A little yellow school bus, emblazoned with the words "Bright Futures Express" drove slowly into the crowded plaza of the state Capitol, disgorging a stream of politicians and school officials. Hundreds of T-shirted college kids waved banners and cheered as the parade of dignitaries vowed to fight to prevent cutbacks in the program that pays partial to full tuition for about 125,000 community college and university students.
The event's designated hero -- the man who had put the whole thing together -- then stepped to the podium.
"I believe that education is the ultimate civil right," proclaimed Sen. Ken Pruitt to roars of applause. Pruitt told the crowd that he is determined to "keep the promise" of the Bright Futures scholarships, which are under attack from legislators and the governor. Pruitt promised he would work to make education in Florida "something to be proud of again."
Pruitt, 47, a Port St. Lucie real estate agent and former well-driller, has never had a scholarship or a college degree. But as a 14-year legislative veteran, Senate budget chief and the Republicans' pick for Senate president in 2006, he now has power and influence. He also has an attitude toward spending and government programs far more moderate than the harder-core Republican orthodoxy that dominates Tallahassee.
Pruitt and Rep. Marco Rubio, R-Miami, who will be the House Speaker in 2006, are part of a trend toward the middle in Tallahassee. Along with Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, and Rep. Allan Bense, R-Panama City, the duo who take the top chamber jobs next year, they will shape the content and tenor of the Legislature's agenda for much of the rest of the decade ["A More Practical Approach?" April, FloridaTrend.com].
Pruitt will take over the leadership slot in the same year the Jeb Bush era ends, and Pruitt is sending strong signals that he's serious about steering the state on a different financial course.
Most notably, he and Lee want to redefine the way the state budget is built. Their solution: Require legislators to identify a funding source for at least five years for every program that's promised state support, ending the budget shifting and trust fund raids that have divided lawmakers for the past two years.
By forcing lawmakers to quit skirting the realities of chronic budget shortfalls, Pruitt says the public will see how ill-equipped Florida is for its future. He won't talk about taxes, but he will say he is laying the foundation for "revenue enhancements," particularly for education.
Providing hope
Pruitt's also not afraid to broach the issue of spending more money for other causes. Sensitized by his wife's fight against breast cancer, he's grown more sympathetic to the circumstances of the sick and poor, colleagues say, and has modulated his conservative mantra into a more moderate song.
"Florida is a progressive state, and we have to act like it," he says. "At the end of the day, you've got to provide hope."
To that end, he's mounted his shrewd, well-orchestrated campaign for Bright Futures -- an effort he calls the "poster child for helping bring Florida back to the time when public education is praised in every household."
Pruitt has raised more than $750,000 for his political committee, Floridians for a Brighter Future, and an undisclosed amount for the Brighter Futures Foundation, a non-profit corporation. The organizations have financed Pruitt's bus tour to colleges and universities from Key West to Pensacola; they've also paid for a slick website and promotional video that feature Pruitt; and they bankrolled the huge March rally at the Capitol.
Bright Futures isn't universally esteemed. The $251-million program is under attack, for example, by Gov. Bush and many legislators and budget experts. They see Bright Futures, which is funded by the state lottery, as a spiraling drain on state coffers that subsidizes tuition without any consideration of whether a student actually needs the money.
Many community college and university presidents also want changes in the program -- some combination of scaling the program back, connecting the aid with need and raising standards. Some presidents joke wryly that the parents of some of their students on Bright Futures scholarships could afford to pay tuition for the entire student body, yet pay nothing for their children's educations.
'Army of advocates'
While Pruitt may not be able to stave off a restructuring of Bright Futures to ease its impact on the budget, he says he's now "energizing the army of advocates" who believes, like him, that "education be the centerpiece of Florida's economic future."
Pruitt's campaign already has generated a wave of support from young Floridians and their parents. His next goal is to win over the business community.
In breaking ranks with the governor, Pruitt hopes to capitalize on the inherent appeal of a middle-class entitlement program. And he sees no irony in his simultaneous goals of requiring prudent fiscal planning and backing a budget-buster like Bright Futures. He says "it's going to take more than two years" to grow the grass-roots support it will take to push lawmakers into dedicating more money for schools.
For now, he defends the program as the chance for high school kids of all incomes to get the state push that he never had. "I believe we have a moral obligation to these kids to get them an education," he says. "People say rich kids are getting the money. But their parents don't take the tests for them. What's wrong with rewarding them? I can't think of a better economic development tool."
Sweat equity
By Pruitt's own account, he's come a long way from his blue-collar roots in Miami, where his father "operated a bulldozer at the Miami dump" and his mother worked as a waitress. Pruitt grew up mowing lawns, working as a busboy at the Miami Shores Country Club at age 16 and building bikes at Sears, he says: "I've had to work for everything I had. What I lack in intellect, I make up in hard work."
Pruitt's father got his ticket out of the junkyard after he went back to school and got a degree from Miami Dade Community College. The family moved to Port St. Lucie in 1976. Pruitt stayed in the Treasure Coast town and earned his well-drilling certification at Indian River Community College in 1984.
He ran his own business, building it to 40 employees, married Aileen Kelly, the mayor's daughter, raised five children -- now ages 27 to 10 -- and became a community activist and chamber of commerce president.
In 1990, at age 33, he unseated 21-year House veteran Chuck Nergard for the Florida House seat that stretched the length of St. Lucie County.
Schools in the county were running on double sessions, and Pruitt campaigned on a ticket of bringing the region its fair share of state money. "We were always the forgotten stepchild," Pruitt says.
In the same election, voters in neighboring Indian River County elected Charlie Sembler, a 25-year-old Sebastian fisherman, and the two soon became capital roommates and carpool buddies for the long drives between the Treasure Coast and Tallahassee.
Pruitt's first office was in the basement of the House office building with pipes running across his ceiling. Republicans were in the minority then, and Pruitt took to making coffee for his colleagues on their way up from the garage "to let everybody know that we existed."
Together, he and Sembler toed the conservative line and learned how to work the process. Pruitt rewrote the state Administrative Procedure Act, preventing state regulators from writing rules that are not specifically defined in state law. He pushed private property rights and loosened government control over state lands. Along the way, Pruitt's well-drilling business collapsed. He sold it in 1995 and got his real estate license.
Pruitt says the best advice he got came from veteran legislator Sam Mitchell, the Vernon Democrat who was a master at working the budget process and negotiating consensus. "Follow the money," were Mitchell's words of wisdom. Says Pruitt: "I latched onto Sam Mitchell's hip, and I learned if I was going to be successful I was going to have to learn the appropriations process."
Breaking ranks
Pruitt's education in that process helped bring him a long way from his original, more doctrinaire conservatism. He's no longer branded "worst legislator of the year" by environmental groups and chastised privately by his colleagues for being politically naive.
And since Republicans took control of the Legislature in 1996, Pruitt has been at the nexus of the state budget process. Under Republican House Speaker Dan Webster, R-Ocoee, Pruitt headed up a key budget subcommittee.
Two years later, under Speaker John Thrasher, R-Orange Park, Pruitt became chairman of the full Appropriations Committee. There, he stood at the governor's side and ushered in a $1.5-billion tax cut.
As he moved up the legislative chain, Pruitt marched in partisan lockstep with the governor and House leaders. The payoff: By the time he was elected to the Senate, he had accumulated considerable clout. Senate President John McKay, R-Bradenton, encouraged him to challenge Republican conventions and named Pruitt chairman of the Senate Finance and Tax Committee.
In 2001, in the midst of plunging state revenue and the fallout of 9/11, Pruitt sponsored a bill to rescind the $128-million cut in intangibles tax and called for undoing the 1999 property tax cut to spare public schools from deep cuts.
He also spearheaded McKay's effort to reform Florida's sales tax structure by eliminating loopholes and expanding the tax base. The effort was abandoned in the face of stiff resistance from the House and governor.
Pruitt remains convinced a change is long overdue to inject more fairness in the state tax system.
As a master of the appropriations process, Pruitt has been able to deliver plenty of money for local projects. A drive through his Senate district, which stretches from Palm Beach to Indian River counties, reflects his influence and ability. Indian River Research and Education Center features "Pruitt Research Road." The St. Lucie County Boys and Girls Club has "Pruitt Center." The Palm Beach Community College has "Pruitt Plaza."
"Thanks to him you can go to preschool here to your master's degree and never leave the city," says Nina Baranski, director of community relations for the city of Port St. Lucie.
Detractors say he is too close to trial lawyers, who have heavily financed his Bright Futures campaign, but while Pruitt voted with them on medical malpractice issues, he stayed with leadership in the House in 1999 and voted against them on broader liability reforms.
Admirers acknowledge that while Pruitt can lose his temper when he thinks people are trying to undercut him, he is willing to listen to those with needs and build coalitions if he sees a problem that needs solving.
In 1998, Pruitt was instrumental in arranging additional funding for three group homes for the retarded in Palm Beach and Martin counties that nearly closed. He also championed the case of Kimberly Godwin, a retarded woman who was abused, raped and impregnated at two different group homes.
The family sued and won an $8-million verdict but needed the Legislature to pass a claims bill to get the state to pay more than $100,000. Behind the scenes, Bush and his Department of Children and Families opposed the bill, but Pruitt wanted to help.
His solution: Allowing the state to pay an annuity company over 10 years. The Godwins were paid in full, and Pruitt's approach is now a template for paying long-term claims.
Pruitt's actions have won him many friends among social services providers -- and among Democrats back in his district. Lance Block, a West Palm Beach trial lawyer, calls himself both a "diehard Democrat" and a Pruitt "zealot." Block has raised money and organized neighborhood walks for him for the last five years.
"If it came down to a Democrat vs. Ken Pruitt, I would back Ken Pruitt. There's nobody else," Block says. "He's 100% honest and, I do believe, despite his Republican credentials, he understands there are certain responsibilities government has for the truly needy."
Pruitt will become Senate president in 2006 if he continues to maintain the support of his colleagues. It's the first time in many years that the Legislature knows who its Senate president and House Speaker will be so far into the future. Term limits have compressed the time a lawmaker has to build relationships and earn his way to the top job.
Higher office?
Meanwhile, Pruitt continues the habits he's developed over his 14 years in the Legislature, arriving at his office each morning to write dozens of thank you notes and e-mails to people he's met or spoken to.
He and his wife, Aileen, 44, have been open about her breast cancer, which recurred in January after two years in remission. She has established a network of support at home and urged her husband to continue to throw himself into his work.
His wife's illness, he says, has had "a profound effect on me to be a lot more sensitive to these type of issues. When she got breast cancer, it made me take a long step back and reassess what my goals were as a legislator."
Sembler, whose House term expired and is now Indian River tax collector, believes Pruitt has learned something that "no book in the land can ever prepare you for. You learn over time that issues are linked together and, along with the tax system, the ripple effect is incalculable."
For his part, Pruitt vigorously denies that he intends to use the leverage he's gained for political goals beyond his two-year term. "I have no aspiration whatsoever," he says. He's not bashful, however, about his intentions to use his clout as Senate president. Floridians, he notes, will elect a new governor the same month he becomes Senate leader. The new governor "has to make sure our agenda is important," he says.
"I get frustrated by the missed opportunities and the lost potential," Pruitt says. "There is so much more we could do that we don't do."