Jeb Bush quietly removed FL's Confederate flag in 2001, in advance of his 2002 campaign

[seafan]

So, now, after last week's massacre at the historic black church in Charleston, S. C., in which a 21-year old white supremacist murdered nine African American worshipers, Jeb Bush has decided to capitalize on his executive decision as Florida's governor in 2001, to remove the Confederate flag over the state capitol in Tallahassee, by showcasing that decision as proof of his concern for the inflammatory symbolism it represents. He now emerges with his opinion as to the fate of the South Carolina battle flag.

My position on how to address the Confederate flag is clear. In Florida, we acted, moving the flag from the state grounds to a museum where it belonged. This is obviously a very sensitive time in South Carolina and our prayers are with the families, the AME church community and the entire state. Following a period of mourning, there will rightly be a discussion among leaders in the state about how South Carolina should move forward and I'm confident they will do the right thing.

Notice that Bush did not explicitly state that the rebel flag 'should come down' from the memorial near the South Carolina State House--- only that he was 'confident they will do the right thing'. That's not a particularly clear position, but, under its surface, quite calculated. He is highlighting his 14-year old executive action in Florida to gain political advantage in 2015 on this explosive issue.

Wait a minute, Jeb.


There is a backstory to Jeb Bush's executive order in 2001 to remove the Confederate flag that had flown over the Florida capitol since 1978.

Jeb Bush had just won the battle for the governorship in late 1998. He blew into Tallahassee in January, 1999 like a hurricane, determined to enforce his agenda and to take no prisoners along the way. Also, his brother was setting up a run for the presidency in 2000. Soon after Jeb took office in 1999, an anti-affirmative action zealot named Ward Connerly traveled to Florida to push a ballot initiative for the 2000 ballot, that would remove racial preferences. Mr. Connerly had pushed the same ballot initiatives in California and Washington, and it had the unsurprising effect of damaging the overall outcome for the GOP. Jeb saw this happen, and decided that allowing Mr. Connerly's divisive tactics in Florida would threaten the GOP's chances in the 2000 election by increasing Democratic minority turnout at the polls.

Jeb wanted to end affirmative action in Florida, and he

..... expressed skepticism about Florida's affirmative-action policies, which he described in one private email as "stupid and destructive." So Bush decided to preempt Connerly's effort by ending affirmative action in Florida himself. He did so by signing Executive Order 99-281 on November 9, 1999.

Alongside his executive order, Bush proposed replacing affirmative action at Florida's state-run universities and in government contracting with an initiative he called One Florida. Under the new plan, students in the top 20 percent of each public high school class would be guaranteed admission to one of the state's public universities. On the contracting side, Bush's order wiped out set-asides and price preferences for minority-owned businesses. Instead, Bush sought to increase diversity in procurement by streamlining the certification process for minority vendors and encouraging purchasing officers to reach out to minority businesses.

From the outset, many observers suspected an ulterior motive lurked behind Bush's executive order. With George W. Bush then the likely GOP nominee for president, Connerly's contentious proposal could be expected to drive Democratic-leaning black voters to the polls in the 2000 election and potentially imperil his path to the White House. CNN's Inside Politics dubbed Bush's executive order the "political 'Play of the Week.'" Bush denied that his brother's presidential ambitions had influenced his decision, but the mere suggestion was damaging. For African Americans, "it was like their interests are being subordinated to the political interest of the Bush family," says Florida State University political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith.

The public outrage triggered by One Florida largely focused on Bush's decision to act unilaterally. "It was a very high-handed way to make a very controversial decision," notes deHaven-Smith. Black legislators complained bitterly of being left out the process of crafting a policy that would have a significant impact on their community. "He never talked to me. He never talked to any African Americans that I knew about what he was doing," recalls former state Sen. Les Miller, who served as the Democratic minority leader at the time. "It was a slap in the face."

.....

To fully implement One Florida, Bush needed the State University System Board of Regents to approve his ban on racial considerations in state college admissions. In a twist not lost on Bush's critics, the regents vote was scheduled for Friday, January 21, the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A few days prior to the vote, in a last-ditch effort to convince Bush to scrap his plan, a handful of black state lawmakers met with Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan at the state Capitol to make their case. During the meeting, Bush briefly popped in, telling the lawmakers that if they were waiting for him to rescind his executive order, "you might as well get some blankets," according to the Orlando Sentinel. Democratic state Sen. Kendrick Meek (who would later serve in Congress) and state Rep. Tony Hill responded by staging a sit-in on the spot.

The protest was a public relations disaster for Bush, with newspapers likening it to the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s. As Meek and Hill camped out in executive office suite into the evening—and a couple hundred protesters gathered outside the Capitol singing "We Shall Overcome"—Bush ordered his aides to "throw their asses out." The remark that was caught on video in time for the nightly news.

.....

When Bush ran for reelection in 2002, his support among black voters dropped by more than 50 percent.

The effect of all of this was that with his minority voter purge lists and One Florida, Bush alienated African Americans against him during his very first year in office, 1999. And he never looked back. After all, when he was asked during his first campaign for governor in 1994, what he would do for black Floridians, his answer was, "Probably nothing".

"They're not going to change their minds about him for a century," de-Haven-Smith predicts.

Bush's One Florida move was indicative of his go-it-alone governing style. Bush seemed proud of this. Ten days after signing the executive order ending affirmative action, he wrote to a supporter, "I have always felt that big hairy audacious ideas need to be implemented rather than talked about." Bush did become "more willing to respectfully disagree" in the ensuing years, says Matthew Corrigan, a professor at the University of North Florida and the author of Conservative Hurricane: How Jeb Bush Remade Florida. But when it came to making decisions without much consultation, Corrigan says, Bush didn't change much: "He's in charge and believes in executive power." Former state Sen. Miller recalls, "I was there for most of his two terms in the Legislature, and I can tell you right now, it was a tough task dealing with Jeb Bush. As many people say, it was Jeb Bush's way or no way at all."

Bush decided to remove the flags in late December (2000), though he had been contemplating the act for more than a year, Baur said. Removing the flag was not an attempt to appease blacks who felt disenfranchised during the presidential election, she said.

The close margin in Florida between Bush's brother George and Democrat Al Gore triggered vote recounts and widespread reports of voting irregularities, particularly in minority communities. The U.S. Supreme Court decided the election in Bush's favor on Dec. 12.

State Sen. Kendrick Meek, a black Democrat from Miami and vocal critic of Gov. Bush, sees an ulterior motive.

"I think the last thing the governor needs is these continuing waves of run-ins with African-Americans," Meek said. "I think he's going through a checklist of things he can possibly correct between now and the 2002 election to try to diffuse any of those issues."

Baur rejected Meek's theory.

"It has absolutely nothing to do with that. The governor's office has been thinking about this for a long time," Baur said.

1999: Jeb Bush gets himself into trouble with African Americans by a stealth executive order to end affirmative action and by creating One Florida. He starts considering removing the Confederate flag from the Capitol building.

2000: Jeb Bush's purge lists and his very active role in disenfranchising black voters in a hotly disputed election that Jeb facilitated for his brother to seize via a Supreme Court ruling to stop counting votes, enrage the state and the country.

February 2, 2001: With little notice, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris quietly remove the Confederate flag from the Capitol.

TALLAHASSEE -- The Confederate flag was removed this month from the Florida state Capitol, with little notice and none of the uproar that accompanied its departure in other Southern states.

The "Stainless Banner," which features the Confederate battle flag design in the top left corner of a field of white, was retired Feb. 2. It had flown since 1978 outside the Capitol's west entrance.

Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris -- Republicans who angered thousands of black Floridians during the controversial presidential election -- simply decided it was time for the flag to go.

"Regardless of our views about the symbolism of the ... flags -- and people of goodwill can disagree on the subject -- the governor believes that most Floridians would agree that the symbols of Florida's past should not be displayed in a manner that may divide Floridians today," Bush spokeswoman Katie Baur said in a statement at the time, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

Bush’s action came at a time when wounds were still fresh from the contentious 2000 recount in Florida, which ended in his brother, George W. Bush, officially winning the state’s 25 electoral votes -- and thereby the presidency -- by just 537 votes out of almost 6 million cast.

Reports of voting irregularities across the state were especially pervasive in minority communities, and investigations into how the election was conducted in Florida were ongoing at the time.

But Bush’s office denied that the move to bring down the Confederate flag was motivated by a desire to placate African-Americans in the state, 93 percent of whom had cast their ballots for George W. Bush's Democratic opponent, Al Gore.

The decision made 14 years ago by the 2016 Republican presidential candidate to remove the flag was approved by then Secretary of State Katherine Harris -- a central figure in the recount saga.

The discreet action did not go over well with the Confederate flag’s supporters in Florida, according to the Times.

"If (Bush) had 3,000 protesters in front of the place hollering to take the flag down, I would at least understand why. But nobody said anything, at least that we were aware of," said John Adams, who was the Florida division commander for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. "I feel betrayed."

Many angry emails aimed at Jeb Bush poured in, expressing surprised outrage that there was no warning or notification.


Why, with something so consequential to so many people, you would think that he would announce his plan to remove the flag, in anticipation for the public to share and celebrate, that their governor had the wisdom to bring people together by removing this symbol of racial strife.

But, he did not publicize it. He did it very quietly, with agreement of his Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

That flag was removed for duplicitous reasons. And now he's using that event to give himself an advantage in the flag controversy in South Carolina this week, as he brags about how he 'did it in Florida'.

Jeb Bush never does anything without gaining an advantage for himself and his future political plans. And looking back at these circumstances of how this flag was removed in Florida, notwithstanding his spokesman's perfunctory explanation for the news cycle at the time, the effect was wholly self-serving.

His next election was in 2002, one year later. And he needed to diffuse the issue.


And in 2015, he is deceitfully exploiting that quiet executive order of 2001, in the wake of the South Carolina murders, to gain ruthless political advantage.

[merrily]

1. It's funny how we fault only Republicans for this kind of thing.

[seafan]

2. This was the Tampa Bay Times editorial board's opinion at the time:

It is interesting to read this in today's context, now 14 years later.


From Feb. 14, 2001:

Leadership doesn't have to be showy. Sometimes all a leader needs to do is the right thing.

Gov. Jeb Bush measured up to that standard by quietly retiring Florida's Confederate flag earlier this month. With no fanfare, he removed several flags from the state Capitol, including the "Stainless Banner," with its prominent Confederate emblem, that has flown there since 1978. Critics say Bush was merely trying to score points with African-American voters. Whatever his motive, the governor averted a fight Florida did not need.

Bush's move puts Florida in step with other Southern states that, after racially charged political battles, have taken similar actions. Georgia lawmakers last month redesigned their state flag to shrink the Confederate emblem and relegate it to a bottom corner, along with other state flags in Georgia's past. Last summer, South Carolina removed the Confederate battle flag that flew over the dome of the state capitol in the face of mounting boycotts.

Voters in Mississippi, the last state to confront the issue, will decide whether to replace their state flag in April. Like these other state leaders, Bush has found a solution that recognizes the flag's ability to offend without undermining its historical significance. The flag will be housed in a new exhibit at the nearby Florida Museum of History. While that resolution may not be enough to satisfy those on either extreme of the flag debate, it strikes an appropriate balance. Florida's Confederate flag should be viewed as a relic of a dark chapter in American history, not as a current reflection of state ideals.

By retiring the flag - and making that distinction clear - Bush put his own leadership on display.

Flags commemorating the French, Spanish and British governments that once ruled the state and flew beside the Confederate flag also were removed. St. Pete Times, February 10, 2001

In view of his decades-long history of indifference to the rights of black Floridians, genuine altruism was unlikely when he took this step. Looks more like housekeeping for his next campaign the following year.


(bold type added)