1997, Dantzler has written a book, to be published next fall, which includes a series of stories about Florida stemming from his experiences in the Legislature and his campaigns.
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