Watching the Legislature, our troops shouldn't be proud

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© St. Petersburg Times,
published December 9, 2001

TALLAHASSEE -- Words that failed Florida as a tourist slogan, ". . . The rules are different here," now fit the current management of our House of Representatives, where venerable rules and traditions are ignored at the whim of the leadership.

Or so it appeared Nov. 28 when the Committee on Colleges and Universities took up a cluster of bills expanding educational benefits for armed forces personnel from Florida. They made a pageant out of it, beginning with a color guard and featuring a speech by the governor. It was being telecast to ships and duty stations around the world. Chairperson Beverly Kilmer, R-Quincy, encouraged the audience to "give one of your warmest smiles and a wave to our service members."

Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, gauged the climate as inappropriate for the bill she planned to present and asked Kilmer to postpone it. Such a courtesy used to be taken for granted. But Kilmer refused.

First, the committee took up one of Kilmer's bills, including a controversial provision to give Bright Futures scholarships retroactively to Floridians attending military academies. Academy cadets already get free tuition, board, lodgings and a government salary. Perceiving the illogic, Rep. Sally Heyman, D-North Miami, wrote an amendment to delete the military academy scholarships.

Catch-22. It was too late for amendments.

So ruled Rep. Jerry Melvin, R-Fort Walton Beach, who was chairing in Kilmer's stead. Melvin, not a member of the committee, had been delegated by Speaker Tom Feeney to make sure the committee stayed on script.

"Maybe you could waive the rules and have an amendment offered," said Heyman. Melvin ignored her.

Then it was Harrell's turn before the firing squad.

She was trying to undo one of the last session's smelliest scandals -- the so-called "Spinelli amendment" that reserves two slots annually at each of the three state medical schools for recommended applicants from the U.S. service academies, regardless of their comparative qualifications. To put that in perspective, 6,000 students applied to the three schools this year. Only 326 were enrolled.

The military quota was the handiwork of Michael Spinelli, a lobbyist and political fundraiser from Orlando, whose son, a Naval Academy graduate, hadn't made the cut at the University of Florida. The lobbyist got Sen. Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden, to write it into a 318-page, veto-proof health care bill on the last night of the session. Feeney was in on the deal. On signing the bill, Gov. Jeb Bush complained that the amendment "compromises the integrity of the legislative process," but he has not complained of it since.

The quotas also compromise the integrity of the medical schools, as their deans wrote in an urgent memorandum that the committee intended to ignore.

It was an ugly sight. Melvin, living down to his reputation as a poster boy for term limits, was almost brutal in his cross-examination of Linda Rackleff, a Tallahassee lobbyist for the medical school deans, accusing her of "belittling" the service graduates.

"We're not belittling their qualifications at all," she said. "All of our admitees are even more qualified."

Harrell attempted to change her bill to keep the Spinelli quotas but require the beneficiaries to be fully qualified.

On a voice vote, the committee rejected her amendment -- another virtually unprecedented discourtesy.

Though a fix was plainly in, Harrell and her witnesses went gamely on. One of them, a medical student named Nelson Scott Howard, should have been compelling because he is an Army captain and Military Academy graduate who made it into the University of Florida medical school on his merits. That's how it should be for everyone, he said.

"The academies," he explained, "have a difficult time getting people into medical school because they're not focused on that . . . We need to focus on preparing them for medical school, getting them the tools to be acceptable by the admissions standards and not just write a bill to do so."

The vote to kill Harrell's unamended bill was 9-2.

One of the nine was Heyman, intending to assert her right -- an absolute right, under House rule 7.17 -- to move, as a member of the prevailing side, to reconsider the vote and leave the bill pending for another day. "Madame Chair," she called. Kilmer ignored her.

"Madame Chair," Heyman called, two more times.

Melvin was whispering into Kilmer's ear.

"For what purpose?," Kilmer finally replied.

"To make a motion to TP (temporarily pass) this. I was on the prevailing side, and without prejudice," said Heyman.

(She conceded later that she had misstated her motion. But that didn't matter either, as Kilmer knew perfectly well what she meant.)

Kilmer: "I'm not accepting any motions at this time."

Heyman: "It's nondebatable, Madame Chair."

Long pause. More whispers from Melvin.

Kilmer: "I recognized you for "what purpose,' specifically. I did not recognize you for a motion."

Heyman: "I stated my purpose and it's nondebatable, Madame Chair."

Kilmer: "You can challenge that if you would like but that was my call, I am not accepting that as a motion. . . ."

The committee adjourned. At Kilmer's invitation, members hung around to broadcast greetings to the troops -- some of whom may have wondered, "Is this the democracy we're fighting for?"

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