From the WSJ Opinion Archives
World Wide Jeb
The president's brother aspires to be the first "e-governor."
Lots of people go on post-Christmas holiday cruises, but Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida may be one of the least happy. He's not at all worried about the viruses that have infected some ships lately. "I'm more worried about being on a boat that long without e-mail and stuff," he groused mildly to reporters before departing on a three-day family cruise to the Bahamas arranged by his father, the former president. "I'm going to go through huge withdrawal over three days."
Jeb Bush has stunned many Floridians over the last four years by passing out business cards with his personal e-mail address at public appearances, and then actually responding to their messages. "I get perhaps 150 to 200 e-mails a day," he told The Wall Street Journal's editorial board this month. "It helps me keep close to the pulse of the people. I get unfiltered advice or criticism, and different information than my staff can give me." The governor answers some e-mails and forwards others to relevant department heads, but he reads them all. "The governor can be in all 67 counties in one day on the basis of e-mail," says Bush adviser Brian Yablonski, who has himself e-mailed the governor with suggestions for legislation.
Donna Arduin, Mr. Bush's budget director, says that many people are pleasantly surprised to get an e-mail back from a real, live governor. They view it as more personal than a letter they would assume was written and signed by someone else. Sometimes an e-mail is indeed a better way of responding to problems that represent real distress, such as the case of a sick child or a church that has run afoul of government regulators. "There are real people out there with real pains needing real attention," Mr. Bush tells his staff. "Some we can satisfy, some we can't. That is why it is so important that we respond to the hundreds of e-mails."
The governor's e-mail connection is only one manifestation of his desire to become the nation's first "e-governor." His obsession with the Internet began during his 1998 campaign, when he spent $26,000 to create a state-of-the-art "Jebsite" that featured the usual issue papers along with daily pictures from each of his campaign stops and even "chat sessions" with Marvin, the family dog.
After Mr. Bush's victory, one of his early moves as governor was to put all 140 of the state's Web sites under one state portal. His office began sending out "blast" e-mails to people who wanted updates on his administration's activities. But he won't wait for people to contact him. He often calls ordinary people he reads about in the newspapers. He asks his staff to give him the names of two business owners every day and then calls them to ask how the state can better serve them.
The governor says his reaching out to so many different folks helps him keep a focus on his six top priorities: raising student performance in schools, improving the state's business climate, reducing crime, making government more customer-friendly, helping "vulnerable citizens," and managing the state's growth and environmental challenges. Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan can only shake his head at his boss's Energizer Bunny-like qualities. "He has no concept of what an eight-hour day job looks like," Mr. Brogan told the St. Petersburg Times.
But even as detail-oriented a governor as Mr. Bush misses problems in a sprawling bureaucracy that serves 16 million people. A scandal in the state's child-protection agency, which handles foster care, threatened to become a major issue in his re-election race this year. But Mr. Bush says his e-mail contacts with parents and even children helped him get a grip on the problem and organize a commission to recommend wholesale changes in the agency. Even his critics concede the governor neutralized the issue in this fall's campaign against Democrat Bill McBride. Mr. Bush won 55 out of 67 counties, rolling up a 56% to 43% victory in a state that was tied in the 2000 presidential contest.
Perhaps even more importantly, Republicans took two-thirds supermajorities in both houses of the Florida Legislature and are now in a commanding position to make the state a model of conservative reform. Expanding the state's innovative school choice program, streamlining the regulatory process and fully implementing a performance-based budgeting process are all on the table. But other ideas could turn up as soon as Gov. Bush finishes his next batch of e-mails.
