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Busansky seized the moment

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By LUIS VIERA

Special To The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 27, 2009

The late Rabbi Abraham Heschel once remarked that the "road to the sacred leads through the secular." For the late Phyllis Busansky, the road to the sacred principles she cherished was achieved through the sometimes secular but always brutal road of politics.

It was a road she traveled joyfully as a wife, mother and grandmother but with the force and impact of a bulldozer.

Like so many others, I mourn the loss of Phyllis not only as a friend, but also as a symbol.

All too often in today's Hillsborough County politics, the embarrassing is rewarded over the responsible, the mindlessly strident over the thoughtful and the intolerant over the welcoming.

Phyllis represented what many laud as a golden age in our county government.

After serving two historic terms as county commissioner, and her heartbreaking 1996 primary loss for the 11th Congressional District (which was my first vote ever, as an 18-year-old, and one for Phyllis to be my congresswoman), Phyllis was not yet done with public service.

She would serve two governors in reforming welfare, contribute to the debate over health care reform and, in 2004, form the 537 Club, which helped support Democrats for public office.

By 2006, Phyllis was ready to get back into the arena of political life. She ran for Congress against favored candidate Gus Bilarakis.

And she lost, due in part to misleading attack ads that painted this humble woman as something of an aloof woman about town.

This loss would have left even the most determined political street-fighter isolated. But not Phyllis.

In 2008, frustrated over allegations of malfeasance in the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Office, Phyllis disregarded the political naysayers and ran for office again.

In the campaign, Phyllis left behind the lavish fundraisers of her congressional race and instead relied on person-to-person contact. New generations of voters, particularly in unincorporated Hillsborough County, got to know a fine public servant who was last elected to public office when President Obama was about one year out of law school.

And she won a victory that was a crowning achievement in a career of honest public service.

What group has not benefited from Phyllis' work and compassion? Taxpayers in search of integrity in government found their champion in her. Those who were, to quote Franklin Roosevelt, "ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished" knew they had a friend in this champion of the New Deal philosophy.

And African-Americans, Latinos, those with disabilities and gay and lesbian persons knew that in Phyllis they had a friend who had a clear moral compass defined by the American way.

Phyllis never, like Bruce Springsteen once sang, spent her life waiting for a moment that just did not come. Instead, she grabbed her own moment and carried the mantle for progressive values, regardless of the changing political winds.

Now we are left without her and her wisdom, thoughtful demeanor and leadership. May she rest in peace.

Luis Viera is a Tampa attorney.

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