HUD’s Martinez May Run for Senate

MIAMI â€”  Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez intends to resign from President Bush’s Cabinet and campaign for the Senate in Florida, Republican sources said Friday, marking a development that would rock the Sunshine State’s politics and carry implications for American Latinos far beyond Florida.

The Cuban-born Martinez would seek the seat being vacated by three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Graham.

“He will win,� said James Witt, professor of government at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. “The Democrats have a very weak slate. Martinez, with the president pushing him, with the governor pushing him and the Cubans behind him, he will win.�

If Martinez does resign, an announcement that could come as soon as next week, it would mark a rare change in Bush’s Cabinet, which has been remarkably stable for three years. He would be only the third to leave the Cabinet, following the departures of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and environmental administrator Christie Whitman.

In Florida, Republicans said Martinez’s entry into the contest for their party’s nomination would upset previous calculations and almost certainly scuttle the Senate hopes of U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris. As Florida’s secretary of state, Harris played a high-profile role in the 2000 electoral recount that ended with President Bush being declared the winner in Florida. Harris has not formally announced her candidacy, but were she to become the Republican candidate for the Senate, it could rekindle the recount controversy and entice more Democrats to the polls.

“There has always been concern about Katherine Harris running, which is something the White House is not excited about,� said one Republican in the Florida Legislature, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They’ve been trying to look for an option. Mel could be the option.�

State Rep. Juan C. Zapata, a Miami Republican, said he had met with Martinez within the last week or two, and “he seemed very serious about his intention to run.�

“If you have a state that is going to be heavily contested and you have a Hispanic candidate who’ll mobilize the Hispanic vote, you obviously do it,� Zapata said. “Not just in Florida, Mel running would have effects throughout the country.�

Electing a Latino to the U.S. Senate, the Colombian American said, would help his party greatly in its efforts to woo the nation’s fastest-growing minority group.

Martinez came to the United States in the so-called Pedro Pan airlift of children whose families did not want them to grow up in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. The former chief executive of Orange County in Central Florida, he reportedly rejected earlier suggestions that he run for the Senate because he preferred to run for governor when Gov. Jeb Bush’s second term ends in 2006.

But he reconsidered his plans when Graham announced his retirement and there was a new round of appeals that he run.

Gov. Bush, speaking to reporters Friday, said that if Martinez does enter the race, “it would create one of the most hotly contested primaries that we’ve had in a long while.�

State House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, state Sen. Daniel Webster, former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, Pinellas County Commissioner Barbara Sheen Todd and activist Larry Klayman are already seeking the GOP Senate nomination.

The Democratic candidates are former state Education Commissioner Betty Castor, Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas and U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch of Pembroke Pines.

Some Cuban American lawmakers could hardly conceal their satisfaction at the possibility Martinez might run.

“What Mel would be is not a Hispanic who’s elected because he’s Hispanic, but a Hispanic who’s elected because he’s qualified and it doesn’t matter to people that he’s Hispanic,� said Republican state Rep. Juan-Carlos Planas of Miami.