Opinion: Foul play

What happened in the Florida House of Representatives Wednesday recalls Chief Justice Roger Taney's infamous comment in the Dred Scott case that slaves "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Today, it is the people of Florida -- not just the hapless Democratic minority -- who have no rights that their Legislature is bound to respect.

That the Republican majority killed, as expected, a carbon copy of the Senate's tax reform is now less important than how they did it. The precedent was set, for Speaker Tom Feeney or any successor, to defeat a bill by consigning it to a "select committee of the whole" that will accept no amendments, permit only a fifth of the members to take part in time-limited debate, hear only those of the public who are hand-picked by the majority, and to thereafter pretend that it had a fair hearing.

This was so fundamentally foul, so totally inconsistent with the spirit of the House's standing rules, that Minority Leader Lois Frankel did not exaggerate when she referred to it as "the kidnapping of the House by the majority party." Indeed, it gave the Democrats a decent excuse to walk out on the travesty, as 18 of them, mostly from safe districts, subsequently did. Some perhaps secretly welcomed the opportunity to avoid casting a "yes" vote that the antireform lobbies would hurl back at them in November -- the only "safe" vote was no -- but this can be overlooked because of the ruthless way in which Feeney and his henchmen were treating them.

Rep. Johnnie B. Byrd Jr., of Plant City, who will be speaker next term if Republicans retain the House in November, was a principal architect of this outrage. That is among the facts voters may wish to weigh as they decide whether they should send Democrats or Republicans to the House on Nov. 5.

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