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Name | Jeb Bush |
---|---|
Order | 43rd |
Office | Governor of Florida |
Term start | January 5, 1999 |
Term end | January 2, 2007 |
Lieutenant | Frank Brogan Toni Jennings |
Predecessor | Buddy MacKay |
Successor | Charlie Crist |
Birth name | John Ellis Bush |
Birth date | February 11, 1953 |
Birth place | Midland, Texas |
Residence | Coral Gables, Florida |
Spouse | Columba Bush |
Religion | Episcopalian (before 1995) Roman Catholic (after 1995) |
Alma mater | University of Texas (B.A.) |
Profession | Banker Realtor |
Party | Republican |
Signature | Jeb Bush Signature.svg |
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is a prominent member of the Bush family: the younger brother of former President George W. Bush; the older brother of Neil Bush, Marvin Bush and Dorothy Bush Koch; and the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush.
When Bush was 17, he went to León, Guanajuato, in Mexico, as part of his school's student exchange program. He spent his time there teaching English, and it was there that he met his future wife, Columba Garnica Gallo.
Bush attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Latin American Studies in 1973, taking only two and a half years to complete his work, and obtaining generally excellent grades. He had considered a career in Hollywood, but decided instead to pursue politics. He registered for the draft, but the Vietnam War ended before his number came up.
John Ellis Bush, Jr., Bush's youngest son (born December 13, 1983 in Miami), works for a Miami commercial real estate firm. In October 2007, he endorsed Rudy Giuliani for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, and supported the effort as chairman of "Florida Young Professionals for Rudy".
On January 29, 2002, according to a police report made public via The Smoking Gun, Noelle Bush attempted to “fraudulently obtain a prescription” at a Walgreens Drug Store located in Tallahassee, Florida. The attending officers, Bob Bascom and Mark E. Dent of the Tallahassee Police Department, ascertained that Bush had telephoned the pharmacy using the name “Noelle Scidmore” in an attempt to obtain Xanax, a prescription drug used to treat anxiety disorders. As a result of her arrest, Bush was ordered by a judge to attend a rehabilitation program at the Center for Drug-Free Living in Orlando, Florida. During her time at the facility, Bush was found in contempt of court after being found in possession of two grams of cocaine, and was sentenced to 10 days in jail. Regarding her treatment, Noelle Bush herself told the court “It's been quite a challenge, and I'm grateful.”
There have been several allegations of this, but Bush was never on the payroll of Cuban exile Miguel Recarey. Bush worked at locating office spaces for IMC and did so like every other licensed Realtor; commission based on final performance. Jeb was provided with a detailed list of specifications of what was wanted. This included acceptable locations, a range of size and price per square foot parameters. Jeb's search went on for several months and multiple locations that met the established criteria were actually found by Jeb. Each time, he was provided with a series of reasons why the particular site was not acceptable. In reality, Miguel Recarey was an extremely contradictory fellow, constantly changing his mind. The last property that Jeb Bush brought forth was a deal almost too good to be true: the building was in Coral Gables, right in the middle of the preferred location requested and square foot pricing was well below the going market rate. Miguel found himself in a difficult predicament and decided to pay Jeb the $75,000 commission, not for purchase of political influence as so many are fond to accuse him of, but for 2 different reasons that don't appear in the mainstream media: 1) Jeb had performed exactly as requested and he felt he had a legal liability to pay if so challenged. If so, he did not want to be embroiled in a legal fight with the son of an influential politician and be on the wrong side of the argument, 2) He felt he had a moral obligation to pay and had already run out of excuses of why the last property Jeb found would not be acceptable. Recarey, who ran International Medical Centres (IMC), employed Bush as a real estate consultant and paid him a $75,000 fee for finding the company a new location, although the move never took place. Bush did, however, lobby the Reagan/Bush administration vigorously and successfully on behalf of Recarey and IMC. "I want to be very wealthy," Jeb Bush told the Miami News when questioned during that period.
Jeb Bush has also worked with The James Madison Institute, a free market public policy think tank based in Tallahassee, FL. He helped the institute in numerous ways and still has his think tank working in conjunction with it. In June 2008, Jeb's institute, the Foundation for Excellence in Education,partnered with JMI to hold a summit called "> "Excellence in Action: A National Summit on Education Reform".
In 1996, The Foundation For Florida’s Future published a book that Bush had co-written, Profiles in Character (ISBN 0-9650912-0-1), a clear parallel to John F. Kennedy's 1955 book Profiles in Courage. The foundation also published and distributed policy papers, such as "A New Lease on Learning: Florida's First Charter School", which Bush co-wrote. Bush subsequently wrote the foreword to another book, published by the conservative Heritage Foundation and written by Nina Shokraii Rees, School Choice 2000: What’s Happening in the States (ISBN 0-89195-089-3).
Bush co-founded the first charter school in the State of Florida: Liberty City Charter School, a grades K-6 elementary school. The school is situated in Liberty City, a Miami neighborhood that was the site, in 1980, of the first major race riot since the Civil Rights era. The school's co-founder, working alongside Bush, was T. Willard Fair, a well-known local black activist and head of the Greater Miami Urban League. The Liberty City Charter School still operates today as a charter school.
Additionally, Bush is an active rock climber, and a strong advocate for climber's rights.
In 2000, Bush established the Points of Light program to recognize an "exemplary volunteer, organization, or person" such as Jimmy Rotonno of Our Father's House Soup Kitchen who won the award in 2003.
:"I'm proud to say that my family has contributed to your ranks. A few years ago, Governor Jeb became a Knight. And he yes and he recently took his Third Degree. I'll see him this weekend. His son is getting married. I'll pass on the word, aim for the Fourth."
In 2004, Jeb Bush (while still governor) was inducted into the Fourth Degree by Gary L. McLain at a ceremony held Nov. 1. Bush, a member of Father Hugon Council 3521 in Tallahassee, joined Father Hugon Assembly.
In higher education, Bush approved three new medical schools during his tenure and also put forth the "One Florida" proposal, an initiative that effectively ended affirmative action admissions programs at state universities. These moves were among the influencing concerns that led to the faculty of the University of Florida to deny Bush an honorary degree, whilst the University of Florida Alumni Association made him an honorary alumnus. North Miami Beach Attorney Larry R. Fleurantin, then a UF law student, on April 1, 2001, wrote an article in the Gainesville Sun challenging Florida Governor Jeb Bush's Talented 20 Plan, the educational component of "One Florida." In response to Attorney Fleurantin's article, on April 7, 2001, Gov. Jeb Bush wrote a column in the Gainesville Sun defending his "One Florida" policy.
After months of controversy that included thousands of e-mails, petition signatures and hundreds of picketers at the State Capitol, the Florida House voted to ditch Bush's plan to give the biggest collection at the century-old State Library to Nova Southeastern University.
After being vetoed by previous Governor Lawton Chiles, Choose Life , a pro-life advocacy group based in Ocala, Florida submitted a specialty license plate application which passed both houses and Governor Bush signed it into law on June 8, 1999.
Bush oversaw 21 executions as Governor (more than Graham, Martinez and Chiles while they were in office). Bush never agreed to commute any sentence.
Bush also presided over switching from electric chair (the only method of executions until 2000, now optional) to lethal injection, after a botched electrocution of Allen Lee Davis (first inmate executed under his administration and last, to date, electrocuted in Florida). After two previous botched executions (Jesse Tafero in 1990 and Pedro Medina in 1997) Governors Martinez and Chiles along with legislature declined to change methods.
While he is an advocate of capital punishment, Bush suspended all executions in Florida on December 15, 2006, after the execution of Ángel Nieves Díaz was seemingly botched. The execution took 37 minutes to complete, and required a second injection of the lethal chemicals.
Following Brogan's resignation, Bush appointed former Florida Senate President Toni Jennings, with whom he had occasionally disagreed in regards to public policy, as Lieutenant Governor.
In the ensuing Democratic primary contest (where only Democratic voters could vote, pursuant to state primary laws), circumstances surrounding McBride's victory outraged many voters in South Florida. Some voting venues located in Reno's urban strongholds of Broward County and Dade County, and operated by Democrats elected as county election officials reportedly opened hours late, and then ignored Bush's Executive Order, issued at Reno's request, to stay open later to accommodate all voters.
In January 2007, Bush became only the second Florida Governor to complete two full four-year terms in office, the first being Democrat Reubin O'Donovan Askew. (Bush was prevented from seeking a third term in the 2006 election, due to term limits under state law.)
Bush made Florida political history not only by becoming the first Republican Governor to ever win re-election in Florida, but also by being the first Florida Governor to select a woman, Toni Jennings, to serve as Florida's Lieutenant Governor. No woman had ever been appointed or elected to that high office in Florida's executive branch.
Bush is also the first Governor to hold office while having a brother simultaneously serve as President.
Notwithstanding rumors, he did not run for president in the 2008 election.
In recent months, rumors have surfaced that Bush would attempt to win the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential election; rumors that Bush has strongly denied from the beginning.
Throughout his two administrations, Bush's office touted his record of non–discrimination and rewarding merit, claiming he employed highly qualified women, blacks and other minorities more often in top-level government positions than any previous Florida Governor.
Outside of Florida, fellow Republican leaders throughout the country have sought Bush's aid both on and off the campaign trail. Bush's out-of-state campaign visits include Kentucky, where Republican challenger Ernie Fletcher appeared with Bush and won that state's governorship in 2003, ending a 32-year streak of Democratic governors. In California, after Democratic Governor Gray Davis was ousted in a recall vote, Bush dispatched Florida's budget director to that state to lead an independent audit of California's budget, at the request of the state's newly elected Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Since 2004, he has been serving a four-year term as a Board Member for the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). Created by Congress, this board’s purpose is to establish policy on reports examining K-12 students’ academic progress in America’s public and private schools. In 2008, Bush will be serving on the NAGB educational committee focused on Standards, Design and Methodology.
In April 2007, Jeb Bush joined Tenet Healthcare's board of directors. The following August, Bush joined investment bank, Lehman Brothers, as an adviser in its private equity group.
Category:1953 births Category:Living people Category:American Episcopalians Category:American businesspeople Category:American expatriates in Venezuela Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American Roman Catholic politicians Category:Bolling family of Virginia Category:Bush family Category:Children of Presidents of the United States Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism Category:Federal Emergency Management Agency critics Category:Florida Republicans Category:Governors of Florida Category:Knights of Columbus Category:Lehman Brothers Category:People from Houston, Texas Category:People from Midland, Texas Category:Phillips Academy alumni Category:Siblings of Presidents of the United States Category:State cabinet secretaries of Florida Category:Tenet Healthcare Category:University of Texas at Austin alumni Category:People from Coral Gables, Florida
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