By James Call
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-968903.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – Florida's 2011 Legislative Session ended early Saturday. James Call reports lawmakers past major policy changes on Medicaid and education and closed a multi-billion dollar budget shortfall with spending cuts.
In the final hours of a 60 day session a feud erupted between the House and Senate over a deregulation bill. Senators blocked the House from executing a maneuver that would have implemented a policy change without allowing the Senate from vetting the proposal through the Committee proposal. Senator Dennis Jones:
"In the future if you are going to have deregulation do it the right way. Put a house bill in, put a Senate bill in, get the public input, get it referred to two three committees. Vote it up or vote it down but don't come through the back door and have it heard in one House and then expect to have us swallow it. I think this is a bad, bad precedent, and like I said, two-thirds of them down there don't know any difference. It's our responsibility to show them the right way to do it-- send this bill down defeat it."
The Senate rejection of the bill angered the House. Speaker Dean Cannon said it broke an agreement, and a legislative train wreck ensued with one chamber stripping a bill, amending it to do something else and sending it to the other chamber. Deregulation and immigration may be the only failures in a conservative agenda articulated during the November campaign.
"They came in faking to the left talking about jobs but then they drove to the right with a crossover dribble like a basketball player to the right side ideology."
Rep. Joe Gibbons talking during a recess Friday night while leadership tried to keep the session on track. An NBA game is on the television in his office.
"If you see what we did we moved far to the right. This was more of a Tea Party legislature than a Florida Legislature. We were way too aggressive on those who need us the most."
Gibbons is a Democrat in a Legislature that is two-thirds Republican. The opposition protested spending cuts to public schools, changes in health care programs for the elderly, poor and catastrophically sick and reduced the number of weeks one can collect unemployment. Gibbons called much of it mean spirited. He shook his head at requiring drug tests of welfare recipients. Fewer than 120 thousand people in Florida receive cash assistance and Gibbons said a pilot program had 99 percent of participants passing the test.
"So why be mean-spirited why go in that direction. You know we're picking on those . . . you know everyone says everything is done on the margin; all the margin seems to be in one direction; those in the middle class and those who need the help the most."
Much of the policy changes that Gibbons discussed are included in the new state budget. The 69.7 billion dollar spending plan is balanced with more than a billion dollar cut to public schools, almost another billion in health care, the privatization of prisons in south Florida and requiring government employees to contribute three percent of salary to a retirement fund. Senator JD Alexander led the Senate in writing a budget and in negotiations with the House. He told Senators he believed closing a budget shortfall with spending cuts was a decision voters made last November.
"All across this state I think voters spoke in most districts very conclusively that they really didn't want government to grow in size, they wanted it to shrink in size. So that kind of limited our hands. You now, I hear about previously legislatures that raised taxes and fees. That would be me. I have led some of those exercises -- helped to pass the tobacco tax. Helped fund Medicaid. So I'm not afraid to do those things but I think it was pretty cleared what the voters wanted.
The Senate approved the plan shortly before midnight; it's for the year starting July first. The House followed suit two hours later and Lawmakers ended the session at 3:35 Saturday morning without the usual closing ceremony.