 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
State House leader makes light of his recent troublesBy STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer© St. Petersburg Times published February 21, 2003 TALLAHASSEE -- The joke was on Johnnie Byrd on Thursday. He wanted it that way. The House speaker from Plant City, trying to put behind him a string of controversies, showed a lighter side in a talk to the Economic Club of Florida. "People say I'm a right wing, gun-worshiping, poster child for the far right, and those are my friends," Byrd said. On a serious note, Byrd won applause from the crowd of government watchers by saying the House will not allow the state library to close, as is threatened by Gov. Jeb Bush's budget proposal. "What I can report to you is there is support for the Florida library. There's huge support for that," Byrd said. Surveying a crowd of about 150, the Republican lawmaker said: "I can tell that you do not need telemarketing to get the word out." Laughter rippled through the hall. The crack was a reference to Byrd's now-abandoned program to send out recorded phone messages to constituents. The self-styled "country lawyer" poked fun at his hometown of Brewton, Ala., a community of about 6,000 people 6 miles across the Florida line. Byrd said he was from "L.A. -- Lower Alabama." Prompted by a listener, he changed it to "U.C.L.A. -- ugliest corner of Alabama." Byrd related how Mark Twain stopped in tiny Brewton and said: "I'd rather live in vain than live in Brewton." Some historians say Twain made the remark about Pollard, a town near Brewton. Not all of Byrd's one-liners drew laughs. He returned to a favorite theme, the idea that a career in Tallahassee is a bad thing -- which was not universally welcomed by the audience of state employees, lobbyists, educators and others with ties to government. Over time, Byrd said, "You begin to be more concerned about whether government is going to be okay or not." Byrd said he favors lower taxes, less government, more freedom and greater personal responsibility. He criticized Florida's "activist" courts for encouraging lawsuits and portrayed himself as a lawsuit-happy lawyer in the 1980s. He said he once sued a farmer whose cow ate a neighbor's patch of collard greens. "I wanted to be a great trial lawyer like Perry Mason, F. Lee Bailey or somebody like that," Byrd said. "That's hard to do in a town of 4,000 people."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times state desk
From the state wire
|
