Unfulfilled potential
A Times EditorialThe Florida Legislature tackled big issues, but success is still measured by defeating bad ideas rather than by embracing ambitious ones.
Published May 9, 2005
The Florida Legislature deserves credit for seriously wrestling with big issues such as growth management, Medicaid and ethics reform. Despite some bumps as the session ended Friday night, House Speaker Allan Bense and Senate President Tom Lee restored a measure of civility and collaboration to lawmaking that has been missing in recent years. Yet their smiles at the end cannot hide the fact that they aimed high and just missed.
The growth management legislation is particularly disappointing. The House irrationally refused to allow local governments to raise taxes without voter referendums. The Senate caved, concluding it is better to spend $1.5-billion in state money next year on roads, schools and other projects than to go home with nothing. But the lack of a dedicated state funding source to pay for growth and of better tools and incentives for local governments to pay their share undermines the entire effort.
Requiring schools and drinking water to be available for new developments is a positive step; so is cutting the time between approving development and building roads to handle more traffic. But there are too many other provisions aimed at accommodating more growth rather than controlling it. Lee says it could have been worse; he fought off efforts to allow development of large agricultural lands, gut local impact fees and carve out exceptions for particular projects.
Medicaid legislation also could have turned out worse than it did. There are many questions about Gov. Jeb Bush's audacious effort to cap the state's Medicaid costs by paying private managed care systems to care for 2.3-million poor or disabled patients. The Senate prudently insisted on moving slowly with experiments in Broward and Duval counties and requiring more approvals from the Legislature. Bush could have plunged ahead without state lawmakers as he seeks federal approval for this dangerous experiment. Now at least the Legislature will be a partner that can raise questions about privatization and protect patients from being sacrificed to save money.
While agreements on growth management and Medicaid were reached at the last minute, there would be no breakthrough on ethics reforms. Lee's valiant effort to force lobbyists to disclose their fees and ban legislators from taking most gifts ran into a brick wall in the House. Hiding behind voice votes and amendments, House members sided with the lobbyists who feed them, treat them to football games and write their legislation. Floridians deserve to know how much special interests are paying to shade laws in their favor rather than the public's. Lee wisely decided against trading away the rights of injured plaintiffs in civil lawsuits in exchange for his reforms, but he should not give up the fight.
The House and Senate conspired to overreach in some areas. They limited early voting rather than expanding it. Spending limits for public campaign financing were raised to a ridiculous $20-million for the governor's race. A stampede to crack down on sexual offenders likely will snare more people than just the predators who deserve the harshest punishment possible.
But the dominant feature of this Legislature is the canyon between the House's ultra-conservative Republicans and more moderate, pragmatic Republicans in the Senate. House Republicans demonize any attempt to raise revenue and embrace every tax cut. They are the biggest fans of expanding school vouchers, protecting big business from civil lawsuits and infringing upon the privacy rights of Floridians to obtain an abortion or carry out their end-of-life wishes.
The situation isn't likely to change soon. Most House districts are not competitive, and there are too few Democrats in the chamber to consistently moderate the most extreme positions. That leaves it to Senate Republicans, who tend to be more experienced and independent, to play defense. Without them, this year would have been much worse. They joined with Democrats to defeat attempts by the House to intervene in the Terri Schiavo controversy, gut the class-size amendment, expand vouchers and shift blame in civil lawsuits from businesses that don't properly secure their property to criminals who take advantage of the situation.
Bense and Lee deserve credit for establishing a new tone in the Legislature that offers tantalizing opportunities to tackle big issues. That's why this session falls somewhere short of satisfying. Growth management and other good initiatives that passed did not reach their potential. The clearest victories for Floridians: the rejection of most of the extreme ideas. In Tallahassee, that's progress.