Father’s Influence on Early Career
In 1980, Jeb Bush moved to South Florida from Caracas, Venezuela, where he was a vice president for Texas Commerce Bank, in order to support his father’s failed 1980 run for the GOP presidential nomination and eventual campaign as Ronald Reagan’s running mate.793 Texas Commerce Bank was founded by the family of a close friend of George H.W. Bush, James Baker.794
Shortly after the election, Bush was hired by Miami real estate mogul Armando Codina, who has been described as one of his father’s “earliest supporters.”795 Several years later, Codina told the Miami Herald that Jeb’s name was a “big plus.”796 Bush worked with the Codina Group until 1986, and again for stints in the late 1980s and mid 1990s.797
Florida Secretary of Commerce
With his father’s 1988 presidential run already in the works, some were surprised when Bush accepted Florida Governor Bob Martinez’s nomination to serve as secretary of commerce in 1986.798 Martinez and George H.W. Bush had a mutually beneficial political relationship, with Bush helping Martinez raise over a half million dollars in 1986, and Martinez later cochairing Bush’s presidential campaign in 1987.799 Bush resigned his post in May 1988 to campaign full-time for his father.800
Business Career
Bush’s business ventures have been marked by controversy. In one notable deal involving Bush and his business partner Armando Codina, the two purchased an office building in Miami using funds Codina borrowed from a local savings and loan institution, which became insolvent in 1988.801 When the federal government – led by Bush’s father – stepped in to bail out the savings and loan industry, Bush and Codina’s loan was credited with $4 million in government funds,802 lifting the liability of a $4.565 million second mortgage off of the partners.803
In 2007, Bush joined the private equity advisory board at Lehman Brothers.804 The company sold more than $800 million worth of mortgage-backed securities to the Florida State Fund.805 The securities defaulted in just four months.806 It was later revealed that the sales to the state fund took place just before Lehman revealed Bush’s role in the company.807 Bush denied having any role in this specific sale, although Lehman won six contracts and just shy of $10 million in fees from Florida state agencies while Bush was governor.808 When Lehman Brothers collapsed the following year, it had the potential to cost the state of Florida more than $1 billion.809 Local governments in the state were trapped with tainted securities that they could not redeem, worth more than $500 million.810
While Lehman was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2008, Bush reached out to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to solicit an investment in a Lehman project code-named “Project Verde,” but Bush wrote to a colleague at Lehman in July of the same year that “Project Verde was unsuccessful.”811
1994 Gubernatorial Campaign
Jeb Bush launched his first campaign for governor of Florida with the attention and strategy expected from someone who had run his father’s Florida operations in 1988 and 1992. Bush was the first Republican to announce his candidacy in 1994, having prepared to run for more than 18 months before the election.812 He also inherited much of the Florida campaign apparatus from his father’s efforts.813His first gubernatorial campaign benefited from major fundraising assistance from his parents, who traveled to Florida three times that year to fundraise for him, bringing in more than $2 million during those trips.814 Bush’s family connections in Texas, where his brother was also running for governor, netted him significant donations as well.815
But Bush’s business career, including his deal with Codina, became a target of attacks during the 1994 campaign, with attacks coming from the incumbent governor and the two candidates against Bush in the Republican primary. Bush eventually won the primary after his opponent dropped out of the runoff.816 Just weeks before the general election, Bush was polling ahead of incumbent Governor Lawton Chiles, but ultimately lost the race by a close margin.817
1998 Gubernatorial Campaign
Bush’s fundraising ability was demonstrated again in his successful 1998 run for governor, when he significantly outraised his opponent, Buddy MacKay, by a nearly two-to-one margin.818 Compared to Bush, MacKay was considered a weak candidate with less charisma and his campaign was late to staff up.819 Compounding MacKay’s weaknesses, Democrats’ dominance in Florida began to erode as the party faced racial fissures, and Bush made a concerted effort to reach out to minority voters.820 Bush went on to dispatch MacKay handily, winning 55 percent of the vote.821
Bush v. Gore
During the contested 2000 presidential election and recount in Florida, Bush maintained that he recused himself in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety while his brother was one of the candidates.822 In spite of this claim, he quietly signed the paperwork that certified his brother’s victory in Florida.823 Further, when Republican lawmakers in Florida asserted that they had a right to directly award the state’s twenty-five electoral votes to George W. Bush, Jeb Bush stated that he would sign into state law a bill awarding Florida’s electoral votes to his brother if the recount was not completed by December 12, 2000.824 Despite his public statements during the recount, Bush’s office was later found to have made 95 phone calls to the Bush presidential campaign during the recount period.825
Bush’s brother was named the winner in Florida by a mere 537 votes.826 Months after Florida’s electoral votes – and by extension, the presidency – went in his brother’s favor, a division of the Florida Secretary of State’s office was found to have improperly purged thousands of eligible voters from the voter rolls in the election.827 African-Americans comprised a disproportionate number of these voters.828
Disaster Relief Funds
Bush’s tenure as governor was marked by at least two severe hurricanes, the response to which raised questions about his management of federal disaster aid and willingness to dispense taxpayer dollars without proper oversight. After Hurricane Frances hit in September 2004, President George W. Bush declared Miami-Dade County a disaster area at the urging of his brother Jeb.829 The declaration made area residents eligible for individual aid, and while the hurricane’s outer bands had barely touched the county, nearly 10,000 residents of the county received aid totaling at least $21 million in tax-free grants.830 In comparison, harder-hit Indian River Country received just $12.5 million in these grants.831
The enormity of the tax-free grants awarded to Miami-Dade residents cast doubt on whether federal dollars should have been awarded to the county and prompted calls for a federal investigation.832 The audit found numerous instances of fraudulent reimbursements, and determined that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had included Miami-Dade in the disaster declaration without the required assessment of damage.833
A year later in 2005, Jeb Bush was criticized over disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Wilma, which left thousands of Floridians without water, ice, food, and gasoline during massive power outages.834 Bush callously blamed Floridians stuck in hours-long lines for supplies for their fate, saying that they had “ample time” to prepare themselves for the disaster.835
Problems with the Base
Since leaving the Florida governor’s mansion in 2007, Bush’s comments on hot-button issues, his championing of immigration reform, and his support for Common Core have raised the ire of the conservative base. In 2009, Bush committed a major Republican Party faux pas when he spoke ill of its frequent invocation of President Ronald Reagan, saying the party needs to give up its “nostalgia” for the Reagan years.836
Bush’s vocal support for comprehensive immigration reform has not endeared him to the Tea Party, whose suspicions about his support for so-called “amnesty” were confirmed in 2014 when he called illegal immigration an “act of love” and “not a felony.”837
Opposition to the Common Core State Standards is another Tea Party cause of which Bush runs afoul. Jeb Bush is perhaps the most vocal supporter of the standards, touting their benefits for college and career readiness consistently since their adoption, and urging states to stay the course with Common Core amid growing political controversy about the standards.838 Bush serves as chairman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which has received donations from pro-Common Core corporations in addition to funds from organizations and companies with a financial stake in the successful adoption of the standards.839 Bush also “supports instant background checks for gun-show purchases, an unpopular position with the NRA,” and has recently avoided attending NRA events.840
