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An impolitic politician pays for her individuality
© St. Petersburg Times, Nancy Argenziano, who represents all of Citrus County and slivers of Hernando and Marion in the state House, is a Republican. In her Crystal River office, she displays a photograph of herself with Newt Gingrich. She preaches private property rights. She believes the Second Amendment protects individual gun ownership (including her own .357 and .38). She voted for school vouchers. She talks about limiting the power of government. She favors local control. She is one of the main reasons Florida has a law requiring that we use "local sources" of water. When Argenziano ran as a newcomer in 1996, she kicked out a Democrat and turned over control of the 120-member House to the Republicans for the first time in the century. But despite all of these things, Nancy Argenziano is not Republican enough. She has been deemed disobedient to the Republican regime in Florida, as represented by Gov. Jeb Bush, and the previous and current speakers of the House, John Thrasher and Tom Feeney. Her offenses: She would not go along with sneaky bills to allow telephone and private water companies to charge more. She voted against so-called "tort reform," which made it harder for little people to sue big corporations. She voted against giving the governor more power to hand-pick the boards that nominate Florida's judges. She voted against the governor's plan to store untreated surface water down in Florida's aquifer. She wanted to require nursing homes to provide better care, not just to make it harder to sue them. Finally, Argenziano insulted a powerful lobby, the Associated Industries of Florida. You might remember. She sent 25 pounds of manure to an AIF lobbyist who she said had taunted her. Her punishment came down the other day. Buried in a list of changes from Feeney's office was the news that Argenziano had been stripped of her powerful job as chairman of the House Council for Healthy Communities. I visited Argenziano this week. We talked about fishing, kayaks, her pastime of restoring houses and her dog, a chow-pit bull mix named Watson. "When I first got elected to the Legislature," Argenziano said, "everybody told me, "Do what you think is right.' "I didn't know they didn't mean it." Argenziano is 46, a Brooklyn native who grew up in South Florida. She raised a son by herself and fell in love with the Crystal River-Dunnellon area when she took a side road by chance. She can be sharp. She has publicly fought with a local Republican senator, Anna Cowin. One of her aides was fired for suggesting violence against the district water board. Argenziano once joked about detonating a nuclear device over the board's headquarters. We drove around in her pickup truck. I watched Argenziano speak to the Crystal River Kings Bay Rotary Club. She explained the manure incident and told the Rotarians: "I need to let you know that your representative didn't lose her mind." The members laughed and clapped. Several donated "Happy Dollars" to the club's fund in Argenziano's honor. The president and former mayor, Curtis Rich, declared: "She's probably the most outstanding representative we've ever had from our district." As I drove south on U.S. 19, I passed a billboard of an elderly person in a wheelchair that bore a huge slogan: THANK YOU REP. ARGENZIANO. I drove home thinking about how political parties work as hard as they can to build a majority, then try as hard as they can to tear it apart. - You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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Times columns today Howard Troxler Jan Glidewell John Romano From the Times Metro desk |
