Lee Weissenborn: Ex-Florida senator who tried to move state capital to Orlando dead at 88

[TexasTowelie]

Former Florida Sen. Lee Weissenborn’s most famous “failure” turned out to be his most substantive win.

Weissenborn, who died May 7 at 88 in Palmetto Bay, represented Miami-Dade and served in Florida’s House of Representatives from 1963 to 1967 and the Florida Senate from 1967 to 1972. In 1967, while in the Senate, he presented a bill to create a commission to study the feasibility of moving the state capital from Tallahassee to Orlando.

Weissenborn, who had been a delegate to the 1960 Democratic National Convention, had become incensed with Tallahassee’s record on civil rights. Through the 1960s, Tallahassee was a provincial Southern town with segregation as the rule. During that period, Tallahassee opted to close its public swimming pools rather than integrate them.

Weissenborn’s bill gained serious traction, startling not only the idealistic legislator but also Tallahassee’s civic leaders. The city, after all, had been the state capital since 1824.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article150466057.html

[csziggy]

1. As the article says his efforts inspired the current Florida capitol building

The design of which might have been a gesture intended directly at Weissenborn:



Since I've lived in Leon County, I have often wished Weissenborn had managed to get the state capital moved to Orlando so that city had to suffer two of worst plagues our state has - legislators and tourists.