Elect Charles Dean for State Senate, District 3

Tallahassee Democrat
Oct. 03, 2007

Dean gets a warm welcome to Senate

By Bill Cotterell
FLORIDA CAPITAL BUREAU POLITICAL EDITOR

Happy Republicans swore in four new state legislators as the special session started Wednesday, including an ''eloquent cracker'' whose vast district includes thousands of state employees in Tallahassee and the Big Bend.

Gov. Charlie Crist stopped by the Senate to watch the morning ceremonies for Sen. Charlie Dean, R-Inverness, who succeeds former state Sen. Nancy Argenziano in Senate District 3. Crist appointed Argenziano to the Public Service Commission at the end of the regular session, and Dean won a special election for the year remaining in her term.

The district extends across North Florida from Tallahassee to the suburbs of Jacksonville but also runs down the Gulf Coast and veers inland to the Citrus-Marion County area.

Dean, a former Citrus County sheriff, thanked members of the Florida House for teaching him the legislative process. He said he expects to be an active advocate in the Senate.

''I have deep values that I feel very strongly about and I will stand and I'll speak - I don't know how eloquently, sometimes,'' he said. ''I speak eloquent cracker, but that's about as far as I go.''

Dean beat Democrat Suzan Franks of Hernando in the June special election for the seat. Franks recently announced her candidacy for a rematch next year. Dean and his wife, Judy, marked their 43rd anniversary on Wednesday and the Senate presented them a floral bouquet.

''Charlie, we know that you cut your teeth over in the House but you're going to find that the Senate is just a very, very special place,'' Senate President Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, told Dean after he took the oath. In the House, meanwhile, winners of three special elections also were sworn in for truncated terms.

Rep. Ron Schultz, R-Homosassa, was elected to fill out Dean's term in the House. Rep. Kurt Kelly, R-Ocala, won the seat of ex-Rep. Dennis Baxley, who ran for the Senate but lost to Dean in the GOP primary. Rep. Charles McBurney, R-Jacksonville, succeeds ex-Rep. Mark Mahon, R-Jacksonville, who was appointed to a judgeship by Crist.