Jeb Bush

John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11 1953), a Republican, is the forty-third and current Governor of Florida. He is a prominent member of the Bush family, the younger brother of President George W. Bush and the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Pierce.

Political career

Bush speaks Spanish fluently, in addition to English. He regularly delivers speeches in both English and Spanish due to the large number of Spanish speaking residents of Florida.

Related Topics:
Spanish - English - Florida

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Early campaigns

Bush got his start in Florida politics as the Chairman of the Dade County Republican Party. Dade County played an important role in the 1986 election of Bob Martinez to the Governor's office. In return, Martinez appointed Bush as Florida's Secretary of Commerce. He served in that role in 1987 and 1988, before resigning once again to work on his father's presidential campaign. In 1989 he served as the campaign manager of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American to serve in Congress. He launched an unsuccessful bid for the governor's office in 1994 against incumbent Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles, losing 51% to 49%.

Related Topics:
1986 - Bob Martinez - 1987 - Ileana Ros-Lehtinen - 1994 - Democratic - Lawton Chiles

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Governor of Florida

In 1998, Bush defeated Democratic opponent Lt. Governor Buddy MacKay (55% to 45%) to become governor, after courting moderate voters and Hispanics. Simultaneously, his brother George W. Bush won a landslide re-election victory for a second term as Governor of Texas, and the Bush brothers became the first siblings to govern two states at the same time since Nelson and Winthrop Rockefeller governed New York and Arkansas from 1967 to 1971.

Related Topics:
Buddy MacKay - Governor of Texas - Nelson - Winthrop Rockefeller - New York - Arkansas - 1967 - 1971

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Bush's administration has been marked by a focus on public education reform. His "A+ Plan" mandated standardized testing in Florida's public schools, eliminated social promotion and established a system of funding public schools based on a statewide grading system using the FCAT test. Bush has been a proponent of school vouchers and charter schools, especially in areas of the state with failing public schools, although to date very few schools have received failing grades from the state. One program that has seen fruition is the Florida Virtual High School, a distance-learning program that allows students in rural areas of the state to take Advanced Placement classes for college credit. However, his policies have also been driven by a firm refusal to raise taxes for education, which lead Bush to oppose a ballot initiative to amend the Florida Constitution to cap growing school class sizes. Bush was caught on tape boasting about having "a couple of devious plans if this thing passes." http://www.floridacapitalnews.com/campaign/stories/1003classsize.htm. (The tape is available online. http://www.floridacapitalnews.com/campaign/sound/classsize2.mp3) Despite his opposition, the amendment passed; http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?Mode=Constitution&Submenu=3&Tab=statutes#A09S01 Bush's subsequent suggestions that the amendment be repealed http://www.flablog.net/2005/02/devious-plan-ver-40.htm have contributed to criticisms that he has failed to implement it in good faith. A similar concern about new expenditures has lead to controversy over whether Florida has provided adequate resources to implement a subsequent voter-approved state constitutional amendment that requires a universal state-financed pre-Kindergarten program.http://www.iamforkids.org/campaign/policybriefs/Universal_Pre_Kindergarten.pdf

Related Topics:
School voucher - Charter school - Florida Virtual High School - Distance-learning - Advanced Placement

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Bush has also been a vocal advocate of environmentalism, signing legislation to protect the Everglades and opposing federal plans to drill for oil off the coast of Florida.

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Like most Republicans, he is perceived as being generally pro-business, and has worked to repeal several taxes in Florida.

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Some observers have questioned whether he or Secretary of State Katherine Harris attempted to help his brother in the 2000 presidential election by tampering with the voter roles and then certifying a controversial election. Questions have been raised about Bush's involvement in the notirious "Florida Felons List" affair in which primarily black and Democratic voters who were not in fact felons erroneously were listed as ineligible to vote. Bush ignored at least one direct warning from a state computer expert that the list was flawed and should not be used. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/10/16/politics1842EDT0584.DTL Other opponents have questioned some of his business dealings, including a Nigerian deal, where it is claimed Nigerian government officials demanded bribes in return for approval of a $74,000,000 water-pump sale that was mostly financed by US foreign aid.

Related Topics:
Katherine Harris - 2000 presidential election - Nigeria - US

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Governor Bush was involved for many years in the case of Terri Schiavo, a woman with massive and irreversible brain damage, who was on a feeding tube for over 15 years, and whose husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, wished to remove the tube. Bush, who is pro-life, signed "Terri's Law", a law passed by the Florida legislature that permitted the Governor to keep Schiavo alive. The law was successfully challenged in court, and ruled unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court on September 23 2004. That decision was appealed to the federal courts, but on January 24 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, thus allowing the Florida court's ruling to stand. Bush took heated criticism from conservatives who were disappointed that he didn't take further action to prevent Schiavo from having her feeding tube removed. http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/06/15/schiavo.autopsy.ap/

Related Topics:
Terri Schiavo - Brain damage - Michael Schiavo - Pro-life - Terri's Law - September 23 - 2004 - January 24 - 2005 - U.S. Supreme Court

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Despite these critics, Bush has consistently remained popular overall in Florida — a state with more registered Democratic than Republican votershttp://election.dos.state.fl.us/voterreg/pdf/2004/2004genParty.pdf, and an influential and diverse number of independent swing voters, who are broadly recognized as determining the final outcome of every state election.

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One of the most important goals of Bush's final two years as governor is to secure the FTAA Secretariat for Miami. Supporters of the governor believe he intends Miami to become the "Brussels of the Americas". http://miamitodaynews.com/news/021219/story1.shtml

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Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan. Brogan, a former fifth-grade teacher, principal, and superintendent, served only one term with Bush. After Brogan became a widower and then remarried, he was eager to start a new life with his second wife, so he opted not to serve a second term. Brogan was reelected to a second term in 2002 with Bush and then resigned in March of 2003. He and his new wife moved to Boca Raton, where he serves as president of Florida Atlantic University. Back in Tallahassee, a museum was named in honor of Brogan's late wife, Mary, who died of cancer and, like her husband, was a Florida school teacher.http://www.thebrogan.org

Related Topics:
Frank Brogan - 2002 - 2003 - Boca Raton - Florida Atlantic University

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Following Brogan's resignation, Bush appointed former State Senate President Toni Jennings as lieutenant governor. An Orlando resident, Jennings is reportedly Bush's prefered choice of a successor. While serving as Senate President during Bush's first term, she had disagreed with Bush on a number of issues and people were surprised when she was appointed to the number two post.

Related Topics:
Toni Jennings - Orlando

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As governor, Bush serves as the chairman of the Florida Cabinet, a unique state agency which provides collective governance over part of state government.

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