Katherine Harris

Katherine Harris (born April 5, 1957) is an American politician from Florida.

Harris graduated from Bartow High School in Bartow, Florida, in 1975, after attending Santa Fe Catholic High School in Lakeland, Florida, from 1972 to 1974.

She attended the University of Madrid in 1978.

Harris received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, in 1979.

She studied under Christian theologian Francis Schaeffer at the L'Abri community in Huemoz, Switzerland.

While in college, she interned for U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles and U.S. representative Andy Ireland.

Before entering politics, Harris worked as a marketing executive at IBM and a vice president of a commercial real estate firm.

Shortly before his death in 1990, he was ranked as the 261st richest American on the Forbes 400 list.

Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at the University of Florida is named for him.

A Republican, she served in the Florida Senate from 1994 to 1998, as Secretary of State of Florida from 1999 to 2002, and as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Florida's 13th congressional district from 2003 to 2007.

Harris ran for the Florida Senate as a Republican in 1994 in one of the most expensive state races in Florida history to that time.

Harris played a prominent role in introducing William Griffin, the CEO of Riscorp, to various Florida legislators.

In the 1994 state senate election, Sarasota-based Riscorp, Inc. made illegal contributions totaling $400,000 to dozens of political candidates and committees, including $20,600 to the Harris campaign.

Harris earned a M.P.A. from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in International Trade and Negotiations in 1996.

Two years later, in 1996, Harris sponsored a bill "to block Riscorp competitors from getting a greater share of Florida workers' compensation market, [and] also pushed a proposal that would hurt a particular competitor."

This issue later emerged during her campaign for Florida Secretary of State in 1998.

William Griffin eventually pleaded guilty to illegal campaign donations, among allegations of other serious wrongdoing at Riscorp, and served prison time in 1998.

Harris was elected Florida Secretary of State in 1998.

She defeated then-incumbent Sandra Mortham in the Republican primary and won the general election against Democratic candidate, Karen Gievers, an attorney from Miami.

A state constitutional change, passed in the same year, making the Secretary of State an appointed office.

This change made Harris the last person to be elected Secretary of State in Florida.

After the House refused to agree with the proposed budget action, the Senate agreed to restore the money; however, it insisted on a review committee, appointed by Senate President John McKay, Feeney, and Governor Jeb Bush, to evaluate all of Harris' expenditures on international affairs since July 1, 1999, and produce a report.

In the 2000 presidential election, she received international attention for her role as the elected Florida Secretary of State during the state's election recount, certifying George W. Bush's narrow victory (537 votes) over Al Gore and awarding him the Florida electors, which gained him the national election.

Harris was born in Key West, Florida, to one of the state's wealthiest and most politically influential families.

She is the daughter of Harriett (Griffin) and George W. Harris Jr., who owned Citrus and Chemical Bank in Lakeland, Florida.

Her maternal grandfather was Ben Hill Griffin Jr., a successful businessman in the citrus and cattle industries and a powerful figure in the state legislature.

As Secretary of State of Florida (and co-chair of Republican George W. Bush's election efforts in Florida), Harris was a central figure in the 2000 US presidential election in Florida.

She was involved in purging 173,000 individuals from the state's voter rolls, the results of hiring a firm, "Choice Point", that provided Florida with an extremely inaccurate list of those supposed felons who became disenfranchised via misidentification.

In early 2001, Florida Senate leaders eliminated the $3.4 million that Harris had budgeted for international relations for the year, assigning it instead to Enterprise Florida, the state's economic development agency.

However, Florida House Leader Tom Feeney said that he disagreed with the Senate and believed that Harris was an able advocate to foreign countries.

Harris abruptly resigned in August 2002 while campaigning for Congress when it was discovered that she had violated Florida's "resign to run", which stated "...No officer may qualify as a candidate for another public office, whether state, district, county or municipal, if the terms or any part thereof run concurrently with each other, without resigning from the office he or she presently holds."

Since the start of her Congressional term (January 3, 2003) would overlap with the end of her term as Secretary of State (January 7, 2003), she was required to submit a letter of recognition.

The law allowed candidates to have the resignation be effective up until the term for the new office began.

Since Harris failed to do so, she was required to resign immediately.

Harris said the oversight was unintentional.

She said that she thought because Florida voters had approved a constitutional amendment that made the position of Secretary of State an appointed office rather than an elected office, the law did not apply to her situation.

During her first 22 months in office, Harris spent more than $106,000 for travel, more than the governor or any other cabinet officer.

She visited eight countries on ten foreign trips.

According to a Sun-Herald column from June 2005, "Harris denied any knowledge of the scheme, was never charged with any crime and was cleared of wrongdoing by a state investigator."

Harris lost her 2006 campaign for a United States Senate seat from Florida.