State Senator Protests Bush Diversity Plan

November 17, 1999
Miami Herald

KAREN BRANCH AND STEVE BOUSQUET
 kbranch@herald.com

 After a week of intense pressure by fellow black legislators,
 state Sen. Daryl Jones Tuesday did an about-face and
 blasted Republican Gov. Jeb Bush's new voluntary
 racial-diversity plan -- in an attempt to stave off a coup to
 oust him as chairman of the Legislature's black caucus.

 At a hastily called news conference four hours before a
 private call with the caucus, Jones, D-South Dade, resigned
 a Bush appointment to lead a task force on inequalities in
 Florida schools. He didn't wait to talk to Bush, who was flying
 home from Israel.

 His resignation letter was cordial and brief: two sentences.

 Jones' comments at the new conference in his district office were not.

 They were laced with questions of Bush' intentions with a plan dubbed ''One
 Florida Initiative that, in part, does away with minority set-asides in state
 contracts and replacing them with volunteer efforts to expand contracts to
 minority businesses.

 ''While the governor says his purpose for this is to diversify contracts, to me the
 real purpose is to award contracts to people who made campaign donations for
 his effort to become governor, Jones said. ''What he's doing is creating an
 atmosphere of potential corruption.''

 Bush spokesman Justin Sayfie said the letter took the governor by surprise.

 ''We have great respect for Senator Jones, but it is profoundly disappointing and
 surprising that he has decided to resign as chairman of the task force, especially
 after the supportive words he has given,'' Sayfie said.

 Indeed, Jones did have supportive statements, when Bush unveiled his plan and
 tapped him to chair the task force as part of it.

 The One Florida Initiative does away with racial set-asides in state contracts and
 calls for an end to race-based admissions to universities. Bush also endorsed
 plans aimed to offer more minority opportunities: by offering admission to all
 seniors who finish in the top one-fifth of their class, and vowing his administration
 will offer unprecedented opportunities in contracts.

 BALLOT MEASURE

 Bush said at the time he hoped that would discourage California businessman
 Ward Connerly's campaign to get an anti-affirmative action measure on the
 November 2000 ballot.

 He also pitched his intent to spend more money to improve disparities between
 the state's poor and rich school districts -- with Jones at the helm.

 On the day of Bush's announcement, Jones said this of the plan: ''It has some
 great concepts in it. I've seen a lot of good intentions, but what I have not seen is
 the leadership required to make the difference in implementation. I hope this
 governor has what it takes to do that. It's impressive and I think the governor is
 very sincere.

 Jones also filed papers Monday to establish a petition plan to rival Connerly's. He
 joined a group called FREE -- Floridians Representing Equity and Equality -- to
 push for a clause in the Constitution that says: ''It does not constitute
 discrimination to take affirmative action or promote equal opportunity to the extent
 permitted by the United States Constitution.''

 Jones' turnabout came as black leaders blasted the plan with increasing intensity,
 from Florida to Washington, D.C.

 Tuesday afternoon, Florida's three black members in the U.S. House -- Reps.
 Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville; Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar; and Carrie Meek,
 D-Miami -- joined with allies from outside the state to criticize Bush's plan and
 pledge to make the affirmative action debate in Florida a national issue.

 ''If Gov. Bush had any history here, he would know that Florida works like the rest
 of the country -- it's a good-old-boy network,'' Brown said at a Capitol Hill press
 conference.

 ''But women and minorities pay their taxes too. When the pie is sliced up, we
 need to all get a piece.''

 CHANGE OF HEART

 Jones said his change of heart was the result of a careful look at the 40-page
 plan, input from concerned colleagues and constituents, and his own
 misunderstanding of the close link of his appointment and Bush's overall plan.

 ''I thought of it as something separate, but the way it came out was very much
 attached to the [plan] and that caught me a little bit by surprise, said Jones, who
 said he was not accusing Bush of misleading him.

 ''He was straightforward with me. I don't want to represent that.

 Jones said he heard plenty of angry feedback from the 20-member Florida
 Conference of Black State Legislators that elected him chair in 1998.

 The caucus rift erupted into an ''emergency telephone conference called Tuesday
 afternoon by members of the caucus, led by state Sen. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami,
 to discuss Jones' removal as chairman.

 ''It's a bad, bad, bad situation,'' said Rep. Christopher Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale.

 A dozen members in the telephone conference -- including Jones, Meek, and
 Miami-Dade state Reps. Beryl Roberts and Larcenia Bullard -- were ready to vote
 on whether to remove Jones as chairman.

 Herald reporters learned of the phone number and dialed in, prompting Rep.
 Josephus Eggelletion, D-Lauderdale Lakes, to cancel the session with no action
 being taken on Jones' status. The issue will come up again Friday, when the
 caucus meets in Orlando for its annual chairmanship election.

 Eggelletion said Meek called the telephone conference, but he declined to say if
 his intent was to vote on Jones' ouster. ''I'm sorry, I just can't comment on it,
 Meek said.

 Meek and Jones both told reporters the session should be private. And
 Eggelletion said the session did not have to be held in public because the caucus
 has tax-exempt status and can meet privately to discuss internal matters. He
 formally asked both Herald reporters to hang up.

 Attorney Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation, said the private
 telephone conference ''is contrary to the purpose and intent of the Sunshine
 Amendment.''

 Herald staff writer Frank Davies and researcher Tina Cummings contributed to this
 report.
 

Return to the News and Announcements page.
Return to the Affirmative Action and Diversity Page

Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu