One in a series of profiles on state representatives and senators leading to the opening of the legislative session Jan. 22.
Don Davis is a state representative for District 18 and vice president of corporate relations for Gate Petroleum Company.
WHAT DOES HE DO THERE?
He’s been with Gate since 1983. “I handle all the company’s institutional advertising, promotions, sponsorships and contributions. I was in charge of the real estate development portion of Epping Forest Yacht Club. I sold the remaining lots in Epping Forest for people to build homes on and then I developed and built the last of the three condominium buildings and sold those.”
HOW LONG AS A FLORIDA REPRESENTATIVE?
He won the election in 2000 and his term ends November 2002. He’ll be eligible for three more terms.
WILL HE RUN AGAIN?
“Yes, of course.”
WHO DO YOU ANTICIPATE WILL RUN AGAINST YOU?
“I don’t anticipate anyone running against me. Once you are elected and you do a good job, you stay really active working for your constituency and the people in Tallahassee are happy with your work, then it’s pretty likely that you may not get an opponent.”
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST ISSUE FACING YOUR CONSTITUENTS DURING THE UPCOMING LEGISLATIVE SESSION?
“Redistricting. It happens every 10 years and the reason that it is the most important issue is that it is so contentious. I didn’t think that it would be. I would think it is a very simple matter to resolve, but what has happened is that the population of Florida has increased to from 12.5 million people to 16 million. You still have the same members of the House and Senate, so districts have grown and lines have to be changed. Ideally, you want each house district to represent about 133,000 people. My district is a high growth area; I have 155,000 people now in my district, so I have to give up about 20,000 in my district. I have to decide where I want to give them up and where do other representatives need them that will be contiguous to their districts while still keeping the districts fairly uniform and compact. It is rather complicated.”
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST ISSUE FACING THE LEGISLATURE AS A WHOLE DURING THE UPCOMING SESSION?
“Taxes and the budget. We had a special session where we had to cut the budget over a billion dollars. It’s a very difficult process. No one wants to hurt education, cut seniors out of their prescriptions, hurt the Medicaid program, community colleges or judges. Nobody can really stand a cut. But, when we have a situation where our revenues are so much less than they have been in the past, we have to cut. The point I want to make is that even though we cut public education, we only cut the increase that we had budgeted in last year. Public education in Florida got $430 million more after we made the cuts this year than they did last year.”
WHAT’S DIFFERENT THIS YEAR?
“Typically, the legislature meets in March and April every year. This year because of redistricting, we will start Jan. 22. The reason for that is that we have to work out the new redistricting plan and have it complete so the boundaries will be drawn so people will know the area they will qualify for in the spring. We will also have to take another look at the budget.”
DO YOU ENJOY BEING A POLITICIAN?
“I don’t particularly like being referred to as a politician, I prefer ‘public servant.’ I like public service, I like helping people. I like being involved in the decision making process of things that affect our daily lives and our businesses in Florida. I am associated with a wonderful group of people over there in the legislature.”
AGE
70.
ANY POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS BEYOND STATE LEGISLATURE?
“I don’t think so. If it was a few years earlier my answer would probably yes. But, at my particular stage in life and with my position here at Gate, this is working out really well for me.”
COLLEGE
He has an associate’s degree in business administration. He left college to join the Army. He served in Korea for about 10 months before he was pulled out and sent to Japan. He served in Japan for another year before they sent him home and he was discharged in 1954.
AFTER THE SERVICE?
He went into the insurance business with George Washington Life in Georgia. He met his future wife there and after they married, they decided to move back to California in 1955 where he was raised. He went to work with Occidental Life Insurance in California for five or six years. In 1961, the manager of the Florida office of Occidental died, so he was sent to take over the Jacksonville office.
He joined Stockton Whatley Davin and worked there for 14 years. He was in charge of real estate development and the club operations at Deerwood. “In 1983, Gate Petroleum bought the real estate division of Stockton Whatley Davin and that’s how I became a part of Gate.” After joining Gate, he remained at Deerwood before moving to Southpoint, where he sold undeveloped land in that area.
HOW DID YOU LIKE JACKSONVILLE?
“We really like it here. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to do things outside of Jacksonville, but I have never wanted to leave. I got very involved in the community from the very beginning, civically and politically.
HOW DID YOU GET INTRODUCED TO POLITICS?
“I helped people run campaigns. I ran former mayor Ed Austin’s campaign when he ran for state attorney the first time he ran. I helped run Dale Carson’s campaign for sheriff. I really did like it. I became president of the Jacksonville Jaycees, president of the Gator Bowl and chairman of the Tournament Players Championship. So I got very much involved.”
WHEN DID YOU OFFICIALLY GET INTO POLITICS?
“Officially, my first time was in 1987. I had always wanted to get involved in public service and I had been around the fringes of it for many years by helping others with their campaigns. I always wanted to be a candidate. An opportunity came about in 1986 when Bill Basford, who was an at-large City Council member, was appointed to be the tax assessor, which left an open seat. It was an at-large seat, which is what I wanted because I wanted to run county-wide, so I immediately announced that I was going to be a candidate. Well, so did three other people, one of whom was Andy Johnson. That was an experience. It was really a difficult campaign with this guy Johnson [now a radio commentator here.] I was astonished to find that even with all the work that I had done in the community, I still had very low name recognition. It seems that political name recognition and civic name recognition are two different things.”
SO WHAT HAPPENED AT THE FIRST PRIMARY?
“Johnson got 49.9 percent of the vote in the first primary; he needed 61 more votes out of the total of 90,000 to win. He demanded a recount so we had to go to City Hall and have the ballots recounted. He was still short the 61 votes and liked to have had a stroke. I came in second and two weeks later he and I had a run-off. I beat him by 13,000 votes.”
HOW LONG DID HE SERVE AS A CITY COUNCIL MEMBER?
He served for four years and was re-elected without opposition two more times. “So, I served a total of about 12 years as a City Council member. I was then elected to be president of the City Council twice.”
HOW DID YOU JOIN THE FLORIDA LEGISLATURE?
“It just so happens that the timing was perfect. I was in my last year as City Council president in 1999 and for the first time in the history of Florida, term limits took effect in the legislature. Joe Arnall represented District 18, which is where I live. District 18 encompasses all of the beaches area and southeastern part of Duval County. His consecutive terms were up, so it left again an open seat. So, I decided in the middle of 1999 that I was going to run for that seat. Any time there is an open seat there are a lot of people who qualified for it. I had three very credible Republican opponents, Holly Kartsonis, Ed Jones and Jeffrey Snead and one democratic opponent. We ran a year-long campaign and all of us showed up at every forum, every debate and every community association. In the primary election I got 46 percent of the vote and I needed 50 percent so I had a run-off with Ms. Kartsonis and I won.” He then beat the Democratic opponent and filled the seat.
WHAT DO YOU DO OUTSIDE POLITICAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE?
“I play golf and tennis. I go snow skiing once a year and hunting a few times a year.”
FAMILY
He has been married to Alice for 47 years. They have two sons, D. Robert and Dean and four grandchildren: Lindsay, 15; Rob, 12; Ally, 2 and a half; and Skylar, nine months and one on the way.
— by Michele Newbern Gillis