The elections showed us, once again, that we Floridians are in the political mainstream. Yet this spring, in Tallahassee, the Legislature is to be led by two of the most rigidly ideological people to ever hold the jobs of House speaker and Senate president. Be aware: People are fed up with partisan combat, and they are tired of political fixes that seem to serve narrow agendas. In almost all cases, the best way to govern is from the center. That's certainly where Floridians are.

DYCKMAN
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By MARTIN DYCKMAN

TALLAHASSEE -- There were no video cameras to record it, and nobody is alive to remember how it looked and sounded here in 1876, when the fate of the nation hung in large part on whether Republican Rutherford B. Hayes really had beaten Samuel J. Tilden by 922 votes out of the 46,776 that Floridians purportedly had cast for president. But it is probably safe to say that nothing in Florida's history, not even that, approaches the political tension that built last week as the world watched to see how Florida's votes would decide -- by an infinitely narrower percentage but perhaps more honestly this time -- who becomes the next president of the United States.

Considering the context, it was not only refreshing but almost astonishing to hear Tom Feeney and Lois Frankel talking about toning down the bitter partisanship in the state's own House of Representatives, where he is the incoming speaker and she is the minority leader. Think Hatfields and McCoys, and you have an idea of how the House Republicans and Democrats have regarded each other lately.

But with new leaders, and, notably, an essentially new House where 66 of the 120 members are true freshmen, there couldn't be a more opportune time to try.

In every poll and in elections as recent as Tuesday, voters say that extremism in politics is no virtue and moderation is no vice. It was a softer, less confrontational Jeb Bush who was elected governor two years ago than the one who lost in 1994. It is a softer, less confrontational Bill Nelson who goes to the U.S. Senate than Bill McCollum, the House impeachment manager, who lost to him. In the presidential vote itself, voters were split almost precisely down the middle.

However, Florida's top triumvirate -- governor, speaker and Senate president -- have never been so philosophically conservative as now, with John McKay instead of Toni Jennings at the Senate rostrum. And Frankel is the most outspokenly liberal Democratic leader since her party became the minority four years ago, if not since the two-party rivalry began in earnest 34 years ago. Peacemaking won't be easy, especially with the Democrats still mourning the loss of two more House seats and no gain in the Senate.

Ten years ago, the House convened with 74 Democrats and 46 Republicans. Today, the numbers are dramatically reversed: 77 Republicans, 43 Democrats. Feeney says, however, that the imbalance may actually facilitate peacemaking. As he explains it, the GOP lead is large enough for Republicans to finally feel secure. Such a "very comfortable majority," Feeney said Wednesday, "allows us to deal in a very bipartisan or non-partisan way." The Democrats, he added, will be "incentivized to work with us." If they have ideas "that can really make a positive difference, we welcome those ideas." He's even holding out the prospect of some committee vice chairmanships, as used to be fairly common before the rivalry turned ugly.

"With all these new members, I want to do it," said Frankel. But, she cautioned, cooperation has to be a two-way deal, "instead of them going into a back room and setting the agenda."

There is precedent for what they hope they can do. During the Legislature's so-called Golden Age, the decade or so following the great reapportionment of 1967, Democratic speakers and minority leaders met regularly to discuss the agenda and separate issues that had to be partisan from those that didn't.

Unfortunately, more has changed than simply which party is top dog. Golden Age legislators of both parties enacted ceilings on political spending. Then the Supreme Court said they couldn't, and the resulting arms race has fed and fed upon the partisanship here. It is hard to tell at times whether the purpose of serving in the Legislature is to govern the state or raise campaign money. The 1999 "tort reform" law, which helped insulate some influential businesses from consumer lawsuits, is widely acknowledged as an example of the latter.

At least that wedge issue is off the table for the moment. So are vouchers, which from the returns in Michigan and California aren't as popular as Gov. Jeb Bush takes them to be. But there are other issues that could turn nastily partisan. Growth management is one. Utility reform is another. Bush's desire to shrink the state budget and workforce is a potent source of trouble; will he make it, like vouchers, a test of GOP loyalty to him?

And then there will be redistricting, with the Republicans trying to enlarge their majorities in the Legislature and Congress and the Democrats powerless, at least on paper, to stop them. That will be the hardest test of Feeney's willingness to accommodate. If he fails it, there will be nothing left to the Democrats but the rhetorical equivalent of guerrilla warfare.

It isn't lost on Feeney, however, how much he needs a cooperative House if history is to credit him, as all speakers wish, with leading an effective House. The 1967 House, though two-thirds were freshmen, had many senior members to learn from. Today, owing to term limits, only 18 members have served six years or more. That gives the House a serious disadvantage in experience compared to the Senate, where only one of the 40 senators is a true freshman. The other eight newly elected senators all come from the House, where all but one had spent at least eight years. Chalk that up to term limits, too. It has become much harder for outsiders to run successfully for the Senate, like Brandon's Tom Lee in 1994 and St. Petersburg's Jim Sebesta in 1998. There'll be a constant surfeit of term-limited House members trying to extend their careers, and they'll have the incumbent's advantage in bagging contributions from lobbyists.

Nowhere is knowledge so much the equal of power as in a legislature. Nowhere else is knowledge so much the product of experience.

"I'm worried," Feeney admitted last week, "about the potential transfer of power from the House to the Senate, and from the House to the executive branch."

The public should worry even more about the potential transfer to lobbyists, for whom there are no term limits.

The Golden Age was as good as it got because a united, minimally partisan House insisted on a more progressive agenda than the Senate wanted. The governor was more progressive, too. That's a hard act to emulate under present circumstances, but if Feeney means to try, there is plenty of precedent to guide him.

President John F. Kennedy once complained of dealing with the Soviet Union that it was hard to do business "with someone who says "what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable.' "

That describes the recent hyperpartisanship in the Florida House of Representatives. It truly is time to give peace a chance.

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