SARASOTA, Fla. (SNN TV) – Florida voters gave then-Republican Charlie Crist high marks as governor as Barack Obama ascended to the presidency. And yet, a young Republican would claim he was out of step with the GOP, which was made easier after Crist exchanged a hug with then-president Barack Obama. All the while, an outsider was ready to take over Crist’s job.
A popular governor falls, and the power of the Florida governor was about to change even more in Part 7 of Red Purple and Blue: A Sea Change in Florida Politics.
THE GOVERNOR RUNS FOR SENATE
Despite high approval ratings, Governor Charlie Crist announced in 2009 he would run for the U.S. Senate instead of reelection as governor. At that point, he had a commanding 54% lead in a Republican Senate primary over his opponent, Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, who had 8%.
But after Crist exchanged a hug with then-Democratic President Barack Obama, Rubio attacked Crist as being out of step with Republicans. For example, with sales taxes down heavily due to the recession, Crist signed a budget in 2009 that raised fees and taxes on cigarettes and auto tags. Those fees would be used to keep Medicaid and schools funded.
And after Crist supported Mr. Obama’s stimulus program, among other moderate to liberal initiatives, Rubio pounced.
“In 2006, governor, I voted for you because I trusted you when you said you would be a Jeb Bush Republican,” Rubio told Crist in a debate. “Your record was something very different. You signed a budget that raised taxes. You tried to oppose a cap and trade system in Florida. You appointed liberal Supreme Court justices to our supreme court.”
“Who are those liberal supreme court justices?” Crist asked.
“Justice Perry,” Rubio answered.
“Justice Perry, who Jeb Bush appointed to the court originally, is a liberal? That’s astounding!” Crist replied.
“You not only did that,” Rubio continued, “[but] you worked with ACORN and groups like that to give felons voting rights in Florida. And finally, you campaigned with Barack Obama on behalf of a failed stimulus program. So it is about trust.”
Rubio began to surpass Crist in polling, and eventually, Crist left the Republican Party and said he would run for Senate as an independent. In his duties as governor at this point, he vetoed an abortion ban that would have required women to pay for an ultrasound first and he worked with President Obama to clean up after a gigantic Gulf oil spill.
“Charlie was on a roll at that point. When he left the party, he was being opportunistic to himself,” said Sarasota GOP Chairman Jack Brill.
In a three-way race among Crist, Rubio, and Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek, Crist and Meek split nearly 50% of the vote, while Rubio took everything else and easily won a term as U.S. Senator from Florida. So who would replace Crist?
RICK SCOTT RIDES THE TEA PARTY WAVE
The emerging Tea Party movement in 2009 and 2010 was a right-wing populist movement that opposed Mr. Obama’s stimulus law, his environmental proposals, and his universal health care push that would become the Affordable Care Act. Insurgent Tea Party candidates ran across the country against more established Republicans.
The Republican nominee for Florida governor rode the Tea Party wave. He was an outsider, businessman Rick Scott, who beat Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum in the primary.
He faced Florida’s CFO, Democrat Alex Sink, who attacked Scott for founding a for-profit hospital that came under criminal investigation for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Scott dumped millions into his campaign and ran on the economy.
Scott just barely defeated Sink by a little over 1% in the 2010 midterm elections despite the sweeping Republican wins elsewhere in the country. But a win was a win.
He became the governor.
“Rick Scott really changed the game,” said Dr. Michael Binder, a professor and Director of the Public Opinion Research Laboratory at the University of North Florida, “He came from that Tea Party central to hell with them, we need to fight and fight, and he didn’t have to deal with Democrats. He had enough of a majority that all he had to do was keep his majorities together and pass what he wanted.”
RICK SCOTT EXPANDS THE GOVERNOR’S POWER
“[Rick Scott] was very message disciplined,” said Nikki Fried, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party. “He came in and saw the executive branch as truly CEO of the state. And as everybody remembers, all he talked about was jobs jobs jobs jobs.”
Scott slashed the Florida budget and when he could, he touted businesses opening in or relocating to Florida. He expanded charter and private schools, continuing the push that started with former Governor Jeb Bush. And he limited early voting. A Tampa Bay Times story reported voting lines were the longest in the country in the 2012 presidential election.
In an expansion of the governor’s power, he held clemency hearings that determined whether ex-felons could regain the right to vote. Those hearings were declared unconstitutional years later.
On the whim of the governor, if he didn’t feel comfortable with an ex-felon who made their case to regain their rights after serving their time, he could just deny it. WFLA reported that by April 2018 near the end of his second term, Scott restored voting rights to 2,488 ex-felons, compared to 155,315 under Crist and 72,080 under Bush.
Despite big moves in the governor’s mansion, Scott was plagued with low approval ratings, hitting as low as 28% several months into his first term.
“That didn’t give Rick Scott the unfettered power and autonomy that DeSantis has,” said Binder. “That being said, he did consolidate power and he did have the governor’s office doing more, leading the charge more, but he did face pushback and there were policies he couldn’t get through the legislature, particularly the Senate. He was making steps and if you’re looking at this as an arc of a story, he climbed a step or two but never got to the point that DeSantis is at right now.”
COMING UP NEW WEEK
Scott faced resistance in a few notable areas, but the Tea Party wave he rode on would culminate later in the decade.
The story of the changing Florida Republican Party continues next week in Part 8 of “Red, Purple, & Blue: A Sea Change in Florida Politics.”
Be sure to catch “Red, Purple, & Blue: A Sea Change in Florida Politics” every Sunday at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on SNN. You can watch all episodes on our website by hovering over “News” on the top of the page and clicking on “Politics.”
