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If members of the House and Senate have learned enough about each other to make the coming special session a success, their efforts over the first 60 days will not have been wasted.
Rarely if ever have so many worked so hard to accomplish so little. Or so it appeared when the Legislature adjourned its regular session Friday. As cheers and applause echoed throughout the Capitol's fourth floor for the traditional session-ending ceremony, one could wonder whether they signified "good job" or "good riddance." Having been scarcely on speaking terms before that moment, House Speaker Johnnie B. Byrd Jr. and Senate President Jim King even managed to hug. The governor, however, made his displeasure clear by snubbing the ritual.
The most serious consequence of the failure to pass a budget is that the Senate has given up on trying to extract new revenue from the House. That's bad news, for it portends a budget that every senator concedes to be inadequate. King rationalized that there has to be a budget by June 30 - much sooner for the sake of sound planning - and time is running short. Citizens dismayed by the white flag need to write or call their legislators without delay.
To their credit, members of both houses did manage to address every other significant issue. They worked hard, they worked long. But they didn't seem to know how to agree. This owes in large part to the strong ideology and marked inexperience of the House, whose attitude too often recalled John F. Kennedy's complaint after a summit with the Soviet Union: "We cannot negotiate with those who say, what is mine is mine, and what is yours is negotiable."
The House's arrogance was particularly evident in respect to the worker's compensation bill. It became something of a standing joke; King would ask the Senate's reading clerk, "Are there messages from the House, by any chance?" The one he wanted would have been the House's worker's compensation bill, which the Senate intended to change and send back for agreement or for negotiations. But the House deliberately kept the bill until Thursday, so as to put the Senate under the gun of a House rule under which any Senate amendment would effectively mean the death of the bill. Senators properly exercised their right to change it for the better, Byrd refused to bend on his rule, and the bill was lost.
The 60 days did not go to waste, however, if seen as a dress rehearsal for the special sessions that will ensue. As King remarked afterward, the House and Senate at least know now "where each other's hot buttons are and we know where to go." King promised eventual accord not just on a budget but also on medical malpractice, worker's compensation, auto insurance and class size. Sponsors also claim agreement on the hugely important court system bill that the House leadership inexplicably derailed on the 57th day.
It might have been better had they agreed somewhat less often. The bills that seemed to have the least trouble passing were those that were problematic for consumers, such as the telephone rate increase, or for the environment: Everglades, dry cleaning pollution, "right to farm," to cite just a few.
There was good news in passage of the governor's public corruption legislation; in success, after 14 years, for Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher's crusade to control unscrupulous rating practices by out-of-state group health associations; in the rescue of the Medically Needy program; and, early on, passage of legislation allowing standard diplomas for learning-disabled students who had difficulties with the rigorous FCAT.
Overall, however, legislators need to understand that Jeb Bush is not alone in the view that it was the worst session he had seen. But as they say, bad dress rehearsal, good performance. We'll see.