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For Crist, It's Sunshine And Storm Clouds

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Gov. Charlie Crist weathered a difficult year well, despite making only modest gains on two of the issues he championed most during his campaign: lowering property taxes and property insurance rates.

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 30, 2007

TALLAHASSEE - No one personifies the Sunshine State quite like Charlie Crist.

It's "the golden age of the Florida Legislature," the governor said over and over this year. Property taxes were going to "drop like a rock." Last week's water summit with governors from Georgia and Alabama yielded "tremendous progress," and next month's referendum on tax relief is going to pass.

"He's an optimist, you may have noticed," Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller said. "When he said taxes would drop like a rock, he meant it. But it's hard to deliver on that. I don't believe that he'd make a drop-like-a-rock statement any longer; it was just his first year."

Still, Crist ends year one in office with approval ratings of 61 percent from voters, more or less equaling his popular predecessor's first-year showing in the polls. With few of the issues Crist tackled this year resolved, and the pressures of a flagging economy mounting, year two will put his popularity and political muscle to the test.

Crist met with the Florida Association of Realtors on Dec. 19 to plan campaign efforts to persuade voters to "Vote Yes on One," the constitutional amendment proposal to cut property taxes that lawmakers approved in late October and will appear on the Jan. 29 ballot.

Before the meeting, Crist told reporters that cutting property taxes "is never about me; it's about the people. ... If it were not to pass, it would be more of a defeat for the people who live in Florida."

But after making his now-infamous pledge about taxes dropping like a rock, Crist will pay the price politically if relief doesn't come soon, said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida.

"I think the public is very much on the edge of really getting angry at him," she said. "They haven't yet, but they're not seeing the results they think he promised."

Rubio's Support Lackluster

The Jan. 29 proposal would provide homeowners with tax breaks of only $240 on average. But people may accept that, combined with the statutory tax rollback that lawmakers passed this year, as a starting point, MacManus said. "Something is always a lot better than nothing - especially when you've made the kind of emphatic promise that he did."

Those modest savings aren't good enough for everyone, including fiscal conservatives in Crist's own party. House Speaker Marco Rubio's support for the plan has been lackluster at best, while other Republicans are outright angry.

Sam Rashid, a GOP fundraiser in Hillsborough County, faulted Crist for deferring to the unruly legislative process during the special session instead of pressing a specific agenda. In particular, Rashid is angry that Crist did not insist on tax relief for owners of second homes and commercial property, especially small businesses.

"People can't afford to rent here, to live here seasonally or to develop here," Rashid said. "Such a negative impact could have been so easily addressed, had the governor taken a leadership role. He simply didn't do it."

Crist maintains, however, that Jan. 29 is only the next step, not the endgame.

"It's not enough," he said, noting that he will likely support other tax-cut initiatives that could appear on the November 2008 ballot. "Even when it passes, we will continue to go further, because we have to; ... we need to continue to fight for small businesses and others."

Property Insurance Reform

In a recent interview, the governor said he is keeping his promises to voters.

"The lieutenant governor and I made a commitment on taxes and property insurance that we would do everything possible to bring them down," Crist said. "We're doing exactly that. I'm open even to new ideas about what else we can do to bring them down."

He acknowledged the limited effect that he and lawmakers have had so far on insurance rates but blames the insurance companies that he thinks are breaking the law. He compared the industry to Big Tobacco, in terms of "taking advantage of the people."

This month, Crist assembled a team of lawyers to examine the results of the subpoenas issued to companies that filed for rate increases this year in spite of reforms passed in January that were supposed to lower costs.

"The law says that the companies have the duty to pass on those savings on reinsurance costs to the consumer; clearly some are not doing that," he said. "It angers me, and it frustrates me. ... I look forward to the review by this learned counsel and their advice as to how to proceed, possibly with a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the people of Florida to get their money back from these greedy insurance companies."

Darryl Paulson, a conservative political scientist at the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida, compared Crist to a football quarterback on a football team only midway through its season.

"It's only one year into his administration; he's got three years left," Paulson said. "At best, he's made a number of promises and hasn't fully delivered on those promises yet. But the vast majority of voters are still happy with how he's running the government."

Open Government

Voters measure governors not only by how they deal with new problems, but how they handle the legacy of their forebears, MacManus said.

One legacy of former Gov. Jeb Bush that has come to light this year is the half-billion-dollar CSX deal that Bush brokered to bring commuter rail to Orlando and reroute freight traffic through Lakeland. The deal has some lawmakers up in arms, arguing that the deal was done in secret and may harm Polk County and east Hillsborough County.

To date, Crist has yet to pass judgment on the deal, which stems from a 2005 appropriation that lawmakers now say they passed without understanding its implications. The state Department of Transportation signed off on the project this month. It awaits approval from the Legislature, which recently started asking hard questions about it in committee.

That's as it should be, said Crist, who said he might follow suit with his own questions but made no commitment to do so.

"I think it's at a good place, where lawmakers will have the opportunity to give it a good review in the committee structure," Crist said. "It's their job to appropriate or disappropriate."

Geller said the deal is appalling but he is not sure whether Crist legally can reopen it, much less squelch it, given how far it has advanced already.

Other critics of the deal argue that Crist's public commitment to open government obligates him to take a hard look, even at this late stage. Crist launched the Office of Open Government within days of starting his job this year and created the Commission on Open Government Reform six months later to "ensure that all levels of government are accessible to the people."

How Crist responds to the secretive CSX deal will test his commitment to conducting government in the sunshine, Paulson said.

"He has a lot at stake, in terms of credibility. But it is a frontal challenge to Gov. Bush, and to the conservatives in the Republican Party," Paulson said. "Like any governor, he's facing a political dilemma in terms of which side he leans on - open government, or opening Pandora's Box and risk alienating members of his own party."

Friends And Enemies

The deal that Crist negotiated this year with the Seminole Tribe, allowing it to offer Vegas-style slot machines and banked card games at its casinos, prompted House Speaker Rubio to file suit in the Florida Supreme Court. Rubio argues that Crist overstepped his authority by brokering the arrangement without legislative approval.

It is the latest in a series of tussles between Crist and Rubio, who has carped on the governor publicly over his environmental initiatives and property taxes.

Democrat Geller said he agrees with Republican Rubio's stance on the gaming compact, adding that he thinks Crist should likewise seek legislative approval for any compact he reaches with Alabama and Georgia over water rights. That aside, Geller sees a schism developing in the GOP over Crist, primarily because of his cooperation with Democrats - in Florida and elsewhere - on everything from property taxes to climate change policies.

Rubio appears to embody the frustration of hard-core conservatives, and his pointed criticisms of Crist have led many to speculate that he plans to run for governor.

"At the very least, he is presenting himself as the next alternative to Charlie Crist," Paulson said.

But Rubio spokeswoman Jill Chamberlin downplayed any friction between the two men, saying Rubio thinks Crist is doing "an excellent job."

"Rubio's comments on taxes, the Compact, and energy policy reflect his disagreement with some of the proposed solutions - not a criticism of the individual," she said in an e-mail. "Also, Rubio has praised the governor for his willingness to address some of these big issues, including the Seminole compact which has gone unfinished for more than a decade. If members of the Republican Party subscribe to differing points of view, Rubio would see the discussion that emerged from those differences to be constructive."

Chamberlin added that Crist and Rubio spoke by phone recently about the reported "differences" between them. "They concluded that they aren't significant in terms of their personal relationship, but that there's little, if anything, they can do to discourage the reports - because 'conflict' makes politics more interesting to some."

Crist denied that any rift has taken place between him and the party's conservatives. He took the opportunity to couch one of his "nontraditional" initiatives in terms that even a right-wing ideologue would be hard-pressed to disparage.

"Let's talk about climate change," said Crist, who has proposed capping greenhouse gas emissions and spending millions of dollars to develop alternative energy sources. "What matters to me is trying to do what I believe is right, and in the best interest of my Florida; I have a duty to protect her as a good steward. But it goes deeper than that. It's also a duty to protect God's work. That's very important to a lot of people in my party, and in the other party, as it should be. Is it hurting some of the party? No, I don't think so. I think everybody cares about God - or most do."

Moderates and conservatives within the party - any party - always pull against each other, said former Senate President Tom Lee of Brandon. He recalled when former Gov. Bush e-mailed a rant against the more moderate Senate to 22,000 Republican activists on the eve of a 2003 special session on medical malpractice.

"There is an eternal battle of ideas," Lee said. "And it's easy to let these things become acrimonious. I've publicly applauded both the speaker and governor for their ability to maintain their composure and decorum in debate. They both deserve a tremendous amount of credit."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or cdolinski@tampatrib.com.

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