St. Pete Times: FL Gov candidate Jim Davis owns up to voting errors

[seafan]

Davis owns up to voting errors

By TAMARA LUSH and ALEX LEARY
Published September 12, 2006

MIAMI — With Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee at his side, Jim Davis apologized Tuesday for his 1990 vote to deny restitution to the wrongfully convicted men.

“I made a mistake,” Davis said during a 1 p.m. news conference at the Carrie Meek center in Miami. “If you’re looking for the perfect candidate, it’s not me.”

Davis asked Pitts and Lee, who are black, for forgiveness and said he would advance issues facing the African-American community, including restoration of voting rights for felons who have served their time.

“I will listen. I will learn,” Davis said. “I am stronger for this experience.”

Said Lee: “It takes a good person to stand up and admit he made a mistake.”

Pitts and Lee were convicted of the 1963 murders of two white service station attendants in Port St. Joe, a rural North Florida town.

They were pardoned in 1975 after Gov. Reubin Askew said there was substantial doubt about their guilt. (Another man confessed to the murders in 1966 but was never formally charged.)

snip

[rpannier]

1. Now if that had been scrubbie instead of Davis

He'd have blamed everyone else including the two men.
He would have refused to change his position, because a leader must stay resolute.
Then he would have had them executed for their crimes.
I know...I know. They were wrongfully convicted. But what's a little innocence where scrub is
concerned?

[Nimrod2005]

2. He is getting my vote in November!

[seafan]

3. And, of course, vindictive Jeb weighs in:

Republicans even got in on the act, mocking Davis for not being able to squelch the story sooner.

Davis pledged before the primary to review the case, but wouldn’t apologize for voting against compensating them while he was a state legislator.

"Instead of saying 'Look, at the time I made a mistake,’ now he says ‘I’ve got to go review the papers again.’ That’s just ridiculous," Gov. Jeb Bush said last week while campaigning for Republican candidate Charlie Crist in Jacksonville. "He’s earned the issue becoming a real one."

But other black Democrats shot back.

"A governor born into privilege who did away with affirmative action by executive order because he thought it was no longer necessary … carries no weight whatsoever," said Rep. Curtis Richardson, D-Tallahassee.

Thank you, Representative Richardson.

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060912/CAPITOLNEWS06/60912019">Davis offers apology to ex-death row inmates