To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > News Feb. 10, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/02/10/florida What went wrong? The Florida governor's kindler, gentler affirmative action reform draws a firestorm of protest from the very people it aims to help. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Max J. Castro George W. Bush's younger brother Jeb was on a roll. After resoundingly defeating Democrat Buddy McKay in November 1998 to become the governor of Florida, he had been enjoying a honeymoon through 1999. Working with Republican majorities in the state's House and Senate, a luxury not afforded a Florida governor since Reconstruction, Bush had been able to pass much of his agenda, including a controversial school voucher program. Maybe most remarkably, Bush was putting together a multiracial coalition rare among Republicans. Fluent in Spanish and married to a native of Mexico, he has always enjoyed strong support among the mostly conservative Cuban-American community in South Florida. Lately his appeal to other Hispanics across the state appeared to be increasing as well. And, in part as a result of infighting among Democrats, Bush even had managed to pick up some black support. In his losing 1994 campaign, Bush had responded to a question about what he would do for blacks if elected by saying, "Probably nothing." Since then Bush has sent out a different message stressing "diversity," and had seemed well on his way to repairing the damage caused by his earlier statements. Now, in a stunning turnaround, a proposal that Bush says will increase minority enrollment in public universities and boost state procurement from minority-owned firms has drawn a firestorm of protest from the very people it's supposed to help. His One Florida Initiative was intended as a kinder, gentler end to affirmative action than the constitutional amendment now being pushed in the state by Ward Connerly and his allies, which generally copies California's Proposition 209. The lesson instead may be that there is no easy way to avert a divisive fight over affirmative action. Rather than promoting a united Florida, the governor's plan has exposed, in stark relief, deep racial divisions in a state where the New South, the Sunbelt and the "new immigration" meet. Public hearings, the latest scheduled for Thursday in Tallahassee, have drawn huge, angry crowds. The controversy has eroded Bush's modest gains among blacks, alienated many women and upset some Hispanics who had supported the Republican governor. The process has underscored the pitfalls and limitations of "compassionate conservatism" and the Republican outreach to minority voters. How did it go so wrong? Most early reviews of the governor's plan were generally positive. The educational component, which would guarantee enrollment in a public university to the top 20 percent of high school graduates, received early support from a black leader in the Legislature. But then a majority of black political leaders rejected the plan and persuaded their colleague to reverse course. Blacks resented not having been included in its design, charged that it would decrease black enrollment in the most prestigious campuses and in professional and graduate programs, and felt the procurement component relied entirely on the goodwill of the state's chief executive. In the absence of reliable data, it is hard to sort out competing claims, but the University of Florida, one of the state's top universities, estimates that black enrollment there would drop from 611 to 204 and that Hispanic enrollment would fall from 709 to 492. The turning point that transformed a policy proposal into an emotional civil rights confrontation came in January in the Capitol. Sen. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, and Rep. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville, wanted to meet with Bush to press their demand that the governor rescind a November 1999 executive order that effectively ended racial and gender preferences in education and state contracting. Bush refused. Aides to the governor told Meek and Hill they would "wait a long time to see the governor" and "should bring a blanket." It was the wrong time for sarcasm, the wrong people to challenge and the wrong place for a showdown. Hill, along with Meek -- the son of Miami's U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Fla., the first black elected to Congress from Florida since Reconstruction -- refused to leave. Reporters were kicked out. But soon college students -- Tallahassee is the home of Florida A&M, a historically black institution -- were sitting on the floor of the Capitol singing "We Shall Overcome" in support of the sit-in. After being warned by a key black advisor that removing the two husky members of the Legislature by force would be a public relations disaster, Bush was forced to compromise, instantly transforming Meek and Hill into heroes in the black community. Bush agreed to appoint a select legislative committee and schedule public hearings on the One Florida Initiative in Tampa, Miami and Tallahassee. It was a decision he has probably come to regret. The Tampa hearing drew 600 angry people, the vast majority of whom wanted the One Florida Initiative scrapped. That was only a prelude to Miami. There, an overwhelmingly black crowd of more 4,000 rotated in and out of the downtown Gusman Center (capacity: 1,711). With the governor present, the crowd cheered wildly as speaker after speaker blasted Bush and his plan. One compared the rollback of affirmative action to Ku Klux Klan violence after Reconstruction: "Now they don't wear robes and hoods, they wear $2,500 suits." The room erupted. While blacks have found new unity in opposing the One Florida Initiative, Hispanics are divided on the issue, often along party lines. Critics include Rep. Anne Betancourt, D-Miami, and Mayor of Miami-Dade County Alex Penelas, a powerful and charismatic Democrat (Miami-Dade County is the greater metropolitan entity that includes the city of Miami and other Dade County cities). Republicans, including Rep. Luis Rojas, R-Miami, are lined up solidly behind the governor's plan. Rojas contends that, with voter sentiment running more than 80 percent in favor of ending race and gender preferences, the One Florida Initiative offers the best hope of averting passage of a constitutional amendment that would have a devastating impact. Supporters fail to mention another possible motive behind Bush's effort to blunt the Connerly initiative: avoiding a large black turnout in the November elections, which would hurt the Republican presidential candidate. In fact, however, Connerly has not ceased in his effort to place a constitutional amendment banning affirmative action on the Florida ballot. Thus a heated referendum battle may still take place; Gov. Bush may have brought a lot of grief upon himself for nothing. And the fun may have just begun for Jeb Bush. Speaking before a predominantly black crowd at a church in Tallahassee on Saturday, Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, called the One Florida Initiative "the Bush whack." In campaign swings through the Sunshine State this week, both Bill Bradley and Al Gore blasted the One Florida Initiative, indirectly taking shots at George W. Bush. On Tuesday, 2,000 students marched on the state Capitol and managed to extract some modest concessions from the governor. The hearing scheduled for Thursday will be held in a larger facility than originally planned. A coalition of groups opposed to the governor's plan is planning a massive march in Tallahassee on March 7 -- just in time to steal the thunder from the Bush's State of the State speech which opens the year's legislative session. The One Florida Initiative debacle has set back Republican efforts to capture a larger slice of the minority vote in Florida and, to a lesser extent, the nation. Although many people who vehemently oppose the proposal are unlikely to have read it, the closed-door way Jeb Bush developed the One Florida Initiative is widely seen as paternalistic and politically inept. While a poll taken after the Tampa hearing showed Bush's high approval rating had only dropped slightly, subsequent events have no doubt taken an additional political toll. The controversy that is now hurting Jeb Bush will not help George W. either, should he be the GOP presidential nominee. "We'll remember in November" was a frequently voiced refrain at the Miami hearing. One speaker was more personal: "In November, we're gonna get your brother." salon.com | Feb. 10, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Max J. Castro, Ph.D., a sociologist, is currently senior research associate in the Dante B. Fascell North-South Center at the University of Miami and a regular op/ed columnist for the Miami Herald.