Charley Crist became Florida’s 44th Governor yesterday. In an Inaugural address that lasted about twenty minutes, the Republican career politician said as governor of the nation’s fourth most populous state, he wants to put politics aside.

“put the common good above partisan politics. We will work together to do what is right and reject labels, red, blue, liberal, conservative, democrat, republican. There’s only one label that really matters – it’s Floridian.”

Crist says one of his first acts of Governor will be to create the Office of Open Government to ensure that the people have access to their leaders and the workings of their elected officials. And he says property insurance and property tax reforms are his top priorities.

“Our state cannot be a place of opportunity if we cannot fulfill the American promise of owning an affordable home. We need action and our people deserve relief. And most of all we need comprehensive reform. Not stop-gap measures. No band-aids, no finger in the dike. We need permanent real solutions for the people.”

Governor Crist will have the opportunity to take a leadership role in adopting those reforms when the state legislature meets in special session in two weeks. But House minority leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach says finding real solutions to the property tax and insurance issues will be tricky…

“The devil’s going to be in the details, and that’s not going to be an overused phrase when it comes to how you solve the property tax problem. You can’t do something that merely cements in inequities, and I think what he came out with on the campaign trail really wasn’t a solution. But I suspect he’s going to come up with different alternatives…as will the Democrats and Republicans in the legislature.”

Before being elected governor, Charley Crist served as state Senator…state education commissioner…and later as attorney general.