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For a better Florida

Seven-year itch

Florida's governor has become very powerful in six years. The Legislature is about to take some of that power back.

By Tim Nickens
Published February 20, 2005

	[Times illustration: Steve Madden]

After the 2001 legislative session, then-House Speaker Tom Feeney mused about how Republican lawmakers bowed to Gov. Jeb Bush.

Feeney praised Bush's priorities and noted "the House has been there with the governor 110 percent of the time. I think that's what being a legislator ought to be all about."

But as Republicans obligingly followed the third Republican governor since Reconstruction, they did more than make Bush look good. They helped create an imbalance of power in Tallahassee.

The executive branch now casts a long shadow over the legislative and judicial branches, and Bush is the most powerful governor in Florida's modern era. Through a combination of his considerable political skills and fundamental changes in the way state government works, the governor has made sweeping changes that will be felt long after he leaves office in 2007, from public education to civil service to privatization. Next on Bush's list: Medicaid.

But as the Legislature prepares to convene March 8, there are signs the governor no longer is king.

The pendulum of power between the governor and the Legislature is swinging back toward the middle. House Speaker Allan Bense of Panama City and Senate President Tom Lee of Brandon are more independent than their predecessors. The maneuvering for the 2006 governor's race is under way, and the next governor won't have the benefit of an older brother in the White House and a father who once lived there.

Republicans in Tallahassee also are dealing with the same challenges Democrats faced when they were firmly in charge: The larger the majority, the more difficult it is to keep everyone in line and the less concern there is with making the governor look good. And in another development that could lead to more independent thinking among state lawmakers, voters may be asked to extend term limits from the current eight years to 12 years.

"The checks and balances are coming back into synch," said Lance deHaven-Smith, a professor of public administration at Florida State University.

How did they get so out of whack?

Bush gets a large share of the credit - or blame - for consolidating power in the governor's office. He was well-prepared when he took office in 1999, having narrowly lost to incumbent Lawton Chiles in 1994 and then spending much of his time before the 1998 campaign studying the issues and nurturing his political base as head of his own foundation. Throughout his six years in Tallahassee, Bush has remained focused on his agenda and has not gotten sidetracked.

He hasn't won them all.

Bush failed to persuade legislators to overhaul growth management, and a brief bid to deregulate the utility industry collapsed. He failed to get a $250,000 cap on medical malpractice damages that he wanted, although higher caps were approved in 2003. And he couldn't get lawmakers to put constitutional amendments on the ballot to overturn limits on class sizes and a requirement to build a bullet train. (A Bush-backed voter initiative succeeded in killing the bullet train last November, and Bush now wants the Legislature to put an amendment on the ballot that would revise class size goals but not repeal them.)

But for better or worse, Bush has controlled the state's agenda for the past six years. And while his last name and intense interest in public policy have contributed to his success, so have a variety of other factors.

Florida traditionally has had a weak governor's office that shared power with a well-regarded Legislature and a unique six-member Cabinet. But a constitutional amendment approved by voters cut the size of the Cabinet to three in 2003, giving the governor more authority and more room on the statewide stage.

The Board of Regents that oversaw higher education was abolished, and the governor now makes more than 100 appointments to boards of trustees at each university and a state Board of Education. The way judges are appointed was overhauled in a way that gives the governor much more influence in screening the applicants. The state's civil service system also was weakened, giving the governor's agency heads far more discretion to hire and fire thousands of state workers.

While power was consolidated in the governor's office, the eight-year term limits approved by voters in 1992 left a leadership vacuum in the Legislature. Nearly half of the House members and about a quarter of the Senate were forced out in 2000. The continual turnover has been particularly chaotic in the 120-member House, where lawmakers have risen quickly to power with little political or policy experience.

"You don't even have to hit a home run in your first term," said Curt Kiser, a lobbyist and former Republican legislator. "All you have to do is hit a couple of singles at the right time and you are at the top of your class."

The inexperience resulted in limiting dissent and handing even more power to House leaders. Two of the last three speakers, John Thrasher and Feeney, were particularly close to Bush. But with Bense as House speaker and a sense among some legislators and lobbyists that turmoil from term limits is subsiding, there are signs that the House is joining the Senate to reclaim some of the Legislature's traditional authority.

After the November elections, for example, Lee and Bense insisted on calling a special session to address hurricane and prekindergarten issues rather than letting Bush do it.

"The governor wasn't used to another model for that," Lee said. "We made it perfectly clear we didn't need the paternalism of the governor and that we had a job to do."

Other Republicans also are starting to question Bush's priorities more aggressively in public. Criticism is rising over the rush to privatize services, particularly the state's new private payroll system that has been plagued by errors. Legislators aren't likely to follow the governor's budget recommendations and kill the medically needy program for low-income Floridians. And they are determined to move slowly on Bush's top priority this spring: overhauling Medicaid to cap the state's soaring costs.

"Some of these folks don't agree with the governor," said Bense, generally speaking about Republican House members. "There are times when they have their own ideas. There are times when I have my own ideas."

For example, Bense says that teachers are underpaid. That is not a statement that would have been uttered by previous Republican speakers who have treated teacher unions as the enemy.

The Senate, traditionally the more independent chamber, is even daring to take power away from the governor. A Senate bill would switch the power to appoint members of the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, from the governor to the Legislature.

Even as the power pendulum starts to swing away from the executive branch, it would be a mistake to consider Bush a lame duck. The governor recently told reporters in Tallahassee he has no intention of merely keeping the seat warm, and even Democrats have no illusions about his personal stature.

"As long as big brother's in Washington, he still has rock-star status in Florida," said House Democratic Leader Chris Smith of Fort Lauderdale. "It's hard to buck a Bush right now, with W. up there in Washington."

Yet even Jeb Bush cannot stop certain political evolutions.

As the governor's race heats up this year, the focus shifts from the incumbent to speculation about the successor. Legislators will be choosing sides even as they fire up their own re-election campaigns, and they will become more reluctant to vote for anything controversial. The media will start to spend more time on the likely candidates, particularly the three familiar Republicans who hold statewide office: Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings, Attorney General Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher.

Meanwhile, Bush's team of supporters and fundraisers will not move as a unit to one candidate. Despite the efforts of some Bush aides, loyalty to the Bush family is not transferable to anyone with a different last name.

Even if the next governor is Republican, he or she will find a different political landscape. The governor won't be named Bush, and he or she probably will be more moderate. There will be fewer opportunities to cut taxes, and more bills stacking up for education and social services. Republicans in the Legislature will feel more comfortable challenging the governor, even a Republican one, just as Democrats fought with Democratic Govs. Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles.

"Ours was a slugfest most of the time," said Jim Krog, a lobbyist who served as Chiles' first chief of staff. "We could use the bully pulpit and move programs along, but we would have to work them and work them and work them."

So will the governor who takes office in January 2007. Until then, the best entertainment in Tallahassee will be watching new legislative leaders take back some power and how well Bush adjusts to it.

"They've grown a little weary of taking a backseat role," Kiser said of state legislators. "I don't think they'll ever measure up to being equal with him, but they'll at least move up a little."

[Last modified February 20, 2005, 00:53:18]