Citing “the spirit of transparency,” Jeb Bush has posted a trove of emails from his tenure as Florida’s governor on a new web site, JebBushEmails.com.
“I am posting the emails of my governorship here. Some are funny; some are serious; some I wrote in frustration. But they're all here so you can read them and make up your own mind,” he writes on the site, which also includes the first chapter of a new e-book about his eight years leading the Sunshine State.
Bush says he spent 30 hours a week answering emails from constituents, especially after he made his personal email public.
The set of emails was previously obtained by news organizations late last year after public records requests, but Bush's move is meant to illustrate a tradition of communicating with constituents as well as a commitment to transparency – an issue that has tripped up past presidential candidates.
In the e-book, Bush paints his time as governor as the fulfillment of his “dream job.”
“I loved being the governor of Florida,” he wrote. “It was my dream job, and that feeling never changed, not in eight years. Not through the hurricanes, budget debates, or even hanging chads. We faced some huge challenges: An education system that was not serving our children well; a broken foster care system; over taxation and government regulations that were crushing our families and small businesses; and an unfocused state budget fat with wasteful spending.”
The web site’s contents are available in both English and Spanish.