Young Rubio Known For Charisma, Intelligence

By CATHERINE DOLINSKI The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jan 16, 2007

TALLAHASSEE - The newest speaker of the Florida House of Representatives is popular, ambitious. Energetic. Clean-cut, even.

He's also 35.

Meet Marco Rubio, the face of modern term limits.

"Used to be you had old white men who had been working on putting together their power over 20-year careers, building up favors and alliances," said Jeff Garcia, a Democratic consultant in Miami-Dade County.

When eight-year term limits hit the Legislature in 2000, "people started running for speaker as a member of the freshman class," former state Republican Chairman Al Cardenas said. "It put people's political life in the fast lane."

That included Rubio, a lawyer who was elected to the Legislature that year. At the time, his only experience in public office was a two-year stint on the small city commission of West Miami. By 2003, he was a front-runner for House speaker designate.

That's not to say that term limits enable anyone to shoot from relative obscurity through the ranks of leadership as Rubio has at such a young age - and in less than 10 years. Lawmakers on the left and right gush about his diplomacy. "Charisma" is a word that comes up a lot, too.

The next seven days will test it all.

After failing last spring to reform Florida's property insurance market and provide rate relief for Floridians, lawmakers return today to try again, this time with Rubio, a new Senate president and a new governor at the helm.

The three leaders have pledged to reduce insurance rates, but doing so will be "a challenge of statesmanship" that will color Rubio's future, said Dario Moreno, a political scientist at Florida International University.

"We could all get lower insurance bills, get hit by two hurricanes, and then the state goes into bankruptcy," Moreno said. "These are basic pocketbook issues that every homeowner has a stake in, not an esoteric debate on education or class size. If he guides the state Legislature into offering real relief, he will have a very powerful resume. If he doesn't, he will be viewed as a failure as a speaker."

Culture Shift

When Rubio, R-Miami, took the gavel in November as the first Miami-area speaker since 1972, he declared incoming Minority Leader Dan Gelber to be a "blessing."

The Miami Beach Democrat was equally effusive, calling Rubio "a high-minded man," and asked all Democrats to support him as speaker.

"It's a friendship of mutual respect," Gelber said in a recent interview. "There's not a lot of head fakes between us. He's a straight shooter with a lot of talent."

The affection he enjoys across the aisle is testament to years of reaching out, said Miguel DeGrandy, former GOP House member from Miami.

In 2002, DeGrandy acted as legal counsel for House Speaker Tom Feeney during legislative redistricting. Because redistricting had erupted in litigation over controversies surrounding Miami-Dade County, Feeney tapped Rubio, then majority whip, for a lead role in redrawing South Florida's political map.

"I'd block out an hour to brief Marco on an issue, and every five minutes a member would walk in to talk to him," DeGrandy said. "He was always helping people out to get something done. … And a lot of those members asking for help were Democrats. That wasn't the modus operandi I was used to, which is that you go to your own party for help."

After launching "idea-raisers" across the state with other Republican politicians, Rubio has arrived at the speaker's office armed with "100 ideas" - some old, some new - such as overhauling the state's curriculum for public schools and lowering property taxes. But changing the notoriously partisan culture of state politics, Rubio said, is the mark he hopes most to make.

To that end, Gelber said, Rubio has consulted House Democrats and included some of their ideas in his proposal to address the property insurance crisis. Last week, Rubio even surprised Gelber by including him at the formal announcement of the House strategy.

"It's unusual for the majority's leader to introduce the minority leader at their press conference," Gelber said.

However open he may be to discussion, Rubio's political outlook remains staunchly conservative, raising speculation about possible future friction with the more moderate Gov. Charlie Crist.

It also tends to spark comparisons with former Gov. Jeb Bush, whom Rubio called "the best governor in America." Although he personally brushed away the pretension of it, some observers have called him Bush's ideological heir.

'Plastic Spooner'

"I think Marco does view himself as protecting Jeb's legacy as governor," Moreno said. "But personally, Marco comes from working-class, Cuban-American stock; Jeb is from one of the most privileged American families in our history."

Rubio, the first Cuban-American House speaker, is the son of exiles.

"They didn't have careers; they worked jobs," he said. "My dad was a bartender for most of his life; my mom was a cashier. While we were young she didn't work for a while, but when we moved to Las Vegas, she worked as a floor maid at a casino."

His family stayed in Las Vegas from 1979 through 1985, when they returned to South Florida. "Dad was a bartender; he worked as a school crossing guard after that. He was still raising kids in his 60s and worked into his 70s."

It's a family story of self-made success that seems custom-designed for a campaign flier. But it's authentic, DeGrandy said, and it resonates with voters.

Joking that he is a "plastic spooner" rather than a silver one, Rubio said neither background more or less qualifies someone to hold office.

"The only difference is, I think sometimes in politics we discuss people in certain circumstances and may treat them as theoretical," he said. "As in, 'I hear there are poor people out there who work two jobs who are putting their insurance on their credit cards and next year are going to use their kid's small college fund.' Well, I know people like that."

Rubio began his higher education on a football scholarship at Tarkio College, a small school in Missouri. He transferred to Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville and then to the University of Florida. He graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 1996.

He met his wife, Jeannette, a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader, through a college roommate; today, they have three children: Amanda, 6, Daniella, 4, and Anthony, 1, and are expecting a fourth in September.

"He works hard to balance that lifestyle," said a longtime ally, Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami. "What people don't know about him is the number of times I've said to him, 'Hey, Marco, we've got to go to this or that because it's important, so-and-so called, is going to be there,' and he'll say, 'David, I'm building a dollhouse with Amanda. I can't go; I promised that I would build her a dollhouse tonight.'"

Rivera and Cardenas hired Rubio when he was still in law school at the University of Miami as the Miami-Dade coordinator of the 1996 presidential campaign for Bob Dole

Even then, Rivera said, the future speaker showed his colors. At the campaign's first meeting, Rubio stole the thunder of more prominent politicos by energetically rallying the troops himself.

"I remember sitting in the back of the room with a smile on my face," Rivera said. "Because that was just Marco - he takes charge. He always wants to go above and beyond."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or cdolinski@tampatrib.com.