Jim King's chicken dinner deciding Terri's fate at TEJ.
King target of Schiavo partisans
Powerful senator is being attacked by for blocking a bill that could have helped her; he's mounts re-election bid.
By J. TAYLOR RUSHING, Capital Bureau Chief
TALLAHASSEE -- Jim King has a 19-year record of solid fiscal conservatism in Tallahassee and a resume that includes the presidency of the Florida Senate.
He easily won the only three contested elections he's ever had and was most recently re-elected with 66 percent of the vote.
But King is worried about re-election in 2006, and he may have good reason. Jacksonville's most senior state senator is the only one of nine Republicans who is up for re-election after voting against a state law last month that may have saved Terri Schiavo's life.
King also is the subject of an online petition drive that asks Gov. Jeb Bush and the state Republican Party to suspend him, permanently remove him from office and bar him from representing the party -- all because of his Schiavo vote.
Only a year ago, signs along major highways in Jacksonville hailed King for pushing through a state law change while Senate president that won millions in state money for local schools.
"And this year, members of my own party are screaming for my head," he said. "It's living proof that politics is a contact sport."
It is uncomfortable but familiar ground for King, who already created a political crisis in 2003 by butting heads with Bush during debate over medical malpractice lawsuit limits. King led a Senate that took fire for refusing to support any lawsuit cap below $500,000, with the resulting stalemate dividing Republicans and causing a string of special legislative sessions.
This year, King and eight other Republican senators joined 12 Democrats in blocking a bill passed by the Florida House and supported by Bush that was aimed at re-inserting Schiavo's feeding tube. Because legal appeals by the brain-damaged woman's parents kept failing, activists who wanted to save Schiavo used state and national media attention to paint the opposing senators as her only hope. The 21 senators stood firm against the law, Schiavo died on March 31, and activists threatened political retribution.
The governor downplayed such talk, distinguishing King's "vote of conscience" from a consistent record of anti-Republicanism.
"I'm very respectful of the thought that went into the decision," Bush said. "I disagreed with it. ... But all the threats and all that normally subside after a while, and that's what's going to happen here. I don't think Sen. King or others have to worry about that unless they consistently vote against Republican principles, and I wouldn't put this in that category."
Others do. Florida Baptist Witness Editor Jim Smith, who lives in King's district and whose Jacksonville-based newspaper circulates 46,000 copies weekly, said King has been on the wrong side of several issues, including the Schiavo vote.
"No doubt Jim King is formidable and the idea that he could be defeated is quite a difficult prospect," Smith said. "But a lot of people were concerned about how this was handled. I respect him for believing as he does, but I also believe the citizens of his district should be considering how he voted."
King is already mobilizing his re-election bid. He has enlisted former Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney, now president of the University of North Florida, to help lead the campaign, as well as former Chamber of Commerce Chairman Jim McCollum, now an executive at BellSouth. No opponents have emerged yet.
Delaney said he disagreed with King's Schiavo and medical malpractice votes, but said King has done far more for Northeast Florida.
"He's just had two particularly controversial votes that got wrapped around him," Delaney said. "Some of the anger out there is because he's a deal-maker and a compromiser, but these were two things he couldn't bend on. Both were votes of conviction, so I don't think the Schiavo thing is going to hurt him because he has personal reasons. And he knew the case, too. He read deposition transcripts of the witnesses."
King has explained his Schiavo vote as his way of protecting any changes to Florida's Death With Dignity Act, which he wrote as a state representative in the 1980s after the death of his parents.
"The bottom line is that some people didn't like my position, but there's a whole lot of other people who believe I did the right thing," King said. "There's no question the district is conservative and folks in my party are upset with my stances. But I have letters that say, 'Thank you very much for the voice of reason.' I ran as a social moderate and I will continue to be a social moderate.
"Things have been so skewered to one side lately, but there is a silent majority that feels I've done a good job and I've been straightforward. Those people who feel I've represented them well will be energized to take a stand for me." from www.worldnetdaily.com - front page
FV SAYS: Jim King's ready to defend his senate seat. JACKSONVILLE, can't you find somebody better to run against him? If Jim King is ousted, he can take his dreadful ideas, laws, amendments, lobbyists and cronies with him and don't let the door hit them on the way out. Fv