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BY ROCHELLE RENFORD / http://www.weeklyplanet.com/current/cover.html
Make no mistake. Americans do love their royalty. Our founding fathers may have given the finger to the royals in England, but generations later the monarchy still rules. The lack of an official king and queen has only allowed the American public to anoint several unofficial royal lines instead. As much as Americans extol the virtues of hard work, most of us probably would have preferred the silver spoon route. Work is fine, but really, wasn't leaving the womb hard enough? For some lucky sperm, the birth canal is the last tight spot they'll have to find their way out of. Like the Kennedys and the Rockefellers, the Bush clan is a monument to unearned privilege and power, but they've distinguished themselves with their capacity for denial.
Gov. Jeb Bush has said that after college, he was on his own financially and made his own way through his own hard work. So what if that "hard work" was for his father's campaign, and for corporations run by his father's friends. While working at IntrAmerica Investments, a real estate development firm owned by Bush Sr. supporter Armando Codina, Bush's salary jumped six figures in about six years. He has said his family name wasn't an advantage but spent much of his career wooing clients who wanted to get next to his family. He was cut in on investment deals, even though he didn't actually have any cash to invest, and he walked away from scandals involving attempts to defraud the U.S. government, claiming that he wasn't a fraud but a dupe. Only he knows which is true, but it's clear that if he hadn't used his family connections to do favors for his wealthy comrades, some of the scandals wouldn't have happened. When developer Hiram Martinez Jr. requested $18-million in federal loan insurance for an apartment development in 1985, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development questioned its land value and delayed the request. Rather than allow HUD to do its job, Bush wrote a letter to the U.S. agency's undersecretary on Martinez's behalf. The loan was approved, the land values were inflated and Martinez got six years in prison on fraud charges. Bush has amnesia about the letter. Later he made a call to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help another associate looking to get out of following some pesky federal rules.
Bush denies that he received special treatment in both of those incidents, but any citizen who's dealt with either agency knows that's not true. It's pretty damn special to have a top manager take your call, instead of getting a clerk who transfers your call or tells you to fill out forms.
It's his denial that makes Bush an ineffective governor. It's not possible to see why minorities would need affirmative action when you refuse to see that alumni and legacy admissions are a form of affirmative action too. It's easy to focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation when you've never had to be accountable for your own questionable dealings. Recognizing every citizen's right to vote is harder when you really believe that the only rights that count are yours.
Bush has had four years to prove that he's more than just the product of the lucky sperm club instead he's proven that ego and privilege are a costly mix. Bush may have been "to the manor born," but the governor's mansion belongs to the people. Here are 10 reasons to kick him out.
1. He's Not Stupid, But He Thinks Voters Are
Much has been made of a reporter catching Gov. Jeb Bush showing one face in public and another when he thinks he's safely in his inner sanctum. This is called politics, and it's nothing new. But Bush wasn't just strategizing or playing politics when he made light of a serious issue -- a missing human being that was in the state's care. Referring to gossip about the ongoing criminal investigation as "juicy" isn't a misstatement; it's a character flaw. Telling Republican legislatures that the two women arrested in the case may be lesbians because one referred to the other as the "wife" is irrelevant information if your real interest is finding a child. Bush should be completely torn up about the hundreds of missing children that disappeared on his watch, both in public and in private. How can he be expected to take the task of fixing the system seriously if he doesn't sincerely care about the tragic consequences of doing nothing?
People who make racist or homophobic comments only in private are still racists and homophobes; there's no such thing as a part-time bigot. The Nixon tapes have shown that private bigotry becomes public policy, whether voters know it or not. Bush may genuinely feel that the class-size amendment is a mistake and he's entitled to make his case. But his saying that he's concocting "devious" plans to undermine it if it passes shows a genuine disregard for democracy.
He is nothing more than a state employee, when his citizen employers give him a task, his job is to get it done.
Bush isn't worried about his comments because he's secure in his false sense of superiority. He expects voters to disregard his own words and instead believe the spin that he didn't really mean any of it. Voters who believe him had better hope the swampland that he tries to sell when reelected isn't the Everglades.
2. Faking It as the 'Education Governor'
What exactly makes an "education governor"?
A willingness to invest money in education would be one factor. Bush likes to say that, under his leadership, education funding has increased by 27percent. This must be an example of that "fuzzy math" his brother derided during his presidential campaign. According to an analysis by the St. Petersburg Times, Bush has increased education funding by less than one-quarter of 1 percent after accounting for inflation and 168,400 new students.
Bush didn't deny that the Times had their facts straight. Instead he gave this frighteningly asinine response: "I've not said that it's big or small, just that it's an increase."
The math may be fuzzy but the picture isn't. Just look around. Counties all over the state, including Pinellas and Hillsborough, have had to discontinue summer school and remedial programs.
Bush has resisted calls for smaller classes, and teachers are fleeing the state in search of better pay. Kids still crowd into classrooms with 30 kids or more and attend classes in trailers, while the state's education ranking continues to drop.
Bush's sacred "grading" of schools perpetuates unequal opportunity. It rewards rich schools, whose students fare better on the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT), than students from poor schools. Bush gives away vouchers to let kids leave failing schools instead so he doesn't have to accept the responsibility to fix them. What about the schools that earn Cs and Ds? They're on their own.
The Florida Education Association, the largest group of public school teachers in the state, has pasted a big bull's eye on Bush's hide. Bush wants voters to believe that it's just because unions hate Republicans. Maybe. But at this point the union would likely embrace Pat Buchanan if he came to the state bearing education funding.
The university system hasn't escaped molestation by Bush, either. Bush has done away with the state Board of Regents and put Republican businessmen on the local boards of trustees. The old Board of Regents was political too, but at least there was a chancellor fighting to implement a statewide strategy. It's all in the hands of local empire-builders now.
3. One Florida, Divisible (With Higher Education for Some)
"Kick their asses out."
That's what Jeb Bush instructed his office security to do when hundreds of students flooded the state Capitol to protest his repeal of affirmative action in higher education and government contracting.
What he meant by initiating his One Florida plan in the first place seemed to be, "don't let their asses in."
Bush said his plan would dramatically increase minority and female enrollment in state colleges and universities. It didn't. He claimed it would do the same for minority businesses vying for state contracts. It didn't.
Where did he get this idea? Well, we don't know.
In the Bush kingdom, explanation and consultation aren't necessary. King Bush instituted his One Florida plan by executive order, bypassing the rigmarole of public input and tiresome legislative debates. Public hearings happened after the plan was revealed, mostly to mollify outspoken politicians like state Sen. Lesley "Les" Miller Jr. (D-Tampa).
Bush didn't deign to attend those hearings, though, since his mind was made up.
To him, hundreds of black students marching in Tallahassee proved how those ungrateful blacks didn't appreciate that the governor was only trying to do what was best for them.
The governor has numbers that show an infinitesimal increase in minority enrollment, and his opponents have numbers that show an infinitesimal decrease in minority enrollment. Nobody disputes that a dramatic change hasn't taken place. In other words, Bush's plan has done virtually nothing to improve higher-education opportunities for blacks.
It appears that the only affirmative action Bush believes in is the kind that gets C students from prominent families into Yale.
4. Presidential Election 2000: Crime Pays
Democrats, Republicans, independents, Greens -- insert the name of a party here. No matter what the political affiliation, every Floridian should still be seething over the 2000 presidential election.
Some countries have oil. Some have coffee. We have the right the vote. It is our greatest resource. When it gets taken away, nothing's left. Don't be fooled by the absence of Justice Department commandos swooping in to arrest Gov. Bush. His handling of the 2000 presidential election was criminal.
The governor broke the law in August 2000 when he ordered 40,000 felons who had served their time and had their civil rights restored in other states to apply for his permission to vote in Florida. In his book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, author Greg Palast quotes Tawana Hayes, a clerk who processes clemency requests in the governor's office, as saying the ordeal is "sometimes worse than breaking a leg." It can take months and sometimes years.
Two years ago, it all came down to whether Bush felt like giving American citizens a right that they had all along.
Two state court decisions and the National Voter Registration Act say Bush broke the law. He proved he was aware of his crime when he tried to hide his order in November after a post-election U.S. Civil Rights Commission investigation was underway.
He will never be arrested, but this flagrant denial of the most fundamental constitutional right is alone sufficient reason not to reelect him.
Prior to Bush's 1998 election, the Republican Legislature decided to do what no other state in the union has done: turn over the very serious job of removing ineligible voters from voting rolls to a private corporation. Not just any corporation, but one with so many Republican connections a black widow would be impressed with the web.
Although the company was being paid millions, supposedly for their unique ability to verify and cross- reference the data, they fucked up the purge by failing to verify and cross-reference the data. They did this with Secretary of State Katherine Harris' blessing and Bush's knowledge.
Bush did "recuse" himself from the election recount process to avoid a conflict of interest, but he didn't insist that Katherine Harris do the same. How is it not a conflict of interest for the person in charge of ensuring the state's free and open election process also to serve as the state coordinator of a presidential candidate's campaign?
5. Prisons Over People
Bush is not big on second chances, even if they save the state money. Prisoners and addicts who are able to further their education and get adequate drug treatment return to prison at a far lower rate than those who don't. Instead of providing programs that decrease prison spending by keeping prisoners out of jail, Bush would rather spend money by making room for those prisoners who come back.
Unless the prisoner in question is his daughter.
When Noelle Bush got busted trying to score Xanax with a bogus prescription, she handed her dad a plum opportunity to do what other parents have done when something horrible happens to their kids -- turn a private tragedy into a public crusade. He could have publicly acknowledged that the answer to drug addiction is treatment rather than prison -- whether the addict is his kid or someone else's. He could have led the way to a more enlightened drug policy that builds people up instead of making it necessary to build more prisons.
He missed that chance.
While Bush did say that treatment was difficult and necessary, he didn't advocate more funds to pay for it. While Noelle took advantage of a program that allows nonviolent drug offenders to opt for treatment rather than jail time, Bush eliminated $13-million in drug treatment funding to balance the budget. He later restored $9-million, but the loss was still significant.
The drug courts currently can see only half the addicts who want to take advantage of the treatment option. Those who do appear before the court often have to find -- and pay for -- a rehab facility themselves.
If Noelle makes it through rehab, she'll emerge with a clean criminal record, even though she spent three days in jail for snagging pills from a nurse and later got caught with crack cocaine in her shoe. The rehab residents wanted to see her arrested, but the treatment staff refused to file a report. When a judge said that treatment staff could not be forced to testify against Noelle, Daddy Bush lauded the ruling. But don't expect Governor Bush to sympathize with the constitutional rights of future defendants in Florida, where a first-time arrest for crack possession can result in a 10-year prison sentence.
Jeb Bush wants compassion and prayer for his kid, but he doesn't care what happens to anybody else's. He's a staunch opponent of the Right to Treatment initiative, which supporters want to put before voters as a constitutional amendment requiring the state to find treatment for all who qualify.
To be fair, this isn't entirely his fault. Voters like politicians who appear to be tough on crime, even if that tough attitude isn't actually making them safer. But Bush's skills extend to pandering, not political courage. It takes real leadership to tell the public the truth: Denying prisoners the opportunity to become productive citizens isn't making the public any safer. He doesn't have the skills to lead Florida in that direction.
6. DCF Shouldn't Stand for 'Dead Child Found'
When Bush ran for governor four years ago, children who were wards of the state were being abused, lost and killed. Caseworkers were handling too many files, being paid too little and leaving their jobs too often.
Bush promised to fix the system. Four years later, Bush is running for re-election. Children are still being abused, lost and killed. Caseworkers are still overworked and underpaid. But now they're scapegoats too.
That's not the kind of change we were looking for. After his election, Bush promptly forgot about the kids, until one of them turned up dead. He didn't raise the salaries of caseworkers, nor did he hire more. He mostly did nothing until Rilya Wilson, a 4-year-old entrusted to the state, became national news when it turned out she had been missing for a year and no one at the Department of Children and Families knew it.
When department Secretary Kathleen Kearney resigned, Bush didn't mount a search or take much time before he named her successor: ultraconservative Jerry Regier.
Controversy about Regier's religious views ensued immediately, but what about his record as the head of the Department of Human Services in Oklahoma?
Oklahoma is even worse than Florida in protecting children in state care, according to federal statistics. While 5 percent of kids in Florida return to foster care within 12 months of being returned to their families, 17 percent return within that time in Oklahoma. While child abuse reports are investigated in an average of 14 hours in Florida, it takes an average of 377 hours for investigators in Oklahoma to respond.
OK, fewer victims of child abuse actually die in Oklahoma than they do in Florida. In 1999, Oklahoma reported 47 dead while Florida reported 57. That's hardly a distinction to be proud of.
Regier claims he wasn't directly responsible for abused children in Oklahoma and says the state's abysmal record can't be blamed on him.
At best, he's inexperienced. At worst, he's incompetent.
Regier does seem to listen to reason, though. Regier recently called for a budget increase to pay for more background checks for caseworkers, better pay and training. Why didn't Bush think of that?
7. Democracy: It's Not Optional
Nowhere is Bush's quest for absolute dominance more obvious than in his repeated success at seizing control of the judicial branch of government. It wasn't enough that the governor made the appointments. Bush insisted on controlling the entire membership of the nominating commissions that submitted to him the short list of qualified candidates. The commissions used to include people appointed by the Florida Bar, whose members are most familiar with the judgeship applicants. Now, they're all Bush appointees, with a distinctly rightward tilt.
He also took control of judgeships that used to be elected. Florida voters soundly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to have all judges appointed. But when the Legislature created 18 new trial court judgeships in last year, Bush lobbied for the right to appoint them instead of making them elected positions. The eventual deal let him choose nine and let citizens vote on the other nine. Bush also seized more direct control of universities. He and the Legislature dissolved the state Board of Regents, then packed the new local boards of trustees with Republican supporters and conservative businessmen. University presidents who criticized the move shut up and fell in line behind their new bosses.
While he's seizing more and more authority, he's less and less interested in anyone who disagrees with him.
That basically excludes anyone who's not rich, white and conservative. Unless it's an election year.
In 1998, Bush visited farm workers in Immokalee and promised that, as governor, he would help them to get the pay and rights that they deserved. He's refused to talk to them since.
Bush is so hostile to the ideals of democracy that he tried to choose his Democratic opponent in November's election, running anti-Bill McBride TV advertisements during the primary.
With four more years in office, our self-appointed monarch may need advice from arch-nemesis Fidel Castro on how to keep the masses at bay.
8. Privatization: If It Ain't Broke, Give It Time Welcome to Florida Inc.
With CEO Bush at the helm, there's little need for government workers here. We can get rid of those pesky state employees with their health insurance and job security and all that liberal pap.
According to the Department of Labor statistics, Bush has rid the state of more than 2,000 jobs and eliminated more than 10,000 government positions, farming some of their functions out to the private sector. Not all of the 10,000 jobs were filled and some of the employees in positions that were eliminated found other jobs in state government. They'd better be careful among the departments that were eliminated completely was the Division of Safety.
Then there's the matter of paying corporate taxes. While the rest of the country is aghast at business corruption and creative accounting procedures, Bush still has faith in his corporate comrades. Bush wants to use corporations' own audits as the basis for corporate taxes -- yes, the same audits that gave us Enron, Tyco and the rest. Hey, it will save the state money. The Department of Children and Families is one agency that clearly needs more openness and oversight, but instead Bush is entrusting some of its duties to the private sector. Charter schools run by corporations are flourishing in Florida and they don't have to succumb to the school grading system that Bush claims is so vital in keeping schools accountable.
9. The Environment: While We Still Have One
Bush likes to do the environmental two-step. He takes one step forward, then two steps back.
He supports having a fund to buy unspoiled land, but then he uses that money as a rainy day fund for budget emergencies.
He claims he really wants to rehabilitate the Everglades, but he made it harder for environmental groups to challenge developers who want to build on sensitive land. To challenge a permit, a group must now live in the area being developed, have at least 20 members and be in existence for at least a year.
Since groups often form around individual development projects and developers can't be counted on to alert citizens of their plans to destroy the environment, this will equate to a gag order on whiners who insist on heading outdoors instead of going to the mall.
The governor seemed willing to take on his brother over allowing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but did he really have a choice? Not much in a state that relies on the tourism industry and beaches that, while not unspoiled, are at least free of oil slicks.
The problem with Bush's record on environmental issues is not just that it's inconsistent, but that it's clearly based on political motivation and not a real appreciation for Florida's ecosystem. Would anyone who really cared about the environment even consider injecting untreated wastewater into Florida's aquifer? The idea would have endangered the environment and put the state's water supply at risk of contamination, but Bush is still thinking about it anyway. He's willing to consider all ideas concerning water issues, he said, and the injection scheme is still on the table. Of course controlling growth is another way to address water concerns, but Bush doesn't feel that that's an idea worth mulling over. The governor seems to feel that protecting the environment is fine as long it doesn't mean actually making sacrifices.
10. Taxes: Just Another Way to Keep the Rich Man Down
Senate President John McKay (R-Bradenton) tried to do one good deed as term limits ended his political career: institute tax reform.
Unfortunately, Bush has neither reached the edge of the term limit cliff, nor is he inclined to do one good deed.
What would have been ballot Amendment Five sought to create a legislative committee that could do away with individual sales tax exemptions and would have resulted in billions in revenue for the state. The committee would evaluate each exemption and decide whether it should stay or go. If they decided it should go, the exemption would have been yanked right away, but the Legislature still would have had two years to overturn the decision.
Of course, the industries that saw their tax-exempt status in peril, like the accountants, lawyers and Realtors, rallied against the amendment, and Bush rallied right along with them.
In a touching display of concern for voters, Bush claimed that the amendment's wording was too confusing. Of course instead of killing it, he could have tried to clarify it, as he did with the class-size amendment. Except instead of a price tag, voters would have seen an estimated windfall printed next to the amendment's worded explanation. That would have made the amendment abundantly clear.
Of course in spite of his statements to the contrary, Bush is completely aware of the budget crisis the state is facing. Even TaxWatch, the conservative, corporate-backed "think tank" is ready to concede that some of those tax exemptions may have to go. Florida has spent too many years funding recurring programs with funds that don't recur. A new revenue stream generated by yanking some tax- exemptions is a reality that Bush wants to pretend he can avoid till just after the election. What he'll really do is blame cutting tax-exemptions on the class-size amendment and all of those citizens who voted for it. More of that Bush leadership.
But not if he's gone.
Contact staff writer Rochelle Renford at rochelle.renford@weeklyplanet.com
or call her at 813-248- 8888, ext. 163.