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For Byrd, an ignoble House exit

Johnnie Byrd's final day as speaker of the House mirrored much of his term: contentious, erratic - and in the end, alone.

TALLAHASSEE - In the end, Johnnie Byrd was all alone.

After gaveling the 2004 Legislature to a close just before midnight, the Republican House speaker left the rostrum for the last time. He awkwardly shook the outstretched hand of clerk John Phelps.

Then he was gone.

Rep. Don Brown of DeFuniak Springs couldn't believe it.

"I noticed the fact that no one had followed him, and I did walk down the hall and into his office and wished him well," Brown said. "There was no one in there at the time."

That contrasted sharply with the scene one floor below.

Dozens of lawmakers, staffers, lobbyists and relatives hugged and high-fived each other in the office suite of Rep. Gaston Cantens, a Miami Republican who is leaving the Legislature.

As the noisy Capitol crowd spilled into the street after midnight, Byrd seemed to be the topic of every conversation. But he was nowhere to be seen.

While others lampooned his performance and laughed at lobbyists in sheep masks, Byrd was getting a ride home in a state car. Parked in a basement garage, it had been plastered with blue stickers for Dan Webster, who was then planning to run against Byrd for the U.S. Senate. A law-enforcement agent removed the stickers.

Wielding power on that last night, April 30, Byrd acted erratically, some lawmakers say.

He refused to tell House members which bills would pass. As time ran out, he was still pressuring the Senate to support a freeze on phone rates he had proposed. He had to be talked out of blocking a vote on the budget and driving the session into overtime, an idea others saw as politically disastrous.

A formal resolution to extend the session was delivered to Byrd by his chief of staff, P.K. Jameson.

"P.K. came to his desk and said, "Here's the extension language,"' said Rep. Marco Rubio of Miami, the majority leader and third-highest member of the House hierarchy. "There was definitely talk about the need to extend."

Two nights earlier, tensions had run high, with an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation in the speaker's office between Byrd and Cantens, the House majority whip.

Cantens was described by other lawmakers as furious after he learned Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami stood to lose as much as $13-million in health care money as part of a plan Byrd favored to direct Medicaid patients into HMOs.

Miami-Dade lawmakers already felt shortchanged by changes to school-funding formulas that cut the county's cost-of-living subsidy by another $13-million. Now, they said, the region's largest public hospital was being forced to take a hit.

"There was an awkward stare for a couple of seconds," Rubio said. "I don't think anything was resolved."

On the House floor at 11:59 p.m. that night, Byrd called on Cantens, who added the Jackson amendment to another bill. But it was too late. The Senate refused to go along.

Byrd leaves as he arrived. He is a loner who rarely displayed emotion. And when he did, he criticized lobbyists, the news media or the Senate.

His public persona was a blank expression and a few stock one-liners: "It's a great day in the state of Florida." "It's a member-driven process." "We're living within our means."

Now, as Byrd ramps up a U.S. Senate campaign that is well-financed largely because of his power to pass bills favored by moneyed interests, lawmakers are reflecting on why things went downhill.

"I saw so much potential," said Republican Rep. Ken Littlefield of Wesley Chapel, who is withdrawing his support of Byrd's senate bid. "I don't think I've ever seen anybody squander so much potential in such a little bit of time."

The consensus is that Byrd was in over his head, largely because of term limits.

In a world where one-on-one relationships are the glue that binds the Legislature, Byrd was largely disconnected from the lives of his fellow lawmakers, families and communities.

Previous speakers spent years bonding with members, visiting them back at home and coveting their support through dinners, fishing trips and ball games, the way football coaches lure star recruits.

Byrd didn't have to fight for it. The three previous Republican speakers, Tom Feeney, John Thrasher and Dan Webster, all had more experience and tougher competition for the job.

He was the only one in the seven-member 1996 freshman class to seek the job. Most lawmakers who pledged their support to him four years ago didn't really know him. A decade after moving to Hillsborough County from Brewton, Ala., where he was an appointee to a small-town school board, Byrd was soon one of the most powerful people in Florida.

Had the 1996 freshman class been larger, "he would not have been speaker," Littlefield said.

As the 2004 session wore on, Byrd became preoccupied with an agenda that would click with Republican voters in a Senate campaign. House members say they began to feel as if they were extras in a Byrd campaign ad, especially after he punished 16 of them for opposing the phone rate freeze.

He grew increasingly isolated.

When a tense exchange at a House leadership dinner three weeks into the session got into the St. Petersburg Times, Byrd stopped having the meals, lawmakers said.

When 16 Republicans opposed a freeze on phone rates, their bills and projects stalled. Some, including Littlefield and Rep. Marty Bowen, R-Haines City, were denied state travel to a legislative convention.

Byrd stopped holding daily press conferences in the last week of the session, and when Senate President Jim King made written negotiating offers, Byrd answered verbally, Senate aides said.

As the House devolved into chaos, many Republicans said they felt betrayed by Byrd. Rep. Dennis Ross accused him of "vindictiveness." Some reconsidered their endorsements of his Senate bid. In private, they cursed the man they had made their leader.

Byrd, in Tampa on Tuesday at a press conference to rename an Alzheimer's research center after his late father, Johnnie B. Byrd Sr., declined to answer questions about House members who might retract their endorsements.

"I am here to celebrate the curing of Alzheimer's disease," he said. "You can deal with the campaign about that."

If Byrd had too little experience, the men and women under him had even less. They generally stayed in line, saying they did so out of respect for the office of speaker and "the institution."

Only in the final hours, with Byrd halfway out the door, did the Republicans who bucked him on the phone-rate freeze dare to defiantly wear "Sweet 16" buttons.

"It was disappointing to see that they would not fight back," said King, who spent 14 years in the House. "Many of them would call me and say "Hold the line, you're doing exactly the right thing, thank God for the Florida Senate.' And you say, well, okay, exert! You don't have to just go along to get along if you think you're right."

To the end, Byrd held key legislation hostage, hoping to trade it for the Senate passage of a freeze on residential phone rates. But King refused to trade what he has described as major policy for what he viewed as an act of grandstanding, or "political blackmail."

Byrd had to be coaxed into returning to the House chamber to formally adjourn just after the Senate did the same. But the traditional handkerchief drop was canceled, with lobbyists and staffers milling around wearing sheep masks and buttons that said, "May 1, Johnnie's done. May 2, Johnnie who?"

There were none of the usual photos with the governor, no handshakes, no backslapping. Byrd had skipped out, alone.

As the Senate adjourned, King's designated successor, Republican Tom Lee of Brandon, spoke the sentiments of many in a parody of Byrd's favorite phrase.

"Tomorrow," Lee said, "will be a great day in the state of Florida."

- Times staff writer Lisa Greene contributed to this report.