March 12, 2025 • 48 mins
Featuring:
Hon. Jeb Bush, Former Governor, Florida
Moderator: Raquel “Rocky” Rodriguez, Shareholder, Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC and Former General Counsel to Governor Jeb Bush, 2002 - 2007
Hon. Jeb Bush, Former Governor, Florida
Moderator: Raquel “Rocky” Rodriguez, Shareholder, Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC and Former General Counsel to Governor Jeb Bush, 2002 - 2007
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
We're delighted to have here today Governor Jeb Bush, who
really needs no introduction, but he's going to get a
short one anyhow. And we also have Rocky Rodriguez, who
we can call her the General Council Closer. She closed
out the Bush term as General Counsel. Pertinent to the
discussion here. I think she helped with at least two
hundred judicial appointments. Some of you are sitting out there,
(00:27):
I'm sure, and so we're going to talk a little
bit about the importance of judicial selection. This is probably
good because it's literally been twenty five years since we
started this, from when you were elected in ninety nine.
So one of the things that people may not realize
is one of the things that was key was changing
the judicial nominating commissions. There's a short story about that.
(00:51):
We had somebody who was a Deputy Solicitor General, Lou Hubner,
who worked for the Attorney General's office. I could not
have actually told you whether he was a d you're
in r but I could have told you that he
actually understood interpreting statutes. And so we had an opening
on the first District Court of Appeal, and I suggested
to him that he might want to apply to put
in for that said, there's no guarantees, but i'd like
(01:13):
to see you do that.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So he put in a shame on me.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
He did not get an interview. No, what you need
to understand about lou Is At that point he had
almost four hundred published opinions where he was Council of record.
How many of you out here, if you're a judge,
you can't do this. How many of you they're not a.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Judge, have that? Very few of you?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
They explained in their wisdom that well, he was a
government attorney, and they thought there were enough government attorneys.
They didn't want to see any others up there. So
he didn't even have the courtesy of an interview. Given that,
we knew it was going to be extremely difficult to
get good judges through the process. Good judges were always
very important to the governor. He had a lot of
(01:54):
other policies that he wanted to implement, but obviously if
you don't have good judges, it's going to be difficult
to do that. Some things have come to fruition. It
took some time. The Florida Supreme Court finally shifted to
conservative in twenty nineteen, so you started in ninety nine.
Took about twenty years, But that twenty years wasn't wasted.
(02:14):
It was building up the lower courts that was going there.
One of the other things that the governor put a
lot of effort into was school choice, to give everybody
the opportunity to attend a school of their choice.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And it took again, it.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Took almost twenty five years, twenty four years. But now
in the state of Florida, we have scholarship programs, so
without regard to income, without regard to anything else, you
can actually apply and as long as there's space available,
you can take your trial to one at twenty four
hundred private schools. We've also got other school choice. So
it's my delight to have Governor Jeb Bush here today, Rocky.
(02:50):
It's also a delight to have you back up here.
And with that, I'm going to turn this over to
them for the discussion. Oh one thing I have to say,
we're going to try to do pictures after were two pictures.
If you were appointed by Governor Bush to a judge ship,
please come up. And if you worked in the Bush administration,
please come up.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Thank you very much. I think that's agism by the way,
if you do that.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Oh, thank you, Daniel.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
And as you may recall, Daniel was the General council
of the Florida Department of Education when Governor Bush was
in office, and prior to that, he was an assistant
General counsel in the Governor's legal office. So he's got
a long history with the governor and part of the
good fight. So let's pick up. You were elected. First
(03:41):
of all, thank you so much for making the trip
from Miami. Governor, we really appreciate it. I think everybody here,
if they don't already know you, they know of you
and are very inspired by what you've done to improve
our courts and our state. So let's go back to
(04:01):
nineteen ninety eight. You're elected on your second try for
the governor's office. You'd run previously in nineteen ninety four
and lost a close election to Governor Chiles.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
And a few.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Weeks after your election, there was a vacancy about to
be filled on the Florida Supreme Court. And I believe
Bobby Martinez was your one of your advisors at the
time on the judiciary and setting up your legal office,
and there was a question of which whether the outgoing
(04:41):
Governor Chiles was going to a pointer or whether you,
as the incoming governor, should appoint the new justice. So
can you tell us a little bit about what was
happening and how it was that the two of you
ended up doing a joint appointment of Justice.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Peggy Quince, Thank you, ROCKI The reason I'm here is
because it's payback time to rock Hil Rodriguez aka Rocky,
who spent more than four years or close to four years,
more than four point four years working for me get
keeping me out of trouble. The press secretary in my
(05:18):
office learned how to say what the governor meant to
say was and then clean up after me. And what
Rocky learned to do was to clean up after me
and something even more important, which was the legal messes
that I created by my policy and by my words.
So whenever she asked me to do anything for the
rest of my life and her life, I'll be there
to say thank you. So that's why I'm here.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So when I got elected, you know, I had I
had four five point plans to do a bunch of stuff.
I had. This was in the era. Politically, it's going
to sound like ancient history where you actually had plans
and you laid them out and you said, which you're
going to do, and you know you had to theoretically
the theory what behind this was for those who have
never seen this, that if you said what you're going
(06:07):
to do, you had a chance to actually do it.
And so I was all excited about our agenda. And
then you know what happens is stuff happens, including the
chance to make a Supreme Court pick before you're even
governor or depending on this circumstance. And I don't know
if it's ever been resolved, because I've I've learned to
move on once you're once you've finished serving, it's it's
(06:29):
time to find new things to focus on. So I
don't know if this this dilemma ever was finished. Which
was which is that the incoming or outcoming outgoing governor
that gets to make an appointment that is do on
the election day or on inauguration day. I still have
no clue. I don't think Governor Child's office had a
(06:50):
clue either. We both made efforts to suggest it was,
of course, the you know, it was the incoming in
our case, and he said the outgoing and so I
don't remember. I think it was probably Linda Shelley and
Sally Bradshaw probably said let's stop this ship and just
split the difference.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Of staff the respective government.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Perspective chief of staff in my case, and so we
So I had my first chance to interview judges before
before in December, before for the appointment. These were all
high caliber people, but they they really none of them
had the judicial philosophy that, as I understood it, at
least that would be important, you know, for selecting a
(07:32):
Supreme Court justice. And so it was. It was kind
of a random thing. I mean, I I thought, uh,
Justice quinc and I was probably wrong about this, because
of her experience as a prosecutor, particular in capital cases,
would be someone who would be, you know, a fierce
supporter of our criminal justice system. I don't. I don't
(07:55):
even know if she was or wasn't, but that clearly
wasn't as relevant in the Supreme Court based on what
I had to deal with once they you know, once
I became governor a lot of other issues came to play,
and she was aligned with the pre empty not just wing.
I mean, it was a near total global domination for
a while. So but we made the choice jointly in
(08:16):
order to not have a food fight. At the very beginning,
just to remind everybody, this was the first time in
Florida's history a Republican governor, you know, not only a
Republican governor, but a conservative, I lingual, crazy guy from
Miami with libertarian instincts was working in concert with a
(08:37):
Republican legislature. Never happened before, and so I was really
focused on making sure that we got didn't have all
the controversies that happened all the time when you start out,
to stay focused on the agenda that I laid out
in my campaign, and that's what we tried to do.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
So some had advocated that there might be litigation over that,
but you went in a different direction because you didn't
want to distract from your priorities.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, exactly wanted to move on to get to the
A plus plan, the you know, the creation of a
much more compassionate child welfare system, funding the programs that
were here's a you guys will appreciate this. My first
week in office, in January of nineteen ninety nine, I'm
summoned to Judge Wilkerson, I think his named Wilkinson or Wilkerson's.
(09:26):
The building's named after him. Apparently it's a prominent federal
judge in Miami. To explain why he shouldn't take over
the program for the development disabled in the state. Okay,
I'm like, I'm not a lawyer. I had my gender.
I was really I knew my stuff pretty good. I
spent hours on the budget. I knew probably more about
the budget than most governors did. I'm kind of nerdy
(09:48):
about that stuff. But I didn't, like, you know, the
thought bubble. I'm in this federal court. I'm thinking, what
the hell like, can a federal judge take over a
state program? Was? I was kind of offended by that.
Apparently they can, And so I started to realize how
important the judiciary was, is my point, because almost every
(10:10):
week there was some other interface with the you know,
the federal courts or the state courts. And I learned
to appreciate the process of selecting judges because it does
have a huge long term impact, for sure, and I'm
proud of the fact that we set up a system
that I thought yielded pretty good results for the state.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
It absolutely did. So one of.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
The big reforms that came out of your initiatives was
death penalty reform in two thousand. Can you just tell
us briefly what that was about? And then you know,
we had a bad outcome at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Subsequently, we had an outcome of the Supreme Court. To
get to the end of the story that they ignored
the legislature, totally ignored them, just said, go little children,
this is not your purview. You can't create through legislation.
You can't invade the judiciary. And so I mean, for
those that are that are aware of the death penalty process,
(11:15):
it is beyond justice delayed, it is justice denied. And
as governor, I had a chance to I think right
off the bat, there was a case a guy named
his nickname was Tiny Davis because he was three hundred
and thirty pounds who brutally killed a pregnant mom in
two infants in Jacksonville. He was a neighbor and just
(11:38):
obliterated them in the most grotesque way, probably in the
early nineteen nineties or late nineteen eighties, as I recall,
I met the husband father, and he spoke quite eloquently
of the need to the system was so broken and
how many times can you imagine where there would be
an appeal and he'd have to be there and he
(11:59):
would listen to this and relive this tragedy over and
over again. I met many families like this, and so
we tried to reform the system. We couldn't reform the
federal part of it, which is just as horrendous in
terms of the appeals. When it goes to the federal system,
it is delayed beyond belief, no no accountability. It's designed
to kill the death penalty, rather than have the legislature
(12:21):
decide that that's the policy of the state. I would
respect that, but the courts were legislating this by their inaction.
So we went to the legislature. It was chaotic, beyond
belief because it's complicated. Thankfully, uh, Tony Jennings kind of
it got it got really, I don't know if you noticed.
Sometimes the legislature loses control of their own process. Seemed
(12:44):
like that happened this week actually, And and so she
pulled you know, she's an incredible leader. She she pulled
it out of the out of out of the you know,
the jaws of defeat, and we passed what would be
you know, putting real time constraints on the appeal process
so as to think maybe you could get this done
(13:05):
in five years, which should be done, you know, even
less so. And people have the right to make sure
that their cases are appealed and that there's a review
of all this got I totally get that, but for
to go on twenty five years, I think is just horrific.
And so you know, we passed it. It was it
was difficult, we got it done, and then the court
(13:25):
like the next day said it's not your business. Another
reason why selections of judges is kind of important, because
one case after another, and I'm sure we'll get to
the two thousand election. Everybody thinks about that a lot.
Our court in the early two thousands, the Supreme Court
and most of the judiciary was activist, liberal legislating and
(13:50):
basically not just all that, but also very monolithic. And
maybe this is a bias of not being part of
this kind of of cabal that exists. And I'm not
a police. Don't take offense if you went to the
University of Florida phenomenal school, don't take offense if you're
in blue key phenomenal organization, and don't take offense if
(14:12):
you're a moderate liberal white guy, because they basically ran
the state for like thirty forty to fifty years until
the new guys came in and the judiciary was run
similarly with this kind of mindset that was there was
very little diversity of thought and very little diversity of
life experience as well, and so we made an effort
(14:33):
to try to have people that were selected as judges
that reflected the incredible, wonderful nature of our state, which
is very diverse in many ways, and have front and
center an ideology that was, you know where the judiciary
wasn't an equal partner in the most aggressive one, but
it had more humility.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
So it's interesting about how the court chose to rely
on step ration of powers in the death penalty reform case,
because just a few months later in the two thousand,
in the cases that led up to Bush v. Gore,
the Court decided to meddle in the statutory deadlines for
returning the ballots to the Secretary of State and then
(15:19):
ordered a statewide recount. Selective recount.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Selective. They selected four counties for the most you know, democratic,
four counties that had a higher chance of finding mining
votes for the guy that I didn't support. So not
only did they, I mean they didn't show consistency. As
your point, it did reek with a little bit of irony.
(15:45):
I haven't thought about that in a long while, but
they that part of the problem was the law was
I guess the law was the you know, it was
properly passed, but the lack of of it was all
in every every state had a similar kind of deal.
There was a belief that local government's local entities were
(16:08):
in charge of the election and the standards should be
local as well, and so they tried to impose their
views on this in in it didn't. It didn't follow,
didn't mirror the legislation at all. It created chaos, and
it created the Supreme courts, the US Supreme Court's involvement,
(16:29):
which to this day they're getting you know, they continue
to be criticized for for their involvement. It's not their
fault that they were involved. It's the Florida Supreme Court,
by their actions that created the necessity or we would
have had a constitutional crisis of epic proportions.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Florida balance might not have been counted. The no, they
wouldn't have been It would not have been counted in
that election.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
No, they wouldn't have been.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
So two thousand mess was greatest, one of the greatest
legal experiences of my life.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Though.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Can I tell a quick story, because I still this
is a I was governor before there was social media.
I mean, like Wikipedia I even existed. But now that
now it exists, I don't know if you follow this stuff,
but it's pretty powerful. So on December twelfth in Mexic,
my wife'srom Mexico. On December twelfth, it is the celebration
(17:22):
of the Vitrea de Guadalupe. It is like the most
important iconic part. It's in the DNA of Mexico. It's history,
it's passed, its culture, and two million people during that
week have a pilgrimage to the church that was built
where the apparition of Christ was shown on a shawl
(17:44):
of peasant in fifteenth sixteenth century Mexico. So my wife
and I I actually was in Washington that in the
morning or on the eleventh to sign the Everglades or
to participate in this federal component the match program for
the restoration of the Everglades. So I'm in there. I'm
(18:06):
in the Oval with Bill Clinton, al Gore Wooden. There,
I go out have a press conference. They don't really
care about the restoration of the Everglades in the National
Press Corps. I'm surprised, but they were more curious about
our election. I'd rope a dope my way through. That.
Came back and I went to with my wife to
a place that is west of Quincy, Florida, in the
(18:29):
literally the middle of nowhere where there was they opened
a Catholic chap of church. There were probably three hundred
people there, two hundred and ninety nine Mexicans and me,
and we celebrated Mass there. This was a church that
was set up principally, I guess because of farm workers
(18:51):
that were in this area. They were mushroom growers, and
if you know anything about I learned about this, it
is an incredibly difficult job, these big warehouses where they
grow mushrooms, and so they were These are devout Catholics.
They celebrated masks on the way home. The Supreme Court ruled,
and so long story long. People today still think that
(19:13):
I took my wife on December twelfth to the to
the cathedral along with two million pilgrims to pray for
my brother's victory in front of the Virgin and you know,
I don't disagree with him anymore. I just say, yeah,
that's what I did, and it worked.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I'm sure there were a lot of us praying for
his victory. So in the next session in two thousand
and one, the reform of the JAY and C's comes about,
just by way of background, because I'm not sure if
everyone is aware of how the JAY and C's were.
Members of the Jay and C's were chosen byer. Then
(19:55):
it started with Governor Rubin ask you in the mid seventies.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Hawks have something to do with that? You had to
you did, Dan? You, Paul, Yes, you did.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Executive order an advisory board of three people appointed by
the governor, three people appointed by the Florida Bar and
those six together would appoint three others, and the governor
could reject anybody at the nominees from that group. So
(20:30):
that's what it was like under an executive order from
ruben Ascue. And then some years later in the nineties
it was codified into law and by statute, and it
was still the three, but now the governor had no
ability to veto the judicial nominees, and at some point
(20:51):
at least three nominees or no more than six, and
so that was but it was still the three to
three three that had been set up by Governor, ask you.
And so effectively the Bar had almost complete control of
how the JAY and C's operated, and we got those
(21:12):
very liberal judges that the governor was was talking about,
as well as the blue key mindset.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Let's call it no offense, great organization, but you got
my drift, I think.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
So in two thousand and one, we uh, the reform
came that that we were discussing earlier and the Daniel
was describing. And so now the governor got to appoint
all of the members of the JAY and C and
UH at least four of them from was from slates
(21:46):
nominated by the Florida Bar, but five the majority would
be direct appointments from the governor, and the governor also
had the ability to veto the bar's nominees. So uh,
that started in two thousand and one. As you may
know that many of you here are JANC members, it's
staggered terms, so it took a long time for the
(22:10):
process to work itself out, but you started, you started
doing it. When the next set of vacancies came up,
tell us a little bit about how you looked at
the judicial nominating commissions and your your appointments of those citizens.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I agree to respect the importance of the Florida legislature
for sure. The longer I stayed, you know, my first year,
it was like blowing through them kind of, and they
wanted to make sure the rookie governor was successful. And
over time I really realized the importance of being a
partner with the legislature. And this was a this was
(22:47):
their doing. I mean, it was a great idea. Uh,
they got it passed. And not only that, they there
was you know, we had we needed more judges in
the judiciary as well, and rather than have them be
go through elections, they gave they funded more slots and
they allowed the governor to pick them. So all power,
(23:09):
all praise goes to the legislature. All governors should be
reminded that they are an equal branch of government. It
might be a useful thing going forward.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
I heard something about that this week.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's you can get frustrated because
it's not a process that's as logical as we're normal
you know, normal people don't. It's it can be frustrating,
but there should be a lot of respect to the
process and they get credit for this. Look, we probably
I probably could have thrown back more judges using the
(23:46):
veto power commissioners. Yeah, I could have done that, probably
a little more aggressively. I think we did it once
or twice because it did take time for the process
to work. But when it did, it started working quite well.
And I think successive governors have really seen the caliber
of judges improved dramatically by that reform. I was really
(24:10):
pleased they did it, Paul. I thought you were involved
in that. You're normally involved in the good stuff in
the judiciary. That was one of them. Huh, it was okay,
that's what I thought.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
Oh he was a successful nominee. He was, you appointed him.
So you're getting nominees before and after the two thousand
and one reform. Tell us what you were looking for
in the judges and in retrospect with the criteria that
(24:42):
you were looking for, still the relevant criteria or would
you change anything?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
No? I think I mean, if the federal Society was
as big as it is now, I probably just said,
are you remember the Federalist Society? And ask people in
the Federal Society, if they're really Federal Society members. I mean,
it would have simplified the process. But there, look, I
relied on you and others that were part of the
(25:10):
process of interviewing to provide the legal framework. I asked
a few questions, and I stopped. I would ask a question,
what book are you reading? Because I asked that for everybody,
not just the judiciary, because it's an example of curiosity,
and I think being curious in life is really important
in leadership positions and positions of responsibility. Humility and curiosity
(25:34):
are like two ingredients to keep you grounded and keep
you learning and allow you to listen to other people
that may not agree with you. All this, you know,
froufrou stuff is actually pretty important. So I would ask questions,
like what book are you reading? It turns out everybody
was reading Robert Bork's book. I don't know. It was like, really, really,
you're reading Robert Bork's book. So I stopped asking that
(25:55):
question because it was or or if they did answer
it in a compleat fabricated fashion like that, you know,
memo to myself, probably not going to be what he
or she said she was going to do in the judiciary.
But we asked the standard questions. The one question I
thought was relevant is give me an example of a
(26:18):
Florida Supreme Court ruling or US But Prince, you know,
hopefully Florida Supreme Court ruling where you agreed with the decision,
but you disagreed with the policy that makes sense, where
you had a view in the you know, in the
political realm, but you knew that the judicial framework would
(26:39):
was the proper one to take, because I think that's
the ultimate test is are you are you legislating as
a politician or are you looking at things from a
judicial framework? And it was surprising how hard that was
for some of the candidates. They didn't they couldn't think
of one. Only this stuff gets out by the way,
(27:01):
you know, the questions. The next group will know what
the questions are going to be, and so they should
be prepared for that. But I was. It was really
quite unsatisfactory the responses that I generally got. And when
it was the the you know, when someone did have
an answer, it was clear and it was concise and
they had clearly thought it through. So this is not
(27:24):
a science, this is an art. But I relied on
the really talented legal office that we had. The alumni,
the Bush Legal alumni is pretty powerful because they were
pretty powerful when I was a governor, and you taught.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Us a lot in the process.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
I think I remember that at some point it switched
from bort to Scalia's matter of interpretation.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
People would walk in with the book, right, can I.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Tell a quick two thousand story another legal one? So
I'm I'm like, I come back from Austin. I'm like,
holy shit, what the hell? Like, why me? What's going
on here? It was pretty pretty dramatic, and over time
it was pretty clear that there was there were ministerial
duties that the that the the governor had and I
(28:11):
wanted to make sure that whatever those were, that I
followed them, you know, in an unimpeachable way, that it
was like done the right way. So I told Reg
Brown and Frankenmenez, my two deputy legal counsel, give me
the two smartest conservative constitutional experts. Invite them to for
(28:34):
a meeting for them to lay out the ministerial duties
of in the process of the electoral college and and
all you know, aspects of the post election work. And
you know who came John Roberts was not as a
judge obviously in John U. It was like wow, in retrospect,
(28:55):
it was like pretty impressive choices, and they gave me
the the advice that was pretty clear. But at least
I could say that I spoke to constitutional experts, because
no one is going to believe me being one. And
it was a fascinating time to see how it worked.
And this is obviously played out, you know, time and
time again, particularly in the in the sixteen or twenty election.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Absolutely, yeah, it's very different, very different approaches. The courts
kind of flipped from the let's do recounts to no recounts.
But I think it was consistent with the US Supreme
Court's opinion in bushby Gore.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Well. In Florida, the legislature responded to the mess that
we had with probably the model legislation for the rest
of the country. So all that Florida dust stuff that
just like drove me nuts. I love Florida, and I
think it's and now it's been proven out this place
is just the best by far of any state. I'm
(29:59):
you know, I'm totally biased, I admit it, not objective
about this, but but our law, our law is the
election law works really well, and you can call the
third largest states election by nine o'clock no matter how
close it is, and every state on a model that's
(30:20):
you know, the way it should work is whatever great
idea exists in one state, other states should steal it
if it's working and claim it as their own. And
it's still to this day. If Michigan or Pennsylvania had
a close election, they'd be in a heap of trouble.
I mean there's in Wisconsin. They haven't figured out what
they need to be doing. And the restoration of trust
(30:42):
of our institutions is probably the greatest challenge I think
for our democracy, and this would be a good thing to,
you know, do what Florida does. No more FloriDada what
we do, and you're going to be a lot better off.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
As a side note, so you helped improve the process,
got rid of the punch cards, no excuse Absentee voting was.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Added under you.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
Early voting was added under you, and you got rid
of an absolute incompetent supervisor of elections in Broward County.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
That was a huge improvement.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So let's go back to un fortunately ippointed someone who
got re elected and like two terms later. Mimic the
person that I fired. She started off okay, she had
a good twelve year round before she lost her way.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. In two thousand and.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
One, Repetetonaci went mister fix it.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
May he rest in peace, You rest in peace, Antonaci,
And then I think he fixed pum Beach. Yeah. Two
thousand and one, you have another Supreme Court vacancy, and
because of your appointment of Justice Quince to fill the
(31:58):
second DCA slot at the Florida Supreme Court, because you know,
you got to have at least five from the different dCas,
and then there's two out large appointments. I don't know
how the six DCA plays into this. Someone will tell me.
You appoint Justice Raoul Garcia Cantero, a Pellet lawyer extraordinaire
from Miami Dade County.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And the only mistake that I made about Raoul, and
this is a problem that's been resolved in a in
a really dramatic way, was I thought, I think everybody
around me, no one. No one told me a point
old people, a point young people that will be there
(32:41):
for a long long while. That was it made sense
to me at the time. The problem is the two
people that I did a point that were relatively young
to the Supreme Court had families and uh, they didn't
want to live in Tallahassee. Can't. I mean, it's not
the if you're if you're from Miami and your children
(33:01):
are growing up, it's not an easy thing to do.
Raoul and ken Bell both did nominal jobs I think
as Supreme Court justices, but the theory of having appointing
younger people didn't quite work out, and that probably delayed
the control of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
So Justice Bell was appointed in December of two. That
was I think my first day on the job were
the Flora Supreme Court interviews where he eventually got appointed.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
And now you can live where you can surf from
wherever you live, which we should have thought of.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
That the I think the Chief Justice could have done
something about it, but did not, and that's resulted.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
If they have almighty power, they could have done it.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
So one thing you mentioned earlier with your judicial appointments
the importance of diversity of thought and other forms of
diversity of experience. You know, today diversities kind of a
bad name in some circumstances, but you appointed a lot
of very qualified people who also represented a lot of
(34:09):
different parts of the state and the people here. I
just want to recite a couple of the statistics you
had over You had three hundred and forty three appointments
during your eight years, and minorities on the bench, self
identified minorities went from eighty five to one hundred and
(34:31):
forty four. Of that group, the black judges were increased
from forty six to sixty six state wide, and Hispanic
judges were increased from thirty two to sixty eight. And
women went up double what they used to be to
one hundred and nine. About a third of your appointments
(34:53):
were women. And so tell us a little bit about
how you viewed the importance of diversity in its many
forms and how you believe it improved the courts.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, so diversity has gotten a massively bad name because
it has been thrown into the context of oppressors and
oppressed in that depending on your birth or your circumstances,
you're either one. You're either one or the other. And
that's not the that's not the diversity that we embraced.
(35:29):
I really thought it was important, and again no disrespect
to the blue Key University of Florida. This is really
am getting in serious trouble. I'm thinking of Karen Hunger
is going to call me up and started shubting profanities.
But it was a different the state needed to change
to represent for people in leadership positions. I think that
(35:51):
had different backgrounds. I mean, just whether it was in
our office, or in the departments or in the judiciary.
I thought that that was an important thing, not so,
you know, as it relates to ideology. I wanted people
that shared my vision of the role of government, which
was it should be limited, it should be reformed. It
(36:11):
ought to be focused on outcomes. We should measure it.
If it doesn't work, we should stop it and move
on to other things. All that stuff that I truly
believe is important, and we had a chance to implement.
People shared that vision, but they came from all sorts
of backgrounds, and I think the judiciary is better off
when you have a diversity of opinion. I also found
(36:32):
that for the county courts, having some sense of who's
in front of you is kind of important. It just
and I learned this when I campaigned. I would sit
and again I'm kind of a nerd, so I was
curious about like juvenile justice, child welfare. You go sit
(36:53):
with a judge for three or four hours in a
courtroom or a county judge dealing with the minor crimes,
and you get a sense that of the soft underbelly
of your communities. You get a sense of how hard
this job is. And having someone who adheres to the
law but also has some understanding of the ply to people,
I think is kind of important. So all of that
(37:15):
was put into into the context of how we appointed judges,
and I think we, you know, we did. You know,
I got an award from some women's group for the
judicial appointments. It was kind of hilarious because this was
like this group I don't I remember the name, but.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
They were in an association of women lawyers.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I think they're all liberal, that's all I remember.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
There's a few conservative members of the group here.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
By the way, Well, I just this group that was
giving me the award. I think they may have came.
I don't know if they came to goup. Whatever it was.
I could tell you can tell when people are not
happy to be with you, that's uh. You learned that.
In my case, I learned it pretty pretty often. And
and so they were not but they you know, they
(38:00):
had to admit that we did this, but they were
a little grumpy about it. And and I'm happy that
we did it. And I think, you know, whether you're
a man or a woman, or black or Hispanic, or
you don't identify any of that stuff. You identify yourself
as a as an American. The talent that we had
a chance to appoint, I think is there for people
(38:21):
to see. And I'm proud of it.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
And and just to give a complete picture of how
you handled I mean you you started the One Florida
initiative eliminating preferences and contracting and other things. And you
you also eliminated set asides in the colleges and the universities,
in state government, state government, and merit based everything, but
(38:48):
still creating opportunity for everyone.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Yeah. So the executive order that I signed to this
day still exists. It's probably the longest serving executive order.
People don't want to go back to the legislature, I
guess and change the law. But the executive order, if
it was challenged, it was ruled kosher. So the idea
was to say, look that we had a department inside
(39:16):
the department of a bureau inside the Department of Labor
at the time that had call it thirty five forty
people whose job it was to certify that a black
person was a black person, and a Hispanic person was hispanic,
and a woman was a woman. I guess that's gotten
more complicated in the world we're in now. Back then,
it was not a complicated thing. It was pretty clear.
(39:37):
There was no like we're living in really weird times.
By the way, just for the record, any case, they
were regulators and they would spend a lot of money
and it was hard to be certified. And my attitude was, look,
this guy's black, he's got a business. Why spend all
this money. Helped him identify opportunities to sell, but don't
(40:00):
give him a fifteen percent preferential price or don't create quotas.
Let him compete, make sure you know. So we turned
that thirty five people into I think call it fifteen
salespeople whose job it was was identify opportunities for small businesses,
small minority in minority businesses, principally in women owned businesses.
And we had we had three digit increases in procurement
(40:24):
of services and goods three digits. Now, how does that happen?
I made it a priority. I actually measured it, and
I would have cabinet meetings and I would say, you know,
schmid Lap, you're really sucking at this. You got you know,
no no increase in in you know, like, why is it?
Why aren't you trying to figure out give people aspirational
(40:45):
people a chance to pull you know, push out the
incumbents a little bit, to have a more dynamic purchasing process.
It worked, we had, and to this day, I don't know.
I don't know if anybody else knew. You know, old
guy leaves, new guy comes in. I don't think anybody's
created did the same priority. But my guess is as
Florida has grown and changed, that women owned businesses and
(41:06):
minority own businesses are you know, are doing well with
state government. So university is the same thing. One of
the things that I'm really proud of when when One
Florida was initiated back to the University of Florida, it was,
it was, and to this day it's still probably a
(41:26):
little too lily white. But part of that is the location.
Gainesville is a tough place for people that live in
the urban core. Areas of our state. It's expensive to
get there. It's it's pretty tough. So Bernie Manchin came
to me and said, I got an idea. Give us
some funding all state universities, first in generation folks. Give
(41:48):
them a chance, give them a scholarship to help with
being able to come, you know, leave Miami or Fort
Lauderdale to go up to Gainesville. And to this day,
that is the single biggest driver of minority students at
the University of Florida. And they're now obviously alumni, and
they've given back disproportionately more. They're more engaged in the
(42:10):
university and the success is there for people to see that.
You know that you know, I don't know if that's
race conscious or not, but it's certainly not race based.
That is a far better way of dealing with people
that have the same aspirations of those that are you know,
more prosperous perhaps or have families that are more into
(42:31):
whatever the social consequences are, it is a much better
way of trying to deal with the issues that you
want to make sure that we live in an opportunity
society where everybody has a chance to rise up and succeed.
And Florida is a model now for other states. And
we were a little ahead of our time on the
FIR and move action thing. I mean that's another twenty
(42:53):
year story, right yep.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
Two Well, Amicus brief is briefs to the US Supreme Court,
authored by by Daniel and myself, mostly Daniel and Nate,
I think. So just to wrap up, we got a
couple of minutes only Bush v. Shivo, your own appointees.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
You you're the one that's going to talk about this.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Well, I get too emotional.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Justice Bell and Justice Cantaro, who I still consider friends,
voted with a unanimous Supreme Court to hold that the
legislation that gave you the ability to direct the reinforcement
the reinsertion of the feeding tube on Terry Chivo violated
separation of powers because the courts had already spoken that
it had to be removed.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Any thoughts on.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
All I gotta sad thoughts, okay, I mean, you know
the idea that you have parents that love their child
with their heart and soul. Again, this is not the law.
I'm not a lawyer. That she would be allowed to
start to death, forced to starve to death with their
parents right there willing to not be wards of the state,
(44:04):
not to have any state support. They would love their child,
She's a child of God, and I just you know,
it was really hard for me to be comfortable with that.
In fact was it was a miserable time. How long
did it take for the starvation to take place after
the court ruled? In days or something?
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Yeah, like seven to ten days. Ultimately the dehydration got her.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Most of the ten most miserable days of my life
as governor.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It was the low point of my career for sure.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
So but one thing that it would be became a
parent is the Florida legislature should change that law to
protect the rights of those that have no voice. That's
the answer, is the legislature could be clear about this.
(44:58):
The law that existed is one of the most progressive.
If progressive is the opposite of what I want, I'm
not sure that's the right definition. But the law here
is very permissive for the state to come in and
do what they did. I'm not sure why that is,
but there's precedent that was established I think in the eighties.
(45:21):
Perhaps that never was changed, and I don't believe it's
changed since then either.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
No, So to end on a high note, I just
want you to know that even though you only had
let's call it two and a half State Supreme Court appointments,
your influence has been felt on the State Supreme Court
to this day.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Two of our justices.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Chief Justice Carlos Munize was your deputy general counsel for
two years. Former Chief Justice Charles Kennedy was your general
counsel for a year, and then you appointed him to
the second DCA. He's my favorite judicial appointment because that
made it possible for me to go work for Owner Bush.
You appointed Ricky Poulston to the first d C, A
(46:05):
who's still on the court right no longer there, but
he was on the court. Judge Alan Lawson you had
appointed to the second DCA. He was on the court
for a while. And Judge Barbara Lagoa, who you appointed
to the third d C, A who was on the
State Supreme Court until President Trump recruited her way and
(46:27):
appointed her to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. So
it's too bad you didn't get all those appointments at
the same time. That would have been a really amazing
court with the Justice Bell and Justice Cantaro to seven seven.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Sharing the glory with Governor Scott and Desanis. I think,
you know, it did take a while. We went from
probably top you know, if you if you were a
judicial activist, Florida was probably top two or three in
the country in terms of judicial activism. That Supreme court today,
I would say that our Supreme Court is probably of
(47:03):
the state supreme courts, is probably the best. So it
took a while, but we certainly got there, and and
the hits keep on coming. I mean the selections. Governor
de Santas's selections to the courts have been phenomenal. Governor
Scott's have been as well. I won't mention the one
between had a majority soon he was probably pretty good
(47:28):
until he un till he wasn't so.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Medmal damages caps might still be there but for that appointment.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Elections have consequences, I guess, and in the case of
the state we love, these are really phenomenal consequences that
have a consistent conservatives in the legislature and then the
executive branch to make the judiciary a partner, an equal partner,
but a humble one.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Governor, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
We hope you'll come back whenever you like,
We're delighted to have here today Governor Jeb Bush, who
really needs no introduction, but he's going to get a
short one anyhow. And we also have Rocky Rodriguez, who
we can call her the General Council Closer. She closed
out the Bush term as General Counsel. Pertinent to the
discussion here. I think she helped with at least two
hundred judicial appointments. Some of you are sitting out there,
(00:27):
I'm sure, and so we're going to talk a little
bit about the importance of judicial selection. This is probably
good because it's literally been twenty five years since we
started this, from when you were elected in ninety nine.
So one of the things that people may not realize
is one of the things that was key was changing
the judicial nominating commissions. There's a short story about that.
(00:51):
We had somebody who was a Deputy Solicitor General, Lou Hubner,
who worked for the Attorney General's office. I could not
have actually told you whether he was a d you're
in r but I could have told you that he
actually understood interpreting statutes. And so we had an opening
on the first District Court of Appeal, and I suggested
to him that he might want to apply to put
in for that said, there's no guarantees, but i'd like
(01:13):
to see you do that.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So he put in a shame on me.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
He did not get an interview. No, what you need
to understand about lou Is At that point he had
almost four hundred published opinions where he was Council of record.
How many of you out here, if you're a judge,
you can't do this. How many of you they're not a.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Judge, have that? Very few of you?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
They explained in their wisdom that well, he was a
government attorney, and they thought there were enough government attorneys.
They didn't want to see any others up there. So
he didn't even have the courtesy of an interview. Given that,
we knew it was going to be extremely difficult to
get good judges through the process. Good judges were always
very important to the governor. He had a lot of
(01:54):
other policies that he wanted to implement, but obviously if
you don't have good judges, it's going to be difficult
to do that. Some things have come to fruition. It
took some time. The Florida Supreme Court finally shifted to
conservative in twenty nineteen, so you started in ninety nine.
Took about twenty years, But that twenty years wasn't wasted.
(02:14):
It was building up the lower courts that was going there.
One of the other things that the governor put a
lot of effort into was school choice, to give everybody
the opportunity to attend a school of their choice.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And it took again, it.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Took almost twenty five years, twenty four years. But now
in the state of Florida, we have scholarship programs, so
without regard to income, without regard to anything else, you
can actually apply and as long as there's space available,
you can take your trial to one at twenty four
hundred private schools. We've also got other school choice. So
it's my delight to have Governor Jeb Bush here today, Rocky.
(02:50):
It's also a delight to have you back up here.
And with that, I'm going to turn this over to
them for the discussion. Oh one thing I have to say,
we're going to try to do pictures after were two pictures.
If you were appointed by Governor Bush to a judge ship,
please come up. And if you worked in the Bush administration,
please come up.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Thank you very much. I think that's agism by the way,
if you do that.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Oh, thank you, Daniel.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
And as you may recall, Daniel was the General council
of the Florida Department of Education when Governor Bush was
in office, and prior to that, he was an assistant
General counsel in the Governor's legal office. So he's got
a long history with the governor and part of the
good fight. So let's pick up. You were elected. First
(03:41):
of all, thank you so much for making the trip
from Miami. Governor, we really appreciate it. I think everybody here,
if they don't already know you, they know of you
and are very inspired by what you've done to improve
our courts and our state. So let's go back to
(04:01):
nineteen ninety eight. You're elected on your second try for
the governor's office. You'd run previously in nineteen ninety four
and lost a close election to Governor Chiles.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
And a few.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Weeks after your election, there was a vacancy about to
be filled on the Florida Supreme Court. And I believe
Bobby Martinez was your one of your advisors at the
time on the judiciary and setting up your legal office,
and there was a question of which whether the outgoing
(04:41):
Governor Chiles was going to a pointer or whether you,
as the incoming governor, should appoint the new justice. So
can you tell us a little bit about what was
happening and how it was that the two of you
ended up doing a joint appointment of Justice.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Peggy Quince, Thank you, ROCKI The reason I'm here is
because it's payback time to rock Hil Rodriguez aka Rocky,
who spent more than four years or close to four years,
more than four point four years working for me get
keeping me out of trouble. The press secretary in my
(05:18):
office learned how to say what the governor meant to
say was and then clean up after me. And what
Rocky learned to do was to clean up after me
and something even more important, which was the legal messes
that I created by my policy and by my words.
So whenever she asked me to do anything for the
rest of my life and her life, I'll be there
to say thank you. So that's why I'm here.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So when I got elected, you know, I had I
had four five point plans to do a bunch of stuff.
I had. This was in the era. Politically, it's going
to sound like ancient history where you actually had plans
and you laid them out and you said, which you're
going to do, and you know you had to theoretically
the theory what behind this was for those who have
never seen this, that if you said what you're going
(06:07):
to do, you had a chance to actually do it.
And so I was all excited about our agenda. And
then you know what happens is stuff happens, including the
chance to make a Supreme Court pick before you're even
governor or depending on this circumstance. And I don't know
if it's ever been resolved, because I've I've learned to
move on once you're once you've finished serving, it's it's
(06:29):
time to find new things to focus on. So I
don't know if this this dilemma ever was finished. Which
was which is that the incoming or outcoming outgoing governor
that gets to make an appointment that is do on
the election day or on inauguration day. I still have
no clue. I don't think Governor Child's office had a
(06:50):
clue either. We both made efforts to suggest it was,
of course, the you know, it was the incoming in
our case, and he said the outgoing and so I
don't remember. I think it was probably Linda Shelley and
Sally Bradshaw probably said let's stop this ship and just
split the difference.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Of staff the respective government.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Perspective chief of staff in my case, and so we
So I had my first chance to interview judges before
before in December, before for the appointment. These were all
high caliber people, but they they really none of them
had the judicial philosophy that, as I understood it, at
least that would be important, you know, for selecting a
(07:32):
Supreme Court justice. And so it was. It was kind
of a random thing. I mean, I I thought, uh,
Justice quinc and I was probably wrong about this, because
of her experience as a prosecutor, particular in capital cases,
would be someone who would be, you know, a fierce
supporter of our criminal justice system. I don't. I don't
(07:55):
even know if she was or wasn't, but that clearly
wasn't as relevant in the Supreme Court based on what
I had to deal with once they you know, once
I became governor a lot of other issues came to play,
and she was aligned with the pre empty not just wing.
I mean, it was a near total global domination for
a while. So but we made the choice jointly in
(08:16):
order to not have a food fight. At the very beginning,
just to remind everybody, this was the first time in
Florida's history a Republican governor, you know, not only a
Republican governor, but a conservative, I lingual, crazy guy from
Miami with libertarian instincts was working in concert with a
(08:37):
Republican legislature. Never happened before, and so I was really
focused on making sure that we got didn't have all
the controversies that happened all the time when you start out,
to stay focused on the agenda that I laid out
in my campaign, and that's what we tried to do.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
So some had advocated that there might be litigation over that,
but you went in a different direction because you didn't
want to distract from your priorities.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, exactly wanted to move on to get to the
A plus plan, the you know, the creation of a
much more compassionate child welfare system, funding the programs that
were here's a you guys will appreciate this. My first
week in office, in January of nineteen ninety nine, I'm
summoned to Judge Wilkerson, I think his named Wilkinson or Wilkerson's.
(09:26):
The building's named after him. Apparently it's a prominent federal
judge in Miami. To explain why he shouldn't take over
the program for the development disabled in the state. Okay,
I'm like, I'm not a lawyer. I had my gender.
I was really I knew my stuff pretty good. I
spent hours on the budget. I knew probably more about
the budget than most governors did. I'm kind of nerdy
(09:48):
about that stuff. But I didn't, like, you know, the
thought bubble. I'm in this federal court. I'm thinking, what
the hell like, can a federal judge take over a
state program? Was? I was kind of offended by that.
Apparently they can, And so I started to realize how
important the judiciary was, is my point, because almost every
(10:10):
week there was some other interface with the you know,
the federal courts or the state courts. And I learned
to appreciate the process of selecting judges because it does
have a huge long term impact, for sure, and I'm
proud of the fact that we set up a system
that I thought yielded pretty good results for the state.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
It absolutely did. So one of.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
The big reforms that came out of your initiatives was
death penalty reform in two thousand. Can you just tell
us briefly what that was about? And then you know,
we had a bad outcome at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Subsequently, we had an outcome of the Supreme Court. To
get to the end of the story that they ignored
the legislature, totally ignored them, just said, go little children,
this is not your purview. You can't create through legislation.
You can't invade the judiciary. And so I mean, for
those that are that are aware of the death penalty process,
(11:15):
it is beyond justice delayed, it is justice denied. And
as governor, I had a chance to I think right
off the bat, there was a case a guy named
his nickname was Tiny Davis because he was three hundred
and thirty pounds who brutally killed a pregnant mom in
two infants in Jacksonville. He was a neighbor and just
(11:38):
obliterated them in the most grotesque way, probably in the
early nineteen nineties or late nineteen eighties, as I recall,
I met the husband father, and he spoke quite eloquently
of the need to the system was so broken and
how many times can you imagine where there would be
an appeal and he'd have to be there and he
(11:59):
would listen to this and relive this tragedy over and
over again. I met many families like this, and so
we tried to reform the system. We couldn't reform the
federal part of it, which is just as horrendous in
terms of the appeals. When it goes to the federal system,
it is delayed beyond belief, no no accountability. It's designed
to kill the death penalty, rather than have the legislature
(12:21):
decide that that's the policy of the state. I would
respect that, but the courts were legislating this by their inaction.
So we went to the legislature. It was chaotic, beyond
belief because it's complicated. Thankfully, uh, Tony Jennings kind of
it got it got really, I don't know if you noticed.
Sometimes the legislature loses control of their own process. Seemed
(12:44):
like that happened this week actually, And and so she
pulled you know, she's an incredible leader. She she pulled
it out of the out of out of the you know,
the jaws of defeat, and we passed what would be
you know, putting real time constraints on the appeal process
so as to think maybe you could get this done
(13:05):
in five years, which should be done, you know, even
less so. And people have the right to make sure
that their cases are appealed and that there's a review
of all this got I totally get that, but for
to go on twenty five years, I think is just horrific.
And so you know, we passed it. It was it
was difficult, we got it done, and then the court
(13:25):
like the next day said it's not your business. Another
reason why selections of judges is kind of important, because
one case after another, and I'm sure we'll get to
the two thousand election. Everybody thinks about that a lot.
Our court in the early two thousands, the Supreme Court
and most of the judiciary was activist, liberal legislating and
(13:50):
basically not just all that, but also very monolithic. And
maybe this is a bias of not being part of
this kind of of cabal that exists. And I'm not
a police. Don't take offense if you went to the
University of Florida phenomenal school, don't take offense if you're
in blue key phenomenal organization, and don't take offense if
(14:12):
you're a moderate liberal white guy, because they basically ran
the state for like thirty forty to fifty years until
the new guys came in and the judiciary was run
similarly with this kind of mindset that was there was
very little diversity of thought and very little diversity of
life experience as well, and so we made an effort
(14:33):
to try to have people that were selected as judges
that reflected the incredible, wonderful nature of our state, which
is very diverse in many ways, and have front and
center an ideology that was, you know where the judiciary
wasn't an equal partner in the most aggressive one, but
it had more humility.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
So it's interesting about how the court chose to rely
on step ration of powers in the death penalty reform case,
because just a few months later in the two thousand,
in the cases that led up to Bush v. Gore,
the Court decided to meddle in the statutory deadlines for
returning the ballots to the Secretary of State and then
(15:19):
ordered a statewide recount. Selective recount.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Selective. They selected four counties for the most you know, democratic,
four counties that had a higher chance of finding mining
votes for the guy that I didn't support. So not
only did they, I mean they didn't show consistency. As
your point, it did reek with a little bit of irony.
(15:45):
I haven't thought about that in a long while, but
they that part of the problem was the law was
I guess the law was the you know, it was
properly passed, but the lack of of it was all
in every every state had a similar kind of deal.
There was a belief that local government's local entities were
(16:08):
in charge of the election and the standards should be
local as well, and so they tried to impose their
views on this in in it didn't. It didn't follow,
didn't mirror the legislation at all. It created chaos, and
it created the Supreme courts, the US Supreme Court's involvement,
(16:29):
which to this day they're getting you know, they continue
to be criticized for for their involvement. It's not their
fault that they were involved. It's the Florida Supreme Court,
by their actions that created the necessity or we would
have had a constitutional crisis of epic proportions.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Florida balance might not have been counted. The no, they
wouldn't have been It would not have been counted in
that election.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
No, they wouldn't have been.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
So two thousand mess was greatest, one of the greatest
legal experiences of my life.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Though.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Can I tell a quick story, because I still this
is a I was governor before there was social media.
I mean, like Wikipedia I even existed. But now that
now it exists, I don't know if you follow this stuff,
but it's pretty powerful. So on December twelfth in Mexic,
my wife'srom Mexico. On December twelfth, it is the celebration
(17:22):
of the Vitrea de Guadalupe. It is like the most
important iconic part. It's in the DNA of Mexico. It's history,
it's passed, its culture, and two million people during that
week have a pilgrimage to the church that was built
where the apparition of Christ was shown on a shawl
(17:44):
of peasant in fifteenth sixteenth century Mexico. So my wife
and I I actually was in Washington that in the
morning or on the eleventh to sign the Everglades or
to participate in this federal component the match program for
the restoration of the Everglades. So I'm in there. I'm
(18:06):
in the Oval with Bill Clinton, al Gore Wooden. There,
I go out have a press conference. They don't really
care about the restoration of the Everglades in the National
Press Corps. I'm surprised, but they were more curious about
our election. I'd rope a dope my way through. That.
Came back and I went to with my wife to
a place that is west of Quincy, Florida, in the
(18:29):
literally the middle of nowhere where there was they opened
a Catholic chap of church. There were probably three hundred
people there, two hundred and ninety nine Mexicans and me,
and we celebrated Mass there. This was a church that
was set up principally, I guess because of farm workers
(18:51):
that were in this area. They were mushroom growers, and
if you know anything about I learned about this, it
is an incredibly difficult job, these big warehouses where they
grow mushrooms, and so they were These are devout Catholics.
They celebrated masks on the way home. The Supreme Court ruled,
and so long story long. People today still think that
(19:13):
I took my wife on December twelfth to the to
the cathedral along with two million pilgrims to pray for
my brother's victory in front of the Virgin and you know,
I don't disagree with him anymore. I just say, yeah,
that's what I did, and it worked.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I'm sure there were a lot of us praying for
his victory. So in the next session in two thousand
and one, the reform of the JAY and C's comes about,
just by way of background, because I'm not sure if
everyone is aware of how the JAY and C's were.
Members of the Jay and C's were chosen byer. Then
(19:55):
it started with Governor Rubin ask you in the mid seventies.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Hawks have something to do with that? You had to
you did, Dan? You, Paul, Yes, you did.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Executive order an advisory board of three people appointed by
the governor, three people appointed by the Florida Bar and
those six together would appoint three others, and the governor
could reject anybody at the nominees from that group. So
(20:30):
that's what it was like under an executive order from
ruben Ascue. And then some years later in the nineties
it was codified into law and by statute, and it
was still the three, but now the governor had no
ability to veto the judicial nominees, and at some point
(20:51):
at least three nominees or no more than six, and
so that was but it was still the three to
three three that had been set up by Governor, ask you.
And so effectively the Bar had almost complete control of
how the JAY and C's operated, and we got those
(21:12):
very liberal judges that the governor was was talking about,
as well as the blue key mindset.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Let's call it no offense, great organization, but you got
my drift, I think.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
So in two thousand and one, we uh, the reform
came that that we were discussing earlier and the Daniel
was describing. And so now the governor got to appoint
all of the members of the JAY and C and
UH at least four of them from was from slates
(21:46):
nominated by the Florida Bar, but five the majority would
be direct appointments from the governor, and the governor also
had the ability to veto the bar's nominees. So uh,
that started in two thousand and one. As you may
know that many of you here are JANC members, it's
staggered terms, so it took a long time for the
(22:10):
process to work itself out, but you started, you started
doing it. When the next set of vacancies came up,
tell us a little bit about how you looked at
the judicial nominating commissions and your your appointments of those citizens.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I agree to respect the importance of the Florida legislature
for sure. The longer I stayed, you know, my first year,
it was like blowing through them kind of, and they
wanted to make sure the rookie governor was successful. And
over time I really realized the importance of being a
partner with the legislature. And this was a this was
(22:47):
their doing. I mean, it was a great idea. Uh,
they got it passed. And not only that, they there
was you know, we had we needed more judges in
the judiciary as well, and rather than have them be
go through elections, they gave they funded more slots and
they allowed the governor to pick them. So all power,
(23:09):
all praise goes to the legislature. All governors should be
reminded that they are an equal branch of government. It
might be a useful thing going forward.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
I heard something about that this week.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's you can get frustrated because
it's not a process that's as logical as we're normal
you know, normal people don't. It's it can be frustrating,
but there should be a lot of respect to the
process and they get credit for this. Look, we probably
I probably could have thrown back more judges using the
(23:46):
veto power commissioners. Yeah, I could have done that, probably
a little more aggressively. I think we did it once
or twice because it did take time for the process
to work. But when it did, it started working quite well.
And I think successive governors have really seen the caliber
of judges improved dramatically by that reform. I was really
(24:10):
pleased they did it, Paul. I thought you were involved
in that. You're normally involved in the good stuff in
the judiciary. That was one of them. Huh, it was okay,
that's what I thought.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
Oh he was a successful nominee. He was, you appointed him.
So you're getting nominees before and after the two thousand
and one reform. Tell us what you were looking for
in the judges and in retrospect with the criteria that
(24:42):
you were looking for, still the relevant criteria or would
you change anything?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
No? I think I mean, if the federal Society was
as big as it is now, I probably just said,
are you remember the Federalist Society? And ask people in
the Federal Society, if they're really Federal Society members. I mean,
it would have simplified the process. But there, look, I
relied on you and others that were part of the
(25:10):
process of interviewing to provide the legal framework. I asked
a few questions, and I stopped. I would ask a question,
what book are you reading? Because I asked that for everybody,
not just the judiciary, because it's an example of curiosity,
and I think being curious in life is really important
in leadership positions and positions of responsibility. Humility and curiosity
(25:34):
are like two ingredients to keep you grounded and keep
you learning and allow you to listen to other people
that may not agree with you. All this, you know,
froufrou stuff is actually pretty important. So I would ask questions,
like what book are you reading? It turns out everybody
was reading Robert Bork's book. I don't know. It was like, really, really,
you're reading Robert Bork's book. So I stopped asking that
(25:55):
question because it was or or if they did answer
it in a compleat fabricated fashion like that, you know,
memo to myself, probably not going to be what he
or she said she was going to do in the judiciary.
But we asked the standard questions. The one question I
thought was relevant is give me an example of a
(26:18):
Florida Supreme Court ruling or US But Prince, you know,
hopefully Florida Supreme Court ruling where you agreed with the decision,
but you disagreed with the policy that makes sense, where
you had a view in the you know, in the
political realm, but you knew that the judicial framework would
(26:39):
was the proper one to take, because I think that's
the ultimate test is are you are you legislating as
a politician or are you looking at things from a
judicial framework? And it was surprising how hard that was
for some of the candidates. They didn't they couldn't think
of one. Only this stuff gets out by the way,
(27:01):
you know, the questions. The next group will know what
the questions are going to be, and so they should
be prepared for that. But I was. It was really
quite unsatisfactory the responses that I generally got. And when
it was the the you know, when someone did have
an answer, it was clear and it was concise and
they had clearly thought it through. So this is not
(27:24):
a science, this is an art. But I relied on
the really talented legal office that we had. The alumni,
the Bush Legal alumni is pretty powerful because they were
pretty powerful when I was a governor, and you taught.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Us a lot in the process.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
I think I remember that at some point it switched
from bort to Scalia's matter of interpretation.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
People would walk in with the book, right, can I.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Tell a quick two thousand story another legal one? So
I'm I'm like, I come back from Austin. I'm like,
holy shit, what the hell? Like, why me? What's going
on here? It was pretty pretty dramatic, and over time
it was pretty clear that there was there were ministerial
duties that the that the the governor had and I
(28:11):
wanted to make sure that whatever those were, that I
followed them, you know, in an unimpeachable way, that it
was like done the right way. So I told Reg
Brown and Frankenmenez, my two deputy legal counsel, give me
the two smartest conservative constitutional experts. Invite them to for
(28:34):
a meeting for them to lay out the ministerial duties
of in the process of the electoral college and and
all you know, aspects of the post election work. And
you know who came John Roberts was not as a
judge obviously in John U. It was like wow, in retrospect,
(28:55):
it was like pretty impressive choices, and they gave me
the the advice that was pretty clear. But at least
I could say that I spoke to constitutional experts, because
no one is going to believe me being one. And
it was a fascinating time to see how it worked.
And this is obviously played out, you know, time and
time again, particularly in the in the sixteen or twenty election.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Absolutely, yeah, it's very different, very different approaches. The courts
kind of flipped from the let's do recounts to no recounts.
But I think it was consistent with the US Supreme
Court's opinion in bushby Gore.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Well. In Florida, the legislature responded to the mess that
we had with probably the model legislation for the rest
of the country. So all that Florida dust stuff that
just like drove me nuts. I love Florida, and I
think it's and now it's been proven out this place
is just the best by far of any state. I'm
(29:59):
you know, I'm totally biased, I admit it, not objective
about this, but but our law, our law is the
election law works really well, and you can call the
third largest states election by nine o'clock no matter how
close it is, and every state on a model that's
(30:20):
you know, the way it should work is whatever great
idea exists in one state, other states should steal it
if it's working and claim it as their own. And
it's still to this day. If Michigan or Pennsylvania had
a close election, they'd be in a heap of trouble.
I mean there's in Wisconsin. They haven't figured out what
they need to be doing. And the restoration of trust
(30:42):
of our institutions is probably the greatest challenge I think
for our democracy, and this would be a good thing to,
you know, do what Florida does. No more FloriDada what
we do, and you're going to be a lot better off.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
As a side note, so you helped improve the process,
got rid of the punch cards, no excuse Absentee voting was.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Added under you.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
Early voting was added under you, and you got rid
of an absolute incompetent supervisor of elections in Broward County.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
That was a huge improvement.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So let's go back to un fortunately ippointed someone who
got re elected and like two terms later. Mimic the
person that I fired. She started off okay, she had
a good twelve year round before she lost her way.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. In two thousand and.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
One, Repetetonaci went mister fix it.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
May he rest in peace, You rest in peace, Antonaci,
And then I think he fixed pum Beach. Yeah. Two
thousand and one, you have another Supreme Court vacancy, and
because of your appointment of Justice Quince to fill the
(31:58):
second DCA slot at the Florida Supreme Court, because you know,
you got to have at least five from the different dCas,
and then there's two out large appointments. I don't know
how the six DCA plays into this. Someone will tell me.
You appoint Justice Raoul Garcia Cantero, a Pellet lawyer extraordinaire
from Miami Dade County.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And the only mistake that I made about Raoul, and
this is a problem that's been resolved in a in
a really dramatic way, was I thought, I think everybody
around me, no one. No one told me a point
old people, a point young people that will be there
(32:41):
for a long long while. That was it made sense
to me at the time. The problem is the two
people that I did a point that were relatively young
to the Supreme Court had families and uh, they didn't
want to live in Tallahassee. Can't. I mean, it's not
the if you're if you're from Miami and your children
(33:01):
are growing up, it's not an easy thing to do.
Raoul and ken Bell both did nominal jobs I think
as Supreme Court justices, but the theory of having appointing
younger people didn't quite work out, and that probably delayed
the control of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
So Justice Bell was appointed in December of two. That
was I think my first day on the job were
the Flora Supreme Court interviews where he eventually got appointed.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
And now you can live where you can surf from
wherever you live, which we should have thought of.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
That the I think the Chief Justice could have done
something about it, but did not, and that's resulted.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
If they have almighty power, they could have done it.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
So one thing you mentioned earlier with your judicial appointments
the importance of diversity of thought and other forms of
diversity of experience. You know, today diversities kind of a
bad name in some circumstances, but you appointed a lot
of very qualified people who also represented a lot of
(34:09):
different parts of the state and the people here. I
just want to recite a couple of the statistics you
had over You had three hundred and forty three appointments
during your eight years, and minorities on the bench, self
identified minorities went from eighty five to one hundred and
(34:31):
forty four. Of that group, the black judges were increased
from forty six to sixty six state wide, and Hispanic
judges were increased from thirty two to sixty eight. And
women went up double what they used to be to
one hundred and nine. About a third of your appointments
(34:53):
were women. And so tell us a little bit about
how you viewed the importance of diversity in its many
forms and how you believe it improved the courts.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, so diversity has gotten a massively bad name because
it has been thrown into the context of oppressors and
oppressed in that depending on your birth or your circumstances,
you're either one. You're either one or the other. And
that's not the that's not the diversity that we embraced.
(35:29):
I really thought it was important, and again no disrespect
to the blue Key University of Florida. This is really
am getting in serious trouble. I'm thinking of Karen Hunger
is going to call me up and started shubting profanities.
But it was a different the state needed to change
to represent for people in leadership positions. I think that
(35:51):
had different backgrounds. I mean, just whether it was in
our office, or in the departments or in the judiciary.
I thought that that was an important thing, not so,
you know, as it relates to ideology. I wanted people
that shared my vision of the role of government, which
was it should be limited, it should be reformed. It
(36:11):
ought to be focused on outcomes. We should measure it.
If it doesn't work, we should stop it and move
on to other things. All that stuff that I truly
believe is important, and we had a chance to implement.
People shared that vision, but they came from all sorts
of backgrounds, and I think the judiciary is better off
when you have a diversity of opinion. I also found
(36:32):
that for the county courts, having some sense of who's
in front of you is kind of important. It just
and I learned this when I campaigned. I would sit
and again I'm kind of a nerd, so I was
curious about like juvenile justice, child welfare. You go sit
(36:53):
with a judge for three or four hours in a
courtroom or a county judge dealing with the minor crimes,
and you get a sense that of the soft underbelly
of your communities. You get a sense of how hard
this job is. And having someone who adheres to the
law but also has some understanding of the ply to people,
I think is kind of important. So all of that
(37:15):
was put into into the context of how we appointed judges,
and I think we, you know, we did. You know,
I got an award from some women's group for the
judicial appointments. It was kind of hilarious because this was
like this group I don't I remember the name, but.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
They were in an association of women lawyers.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I think they're all liberal, that's all I remember.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
There's a few conservative members of the group here.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
By the way, Well, I just this group that was
giving me the award. I think they may have came.
I don't know if they came to goup. Whatever it was.
I could tell you can tell when people are not
happy to be with you, that's uh. You learned that.
In my case, I learned it pretty pretty often. And
and so they were not but they you know, they
(38:00):
had to admit that we did this, but they were
a little grumpy about it. And and I'm happy that
we did it. And I think, you know, whether you're
a man or a woman, or black or Hispanic, or
you don't identify any of that stuff. You identify yourself
as a as an American. The talent that we had
a chance to appoint, I think is there for people
(38:21):
to see. And I'm proud of it.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
And and just to give a complete picture of how
you handled I mean you you started the One Florida
initiative eliminating preferences and contracting and other things. And you
you also eliminated set asides in the colleges and the universities,
in state government, state government, and merit based everything, but
(38:48):
still creating opportunity for everyone.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Yeah. So the executive order that I signed to this
day still exists. It's probably the longest serving executive order.
People don't want to go back to the legislature, I
guess and change the law. But the executive order, if
it was challenged, it was ruled kosher. So the idea
was to say, look that we had a department inside
(39:16):
the department of a bureau inside the Department of Labor
at the time that had call it thirty five forty
people whose job it was to certify that a black
person was a black person, and a Hispanic person was hispanic,
and a woman was a woman. I guess that's gotten
more complicated in the world we're in now. Back then,
it was not a complicated thing. It was pretty clear.
(39:37):
There was no like we're living in really weird times.
By the way, just for the record, any case, they
were regulators and they would spend a lot of money
and it was hard to be certified. And my attitude was, look,
this guy's black, he's got a business. Why spend all
this money. Helped him identify opportunities to sell, but don't
(40:00):
give him a fifteen percent preferential price or don't create quotas.
Let him compete, make sure you know. So we turned
that thirty five people into I think call it fifteen
salespeople whose job it was was identify opportunities for small businesses,
small minority in minority businesses, principally in women owned businesses.
And we had we had three digit increases in procurement
(40:24):
of services and goods three digits. Now, how does that happen?
I made it a priority. I actually measured it, and
I would have cabinet meetings and I would say, you know,
schmid Lap, you're really sucking at this. You got you know,
no no increase in in you know, like, why is it?
Why aren't you trying to figure out give people aspirational
(40:45):
people a chance to pull you know, push out the
incumbents a little bit, to have a more dynamic purchasing process.
It worked, we had, and to this day, I don't know.
I don't know if anybody else knew. You know, old
guy leaves, new guy comes in. I don't think anybody's
created did the same priority. But my guess is as
Florida has grown and changed, that women owned businesses and
(41:06):
minority own businesses are you know, are doing well with
state government. So university is the same thing. One of
the things that I'm really proud of when when One
Florida was initiated back to the University of Florida, it was,
it was, and to this day it's still probably a
(41:26):
little too lily white. But part of that is the location.
Gainesville is a tough place for people that live in
the urban core. Areas of our state. It's expensive to
get there. It's it's pretty tough. So Bernie Manchin came
to me and said, I got an idea. Give us
some funding all state universities, first in generation folks. Give
(41:48):
them a chance, give them a scholarship to help with
being able to come, you know, leave Miami or Fort
Lauderdale to go up to Gainesville. And to this day,
that is the single biggest driver of minority students at
the University of Florida. And they're now obviously alumni, and
they've given back disproportionately more. They're more engaged in the
(42:10):
university and the success is there for people to see that.
You know that you know, I don't know if that's
race conscious or not, but it's certainly not race based.
That is a far better way of dealing with people
that have the same aspirations of those that are you know,
more prosperous perhaps or have families that are more into
(42:31):
whatever the social consequences are, it is a much better
way of trying to deal with the issues that you
want to make sure that we live in an opportunity
society where everybody has a chance to rise up and succeed.
And Florida is a model now for other states. And
we were a little ahead of our time on the
FIR and move action thing. I mean that's another twenty
(42:53):
year story, right yep.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
Two Well, Amicus brief is briefs to the US Supreme Court,
authored by by Daniel and myself, mostly Daniel and Nate,
I think. So just to wrap up, we got a
couple of minutes only Bush v. Shivo, your own appointees.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
You you're the one that's going to talk about this.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Well, I get too emotional.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Justice Bell and Justice Cantaro, who I still consider friends,
voted with a unanimous Supreme Court to hold that the
legislation that gave you the ability to direct the reinforcement
the reinsertion of the feeding tube on Terry Chivo violated
separation of powers because the courts had already spoken that
it had to be removed.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Any thoughts on.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
All I gotta sad thoughts, okay, I mean, you know
the idea that you have parents that love their child
with their heart and soul. Again, this is not the law.
I'm not a lawyer. That she would be allowed to
start to death, forced to starve to death with their
parents right there willing to not be wards of the state,
(44:04):
not to have any state support. They would love their child,
She's a child of God, and I just you know,
it was really hard for me to be comfortable with that.
In fact was it was a miserable time. How long
did it take for the starvation to take place after
the court ruled? In days or something?
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Yeah, like seven to ten days. Ultimately the dehydration got her.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Most of the ten most miserable days of my life
as governor.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It was the low point of my career for sure.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
So but one thing that it would be became a
parent is the Florida legislature should change that law to
protect the rights of those that have no voice. That's
the answer, is the legislature could be clear about this.
(44:58):
The law that existed is one of the most progressive.
If progressive is the opposite of what I want, I'm
not sure that's the right definition. But the law here
is very permissive for the state to come in and
do what they did. I'm not sure why that is,
but there's precedent that was established I think in the eighties.
(45:21):
Perhaps that never was changed, and I don't believe it's
changed since then either.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
No, So to end on a high note, I just
want you to know that even though you only had
let's call it two and a half State Supreme Court appointments,
your influence has been felt on the State Supreme Court
to this day.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Two of our justices.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Chief Justice Carlos Munize was your deputy general counsel for
two years. Former Chief Justice Charles Kennedy was your general
counsel for a year, and then you appointed him to
the second DCA. He's my favorite judicial appointment because that
made it possible for me to go work for Owner Bush.
You appointed Ricky Poulston to the first d C, A
(46:05):
who's still on the court right no longer there, but
he was on the court. Judge Alan Lawson you had
appointed to the second DCA. He was on the court
for a while. And Judge Barbara Lagoa, who you appointed
to the third d C, A who was on the
State Supreme Court until President Trump recruited her way and
(46:27):
appointed her to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. So
it's too bad you didn't get all those appointments at
the same time. That would have been a really amazing
court with the Justice Bell and Justice Cantaro to seven seven.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Sharing the glory with Governor Scott and Desanis. I think,
you know, it did take a while. We went from
probably top you know, if you if you were a
judicial activist, Florida was probably top two or three in
the country in terms of judicial activism. That Supreme court today,
I would say that our Supreme Court is probably of
(47:03):
the state supreme courts, is probably the best. So it
took a while, but we certainly got there, and and
the hits keep on coming. I mean the selections. Governor
de Santas's selections to the courts have been phenomenal. Governor
Scott's have been as well. I won't mention the one
between had a majority soon he was probably pretty good
(47:28):
until he un till he wasn't so.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Medmal damages caps might still be there but for that appointment.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Elections have consequences, I guess, and in the case of
the state we love, these are really phenomenal consequences that
have a consistent conservatives in the legislature and then the
executive branch to make the judiciary a partner, an equal partner,
but a humble one.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Governor, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
We hope you'll come back whenever you like,
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