Capital is all wrapped up in principle these days

TROXLER E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published February 4, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- Hot lingo from the capital:

It has become clear that nobody simply does something in Tallahassee.

They act on principle.

Tom Feeney, the speaker of our state House, has printed a little card bearing his five principles of government. He says every bill, every decision, should be tested against these tenets.

The other 119 members are supposed to be obeying Feeney's principles too. Every now and then you see somebody peering suspiciously at the little card.

Feeney even canned an obstreperous committee chairman, Nancy Argenziano, not because she bucked him and also sent a box of manure to a powerful lobbyist, but because her "principles and philosophies" were not in line with his own.

When it came time last October to cut the heck out of the state budget (or, as they say here, "adjust downward"), Gov. Jeb Bush did not supply a specific plan. He merely sent the Legislature a list of "guiding principles." After that, of course, the rest was easy.

John McKay, the president of the state Senate, also is a man of principle as he goes about trying to reform Florida's tax structure. All tax breaks, he writes, should be "evaluated on the basis of sound tax principle -- not on the basis of politics."

On the opening day of this year's session, one of McKay's lieutenants, Ginny Brown-Waite of Brooksville, asked her colleagues to act "on principles, not politics or power."

And our own Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Palm Harbor, defended McKay's idea to let the voters decide: "All we're saying is, give the public an opportunity to vote. That's a fairly Republican principle in years gone by."

No big moral. I just wonder if anybody ever admits to acting on something other than principle, say, in their choice of lunch.

One thing is clear, which is that as they act on principle, the members also will vote their conscience. That is the current way to say, "Vote the way that Feeney or McKay tells them to." The phrase "vote their conscience" gives rise to a question, namely, how do they vote the rest of the time?

It is very trendy in Tallahassee to be transparent, which used to mean either (1) something you could see through or (2) an unsavory motive that was obvious to a speaker who was criticizing it. Example: "The American Banking Association fired right back, calling (the) efforts 'disingenuous and wrong' and 'a transparent attempt to scare its membership and alarm consumers.' "

However, transparent is picking up a new cachet. This is largely because of the governor, who likes the word. He uses it in the sense of open, understandable, observable. Speaking of McKay's tax plan, Bush called for "full, honest and transparent dialogue."

The lingo has been fully adopted by the in-crowd: "We have not seen any fair, open and transparent debate," complained lobbyist J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich, on behalf of the Florida Institute of CPAs.

(A rare double-header was accomplished the other day by David Walker, the U.S. comptroller general, complaining about the secrecy of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy meetings. He said: "Failure to provide the information we are seeking serves to undercut the important principles of transparency and accountability in government.")

Lastly, it is considered desirable in Tallahassee to be seamless. This is the phrase to describe the governor's "reform" of the state education system, in which everything from kindergarten to doctoral degrees is under the same board (the way to write that is "K-20," which is spoken, "K through 20.")

The phrase does injustice to seams, of course. Seams are perfectly useful. They often are stronger even than the surrounding fabric. Without seams, we would all have to walk around in loose clothing, like, say, togas, which would certainly be seamless, although they would carry the threat, on a windy day, of becoming transparent. "Look!" people in Tallahassee might cry out then. "You can see that guy's principles!"

-- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.

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