Reubin Askew

Did You Know?

• Askew was the first trade representative to hold the title United States Trade Representative, not Special Trade Representative.
• In 1987, Askew declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate but withdrew in May 1988, citing the need for perpetual fundraising; at the time of his withdrawal, he had led in the polls.

Early life and education

Reubin Askew came into the world in Muskogee, Oklahoma, as the last of six kids born to Leon and Alberta Askew. His parents split up when he was just two years old, a split he later blamed on his father’s heavy drinking. Two of his brothers would struggle with the same issue. After a bad run-in with a pipe as a teen, Askew swore off alcohol and tobacco for life.

He saw his father one last time at age ten, under tense circumstances, and never laid eyes on him again. In 1937, his mother moved them to Pensacola, Florida. His middle name, O’Donovan, was her maiden name, and he always signed his name with the double initial O’D. to honor her. To help make ends meet, he sold magazines, shined shoes, bagged groceries, and peddled his mother’s homemade pies.

She worked as a waitress and a seamstress for the Works Progress Administration. In 1944, he joined the Escambia Chapter of the Order of DeMolay, a Masonic group for young men. He finished Pensacola High School in 1946, then spent two years as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, leaving the Army as a sergeant in 1948. At Florida State University, he joined Delta Tau Delta and Alpha Phi Omega, and got elected student body president, kicking off his political career.

He earned a B.S. in public administration in 1951 and later went to law school at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

Legislative career

Reubin Askew, a Democrat, began his political career in 1956 when he won election as Assistant County Solicitor for Escambia County, Florida. Two years later, he secured a seat in the Florida House of Representatives, again representing Escambia. After two terms there, he moved to the Florida Senate in 1962, representing the 2nd district after defeating Philip D. Beall in the primary. He was reelected in 1966 to a redistricted seat that covered both Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, and won again in 1967 and 1968, running unopposed in the latter year.

From 1969 to 1970, he served as president pro tempore of the Senate. In 1971, the International Supreme Council of the Order of DeMolay awarded him the Legion of Honor. Askew was a progressive legislator. He backed reapportionment in the state legislature to reflect population shifts and boost representation for urban counties, which had more people than rural ones.

He also stood against legal racial segregation and the ongoing disenfranchisement of Black voters, who had been kept from voting since Florida’s early-1900s constitution. The 1965 Voting Rights Act allowed federal oversight to help Black citizens regain access to the political process.

Governorship

Reubin Askew won the Democratic nomination for governor in 1970, choosing Secretary of State Thomas Burton Adams Jr. as his running mate for lieutenant governor. The Miami Herald backed the ticket, writing that Askew had captured the imagination of a state that plainly deserved new leadership. His opponent, Republican governor Claude R. Kirk Jr., attacked Askew as a momma's boy who would lack the courage to stand up under legislative fire, and as a nice sweet-looking fellow chosen by liberals to front for them.

That harsh language helped revive the Democratic coalition. Mike Thompson, who had managed a Republican primary campaign for state representative L. A. "Skip" Bafalis, sat out the general election. He later said Kirk had demolished the coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats who elected him in 1966, leaving a trail of former friends, supporters, and citizens who made the fatal mistake of believing his words.

Askew and Adams defeated Kirk and Lieutenant Governor Ray Osborne with 57 percent of the vote. Florida's constitution had not provided for a lieutenant governor from 1887 to 1969; the change allowed the top two offices to be filled by running mates from the same party. Askew was reelected in 1974 with J. H. Williams as his running mate. He is one of seven Florida governors elected to two terms, and the first to serve two full four-year terms.

During his time in office, Askew focused on tax reform. In 1971 he secured passage of the state's first corporate income tax and increased the homestead exemption. He pushed for government transparency, trying three times to get the legislature to require financial disclosure by public officials. When lawmakers refused, he used a provision of the 1968 constitution to gather enough signatures to put the measure on the 1976 ballot. Voters approved the Sunshine Amendment by 78 percent, marking the first time the constitution was amended through citizen action. The amendment requires full financial disclosure from public officials and candidates, bans gifts to legislators, and prohibits former officials from lobbying for two years after leaving office.

Legacy and honors

Askew earned a spot on the list of the top fifty Floridians from the twentieth century, recognized for pushing tax reform, advancing racial justice, and promoting honest government. Florida State University honors him by naming its Student Life Center after him, and its alumni association gives out the Reubin O'D. Askew Young Alumni Award through its Thirty Under Thirty program. His high school alma mater, Pensacola High School, has a library bearing his name. In Pensacola, Interstate 110, the state's only I-10 spur route, is called the Reubin O'Donovan Askew Parkway, and the main terminal at Pensacola International Airport also carries his name. The Florida Department of State designated him a Great Floridian in 1998 for his major contributions to the state's progress and welfare.