http://www.observer.com/pages/conason.asp

The last time Florida’ lawmakers gathered for a special session was last January, when
Republican leaders summoned them to rush through legislation that perversely "reformed"
the Sunshine State’ death-penalty code. Among the chief sponsors of that bill—esigned to
make executions easier, faster and less vulnerable to appeal or post-conviction proof of
innocence—as Tom Feeney, the Orlando suburbanite who has since risen to become
Florida’ House Speaker.

Apparently, Mr. Feeney and his colleagues couldn’t quite contain their impatience to
achieve "finality" in the matter of capital punishment, just as they cannot seem to wait for
any more votes to be counted in the Presidential election.

A few months later, the Republican legislative leaders found themselves defending their
lethal handiwork in the Florida Supreme Court. The justices brushed aside their blustering
threats and promises to strike down the new fast-track death bill as unconstitutional. With
that forthright action, the court earned the permanent enmity of the Feeney faction. He was
among the leaders standing before them and yammering about "the public will" when one
of the justices bluntly asked: "Do you think it’ the public will to execute innocent persons?"

The answer to that question is no, of course. Nor is the public eager for the Florida
legislators to arrogate to themselves the appointment of Presidential electors in their home state.

Yet neither the obvious popular distaste for legislative interference on behalf of George W.
Bush, nor the public desire for a full and fair count of Florida’ ballots, is likely to dissuade
Mr. Feeney from calling a special session to ram through the Bush elector slate. The only
event that might forestall that anti-democratic action is a quick decision against Mr. Gore
in the Florida Supreme Court.

Florida Senate leader John McKay has taken a more cautious approach than the zealous
Mr. Feeney, but together they represent the kind of politics that will probably characterize
a Bush family restoration. Like their Congressional counterparts, Mr. McKay is a dutiful
lackey of business and agricultural interests, while Mr. Feeney promotes the agenda of
the religious right.

A few years ago, the author and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen called Mr. Feeney
"a right-wing flake with a dubious track record." To take just one example from many, Mr.
Feeney once tried to require the state to issue a special license plate adorned with the
slogan "Choose Life." On another occasion, he tried to suppress the dangerous practice
of yoga among Florida high-school students.

Both Florida legislative bosses are creatures of Jeb Bush, the governor who has affected
to "recuse" himself from the struggle over his state’ electoral votes, at least until his
signature is needed on a bill that will ensure his older brother’ victory.

One measure of Mr. Feeney’ extremism was Jeb Bush’ decision to dump him from the
Republican ticket in 1998, after their unsuccessful experience running together four years
earlier. Ridiculed by then-Governor Lawton Chiles as "the David Duke of Florida politics,"
Mr. Feeney’ candidacy for lieutenant governor proved to be the excess baggage that sank
the younger Bush’ challenge to Chiles in 1994.

That campaign was a fervent crusade of ideas—mostly very bad ideas. For someone who
grew up under pretty soft conditions, Jeb Bush took a hard view of those less fortunate
than himself. Flanked by Mr. Feeney, he promised to be tough on juvenile offenders and
welfare mothers. "We should have punishment being the overriding philosophy in how we
deal with children," he said. And according to reporters who followed his campaign, he
would shock Florida’ country-club Republicans by revealing how welfare mothers could
cadge as much as $18,000 a year to feed their families by illicitly working for cash while
they received food stamps and Medicaid.

That ugly approach led to a narrow but well-deserved defeat for the Bush-Feeney ticket.
When Jeb ran again on a platform of what Dubya later described as "compassionate
conservatism," he carefully selected a pro-choice woman as his running mate. It was an
opportunistic decision whose necessity even Mr. Feeney seems to have understood.

As Mr. Feeney told a reporter for Miami New Times near the end of that campaign, Jeb
had wisely modeled his new image on that of his successful Texas sibling. That shift didn’
trouble the ultraconservative Mr. Feeney at all. "I don’ think Jeb Bush’ belief system has
changed fundamentally," he explained.

The same might accurately be said of Jeb’ brother, the man who would (and at this point,
probably will) be President. The Bush style in recent years has been to sugarcoat
hard-right policy with a thin layer of bipartisan rhetoric and happy talk.
What lies beneath that sweet veneer is what inspires the likes of Tom Feeney.