WUSF 89.7 News
(2009-06-23)
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"Hello, this is Phyllis Busansky, your supevisor of elections for Hillsborough County. It is our pleasure in the elections office to serve you."
Busansky was attending the Florida State Association of Supervisor of Elections conference in St. Augustine when she passed away in her sleep in her hotel room. Sigrid Tidmore, director of communications for the elections office, was in St. Augustine attending the conference.
"Hillsborough County has lost a real champion of good government, and thank God she motivated so many people to follow after her," Tidmore says, "but we just extend our deepest condolences to her family."
She was described as a bundle of energy and full of life, despite her battles with lung cancer.
"The lung cancer was something that she had dealt with two or three years ago, so she was cancer-free, so I don't suspect that was involved," says Tidmmore. "Phyllis has had no more health issues than the rest of us over the last few months but nothing of anything of significance, so this certainly caused us a real shock. We are real surprised, we're sorry to say."
Busansky was one of the pioneers in women's politics for Hillsborough County. She served as the county's aging services director and two terms as a county commissioner. She was the driving force in creating the county's indigent health care plan. Busansky had her share of political setbacks as well, losing to Gus Bilirakis in his first campaign for Congress.
But she struck pay dirt again in November, besting incumbent Buddy Johnson in a race that highlighted several irregularities in his administration of the office. It took several days of hand-counted ballots before she finally overtook Johnson. Here's one of her campaign ads:
"I'm Phyllis Busansky, and I'm running for supervisor of elections. The supervisor of elections is an office you vote on. It counts the ballots, it makes sure you get the ballots, it makes sure you know where your precincts are going to be. It should have the integrity so that every single person has confidence that their vote will be properly counted."
"The thing that was so inspirational about her besides her decency and her fun and goodwill toward people was the fact that she was a risk-taker. She took on some sitting incumbents - male incumbents - that no one thought could be beaten, and lo and behold, she whipped them."
USF political science professor Susan MacManus says Busansky had enough gumption to try to buck the good-ol-boy system.
"She said the Congressional race was an uphill battle all the way," says MacManus, "but she just didn't believe that anyone should go uncontested in office, that democracy was all about competition, so she put herself forward in that race - never really expecting to win, but giving it her all, and then the same kind of scenario unfolded with Buddy Johnson, where she saw that it didn't look like anyone was going to run against him but she believed that something needed to change in the office and she offered herself up, and she worked her heart out, and she won.
She said Busansky visited her political science classes at USF and inspired many future politicians."
"She will be sorely missed," MacManus says. "She did so many things for so many people behind the scenes, just because she believed passionately in people. And I just come back to some students that I know who have gotten jobs with her recently that have had their whole lives changed by their willingness to take a gamble and teach them them about the world of politics and how to be ethical in that world."
Busansky leaves behind her husband, Sheldon, a former director at Honeywell, and three grown children. She was 72.
A spokeswoman for the Secretary of State says the governor will appoint a replacement to fill the vacancy until the 2010 election. Funeral services for Busansky are scheduled for this Friday morning at 11 Congregation Schaarai Zedek in south Tampa, and the public is invited to attend. © Copyright 2009, WUSF
