Florida Politicians Taking a Go-Slow Approach in Elian Case

Even in Florida, the politics surrounding Elian Gonzalez remains as treacherous as the waters between Miami and Cuba.

Though several leading politicians--most prominently Vice President Al Gore and the state’s two U.S. senators--back legislation to preempt the boy’s deportation, other political leaders in Florida have held back. In fact, while most Republicans appear sympathetic, only one of Florida’s eight Democratic House members has endorsed the measure--and virtually all the rest are likely to oppose it if it reaches a vote.

That caution reflects the ambivalence many Floridians outside the Cuban American community feel about short-circuiting the usual immigration process in the Gonzalez case, local analysts say. In particular, the idea of rewriting the law for the boy has sharpened tensions between Cuban Americans and other ethnic communities, who argue that the Cubans’ clout is producing favorable treatment.

“If we are to treat one individual the way that we are treating this child, then in all fairness to all the immigrant children who are here under unique circumstances, we should be offering them similar consideration,” says Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.), an African American who introduced a bill this week to block possible deportation of a 6-year-old Haitian girl.

Given these cross-currents, many political operatives in the state believe Gore, who attended a fund-raiser in Palm Beach on Thursday and continues campaigning in the state today, moved prematurely last week when he embraced the bill meant to block Elian’s imminent return to Cuba with his father.

“Gore pulled the trigger on this thing pretty damn quick,” said one senior Democratic operative in Florida. “He didn’t really take the time to come in and talk to a lot of Florida people on it. I actually believe they would have told him to be careful. . . . This is not a unifying issue in Florida where everybody is on the same page.” No recent polls in Florida have measured opinion on the emotional case, but a survey conducted last fall by the Florida Voter Poll, an independent polling group, found sentiment in the state mirrored the national trends, with about three-fifths of adults saying Elian should be reunited with his father.

Survey Shows Split Among Varied Groups

Even in South Florida, an overwhelming majority of non-Cubans have supported reuniting the child with his father. In a January survey conducted for a Miami television station, 70% of non-Latino whites in the Miami area and nearly 80% of African Americans said Gonzalez should be returned to his father in Cuba. By contrast, nearly 90% of Miami-Dade County Cubans said the boy should not be returned.

“In a sense, the Cuban community is becoming more isolated from the other communities,” says Jaimie Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami’s Institute of Cuba and Cuban American studies.

Bubbling just beneath the controversy are much deeper cultural strains. As in other states with large immigrant populations, the growing prominence of Cuban Americans has unsettled some other residents. And the images of Cuban American protesters threatening to block the boy’s removal from his Miami relatives tap into the fears that the state may be balkanizing, local observers say.

Especially pointed in this case may be tensions between the Cuban American community and African Americans and Haitians. “In South Florida, the African American community has always felt the Cuban Americans have gotten much too much attention and gotten too much of their way when it came to the distribution of political power and other issues,” says Jim Kane, who runs the Florida Voter Poll.

African Americans actually constitute a larger share of the typical statewide vote in Florida (about 12%) than Cuban Americans (who usually make up about 7%), says Kane. But the Cubans’ clout is magnified by their importance as political donors.

The resistance from core Democratic groups, such as African Americans, may help explain why few Florida Democratic officials have endorsed the legislation to remove the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s jurisdiction over Elian’s case--a move that would at least temporarily prevent the boy’s father from returning him to Cuba. Though Gore and Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.)--mentioned as a possible running mate for the presumed Democratic presidential nominee--have backed the measure, the only House Democrat to do so has been Rep. Peter Deutsch, who has a measurable Cuban American presence in his South Florida district.

But Hastings says that, based on conversations with his colleagues, he believes virtually all of the other Florida House Democrats would vote against the bill. State Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson, the presumptive Democratic nominee in this fall’s U.S. Senate race, effectively backed the measure in a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno last month, but he’s remained virtually invisible in the dispute.

For many Democrats, the recent backlash against Alex Penelas, the 38-year-old mayor of Miami-Dade and a rising star in the party, testifies eloquently to the risks in the Elian case. Penelas, a Cuban American who’s facing a reelection fight this fall against a Cuban American serving on the county commission, stirred intense emotions in late March when he dramatically declared that he and other local mayors would not provide police support to federal officials attempting to “repatriate Elian Gonzalez to Cuba.”

Since then, Penelas has retreated, with local officials insisting they would prevent civil disorder from protesters in the streets--though not actively assist in the removal of the boy from his relatives’ home if necessary. The hard line Penelas took may help him in his mayoral race, but many local observers agree it has enormously complicated his hopes of running for governor, senator or winning a Cabinet appointment under Gore, with whom he has been close.

In fact, one Florida Democratic operative maintained that a fund-raising event for the Democratic National Committee to be held in Miami, where Gore was originally scheduled to appear tonight, was canceled and consolidated with another event today in Ft. Lauderdale in part because of White House anger over Penelas’ comments. A DNC official denied the allegation, saying the events were combined to allow Gore to return more quickly to Washington.

Since Cuban Americans in Florida routinely cast about two-thirds of their votes for Republicans, local GOP leaders face more pressure to support Elian’s Miami relatives. Both of the contenders for the party’s Senate nomination--Rep. Bill McCollum and state Education Commissioner Tom Gallagher--say the boy’s case should be removed from the INS. Likewise, presumptive GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush has backed the legislation to move the case into Florida family court.

Jeb Bush Seeks Safety Assurances

But Texas Gov. Bush’s brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has been somewhat more cautious. Though Jeb Bush has joined the chorus urging that the case be shifted from the INS to family court, he called Penelas immediately after the mayor’s controversial remarks to receive “assurances that public safety and public order would be maintained,” as Jeb Bush put it later.

And after the state GOP recently sent out an incendiary fund-raising letter criticizing President Clinton’s handling of Elian’s case, Jeb Bush said it was inappropriate to use the controversy in that manner; the party later donated the money to the defense fund for the boy’s Miami relatives.

Former state GOP chairman Tom Slade said Jeb Bush was one of the few politicians whose actions seemed intended to defuse rather than sharpen the ethnic and political tensions swirling around the case. “Hopefully, this thing is going to get over sooner than later,” says Slade. “The longer it plays out on the stage of Florida and American politics, the more damage that is going to be done in a wide variety of different ways.”