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Sen. Jim King dies from cancer at 69

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 27, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - Former Florida Senate President Jim King, who sometimes fought Gov. Jeb Bush and his own Republican Party over the Terri Schiavo right-to-die battle in 2005, died Sunday after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer, a family spokeswoman said. He was 69.

King, who was Senate president from 2002 to 2004, underwent surgery in June to remove tumors from his pancreas after being diagnosed with cancer in May. His final Senate term was to expire in November 2010.

"Not even cancer could rob him of his sense of humor and spirit," said former press aide Sarah Bascom, who announced King's death Sunday. "He was the Jim King that we all know and loved until the very end."

King gained some national attention by helping lead a group of Republicans who blocked legislation favored by Bush that would have forced Schiavo's feeding tube to be reinserted. The brain-damaged woman died in 2005 after her husband removed the tube over her parents' objections.

A self-made millionaire from Jacksonville, King was elected Senate president in 2002 at a time of economic uncertainty and voter demands to shrink classroom size in public schools. "I find myself somewhere between the dog and the fire hydrant," he said that year.

King, who built a personnel services business into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, jumped into politics after years of complaining about "those idiot politicians."

In 1986, he ran for a state House seat in northeast Jacksonville. The district was barely a third Republican and no Republican had ever been elected there.

"We told him to quit bitching and belly up to the bar," said friend Doug Speeler, a St. Petersburg businessman. He told King no one would elect a fat man who smoked. "So he quit smoking!" he said.

He won 56 percent of the vote, benefiting from Republican Gov. Bob Martinez, who won at the top of the ticket.

Both arrived in time for the services tax fiasco in the 1987 legislative session. The measure would have extended Florida's sales tax to many previously untaxed services, ranging from pet grooming and accounting to advertising and haircuts. It was passed and repealed weeks later after a barrage of criticism from advertisers and retailers. King survived the political fallout.

In 2007, he pushed through a bill allowing people to be buried with their pets' ashes, if the animal's cremains were in a separate container. This will allow him to be buried with the ashes of his beloved black Labrador, Valentine, who died in 1998.

Popular with legislators, lobbyists and reporters, he didn't mind making fun of his Falstaffian figure. "It is self-perception. Some may look at me and see Jackie Gleason. I look at me and see Sean Connery," he said.

In 1996, he was outmaneuvered by former Sen. Daniel Webster of Orlando for House speaker. He learned from that and beat Webster to become Senate president in 2003-04.

King attended public school and community college in St. Petersburg. He earned undergraduate and masters degrees in business administration from Florida State.

King became a full-time politician in 1997 when he and his partners sold their personnel firm to Wackenhut for $16 million. His share was $5 million.

King is survived by his wife, Linda; daughters Monta Bolles of Tampa and Laurie Anne Dolan of Gainesville; and three grandchildren.

Memorial services will be at St. John's Cathedral in Jacksonville at 11 a.m. Saturday, and in the House Chambers at the Capitol at 2 p.m., Aug. 4.

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