As he fights the Senate endlessly over money, nothing is too minor to escape House Speaker Johnnie Byrd's attention.
The Plant City Republican says he's too busy with important matters to sweat the small stuff. But Byrd has taken aim at a $250,000 program begun four years ago by then-Republican Speaker John Thrasher with a former Democratic speaker, T.K. Wetherell, now Florida State University president. It's the Legislative Research Center and Museum at Tallahassee Community College.
For three years, the Legislature funded the museum. Now Byrd is balking.
"I want to evaluate it," Byrd said. "I want to set up some guiding principles."
He speaks dismissively of a museum board "with a bunch of former legislators on it." Many are Republicans, such as former minority leaders Ken Plante, Sandra Mortham and Dale Patchett. House clerk John Phelps is on the board too.
The history museum is a repository of still photos and negatives, historical documents and a growing video archive, including oral histories of former lawmakers. The museum assembled the historical photos that line the Capitol's walls. It is a modest effort to highlight the past in a state largely ignorant of its own history.
The Senate used the museum for orientation after the 2002 elections, and it's designed to be a secure location for lawmakers if terrorists attack the Capitol.
"We're going to have a public building with no money to operate it," said the museum's chairman, Ron Richmond, a lobbyist and another former House GOP leader, from Pasco County. "That doesn't make a lot of sense."
The museum flap is mostly about politics, not history. "I think this may be a personality situation," Richmond said. "It may just be leadership infighting, I don't know."
To Byrd, the museum has two big strikes against it. Senate President Jim King supports it, and the museum's director, Anne Mackenzie, is a former House Democratic leader.
Byrd noted that King and Mackenzie are friends but said his hesitation is not aimed at her. When King found out that the House was not willing to set aside $250,000 for the museum in its budget as in previous years, he wasn't happy.
"I have no idea what they are talking about," King said.
Yet Byrd sees nothing wrong with setting up a board composed mostly of him and some friends to run an Alzheimer's center that wants $45-million this year alone, with a broad public records and open meetings exemption.
Perhaps in a House stocked with newcomers, most of whom will be gone in a few years because of term limits, history isn't very important.
Byrd is a Johnnie-come-lately to Florida. You won't hear him quoting Dempsey Barron, reminiscing about the Pork Chop Gang or weighing the impact of LeRoy Collins.
When the House considered dismantling the affordable housing program, Byrd's minions hailed it as a healthy break with old, stale ways. And nobody recognized the name of the late Bill Sadowski, a former House member from Miami for whom the program is named, or what Sadowski contributed to the lifeblood of Florida.
Term limits have made the Capitol a revolving door. Historical perspective is more important than ever now, because the old storytellers are no longer around.
The museum could be a place for thought-provoking seminars on Florida political history: taxes, race relations, reapportionment.
Instead, the leader of one chamber seems to enjoy finding new ways to irritate his fellow Republican down the hall.
Maybe someday we'll look back and contemplate the historical significance of it all.
