WEEKLY ROUNDUP – A CONCLUSION AND A CONFERENCE CONSTANT
Posted by klaing on May 8, 2009
(Recap and analysis of the week in state government)
By KEITH LAING
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, May 8, 2009………There were many moving parts during a week of session overtime as lawmakers rushed toward a previously scheduled finale, but one thing was certain as they conferenced on the few remaining issues: the presence of Sen. JD Alexander.
The Senate’s chief budget writer was ubiquitous this week, representing his chamber in haggling over the compromise $66.5 spending plan and the proposed Seminole gaming compact that was integral to making it work. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, had different dancing partners for each conference, but he was often alone doing the Senate’s portion of the legislative two-step.
The doggedness of the senator who quipped in April that he “didn’t have anything to do this summer” when the possibility was raised of a special session was noticed by no less an authority than Gov. Charlie Crist.
“Every meeting that I was watching, JD was there,” Crist said during the traditional sine die ceremony heralding the close of business.
But the agreements Alexander helped hammer out were like nails on a chalkboard to many in both chambers, and when the House returned to take up the budget Thursday, they let it be known. Republicans crowed about how proud they were of the work they did to plug the $6 billion worth of holes in the budget, but it’s unlikely that’s really true for most of them. They call it a surcharge, but the spending plan has a major tax increase on tobacco that several of them had fought for years, and the budget is propped up on a big handout from Washington that many in the GOP didn’t really want to take.
It also relies heavily on nearly $800 million in fee increases that the party in power has never before thought a good idea. But when the economy does what it’s done the last year, there are few good choices, and many lawmakers are likely happy just to be heading out of town having done their constitutional duty in a year many thought they might not be able to.
Republicans were not alone in being conflicted on the budget compromise. The minority party has consistently said the Legislature has focused too much on spending cuts in the constricting economy instead of looking for new revenue. But after Republicans agreed to include the cigarette tax championed by the party and used federal stimulus money approved by a Democratic president and Congress, Democrats pelted them with criticism for not listening to their ideas anyway.
The cards were not dealt any better for Alexander in the Seminole negotiations. The House and Senate struck a gaming deal to permit full card games such as blackjack and baccarat at Seminole casinos in Broward and Hillsborough counties and give the state a cut of the tribe’s revenue. But the deal only came after negotiations between the two chambers – up against a Friday deadline if the state was going to get any badly needed revenue from the tribe – appeared to break down.
The Senate backed off from a previous offer that would have limited banked card games to select casinos and instead proposed that the tribe should offer the games at all of their properties. But in the end the Senate caved to what Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, called his “final offer.”
Alexander said the Senate’s stance was the minimum the tribe would accept, but a visibly frustrated Galvano, R-Bradenton, said the Senate was moving backwards.
But while the reshuffled negotiations looked like they would be enough to stack the deck against the compact, things were completely different the next day, with Alexander and Galvano finding the winning hand.
CHARLIE’S JOHN HANCOCK
With the House and Senate focusing on budget-related bills only during their week of overtime, the focus of the rest of the legislative process returned to the man who has to make it all official: Gov. Charlie Crist. The governor began trumpeting a few large bills with ceremonies this week, and he also quietly affixed his name to several others measures.
Crist signed legislation this week that will allow police to pull over motorists who aren’t wearing a seat belt. Since the requirement to wear a seat belt went into effect in Florida, police have only been able to ticket drivers for violations after they’ve pulled them over for something else. But that will change with Crist’s affirmation of legislation (SB 344) allowing primary enforcement, which was the culmination of a multi-year effort led in part by former Rep. Irv Slosberg, whose daughter Dori was killed in a crash.
All along backers said the measure would save lives, which was echoed at the signing ceremony by Crist. But with Crist’s signature making primary seat belt enforcement the law starting June 30, the state will qualify for more than $35.5 million in highway safety money that it has already built into its 2009-2010 budget. The money, which will come from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, will go to the state Department of Transportation.
Another bill signed this week that drew a lot of attention before reaching Crist was the confidential informant bill known as Rachel’s Law. Calling it a foundation and a model for the nation, the parents of Rachel Hoffman watched as Crist signed into law the measure named after their daughter killed a year ago to the day.
Flanked by her grieving parents, Irv Hoffman and Margie Weiss, and solemn lawmakers on the first anniversary of her death, Crist put his name to the measure that sets out stricter guidelines for the use of confidential informants in drug stings and other undercover operations. Backers hope the law, a compromise reached with state law enforcement officials, will prevent at least one future death by requiring police to give potential informants more information before they enlist their services and setting up guidelines for their use.
The ceremony was bittersweet for Hoffman’s parents, who planned to travel back to Tampa to visit her grave following the signing ceremony at the Capitol.
“If we can save one life, just one life, we’re pleased,” a tearful Irv Hoffman said. “It’s the first law in the country to help confidential informants. We made history today. Rachel made history today.”
RUBIO’S RUNNING, WILL CRIST?
Capital television viewers were frequently treated this week to an ad from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee that assumes Crist will be the Republican Party’s candidate for the open Senate seat in 2010. But to get the nomination, Crist, who said he is considering the race, found out this week he’ll have to go through another Capitol veteran.
While national and Florida Republicans await a decision on the Senate race from Crist, who has said he would not decide until the conclusion of session, former House Speaker Marco Rubio threw his hat in the ring this week. As expected, Rubio, R-Miami and the son of Cuban immigrants, announced that he would seek the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Mel Martinez.
National Republicans have sought to draw Crist, whose popularity has thus far been unblemished by the state’s economic hardships, into the race hoping to retain what is expected to be a prime Democratic target. Crist has led the potential Republican primary field by a wide margin in a string of early polls. But that was not enough to keep the charismatic Rubio on the sidelines.
Still, even in declaring his candidacy, Rubio acknowledged the challenge the self-proclaimed people’s governor could present if he decides he wants to be the people’s senator.
“I’m under no allusions about how difficult this may be,” Rubio said in an video announcement on his Web site. “I know that there are people more famous than I who may enter this race.”
Rubio and his most likely roadblock to the Republican Senate nomination are hardly strangers. Rubio’s ascension to the House speakership in late 2006 coincided with Crist’s move into the Governor’s Mansion in early 2007, though Rubio was widely seen as more in line with former Gov. Jeb Bush’s staunch conservatism than Crist, an unabashed populist.
In their first year together at the helm of state government, Crist vetoed more than $450 million in state spending approved by the Senate and Rubio’s House of Representatives. While their agendas weren’t always the same, they weren’t openly hostile to each other.
But that could certainly change if a primary between them became a fight for the soul of the Republican party. The middle-of-the-road Crist was perhaps the most prominent Republican supporter of President Barack Obama’s federal stimulus package, which was roundly criticized in most quarters of the party nationally and in Florida.
The Republican-controlled Legislature – which though he’s gone still more closely reflects Rubio’s politics than Crist’s – left some stimulus money for unemployment benefits on the table this session, arguing that the requirements to access it would be too onerous when the money was gone.
Even before Rubio formally entered the race, speculation began building that a Crist announcement could come soon, perhaps as early as Monday. In the wake of the adjournment of the session – which he effectively used to deflect the Senate speculation for two months – Crist said that he doesn’t have an announcement yet on whether he’ll run for another term as governor or seek the emptying Senate seat in 2010.
“Got to contemplate over the weekend,” Crist said as he waded through the rotunda Friday.
With a budget passed and session now officially in the books, the rest of the Capital will likely join that contemplation, governor.
STORY OF THE WEEK: With the scheduled conclusion of the 2009 session having come and gone, lawmakers hammered out the lingering details of the $66.5 billion budget and the Seminole gaming compact. And no one did more hammering than Sen. JD Alexander, who represented the Senate in conferencing on both matters.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I think there’s maybe three members of the Legislature you haven’t been conferencing with,” Rep. Bill Galvano said of his negotiating partner on the Seminole gaming compact approved by lawmakers this week.
–END–
05/08/09
