www2.tbo.com/content/2010/aug/01/na-meek-seeks-place-in-history/ TAMPA - U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami laid the groundwork for his first statewide race with two political coups that made him a hero to Florida's black voters and public school teachers.
In 2000, he staged a sit-in at Gov. Jeb Bush's office, opposing Bush's plan to end affirmative action, then he led the 2002 constitutional amendment drive on public school class sizes. Early on, it appeared Meek had a clear path to the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.
Gov. Charlie Crist's surprise announcement last year that he would leave the governor's office to run for the seat scared off other potential Democratic candidates, including Dan Gelber and Alex Sink.
But now, Meek's primary race is imperiled by a challenge from billionaire Palm Beach real estate investor Jeff Greene, spending his own money heavily to bash Meek. The ads may be working. A Quinnipiac pollreleased last week showed Meek 10 percentage points behind Greene, a shift from the virtual tie in Quinnipiac's June poll.
If elected, Meek would be the South's first elected black senator, and the first black candidate to win a statewide office of any kind in Florida, since Reconstruction.
Early start in politics
His path into politics was smoothed by his mother, former U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek - granddaughter of a slave and Florida's first blackCongress member since Reconstruction. From 1992 to 2002, she held the House seat he now holds.
She timed her surprise resignation in 2002 to pass the seat to her son, announcing it less than two weeks before the qualifying deadline and two months before the primary, leaving competitors little time to mount a campaign.
But Kendrick Meek had already begun making a statewide name for himself. At Florida A&M University, he helped found the Young Democrats club.
Meek served five years in the Florida Highway Patrol, three as a DUI trooper and two in Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay's security detail.
He briefly operated a security company, then went to work for Wackenhut security, which also operates privately run prisons. It employed his mother as a lobbyist after she left Congress.
Meek won a state House seat in 1994, then a state Senate seat in 1998. In 1991, he married a former Miami prosecutor.
Meek made headlines in 2000 when he and state Sen. Tony Hill sat for 25 hours outside Bush's office to protest the governor's executive order banning race preferences in state contracting and university admissions.
The incident set off a political brushfire, drawing national civil rights leaders to a rally in Tallahassee and forcing public hearings. Meek claimed victory when Bush agreed to changes concerning contracting.
He next led a two-year statewide effort, over strenuous opposition from Bush and the dominant Republican Party, for the amendment cutting school class sizes.
This year, Meek qualified for the Senate by collecting more than 115,000 petition signatures, rather than paying a filing fee, the first statewide candidate in history to do so.
The campaign has brought to the fore some controversies.
One involves developer Dennis Stackhouse, charged with fraud and grand theft in connection with a proposal for an industrial park in Poinciana Park in Meek's district.
According to Miami Herald reports, which Meek doesn't dispute, his former district director, Anthony Williams, received a $13,000 loan from Stackhouse while the developer was pushing the proposal. Stackhouse also paid Meek's mother $90,000 as a consultant and provided her a Cadillac Escalade.
Meek, meanwhile, twice sought congressional earmarks for the project. Meek told the Tribune he backed the project because redevelopment of the blighted area has been an issue for years, and that neither his mother nor Williams influenced him.
He said he didn't know about the loan, and that Williams left his staff "for a reason" before news reports revealed it. He said he knew his mother was consulting for Stackhouse, but did not know about the car.
Rejects "liberal" label
Meek combats the suggestion that he is what Florida political insiders call "a South Florida liberal," emphasizing his work as a trooper and his service in the House on the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees.
He cites a recent National Journal ranking that labeled him the 176th most liberal, or 254th most conservative, House member.
He has been a strong supporter of President Barack Obama, including Obama's health care reform and economic stimulus proposals.
But he asserts his independence, noting he opposed raising the national debt ceiling, has questioned Obama's war strategy, and says Obama needs to move faster on immigration reform.
In other areas, Meek adheres to typical Democratic stances, favoring collective bargaining rights, minimum wage increases, action to stem global warming, and consistently opposing offshore oil drilling
Posted By: Kendrick Meek
Monday, August 2nd 2010 at 9:09AM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
