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Not many people have as much first-hand knowledge of the way the modern Florida Legislature works as Don Sullivan. He represented Pinellas County in the state Senate from 1992 to 2002. Forced out by term limits, he took a rare step for an ex-senator and was elected to the House. But now he has announced he's retiring.
I figured Sullivan would be a good person to ask about a decline in the Legislature in recent years - its absence of maturity and stability, its wobbly public policy too beholden to interest groups and big money and above all, the stormy, iron-fisted, unchallenged rule of Speaker Johnnie Byrd the past two years.
How big a factor, I asked Sullivan, is Florida's eight-year term limit, which was passed in 1992? Is the problem, as many critics allege, a lack of experience, maturity and institutional memory in our Legislature?
"Term limits," Sullivan agreed, "have had no positive effect that I can see."
When term limits first passed, critics warned that more power would flow to lobbyists, and to the Legislature's staff. But Sullivan said that instead, the House leadership has purged much of the old staff.
The result: "We've been hemorrhaging knowledge for three or four years now," he said. "There doesn't appear to be any real method or way to overcome that."
Therefore, Sullivan said, the most important shift of power has been away from the rank and file and into the hands of a small cadre of House members - the "senior class" beginning its fourth and final term, typically including the incoming speaker of the House and his or her top lieutenants.
"Term limits have made allegiance to your incoming class very important," Sullivan said. "Everybody sits back and waits for their turn at the power level, and they become more pliant ... They tell themselves, my turn is coming." Hence the unwillingness of the House to defy Byrd even during his worst abuses.
I asked Sullivan: Does public opinion no longer matter, then?
"I think the members are still very sensitive to public opinion," he said. But given a choice between rebelling or obeying the House leadership, most of the time the members are forced to obey the leadership.
Term limits also mean there are no older, wiser heads in the process, nobody to remember why something was a bad idea the last time they tried it. An incoming speaker of the House has no more than six years' experience - six years to learn how to govern 16-million Floridians, and write a state budget.
"How much should you have to know," Sullivan asked, "to spend $58-billion wisely?"
It was mildly surprising to hear Sullivan, who is a Republican, say that another factor contributing to the House's problems is the size of the Republican majority - 80-plus of the 120 seats. There is no incentive to work with the Democrats, no need to create compromises or consensus. The leadership has enough votes to ram anything through.
Campaign money these days therefore flows from lobbyists into the handful of fund-raising committees being operated by the House leadership. There is less need for lobbyists to worry about the rank and file members, Sullivan said, focusing instead on the inner circle: "You just go right to the top and pay whatever it takes."
Sullivan said if he had his way, he would whisk all new legislators off to a campground somewhere in, say, Wakulla Springs, and bring in some of the old, strong leaders of the Legislature from the past, Democrats and Republicans alike to eduate them.
Above all, he would school them on the pressures that are going to be placed on them - pressure from their own leaders, pressure from lobbyists, pressure from various groups in the public. He would try to help them get stronger, faster.
As an afterthought, he added, it would be perfectly all right by him to have a House of only 60 members, instead of the current 120. "Less would be better in this case," he said. He might be right - but you know, sometimes it looks like none would be better.