Rod Smith (politician) - Legal and Political Career

Legal and Political Career

Following his admission to the Florida bar Smith worked for the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission for two years, representing the state in cases relating to labor law. After two years in Tallahassee, Smith returned to Alachua County and spent the next 15 years in private practice. The St. Petersburg Times later wrote that, since that time, Smith has "crisscrossed Florida, representing an array of labor unions–police officers and firefighters, electrical workers, carpenters, painters and pipe fitters. He argued on behalf of large vegetable farmers and dairies and nurserymen. He won settlements against the likes of DuPont and, occasionally, represented criminal defendants...He established himself as a skillful litigator."

In 1992, Smith was recruited by a group of county sheriffs to seek the office of State Attorney for the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Florida. Smith was elected that same year and, during his first term, successfully prosecuted serial killer Danny Rolling, the "Gainesville Ripper." Re-elected in 1996, Smith created the circuit's first special prosecutions unit, which dealt with crimes against women and children, and created an environmental crime unit.

In 2000, Smith was elected to the Florida Senate as a Democrat. He represented the 14th Senate district, which included nine counties in northern Florida, centered around Gainesville and Ocala. While in the Senate, Smith served as chair of the Agriculture Committee, as Vice Chair of the Criminal Justice and Justice Appropriations Committees, and as a member of the Communications and Public Utilities, Environmental Preservation, Rules and Calendar, and Ways and Means Committees, as well as the Legislative Budget Commission.

During his term in the Florida Senate, Smith was noted for his work on issues related to criminal justice. He strengthened the state's child abuse laws, fought discrimination in housing and worked to protect the privacy of crime victims. He also improved the state's crime prevention and homeland security initiatives. Smith "sponsored, and passed, legislation to prevent mentally retarded persons from being executed." In 2006, he led the coalition that defeated Governor Jeb Bush's plan to weaken Florida's voter-approved class size amendment and create a school voucher program.

Smith is a partner with the law firm of Avera & Smith and also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law where he teaches constitutional law and trial practice and supervises the prosecution clinic. He has also taught at Santa Fe Community College.

The Miami Herald summed up Smith's biography in this way, "He comes from a line of struggling farmers and saw public school as a way out. While in law school at the University of Florida, he juggled going to class with helping to run the family's cattle operation. He won respect from unions as a labor lawyer, got elected state attorney and went on to leadership posts in the Florida Senate."