John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is the second son of former president George H. W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush, and a younger brother of former president George W. Bush. A member of the Republican Party, he was an unsuccessful candidate for president of the United States in the 2016 Republican primaries.
Bush was born into the prominent Bush family in Midland, Texas, and grew up in Houston. He graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a degree in Latin American affairs. In 1980, Bush moved to Florida and pursued a career in real estate development. In 1987, he became Florida's secretary of commerce, serving this role until 1988, when he joined his father's successful campaign for the presidency.
In 1994, Bush made his first run for office, losing the election for governor by less than two percentage points to the incumbent Lawton Chiles. Bush ran again in 1998 and defeated lieutenant governor Buddy MacKay with 55 percent of the vote. He ended up succeeding MacKay after Chiles died in office 23 days shy of his retirement. He ran for reelection in 2002, defeating Bill McBride and winning with 56 percent, to become Florida's first two-term Republican governor. During his eight years as governor, Bush pushed an ambitious Everglades conservation plan, supported caps for medical malpractice litigation, launched a Medicaid privatization pilot program, and instituted reforms to the state education system, including the issuance of vouchers and promoting school choice.
Bush announced his presidential candidacy on June 15, 2015. He suspended his campaign on February 20, 2016, shortly after the South Carolina primary, and finished sixth out of 17 contesters by both delegates number and popular vote. He endorsed Senator Ted Cruz on March 23, 2016, and was critical of Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, remaining so during Trump's presidencies.
Early life
Bush was born on February 11, 1953, in Midland, Texas. When he was six years old, the family relocated to the Tanglewood neighborhood of Houston, Texas. The nickname "Jeb" is composed of his initials J.E.B. (John Ellis Bush). He grew up with two younger brothers, Neil and Marvin, one younger sister, Dorothy, one older brother, George, who is seven years older, and, for the first eight months of his life, an older sister, Robin. Jeb Bush initially attended Grady Elementary School in Houston."Long-held values shape Public Life of Jeb Bush ." The Miami Herald. September 22, 2002. Retrieved on October 15, 2012. "Bush attended public Grady Elementary School in Houston for several years[...]" Following in the footsteps of his father and older brother George, at the age of 14 years in late 1967, Bush began attending high school at the Andover, Massachusetts boarding school Phillips Academy, Andover. Bush completed ninth grade in Houston, but was advised to repeat it at Andover, and was nearly expelled due to poor grades. Bush recreationally used marijuana, hashish, and cigarettes during his high school years, although he made the honor roll by the end of his senior year and served as captain of the tennis team.
At the age of 17, Bush taught English as a second language and assisted in the building of a school in Ibarrilla, a small village outside of León, Guanajuato, Mexico, as part of Andover's student exchange summer program. While in Mexico, he met his future wife, Columba Garnica Gallo.
Bush, who had largely avoided criticizing or supporting the Vietnam War, registered for the draft after his graduation from high school in 1971. In the fourth and final draft lottery drawing, on February 2, 1972, for men born in 1953 and to be inducted during 1973, Bush received a draft number of 26 on a calendar-based scale that went to 365. But no new draft orders were issued after 1972, because the U.S. changed to an all-volunteer military beginning in 1973.
Though many in his family had attended Yale University, Bush chose to attend the University of Texas at Austin, beginning in September 1971. He played on the Texas Longhorns varsity tennis team in 1973. Bush graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin American studies. He completed his coursework in two and a half years.Kelley, Kitty. The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, p. 404 (Doubleday, 2004).
Early career In 1974, Bush went to work in an entry-level position in the international division of Texas Commerce Bank, which was founded by the family of James Baker. In November 1977, he was sent to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, to open a new operation for the bank, where he served as branch manager and vice president.
Following the 1980 presidential election, Bush and his family moved to Miami-Dade County, Florida. He took a job in real estate with Armando Codina, a 32-year-old Cuban immigrant and self-made millionaire. Codina had made a fortune in a computer business, and then formed a new company, The Codina Group, to pursue opportunities in real estate.Zweigenhaft, Richard and Domhoff, G. William. Diversity in the Power Elite: How it Happened, Why it Matters , p. 149 (Rowman & Littlefield 2006). During his time with the company, Bush focused on finding tenants for commercial developments. Codina eventually made Bush his partner in a new development business, which quickly became one of South Florida's leading real estate development firms. As a partner, Bush received 40% of the firm's profits.Swasy, Alecia and Trigaux, Robert. "Make the Money and Run" , St. Petersburg Times (September 20, 1998). In 1983, Bush said of his move from Houston to Miami: "On the personal side, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law were already living here." On the professional side, "I want to be very wealthy, and I'll be glad to tell you when I've accomplished that goal."Morley, Jefferson. "Dirty Money" , Miami New Times (February 27, 1991).
During Bush's years in Miami, he was involved in many different entrepreneurial pursuits, including working for a mobile phone company, serving on the board of a Norwegian-owned company that sold fire equipment to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, becoming a minority owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, buying a shoe company that sold footwear in Panama, and getting involved in a project selling water pumps in Nigeria.
Bush was a lobbyist for Miguel Recarey, who ran International Medical Centres (IMC), a Florida-based health maintenance organization (HMO). Recarey "employed" Bush as a real estate consultant and paid him a 75,000 fee for finding the company a new location, although the move never took place. Bush did, however, lobby the Reagan administration vigorously and successfully on behalf of Recarey and IMC to waive a rule of Medicare enrollee proportion. Recarey received US$781 million in Medicare payments for 197 000 enrollees but did not pay doctors and hospitals for their care. As of 2015 Recarey was a fugitive living in Spain. The IMC fraud was one of the largest in Medicare history.
Early political career
Bush volunteered for his father's campaigns in 1980 and 1988. During the 1980 campaign, Bush worked as an unpaid volunteer, and expressed great admiration for his father. In 1984, Bush got his start in Florida politics by becoming the chairman of the Dade County Republican Party.Date, S.V. Jeb , p. 223 (Penguin, 2007). Dade County played an important role in the 1986 election of Bob Martinez to the governor's office. Despite statewide Republican leaders urging Bush and other county party officials to stay neutral in the Republican primary, Bush endorsed Martinez ahead of the runoff of the primary. In appreciation of Bush's support during his campaign, Martinez appointed him as Florida's secretary of commerce. Bush served in that role from 1987 to 1988, before resigning to work on his father's presidential campaign.
Bush frequently communicated with his father's staff from 1981 through 1992. The younger Bush recommended Dexter Lehtinen for the post of U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida and set up a meeting between the Bush administration and Motorola. He also advocated for Cuban exiles living in South Florida, and supported the Cuban embargo. In 1990, Bush urged his father to pardon Orlando Bosch, a Cuban exile who had been convicted of firing a rocket into a Polish ship which was on passage to Cuba. Bosch was released from prison and granted residency in the U.S.Campbell, Duncan "The Bush dynasty and the Cuban criminals." The Guardian (December 2, 2002). Retrieved September 9, 2010.
In 1989, Bush was the campaign manager of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American to serve in Congress, in her special election.Adams, David and Simon, Stephanie. "Jeb Bush: Party elder statesman or 2016 candidate?" , Reuters (June 25, 2012).
1994 gubernatorial bid In 1994, Bush launched an unsuccessful bid for the governor's office against incumbent Democratic governor Lawton Chiles. Bush ran that year as a conservative. At one point, he was asked what he would do for African Americans, and Bush responded: "It's time to strive for a society where there's equality of opportunity, not equality of results. So I'm going to answer your question by saying: probably nothing."Aberbach, Joel and Peele, Gillian. Crisis of Conservatism?: The Republican Party, the Conservative Movement, and American Politics After Bush , p. 189 (Oxford University Press, 2011). Bush led through much of the campaign. Then with just a few weeks before election day, Bush ran a campaign ad featuring the mother of a 10-year-old girl who had been abducted and murdered many years before. The ad opened with pictures of the girl and then shifted to her mother who gave a description of her daughter's case and then said "Her killer is still on death row and we're still waiting for justice. We won't get it from Lawton Chiles because he's too liberal on crime. . . Lawton Chiles has let us down. . . I know Jeb Bush. He'll make criminals serve their sentences and enforce the death penalty. Lawton Chiles won't." The ad caused a storm of controversy. Florida prosecutors and former Supreme Court justices toured the state with Chiles saying that Bush didn't know what he was talking about. It was compared, including by a rankled Chiles, to the Willie Horton ad run on behalf of Bush's father in 1988. Bush further caused himself problems after being asked by reporters shortly after the ad started airing if signing death warrants immediately would have changed the outcome of the case by saying "No." With polls showing that voters had doubts about Bush's integrity, Chiles began pounding on the theme that Bush could not be trusted. In every commercial, no matter what the subject, Chiles ended with the tagline: "That's why we can't trust Jeb Bush with our future."