PORT ST. LUCIE — It didn’t take long for retiring state Sen. Ken Pruitt to find a new gig.

The Port St. Lucie Republican announced Tuesday that he has accepted a job handling government relations and public affairs for the Boca Raton-based law firm Weiss, Handler, Angelos & Cornwell.

Cynthia Angelos, a partner at the firm and former St. Lucie County chief circuit judge, is a longtime friend of Pruitt’s.

The firm has offices in Port St. Lucie, Boca Raton and Palm Beach.

After 19 years as a state legislator, Pruitt announced in May he would retire in August — more than a year before the end of his term.

Pruitt said he achieved his goals as a legislator and wanted to spend more time with his family.

Any doubts state Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, might have had about his “inner voice” and his decision to retire from politics were erased Friday night when he couldn’t make it to his daughter’s graduation on time.

With a budget stalemate forcing lawmakers to miss a May 1 deadline and remain in Tallahassee until Friday afternoon, Pruitt didn’t get home in time to see 18-year-old Michelle Pruitt receive an associate of arts degree from Indian River Community College.

Pruitt was driving near Yeehaw Junction when his daughter, dual-enrolled at the college while finishing high school, sent a text message to tell her dad she had collected the diploma.

“As a parent, those are the milestones that just kill you,” said Pruitt, who plans to be at his daughter’s high school graduation next month.

Pruitt, 52, said a combination of family and economic concerns and a sense that “we’ve accomplished everything that we set out to do” led him to announce Friday that he will step down from his Senate seat in August, more than year before the end of his term. A special election will fill the seat.

“There’s an inner voice that you have…..It wasn’t one single decision. It was a culmination of a lot of events in our lives that were taking place — some that we could control and some that we couldn’t,” Pruitt said today. (more…)