Even children can detect the doubletalk and outright dishonesty of Tallahassee lawmakers on education, the environment and other issues.
Published May 17, 2003
After getting to meet with his state representative in the Capitol on Monday, 8-year-old Danny Stagnitta emerged with an eager question. Of Frank Farkas' pledge to provide more money for schools, Danny asked his mother: "Do you think he's lying?"
Yes, Danny, if words are measured against deeds, not many people in the House of Representatives are telling the truth these days. When bombarded by angry students, parents and educators, these House members offer their sympathy and say they want more for schools. When asked by House Speaker Johnnie Byrd to cut spending in the name of limited government, however, they vote with Byrd.
Farkas, who in the past has supported education spending initiatives, is by no means the worst of these charlatans. And their deceit is no longer directed merely at cleaning up their image for voters. As Times writer Julie Hauserman reports, the collapse of the regular session of the 2003 Legislature was owed at least in part to the inability of lawmakers to trust each other.
The much-observed breakdown in communication between Byrd and Senate President Jim King created an impasse at the top, but the daily doublespeak in the two chambers was equally worrisome. For example:
Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Treasure Island, told his colleagues to vote for a bill giving a break on dry cleaning pollutants in order "to respond to a court order." But that was not the truth. Publix Super Markets had lost a lawsuit after dry cleaning fluid from one of its shopping centers had polluted a neighbor's land.
Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, told his colleagues to vote for an Everglades cleanup delay because three new amendments would "accommodate" the objections of the U.S. Justice Department. But that was not the truth. A spokesman said: "The Justice Department is not helping to write any revision amendments, nor were we asked to."
House Appropriations chairman Bruce Kyle told his colleagues that "our budget increases public education spending by over $140 per pupil, while also meeting the constitutional mandate of Floridians by allocating over $600-million to reduce class sizes." But that was not the truth. The $140 increase was not in addition to the class-size money; it was inclusive of it. The class-size allocation, also, was $300-million, not $600-million.
Ed Homan, a Tampa orthopedic surgeon from Tampa who is serving his first term in the House, said he would try to study each bill carefully only to find out: "The game I was watching was not the game being played."
The willingness of lawmakers to distort their work and mislead colleagues and constituents is not a new phenomenon, but Byrd has created a House environment in which it has become almost standard operating procedure. This is a speaker who initially refused to release details of the budget his chamber adopted, who wants to label budget cuts as "reprioritizations," who calls enforcement of existing sales tax laws on mail-order businesses a "tax increase," who has created his own public relations spin machine to avoid the "distortions of third parties." Byrd, who has become the master of the legislative surreal, opened the special session Monday by proclaiming his previous work as "a huge, huge success."
Yes, Danny, the grownups are having a little problem with reality.
