Career of honesty and good humor
By Lucy Morgan
Times Senior Correspondent
© 2009 St. Petersburg Times
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
We have seen the end of an era. And we are the worse for it.
State Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, died Sunday after an all-too-brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 69.
No one had a better understanding of the legislative process. And no one could explain it better when the House and Senate were behaving badly.
King grew up in St. Petersburg but gained political fame as a Republican from Jacksonville, his chosen city. Few people know that he once worked as an intern for the St. Petersburg Times — oddly enough reporting to my husband, Richard, bureau chief in Treasure Island at the time.
He entered the Legislature in 1986 — not long after I took over as capital bureau chief for the Times. You might say we grew old together — on opposite sides of the wall that always separates reporters from lawmakers.
No one was better at describing the silliness that frequently surrounds a legislative session.
On one particularly bad day that ran into late-night hours in the House, I asked him to describe the situation.
Tired and out of sorts from struggling to settle a redistricting dispute, King said, "If we were in somebody's home, they would have already spanked us and put us to bed without dinner.''
On another day, King said the legislative session reminded him of his dates as a younger man: "There were such great expectations and so many disappointments. I was eager when we started, and simply anxious to go home by the end.''
It was classic King.
He was an early advocate for the right to die and frequently felt the sting of attacks from opponents who didn't think any Republican should take that position. But King had watched his own parents die, and he knew how difficult those decisions could be.
He also learned a thing or two about hatred the year he introduced a bill that would have expanded the punishment for hate crimes. A white Episcopalian, King filed the bill to help Jewish and black members and quickly began getting threatening phone calls from people who wanted to keep minorities "in their place.''
The threats only made him angry and more determined to fight.
Sometimes we crossed swords. He didn't always like what we wrote, but it was never personal. He fully understood the role of newspaper reporters and their value to society.
And of all the legislators who passed through the Capitol in the 20 years I watched them, it was King who could always be counted on to answer a question. Where others would bob and weave and try to say as little as possible, he would wade into any controversy full speed ahead.
That's the way he lived life: full speed ahead. Lots of laughter, good food and lots of rum and coke. While he was Senate president from 2002 to 2004, he often referred to drink time as "vitamin'' time. Everyone knew what he meant.
He was nearing the end of his legislative career and had only one regular session left. Term limits would have claimed him in 2010. He briefly flirted with the notion of trying to become the next chancellor of the state university system, but the cancer diagnosis put an end to that. He would have been miserable in any other role than a state legislator anyway.
It seems eerie to contemplate, but I wonder if King knew what was coming before any public announcement was made. Earlier this year, he co-sponsored a bill that will allow people to have their remains spend eternity on a college campus of their choosing. And that's where we hear King's ashes will go, on the campus of his beloved Florida State University. The governor signed the bill on June 24, after cancer began to claim King's life.
There is no replacement for a lawmaker who answered questions honestly and had the sense to make things happen in a process where lesser beings too often hold sway.
He was not perfect. None of us are. But few have the sense — or the confidence — to admit that.
He was one of a kind. Gone before his time.
Florida loses a titan
Jim King's death silences a voice of reason
An Editorial
© 2009 Daytona News-Journal
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
For most of his 23-year service in the House and Senate, Sen. Jim King was a force to be reckoned with. Adept at deal-making and deeply pragmatic, King -- whose base of power was centered in Duval County -- seemed to be the consummate Southern politician. And King played to that reputation, boiling down complex state issues into quotable quips for reporters while engaging in bare-knuckle negotiations behind closed doors. King understood, better than most, that every bargaining session ended with winners and losers -- and would unblushingly admit that winning was better.
But King's service was also informed by principle. He firmly believed that smaller government was better -- but that Florida could not turn its back on the needs of children, seniors and those with serious health problems. He was a staunch defender of individual liberty, supporting legislation that would protect the right to die with dignity and withholding approval on legislative attempts to micromanage pregnancies.
King's tremendous political skills pushed him rapidly toward positions of leadership. When the GOP took control of the state House of Representatives in 1996, he was chosen as Florida's first Republican majority leader in 122 years, having previously served as minority whip. King won a special election to the state Senate in 1999, and within three years had been elected president.
Throughout his service, King embraced his reputation as a common-sense, pro-business conservative. He had little patience with ideologues who too often hijacked the business of the state Legislature with fringe issues such as religious education in public schools. King rightly saw these issues as distractions that siphoned attention away from the difficult and important task of managing Florida's economic, social and legal welfare.
King's adherence to core conservative principals found a sharp contrast during his term as Senate president. As House Speaker Johnnie Byrd lurched from one divisive debate to another, King didn't bother to hide his disdain. That divide might have culminated in October 2003, when, under pressure from Byrd and Gov. Jeb Bush, King supported an emergency law to reinsert the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo, a Pinellas County woman who was in an irreversible vegetative state.
King said later that he regretted that vote almost immediately, feeling he'd betrayed his own position as a staunch advocate of the right of individuals and families to make end-of-life decisions. And when the question was pressed on the Legislature again in 2005, King sided with Democrats in rejecting an appeal for further legislative intervention.
"I happen to believe in my heart of hearts as a practicing Christian that there is a heaven," King said during that debate, as quoted by the St. Petersburg Times. ".. . . No matter what your plight on earth, heaven was better."
King faced his own death with the dignity he sought to protect for others. He announced earlier this year that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Though he appeared to rally briefly, the disease spread to other organs. He died Sunday at the age of 69. His loss is mourned even by people who often disagreed with him. And his example -- of someone who loved a good joke, loved Florida, and wasn't afraid to take a stand -- is one future generations of state leaders should seek to emulate.
Forever a Seminole: Sen. Jim King's ashes
will be interred on FSU campus
By Shannon Colavecchio
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
© 2009 Miami Herald
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The late Sen. Jim King wants to be a Seminole for eternity. And his beloved alma mater is happy to oblige.
King, the popular Republican lawmaker who died Sunday after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer, will be cremated and interred at the year-old King Life Sciences Building on the campus of Florida State University, family spokesman Gus Corbella said Monday.
FSU dedicated the $55 million building to King last September in recognition of his help in securing state funding for biomedical research and other campus projects.
``He proudly always said one of the reasons he was so successful in life was the education he got there,'' said Corbella, a lobbyist and longtime family friend who served as King's chief of staff for 10 years. ``When you think about it, where else would he ever be?''
King will be the first person interred on a Florida public campus since lawmakers this spring passed legislation allowing for university to build ``columbariums,'' permanent structures that hold the ashes of alumni.
University of Florida officials pushed for the law at the request of alumni, prompting King -- ever the FSU devotee, ever the funny man -- to call it ``the dead Gator bill.''
Sen. Thad Altman, sponsor of the law, said it's fitting that King be the first to benefit from it.
``He always was one step ahead of the Gators,'' said Altman, R-Melbourne. ``And now with this, he's one step ahead again.''
King, 69, earned bachelor and master's degrees from FSU after graduating from St. Petersburg College in 1959. He settled in Jacksonville, where he made millions selling off his personnel management business to Wackenhut Corp.
King spent much of his 23 years in politics pursuing improvements in higher education, healthcare and cancer research. He helped FSU establish a partnership with the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, where he sought treatment after he was diagnosed in May with pancreatic cancer.
King lost his own parents to cancer and later sponsored legislation establishing a biomedical research program in their names. Since 1999, the program has provided millions in grants to Florida universities, including FSU, for research into smoking-related diseases.
The plan is for King to be interred with the ashes of his beloved Labrador retrievers Valentine and Gemini. Until 2007, state law forbade the mingling of pet and human remains. King sponsored legislation that now allows the practice.
FSU spokeswoman Jill Ellish said details are being worked out, ``but we plan to honor the wishes of Sen. King.''
Political legend King transcended partisanship
An Editorial
© 2009 Tallahassee Democrat
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
After years of complaining about "those idiot politicians" in Tallahassee, Jim King ran successfully for a House seat in northeast Jacksonville in 1986 and set to work for the next 23 years trying to correct the course and improve the image of the Legislature.
His death on Sunday after a relatively brief battle with pancreatic cancer, which had also killed his father, marks a great loss for champions of humor, collegiality and a robust independent spirit, all so admirable — and yet somewhat rare — in public policy today.
At age 69, the well-loved and widely respected Mr. King was serving his last term in the state senate after stepping down as that chamber's president from 2002 to 2004.
In today's world of harshly partisan battles, Mr. King took on his own party leaders from time to time to vote the way he concluded was right. "You had to go to Jimmy issue by issue," FSU President T.K. Wetherell, a former House speaker, said of his longtime friend's determination to do what felt right in his gut.
The nationally noted right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo in 2005 was one such incident of breaking ranks, but he consistently held to a moderate stance on social issues such as abortion rights while holding fast to pro-business positions.
Having come from a background of building his own employment services businesses from the ground up, he revered the entrepreneurial spirit. And he was 100-percent loyal to Florida State University, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees, and where the Life Sciences Building is named in his honor and where he will be buried.
Mr. King's legacy, as Democrat Sen. Dan Gelber described it, was being able to "transcend the process" no matter your party affiliation. "Your currency in Tallahassee is whether people respect you, and he has so much of that. He is utterly authentic. ... He was the giant of state government."
Republican Marco Rubio, also a former House speaker, said "no one could light up a room the way he did with his quick wit and sense of humor, describing him as "a political legend ... who helped make Florida a better place to live."
State Sen. Tony Hill, a Jacksonville Democrat, said his colleague of 14 years was "the one person in the room" who'd always be able to find the piece of an issue to build a compromise on.
In a time of when division and cynicism rival our monstrous challenges, Florida was fortunate to have such a good man working for it to the end.