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YouTubeSenate District 8 Profile: Stan Jordan
Abel Harding
Over the next few weeks, JaxPoliticsOnline.com intends to profile the leading candidates for the State Senate seat of the late Jim King. This profile is the first in that series.
A Study In Contrasts
Stan Jordan is a study in contrasts.
In 1997, after being elected to his fourth term on the Duval County School Board, Jordan claimed that he had all the "honor [he] could stand". Despite those professed feelings of accomplishment, he went on to challenge Incumbent State Representative Jim Tullis in the District 17 Republican primary, entering the race at the last possible moment, after term limits forced him off the School Board.
After a particularly nasty campaign, Jordan won a seat in the Florida House by less than 200 votes. (He also managed to survive a challenge two years later by Tullis, winning by nearly 350 votes.) Forced out of the House due to term limits, Jordan elected to run again for the Duval County School Board---the very position that he said more than a decade before that he "never planned to stay on [that] long." Once again, he won a particularly tight race.
Less than a year after re-assuming his seat on the Duval County School Board, Jordan announced that he would resign to pursue the State Senate seat left open after the death of Jim King.
17 Years on the Duval County School Board
Jordan's record during his (nearly) seventeen years on the Duval County School Board had its share of controversies.
His tenure was marked with fights with other board members, a revolving door in the Superintendent's chair, accusations that friends and relatives were favored for School Board jobs and contracts, Grand Jury investigations, State Ethics investigations and an SEC investigation. Throughout it all, Jordan remained unyeilding. In fact, in a 1997 interview with the Times-Union, he seemed to indicate a conspiracy against him, calling the multiple investigations of him an "interesting pattern."
Jordan's critics say his record of accomplishment after nearly two decades on the School Board is shockingly lacking. Instead, they frequently point to specific areas where they feel he did more harm than good.
Former School Board Chairwoman Gwen Gibson has been critical of Jordan's long-running fight with the NAACP over the desegregation of Duval County's Schools. In a 1997 interview with the Times-Union, Gibson said that "[she didn't] think they [Jordan and former Board Member Billy Parker] have any commitment at all to undoing the problems of the past."
Jordan also found himself under scrutiny over the pressure he exerted on the School Board over hiring and awarding contracts. In 1992, after leading a last-minute move to award a $184.5 million bond underwriting contract to the New York firm of Lazard Feres & Co., Jordan found himself in the crosshairs of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. School Board staff members and an independent financial advisor had ranked seven other underwriting companies ahead of Lazard Feres & Co, their bid seemed like it was dead in the water. Surprisingly; however, Jordan intervened at the last minute and persuaded his allies on the board to award the bid to the company. James Eaton, a Lazard Feres & Co executive, who later pled guilty to a wire fraud charge, was a donor to Jordan's campaign, as were several other individuals associated with Lazard. Jordan was never charged with wrongdoing.
Jordan and Billy Parker, his former high school principal and school board ally, were also accused of less than savory behavior in ousting former Superintendent Herb Sang. After forcing Sang out, Parker was accused of "parading" Larry Zenke, a close friend, around town and introducing him as the next School Board Superintendent, despite no public hearing or vote having taken place to select him as such. Despite testimony to that effect, a grand jury declined to pursue charges against Parker and fellow board members for Sunshine Law violations and the board, Jordan included, hired Zenke (whom they later fired).
While serving on the Duval County School Board, Jordan was also involved in controversy over what some termed as "excessive lobbying" in his bid to be selected as the Adjutant General of the Florida National Guard. He was not successful in his efforts.
The Florida House
In 2000, Jordan surprised Duval County's political establishment by making a last-minute challenge to incumbent State Rep. Jim Tullis. The race was particularly unusual because many weren't sure exactly what Jordan's reasons for running were. Tullis had been relatively successful in avoiding controversy during his first year in office, and party officials were not particularly delighted with having one of their own challenged from within the party. Nevertheless, Jordan pursued the office, utilizing his considerable grass-roots network (which is heavily stocked with family and long-time friends) to eek out a victory over Tullis.
After entering the Legislature, one of Jordan's first moves was a last-minute bill in the 2001 Legislative Session that became known as the "Jordan Amendment." This Amendment, which was recently highlighted on the blog PoliticsFla.com, allowed Jordan to, in effect, double-dip from the state pension by collecting a retirement/pension check, while continuing to serve as an elected official and collect a paycheck.
Jordan told Anthony Colarossi of The Orlando Sentinel, who wrote about the legislation on July 9, 2004, that the bill had "an unforeseen consequence." That "unforeseen consequence" was the loophole that allowed "highly compensated" officials around the state to collect pension payments while retaining their office. One such recipient of that legislation was Orange Circuit Judge George A. Sprinkel IV. According to the Sentinel, Sprinkel enrolled in the program and began collecting $6,801.06 in monthly pension benefits while retaining his $135,650 annual salary.
The intended beneficiary of the legislation was, of course, newly-elected State Rep. Stan Jordan. After the legislation was passed, Jordan immediately collected a lump-sum payout of $73,952 and began receiving monthly pension payments of $2,230. He did this without "retiring" from the new position to which he had just been elected and continued to draw a salary.
Jordan's 25 Year Legacy
Some of Jordan's critics point to his school board ethics battles and the notorious piece of state legislation that bears his name to argue that his 25 years of public service have been less than exemplary. In fact, some accuse him of being rather self-serving during his time in office.
Charges of a well advanced ego are no stranger to Stan Jordan. In that 1997 interview with The Florida Times-Union, Jordan "bristled at the notion he [had] a large ego." His critics and friends; however, disagreed. The late Don Brewer, former Duval County GOP Chair and Jordan ally, said that Jordan had a ''phenomenal drive and phenomenal ego.'' James Rinaman, the former Chair of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce and a frequent Jordan critic, agreed. "Stan is a board-certified egomaniac", Rinaman told the Times-Union. "He's got to have it his way or else, and you can't get him to stop talking."
Jordan's announcement that he was entering the special election to fill King's seat was his latest surprise move in a political career that has been full of them. His 1988 School Board race was one of those that looked like it might be his last. Then, just several years after declaring he had received all the "honor [he] could stand", he announced a last-minute bid to upset an incumbent of his own party who was barely a year and a half into his first term. He went on to return to the School Board he previously indicated he had tired of and managed to serve less than a year before resigning to pursue the seat of the legendary Jim King.
A series of attack ads funded by a mysterious group began assailing one of Jordan's leading opponents in the race merely days after Jordan announced his entry. The timing of the ads would seemingly indicate that Jordan has at least a few strong allies who would prefer to see him return to Tallahassee. It will be up to the voters of District 8 to determine if his previous 25 years of service have justified that.
[...] JaxPoliticsOnline.com has posted an even more in-depth profile of Stan Jordan, which you can read here. Yesterday, Stan Jordan announced he would resign from the Duval County School Board and enter the [...]