Democrats use records bill to gain leverage

Members in the House got voucher money transferred to public schools, but the Senate kills $50-million for projects.

TALLAHASSEE - House Democrats enjoyed a rare legislative victory Thursday that was as thrilling for them as it was fleeting.

Outnumbered 2 to 1, the 39 House Democrats are used to being ignored. But they got the full attention of Republican leaders when they used a rule regarding public records exemptions to shift $38-million in school voucher money to public schools.

They also forced the House to sprinkle more than $50-million around the state in what they characterized as economic development projects, including $8-million for the University of South Florida and $1-million for MacDill Air Force Base.

"I'm proud that the Democrats held together," said House Democratic Leader Doug Wiles, D-St. Augustine, with a broad smile across his face. "We had the votes."

The smiles quickly faded.

A half-hour after the House vote, Senate Democrats joined their GOP colleagues in stripping the $50-million in projects out of the bill.

"It's not the first time the Democrats have been disappointed," Wiles said wanly.

Rep. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, reserved her anger for Republican House members, who refused to push for the projects.

"I feel duped," Gibson said.

Still, House Democrats saw the $38-million in voucher money as a consolation prize. That passed in a separate bill and was sent to Gov. Jeb Bush, who said he'll sign it.

"It was a good day for Democrats in that it was recognized that we need to have a role in the process. We need to have a say," said Rep. Jack Seiler, D-Wilton Manors.

They got help from an unlikely source: Republican lawmakers.

House Democrats would not have had any leverage without a constitutional amendment voters approved last year requiring two-thirds of the Legislature to approve exemptions to public records law. The amendment was pushed by two Pinellas County Republicans: former Rep. John Carassas of Belleair and former Sen. Jack Latvala of Palm Harbor.

As part of the deal to open a Florida branch, Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla, Calif., wants a public records exemption to protect its trade secrets and other business information. No exemption, no deal, said Rep. Randy Johnson, the Celebration Republican who has worked closely with the private nonprofit company.

Democrats said the exemption was too broad and allowed too much secrecy surrounding the state's $369-million investment in the project.

"We clearly had the votes to stop the public records bill which was critical to the Scripps deal," Wiles said. Democrats voted for the bill as part of a deal with House Speaker Johnnie Byrd to pass the $38-million education bill as well as the $50-million in other projects.

The voucher money will put extra cash in local school districts: $2.6-million for Hillsborough, $1.7-million for Pinellas, $830,000 for Pasco, $262,000 for Hernando and $217,000 for Citrus.

But Democrats lost their leverage when they approved the exemption in a separate bill. Were the Democrats bought off too easily?

"The Democrats never get bought off," Wiles said. The public records bill wasn't great, but it was better than it was before lawmakers tweaked it, he said.

Byrd insisted that the Democrats had little influence over the process.

"If that makes them feel good" Democrats can think that, Byrd said. But he wanted all along to add additional projects in the mix, though he never said that publicly until Thursday.

"We were just trying to build an economic package," Byrd said.

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