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De La Parte, 'Champion Of The Little People,' Reminds Us What Can Be

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By STEVE OTTO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 5, 2008

It has been more than three decades since Louis de la Parte Jr. represented us in Tallahassee. Yet his passing last week, against the backdrop of today's political swamp, serves as a reminder of the possibilities that government service once was and can be again.

You think back on those years when the likes of Lawton Chiles, Terrell Sessums, Fred Karl and Lee Moffitt walked the halls of the capitol, and you wonder what happened and where they all went.

Judge E.J. Salcines, freshly retired, may have known de la Parte the longest. "We were both boys. My father owned a store in West Tampa, and Lou's father owned the 'Sportsmen' in Ybor City, where they sold suits and ties. We would come with our fathers to the old Crescent Apartments across from the University of Tampa, where all the salesmen would come to town and display their items in the rooms. Lou was nine years older than me, and he was the one who first started talking about law school."

De la Parte went off to the Air Force and the judge advocate's office. He came back to Tampa and was hired by Paul Johnson to work in the state attorney's office before going into practice for himself.

Voice For Children, Mentally Ill

Salcines remembers that when he came back from law school, the first person he went to see was de la Parte. "He was the one who had given me the spark to go to law school. He was also close friends with a law professor I had known at Florida Southern by the name of Lawton Chiles."

The two of them would go off to Tallahassee and do great things. De la Parte would serve for 12 years, being elected to the House in 1962 and retiring as Senate president in 1974.

"Lou became a champion of the little people," Salcines says. "He became the voice of the children and the mentally ill. His voice in the Legislature convinced them to do extraordinary things. He and a few others were able to not only deal with the problems of the day, but look 20 and 30 years down the road and see the future of Florida."
Taking Chances
Jack Levine was another who was touched by de la Parte. Levine is currently head of something called the 4generations Institute but almost forever has been the chief advocate for children's issues in Tallahassee.

"I was about 28, and de la Parte had been out of the Senate for four years, but someone told me if I wanted to learn anything about how to work with the Legislature I had to see him. I flew down to Tampa, expecting maybe a half hour. He asked me if I was in a big rush, ordered Cuban sandwiches to be brought in, and for the next four hours he talked to me about children and bureaucracies and how to be effective in government.

"I think what was so striking was how he was not afraid to take chances and do things that could not possibly advance his career. He truly cared about those who didn't have a voice, and the groundwork he laid in Tallahassee has made a difference in tens of thousands of lives."

The tragedy, of course, is that his life was dimmed so early by Alzheimer's, which ravaged him for 17 years.

The Legislature renamed the Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida after de la Parte in 1996, but that is only a token, a reminder of what one man can do when he dedicates his life to the cause of making a difference.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.

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