Your money keeps burning holes in the pockets of Johnnie Byrd, speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. First, The Man Who Would Be Your Next U.S. Senator hired 13 publicity people, more than the governor has. Then he switched computer contractors in an expensive way that drew the House into an expensive lawsuit. Now he is proposing to purchase handheld e-mail devices for every House member who wants one.
To such criticism, Byrd points out that the House is still within its budget and even returned some money to the state treasury this year. That's nice, but wouldn't it have been even nicer to budget less and return more?
In total cost, the e-mail devices would be the least of Byrd's extravagances. The BlackBerry model he cited costs $300. With about half the 120 House members saying that they want them (the smart ones will say "No thank you, Taxpayers"), the capital outlay would total $18,000. The $50 monthly charges, presuming House members tuck them into their official expense accounts, would run to $36,000 a year. That's small change by Tallahassee standards.
But it wouldn't be small change to any of the public schools whose teachers are digging into their own pockets for supplies or to one of the college students who are paying higher tuition for larger classes - if, that is, they still get classes. Legislators who impose suffering and sacrifice on everyone else should pay for their own toys.
It's not as if it's hard to contact them now. Each legislator already has a laptop computer and a Capitol e-mail address. To reach lawmakers in the House or Senate chambers, one need only to send a note into the House or contact a senator's aide. Legislators can't use cell phones on the floor, but they can see who's calling and step into a glassed-in room (known as "the bubble") if they want to take or return the call.
There is one constituency that would be delighted to see legislators equipped as Byrd proposes. That constituency is, of course, the lobbyists.
Lobbyists used to sit in the galleries and make hand signals to instruct their favorite legislators. The lobbyists don't spend much time in the galleries these days, because the Legislature has thoughtfully provided large-screen television screens at each end of the public area between the chambers, so they view the action simultaneously.
With Byrd's BlackBerrys, a lobbyist would no longer have to ring up an aide or send in a note. He or she would simply tap out a message - "This is the amendment we need you to vote "no' on" - and batch-send it to every legislator on one's personal list.
It's probably too much to hope that legislators and lobbyists can ever be kept at the respectful arm's length where they ought to be. But must we spend public money to draw them even closer?
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One of the most conspicuous budget cuts this year effectively abolished the Tobacco Awareness program, which has kept a lot of kids from taking up the world's deadliest habit. Gov. Jeb Bush bemoaned the Legislature's decision but claimed to be powerless to rectify it.
Not anymore. The $31-million he didn't get from the Legislature corresponds almost exactly with the cash that someone left on the state's table earlier this month by not turning in that $50-million winning Lotto ticket. The Lottery is restricted by a law (which it wrote) to plowing unclaimed money back into the prize pool or to spending it on promotion. But promotion, by definition, includes advertising. Most of the Tobacco Awareness budget went to film and movie spots, which could logically be considered advertising for the Lottery merely by identifying the Lottery as the sponsor.
Why not?
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If something should happen to both the president and vice president, the House speaker is next in line; after him, the Senate president pro tem; after them, the Cabinet members in the order by which their offices were established. Scholars warned Congress last week that this succession, the law since 1947, may be unconstitutional because neither legislative leader is an "officer" as contemplated by the Constitution. Congress ought to listen, and not just for that reason.
By Senate tradition, the senior member of the majority party is the pro tem, which is why 100-year-old Strom Thurmond was three heartbeats away from the presidency until his retirement less than six months before his death last year. Toward the end, Thurmond appeared to be barely aware of where he was or what he was doing.
Moreover, it often happens that the House or the Senate or both are not controlled by the president's party. A crisis situation in which both the president and vice president were killed or disabled would be bad enough without a sudden shift of power to the opposition.
The Cabinet is a sufficient and adequate line of succession. Congress ought to get itself out of it now.
