This
book about Florida politics centers around the governors and their initiatives (or
lack thereof) to change the state. Through the governors, Colburn tells the tale
of how Florida, since World War Two, changed from a Democratic to a Republican
stronghold, mainly along the political allegiances of the so called “Yellow-Dog”
Democrats, who “would vote for a yellow dog before they’d vote for a Republican,”
descended from Scots-Irish Southerners, living in the Panhandle and North Florida.
While these “Yellow-Dogs” were consistently Democrats, social, and specifically
racial issues turned their party allegiance. In the 1960’s, as national Democrats
started to accept racial integration and civil rights for blacks under the
Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Yellow-Dogs in Florida turned tail and
either didn’t vote, or voted their first Republican, Claude Kirk, into office
in 1966, the first Republican to run Florida since Reconstruction. They would
slowly turn more and more Republican despite the failures of the Kirk
administration and the embarrassment of Watergate, culminating in the two terms
of Jeb Bush after 28 years of Democratic governors with only 4 of Republicans
from 1971-1999.
Despite
claiming to begin in 1940, the first Governor whose policies and term was
really talked about was LeRoy Collins, the only Southern Governor who accepted
integration, a moderate who often remarked that he served all citizens in
Florida, not just the whites. However, he was followed by C. Farris Bryant, a
segregationist who was the exact opposite, following the other South Democrats
who were mostly segregationists. In the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Yellow-Dog Democrats morphed into Blue-Dog
Democrats, who “claimed they were being choked blue by the leash placed around
their necks by the federal government…” These Blue Dogs would vote Republican
in Florida in 1966 for Claude Kirk. Their feelings were summed up by George Wallace,
a renegade, racist Southern Democrat who ran for the presidency in 1968
asserting that liberal politicians and bureaucrats were the real racists as they
sent their children to private schools and moved to suburbs, while poor whites
faced the costs of integration and were bussed to formerly black schools. While
he certainly was not advocating the right solutions, he touched on something
that was a vital truth- the costs of integration were being born by the poorest
whites while wealthy liberals in cities congratulated themselves for
integrating the South while self-segregating in the North. Business leaders in
Florida had turned against segregation when they saw the experience of Arkansas
under Governor Orval Faubus, who attempted to block integration at Central High
School in Little Rock in 1957, then closing the school in 1958-9 to avoid integration.
Many businesses left Arkansas when the state turned violent, making a “deep
imprint on the minds of business leaders in Florida.” Many whites in Florida,
on the other hand, wanted to maintain segregation to give themselves a leg up in
the world over other races, mainly blacks in the south. When it came to busing
and school integration, which happened to be carried out more often in ways
that affected poorer whites, “White parents saw themselves as victims of
society, and the use of their children in a racial experiment angered them
greatly.”
Kirk
represented a great success for the Republican Party in Florida but also a major
setback, as he “proved ill-equipped by personality, political acumen, and
leadership to govern the state effectively.” His segregationist stance won over
racist white voters and his rejection of the Cross-Florida Barge Canal won the
respect of environmentalists but was erratic and often in the news for his
ridiculous statements and became a mockery. In addition, Florida was about to
see a generation of truly great Democratic leaders (who the author just loves
with all his heart), Reubin Askew, Lawton Chiles, and Bob Graham, three
governors and two senators between them, all mentored by LeRoy Collins.
Elected
governor in 1970 and serving from 1971-9, Reubin Askew instituted bussing to
integrate schools, solidifying integration in Florida. He faced significant
opposition. In a special session in 1972, the Florida Legislature met to create
a constitutional referendum against forced bussing. Realizing that legislators
would override his veto, Askew put another measure on the ballot asking voters if
they supported a quality education for all children and opposed a return to the
dual system of white and black public schools. He said, “Bear in mind, there
were enough people against it who were racist, but in my opinion, the vast
majority of people who fought busing, really were not [necessarily] racially
motivated.” He wanted to “give them an opportunity of another vote, but I also
wanted to challenge them to think about the [second vote] before they made up
their mind on the first vote.” The first vote passed 3 to 1, but the second
passed 4 to 1.
After
Askew, political ally Bob Graham won election in 1978 to serve from 1979-87. Like
Lawton Chiles, who walked across the state meeting normal citizens (earning the
nickname “Walkin’ Lawton”), Graham labored in eight-hour shifts alongside his fellow
citizens, calling them “Graham’s Workdays”, building support among working
class Floridians. He was very popular and successful, but, throughout his time
as governor, Republicans made gains at the grassroots level due to the gradual
shift of Yellow Dogs to the Republican Party, the transition of the senior vote
to Republicans, as they wanted less taxes now that they had a fixed income
(ironically from a socialistic government program), the rapid population growth
of families in central and southwestern Florida (traditional Republican strongholds),
and the shift of Cuban voters in South Florida to become solidly Republicans. One
thing that made Florida different from other Southern states was the large
population of senior citizens, who couldn’t care less about school integration
and bussing because their grandchildren lived in other states. Graham laid out
an agenda of 3 E’s: economic development, education, and the environment.
Economic development was obvious to most and environmental protections have
been pursued by every Floridian governor, regardless of party, but education
became more necessary to help the business side of things as the state’s
Chamber of Commerce and business leaders complained that there was a lack of skills
among high school graduates, frequently noting that businesses moving to
Florida brought their old workers with them as the skills simply didn’t exist
in the state.
After
Graham was the one-term governor Bob Martinez, whose term from 1987 to 1991 was
not very good. It all failed for the first Republican to run the state in 20
years due to an extremely unpopular service tax that was later repealed by the
same government. He lost election in 1990 to the Senator Lawton Chiles, who
would govern the state from 1991 to 1999. However, Republicans added two seats
in the state House and three in the state Senate, slowly climbing up to parity
with the Democrats. The Republicans also cleverly formed an alliance with black
Democrats when it came time to redistrict the state. Because Democrats did not
gerrymander to make more black-controlled seats, Republicans in Florida (and
nearly all other Southern states) created odd-shaped districts to give more
seats to Republicans and black Democrats at the expense of the Democratic party
as a whole. Florida was so extremely gerrymandered that Allan Lichtman, a professor
at American University, came within one seat of predicting final election
results in Florida. As governor, Chiles outsourced the state’s foster-care
system, privatized state prisons, and endorsed a proposal to fund charter
schools with state money.
When Jeb
Bush was elected governor in 1998, he was coming in as the strongest Republican
governor of Florida ever. They had control of the state legislature and started
1999 with control of a majority of the cabinet, enhancing the power of the governor
by reducing the size of the cabinet thanks to a constitutional amendment in
1998. Bush ran the state from 1999 to 2007, expanding school voucher programs,
cutting taxes, and reducing the size of government. He was replaced by
Republican Charlie Crist, who had no agenda to speak of and was a generally
weak leader. He, in turn, was replaced by Republican Rick Scott, who the book
hardly covers as it was published just 2 years into his term. It is clear,
however, that by 2012, Republicans were in firm control of the state, and as I
write this in 2019, Republicans hold the legislature, both Senators, and the
Governor. The only major Democratic victories would come in the presidential election
of Barack Obama and his reelection in 2008 and 2012, when he used his own
grassroots network rather than the weak and decayed Florida Democratic Party.
Conclusion
The history
of modern Florida politics seems to center on the struggle of black citizens to
win their liberty and equality from the whites (despite the author arguing that
Florida was less racist than other Southern states he spends half the book
talking about it), the massive population growth that it experienced, the large
population of senior citizens, and the arrival of huge groups of immigrants,
mainly from other parts of the Americas. This book is an excellent narrative of
these events, though it is a top-down look at things from the governor’s perspective.
I highly recommend to anyone wanting to learn about elections and important policies
in Florida in the modern era. Thank you to my sister Hannah for recommending it
to me.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- Florida’s population increased ten times in just one lifetime from 1.9 million people in 1940 to 18.8 million in 2010.
- Florida in the 1950’s was one of the worst apportioned states in the nation, “with only 13.6 percent of the population electing more than half of the state senators and 18 percent choosing more than half of the members of the House of Representatives.”
- The Florida Legislature only met every other year until 1970.
- Florida holds its gubernatorial elections in non-Presidential election years because Democrats worried that the national party was hurting their state party on civil rights issues.
- The political scientist V.O. Key Jr. wrote in 1949 that Florida had the most chaotic political system in the South and therefore the nation, due to being a solely Democratic state that encouraged anyone and everyone to join in political primaries, attracting many scammers, criminals, radicals, and men who weren’t even known in their own hometown.
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