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Katherine Harris

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Katherine Harris

Katherine Harris (born April 5, 1957) is an American politician from the U.S. state of Florida.

A Republican, Harris is a two-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Florida's 13th congressional district. She took office in January 2003 after winning in the 2002 House elections. Prior to her service in the House, Harris was the Secretary of State of Florida (under Governor Jeb Bush, one of President George W. Bush's brothers) for one term -- 1999 through 2002. In her role as Florida's Secretary of State, Harris declared the final state acceptance of the disputed vote counts which were a pivotal key in the 2000 U.S. presidential election controversy. The role of Florida's election commission in the disputed events led to much criticism of Harris.

On June 7, 2005, Harris announced her candidacy for the United States Senate as a Republican, challenging incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson.

Early life

Harris was born in Key West, Florida to a wealthy and politically influential family. Her grandfather was Ben Hill Griffin, Jr., a businessman who made a fortune in the cattle and citrus industries and served in the state house and senate. The Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at the University of Florida is named for him.[1]

Education

Harris graduated from Bartow High School in Bartow, Florida and attended Spain's University of Madrid, before receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia in 1979. In 1980 she attended L'Abri (outside Geneva, Switzerland) on a L'Abri International Fellowship.

Harris received a degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1997 with a major in international trade and negotiations in the school's "Mid-Career Master in Public Administration" progam.[2]

Business career and service in the Florida Senate

Before entering politics, Harris was vice president of a commercial real estate firm; another previous job was as a marketing executive at IBM [3]. Harris entered politics by winning election to the Florida Senate in 1994, in one of the most expensive state races in Florida history. [4]. In that election, Sarasota-based Riscorp, Inc., made illegal contributions to dozens of political candidates and committees, including $20,600 to the Harris campaign. [5]

Riscorp

In 1996, Harris sponsored legislation that would benefit Riscorp, an issue that would turn up in her campaign for Florida Secretary of State in 1998 [6]:

Harris denied knowledge of the matter, returned the money and was cleared in a state investigation. [citation needed]

Secretary of State

Harris was Florida's Secretary of State from 1999 to 2002. During the 1998 campaign, incumbent Sandra Mortham, a fellow Republican, decided to re-enter the race after initially refusing to seek re-election. Some in Florida's Republican establishment tried to persuade Harris to step aside. She refused, and won the Republican primary (for the right to represent the party in the general election). [7]

Overseas travel

Harris has faced allegations of excess spending on overseas travel. [8]

2000 Presidential election

Main articles: Florida Central Voter File and Florida election recount

Harris presided over the contested 2000 presidential election in Florida. Harris certified that the Republican candidate, then-Texas Governor George W. Bush, had defeated the Democratic candidate, Vice-President Al Gore, in the popular vote of Florida and thus certified the Republican slate of electors. Her ruling was challenged, and overturned on appeal by Florida's high court; but, this appelate decision was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. Here, the Court ruled (5-4) that Gore's request to extend Florida's statutory deadline for ballot re-counts had no merit, because no Florida law at the time provided for that option. This ruling nullified the state court's decision, upholding Harris' certification. Because the statutory vote-counting deadline expired weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling, Gore had effectively run out of time to legally challenge Florida's official results. This gave Florida's electoral votes -- and the Presidency -- to G.W. Bush.

There were allegations of conflicts of interest and partisan, unethical behavior in Harris's actions during the 2000 campaign. Because Vice-President Gore had won the nation's popular vote, many Americans felt that the outcome violated their shared sense of democratic fairplay. Another point is that Harris had become Bush's Florida campaign co-chair in October 1999. She had been quoted in a Bush campaign press release as saying "I am thrilled and honored to announce my support of George W. Bush for the Presidency."[9] There were also high ranking Democrats in Florida who publicly supported Gore.

Before the election, a firm hired by Florida to purge 57,700 convicted felons from the voter rolls erroneously removed the names of about 8,000 registered voters -- including those who had been convicted only of misdemeanors, those who had the same names as the felons, and a few whose computerized government records said they had committed crimes...in the future. On Election Day 2000, hundreds of law-abiding Floridians were turned away from the polls, told that they could not vote; many later fought to remove their names from these so-called "scrub lists." This purge was strongly criticized. Some critics (notably Greg Palast) described it as an attempt to disenfranchise poor and African-American voters in particular.[10][11]

Harris's book, Center of the Storm, gives her version of events.

Media and pundits weigh in

Harris was parodied by comedian Ana Gasteyer during the 2000-2001 season of Saturday Night Live.[12] On The Tonight Show, Jay Leno joked that "they had trucks in Florida bringing the ballots to Tallahassee... It's the same trucks they used to bring the makeup to Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris."[13]

In January 2005, Harris told the Associated Press that "the jokes about my appearance–it's the computer-enhanced photos...It was like in a comic strip. They actually had blue eye shadow on front pages of newspapers and I haven't had blue eye shadow since Girl Scouts in seventh grade." On August 1, 2005, Harris was a guest on Sean Hannity's talk radio program on ABC Radio. Hannity was asked whether the jokes bothered her, and Harris told him that "I'm actually very sensitive about those things, and it's personally painful...You know, whenever they made fun of my makeup, it was because the newspapers colorized my photograph."

2002 House race

In 2002, Harris ran for the congressional district vacated by retiring Republican Rep. Dan Miller, winning by 10 percentage points in this predominantly Republican-leaning district.

2004 Senate and House races

Harris had considered running for the seat of retiring Senator Bob Graham in 2004, but was reportedly dissuaded under pressure from the Bush White House to allow Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez to run for the open seat. Martinez went on to narrowly beat challenger Betty Castor. Instead, Harris ran for re-election to her Representative seat.

In a 2004 speech in Venice, Florida, Harris claimed that a "Middle Eastern" man was arrested for attempting to blow up the power grid in Carmel, Indiana; in fact, there is no record that such an arrest was made.

During a 2004 campaign stop in Sarasota, Florida, a local resident, Barry Seltzer, attempted to run his silver Cadillac over Harris and her supporters. Nobody was injured in the incident. Seltzer, who claimed he was "exercising [his] political expression," was eventually arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.[14]

In November 2004, Harris defeated Democrat Jan Schneider, winning by a 10 point margin, the same as in 2002.

Connections to the MZM Scandal

In 2005 and 2006, Harris faced political controversy when a major corporate campaign donor, defense contractor MZM, Inc., was implicated in a bribery scandal that resulted in the criminal conviction and resignation of California congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham and conviction of MZM founder, Mitchell Wade. Wade bundled together contributions from employees of MZM, and reimbursed those employees for their contributions -- an approach also used with the illegal contributions that Harris accepted in 1994 from another company (see above). [15].

While Harris has claimed to not know the donations were obtained illegally, Wade did admit that the donations to Harris were illegal and were part of an attempt to influence her to MZM's benefit. [16]. Documents filed with Wade's plea say that he took Harris to dinner early in 2005, where they discussed the possibility of another fundraiser and the possibility of getting funding for a Navy counterintelligence program in the member's district. [17].

After meeting with Wade, Harris sent a letter on April 26, 2005, to defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman C.W. Bill Young, in which Harris sought $10 million for a Navy project backed by Wade. [18]. In the letter, Harris emphasized the importance of the project, asking that it be added to her list of five priorities and identifying it as her new No. 3. (Harris has released the April 26 letter, but neither she nor Young would turn over the standard request form used for the proposal.) [19]

Mona Tate Yost, an aide to Harris, left to work for MZM during the time Wade was pressing Harris to secure federal funding (April or May of 2005). [20]

2006 Senate Race

Main article: Florida United States Senate election, 2006

2005 preliminaries

On June 7 2005, Harris announced her intention to run for the Republican Senate nomination in Florida, to challenge first-term incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson in the 2006 election cycle.

In spite of Harris' loyal support to Republican causes, such figures as Governor Jeb Bush and (the "architect" of George W. Bush's political career) Karl Rove seemed to have their doubts about her statewide appeal. They attempted to recruit the Speaker of Florida's state house of representatives Allan Bense into the race [21]. In a survey of voters taken June 22-26, 2005 pitting Nelson against Bense, Nelson would have been favored 50 percent to Bense's 26 percent.[22] In early August 2005, Bense declined to challenge Harris, saying the timing was not right.

Others mentioned were Representative Mark Foley, and news talk-show host and former Representative Joe Scarborough. Neither declared any intent to run.

Opinions and surveys

Some Democrats have said that Harris' being on the ballot in Florida will galvanize many party members angry at the 2000 presidential decision. [citation needed] Among Republicans, Harris enjoys a reputation as something of a hero for her role in the 2000 election. [citation needed]

In a survey of voters taken August 23-29, 2005, Nelson garnered 57 percent to Harris's 33 percent.[23] A poll taken by Rasmussen in February 14, 2006 put Nelson under the important 50% mark, and showed Harris closing Nelson's lead to a more manageable 9 percentage points.[24]. A poll done by Quinnipiac University from Feb. 15-20 tells a different story. Out of 1,076 polled — 429 of them registered Democrat and 443 registered Republican — 53 percent would vote for Nelson if the election were held during that time. Harris received 31 percent of the vote, down from 38 percent in June. [25]

February-March 2006 developments

In late February 2006, Harris' campaign finance director and campaign treasurer both resigned. [26].

On March 15, 2006 edition of Fox News Channels' Hannity & Colmes political debate show, Harris pledged to spend ten million of her own dollars on the campaign, which she has said is all of her inheritance. She has also stated her run is dedicated to the memory of her father. She has accused Nelson (the current Senator) of posing as a moderate while being "beholden to the far-left political side" [27], and has said she wants to bring integrity and ethics back to government.

Sexuality criticism

Some political liberals have ridiculed Harris for her appearances on Hannity & Colmes. In particular, some deride an appearance in which she stood in profile for the entire interview (being shown from the waist up) as an effort feature her breasts as prominently as possible. On this point, Harris has been ridiculed on some liberal blogs. [28]

The Daily Show recently satirized Harris regarding her bosoms, with Jason Jones citing the Hannity & Colmes interview and referring to her attire at a rodeo campaign stop as "tit-hugging spandex". Along with this, other sexually themed comments were made about Harris.[29]

Political columnist Michelle Malkin recently rebuked Harris' sexuality critics, charging them with sexism.[30]

Other points

Harris was a headlined speaker at the 'Reclaim America for Christ Conference 2006'. [citation needed]

Policy Positions

  • In a vote on May 24, 2005 [31], Harris voted with the minority (238 yea, 194 nay), in opposition to H.R. 810 [32], which would lift Bush's 2001 restrictions on federal funding for new embryonic stem cell research. [33]
  • Harris has been a strong supporter of amnesty for illegal aliens and expansion of H-1b, L-1 and other Guest Worker visas.[34]

Notes

  1. ^ Becker, Jo, and Dana Milbank. "Controversy swirls around Harris." Washington Post. November 14, 2000.
  2. ^ Ibid.
  3. ^ Rado, Diane. " Harris backed bill aiding Riscorp." St. Petersburg Times. August 25, 1998. [35]
  4. ^ "Mid-career Master in Public Administration." John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. 2005.[36]
  5. ^ Becker and Milbank, "Controversy swirls around Harris."
  6. ^ Tapper, Jake. "The woman under fire." Salon. November 13, 2000.[37]
  7. ^ Bousquet, Steve. "New voter rolls arouse more fears." St. Petersburg Times. December 2, 2001.[38]
  8. ^ Palast, Greg. "The great Florida ex-con game: How the 'felon' voter-purge was itself felonious." Harper's Magazine. March 1, 2002. [39]
  9. ^ "Katherine Harris." The SNL Archives.[40]
  10. ^ "Harris: Papers doctored makeup in photos." Associated Press. August 4, 2005. [41]
  11. ^ Ibid.
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