Bush, John Ellis ("Jeb")

Bush, John Ellis ("Jeb"), 1953- , American politician and businessman, b. Midland, Tx, Univ. of Texas, Austin (B.A., 1974). Bush is the son of George Herbert Walker Bush and younger brother of George Walker Bush. After completing college, he worked in banking and real estate as well as dabbling in politics. He first ran unsuccessfully for Florida's governor in 1994, losing to Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles. Four years later, he won the governorship, becoming Florida's first two-term Republican governor. As a governor, he mixed pro-environmental support, signing a bill supporting the restoration of the Everglades, and immigration reform, while taking conservative positions like reducing taxes, elminating civil service protection for state workers, supporting charter schools and school vouchers, and moving Medicaid recipients into private managed-care systems. Bush was a favored candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 but withdrew after poor showings in the initial presidential primaries.

See his Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution (2013; with C. Bolick).

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