TALLAHASSEE -- Surrounded by a multi-million dollar modern art collection, seated on purple, crushed-velvet chairs that resemble thrones, Florida's top CEOs mingle amid strains of harp and piano music.

The cocktail-party setting echoes political fund-raisers hosted and attended by the same people. But on this balmy autumn evening in Orlando, the Council of 100 is setting its agenda for Florida.

The businessmen -- from developers to Disney executives to bankers -- are drafting blueprints to restructure Florida's education system, revive its economy and fight off tax reform.

Working side-by-side behind closed doors with Gov. Jeb Bush and led by Bush's own campaign finance chairman -- they are driven by the conviction that what's good for Florida business must be good for the rest of the state.

For some of them, the conviction is keeping Bush in office is good for business.

"We want to be a force in shaping public policy. We want to be influential. That's our mission," said Al Hoffman, the wealthy Bonita Springs businessman who personifies the Bush way of doing business.

Hoffman is an important GOP insider -- George W. Bush's campaign co-chair, Jeb Bush's past and future campaign finance chairman, and at the moment also the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.

He also is one of the state's most influential businessmen, and at the meeting in Orlando this fall, Hoffman ascended to chairmanship of the Florida Council of 100.

That leaves the council poised to wield unparalleled clout as the lines between business and politics vanish. This privatization of public policy comes from a governor who calls himself the CEO of Florida and often refers to state government as an "enterprise."

The relationship is so tight, Bush reached out to them at the Council's fall meeting in 1998, less than 24 hours after winning election as governor.

"The governor came to us and said, 'I want and actively seek your cooperation and work and involvement,' " Hoffman said.

Bush employed the council to help sell his most radical proposals to lawmakers and constituents -- an overhaul of the state's civil service system that resulted in the loss of job protection for 16,000 state workers, the controversial "A+" education plan that gave parents of children at failing public schools vouchers to pay for private tuition, and now the revision of the K-20 system.

But depending on the private sector to formulate public policy can create conflicts, cautions one political scientist.

"A group of un-elected officials who in their own right have enormous resources and power have become very influential in government without the larger electorate knowing much about it," said Lance deHaven-Smith, a Florida State University professor.

It reverses an effort since the 1960s to draw sharper boundaries between government and business by opening government meetings to the public and limiting campaign contributions.

"There had been a sense that the government had been captured by the largest businesses and some of the businesses were like a shadow government -- it was exercised in back rooms and through financial contributions and indirect dealings," deHaven-Smith said.

The Florida Council of 100 was created in 1961 by Gov. Farris Bryant, a Democrat. The state's key business leaders are "invited" into the group and approved by the governor. Members pay $3,000 in dues each year, and last year the non-profit group collected more than $500,000 in fees.

For a Republican to reach out to the business world is not unusual.

"Every governor has surrounded himself by people that are friendly," said former Gov. Reubin Askew, who began his term in 1975 at odds with the council over his position to institute a corporate income tax but ended up relying on their help to boost the state's dismal bond rating.

"What is somewhat different," said deHaven-Smith, "is that you have a national player in Jeb Bush and he is comfortable working with these very high-level executives and powerful people."

Bush's relationships with the council leadership reveal an intricate web of politics, business and friendship.

The same year Bush took office, the chairmanship of the Council of 100 went to Chuck Cobb, the former chairman and CEO of Arvida/Disney.

Cobb served Bush's father as ambassador to Iceland and as deputy secretary of commerce during the Reagan administration, and his wife was appointed by President Bush last year as ambassador to Jamaica.

Cobb donated $25,000 to the Republican Party of Florida during Jeb Bush's 1998 gubernatorial campaign.

"I'm an active Republican and I am a strong supporter of Jeb Bush and George W. Bush," Cobb said. "We are very, very close to the Bush family, we love the Bush family and we do anything the Bush family asks us to do."

Cobb tapped Hoffman to succeed him, in part, he said, because the governor endorsed Hoffman. The Chicago native who once aspired to become an artist, comfortably straddles the political and business hemispheres.

He replaced fellow council member Mel Sembler as national finance chairman for the Republican Party in January.

His Watermark Communities Inc., a widespread luxury real estate conglomerate, began with retirement communities such as Tampa's Sun City Center and has expanded to include upscale golf resorts, including a partnership with Ritz-Carlton hotels. WCI grossed more than $1 billion last year, Hoffman said.

Hoffman's friendship with Bush dates back more than a decade to the governor's days as commerce secretary under Gov. Bob Martinez in the late 1980s, when Bush honed his skills promoting Florida's corporate community.

The 67-year-old developer served as finance chairman for Jeb Bush's 1998 campaign and raised $80 million for his brother as one of the president's campaign co-chairman. He donated $100,000 to the president's inauguration, along with three other council members, and now plans to step down from his national post to resume his post as finance chairman for the Florida governor's re-election campaign.

The Bonita Springs resident -- who said raising money for Bush is like "giving money to your church -- it makes you feel good" -- also served as the money man for the think tank Jeb Bush established after a losing bid for governor in 1994.

Other prominent Council of 100 members -- and major Republican donors -- have links to Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future: Outback Steakhouse chairman Chris Sullivan, likely to succeed Hoffman as chairman in 2003, contributed more than $275,000 to the state GOP since 1996; former Florida Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga, who forked over more than $300,000; and Jacksonville insurance executive Tom Petway, who's given more than $100,000 since 1998.

"It's clear that the current leadership tends to be more activist in the sense of wanting the council to help and benefit the program of the governor because most of them politically are attuned with what Gov. Bush wants," said one of the council's most tenured members, former chairman Burke Kibler, a Democrat appointed in 1969.

Council members dispute the notion that the group will become a political arm of Bush's re-election campaign, despite Hoffman's reputation as a GOP rainmaker.

But they do concede that having Jeb Bush's pals running both shows creates a symbiosis.

"It so happens that both Chuck Cobb and Al Hoffman are active Republicans, and both very supportive of Jeb in his campaign and enjoy considerable access to the governor which they use to have dialogue about things that are important to the council," former council treasurer Preston Haskell said.

Bush makes no secret of his admiration and reliance on the council members.

"These are talented men and women, particularly on economic issues," Gov. Bush said.

"If they can make suggestions on how to quicken the pace of economic recovery, I'm all for it."

Council members are better able to make those suggestions, Bush said: "They're immersed in the economy and they have a better sense of how bad or how good things are going than others."

Bush and the council work with overlapping agendas. "In many cases we share the same vision -- I don't know whether they're his ideas or the ideas of our constituency," Hoffman said.

Regardless of whose ideas they are, they're becoming policy.

"It looks as though (the council's) agenda is prevailing in terms of reorganization of the work force of the state, and the K-20 (education system), those sound a lot like council agendas and they look a lot like public policy right now," said St. Petersburg Times publisher Andrew Barnes, who serves on the council alongside other publishers of the state's largest newspapers.

For example, civil service reform -- touted by Bush when he worked for Martinez -- had been on the mind of the council for years, Haskell said.

Bush's controversial plan to shrink state government and shift thousands of secure state jobs into management positions outraged the unions, which bused thousands of angry workers to Tallahassee to protest the proposal.

It was the council -- specifically a task force headed by Hoffman -- that came to the governor's defense. The council provided the research, wrote the white paper, hired outside consultants to develop the plan and even helped form the strategy to get it through the Legislature.

Documents from the governor's office illustrate how heavily Bush and his staff relied on the council, joining in frequent telephone conferences while vetting the council's proposal through e-mails and workshops.

The council has operated largely without scrutiny for 40 years.

Interviews with members sparked a chain reaction of phone calls to Cobb and Hoffman expressing concern over the intrusion.

"We're not a secret organization -- we're a closed organization," Hoffman said.

But some council members find little distinction between the two.

"That's a rather subtle one," Haskell said. "It's simply a way of life that we're accustomed to operating in."

Barnes, publisher of the St. Petersburg Times, he said he was not bothered that the council crafts public policy behind closed doors because it doesn't have a say in whether their position becomes law.

Still, he said, "It makes me twitch to even have this conversation."

"The council's made of people who run private companies who are by and large accustomed to taking action without being observed doing so," Barnes said. "And it's a scrutiny you're providing which makes them -- and me -- a little nervous about unaccustomed observation."

To the Internal Revenue Service, the Council of 100 exists to "educate the community and promote economic development to provide a better standard of living for all Floridians."

The council's leaders concede they are not a philanthropic organization. Their businesses are affected by state policy -- and some do business with the state.

Sugar grower Flo-Sun is affected by the state's Everglades restoration plan. TECO, the Tampa-based electric company, has benefited from the state's policy on energy deregulation.

"There's some sort of selfish motivation in everything," Hoffman admits. "The American way of life is one of self-interest -- the only person of pure good will was Jesus Christ."

Alex Sink, former president of the Florida division of Bank of America, cautioned the GOP convergence could limit the council's vision.

Sink stepped down from her leadership post on the council because her husband, Democrat Bill McBride, is running against Bush for governor.

"The danger," she said, "is that sometimes when you get everybody of one ideology, you get on the railroad track and you stream roll down the track and you forget who you're leaving on the side and how many bodies you're crashing."