A clear, simple roadmap to a much better Legislature | Editorial

The Florida Legislature that will convene on Jan. 9 is a pitiful parody of the one that was honored in 1971 as the fourth best in the nation and the most independent of all 50 states.

That was the reasoned judgment of the Citizens Conference on State Legislatures, recognizing how Florida’s had reformed itself in the four years since the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it reapportioned to represent where the people were.

Members were “new faces thrust into an old institution, without ties — no ties to the leadership, no ties to the lobbyists, no ties to the old Cabinet officers who had been there from time immemorial,” recalled Richard A. Pettigrew, who had been House speaker in 1971-72.

Only half in jest, Gov. Reubin Askew called it the “most independent legislature since parliament beheaded the King.”

Today’s Legislature indulges Gov. Ron DeSantis as if he really were a king.

Lobbyists and Republican-aligned interest groups draft bills and script talking points for lawmakers and get most everything they want. Timid and inexperienced rank-and-file legislators know their place and do as they’re told by the House speaker and Senate president.

That didn’t happen overnight. Among the worst of what went wrong were term limits imposed by a 1992 initiative. That purged the Legislature of the institutional memory and the experience that it takes to learn from old mistakes and avoid new ones.

The Legislature then made a bad situation worse, decimating the professional staffs whose expertise had liberated the institution from lobbyists and the executive branch. Nowadays, staff reports required for each piece of legislation rarely go beyond itemizing proposed changes. They should also warn of unintended consequences.

The Legislature’s major fact-finding agency, OPPAGA — the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability — is on too short a leash.

Recommendation: Expand staffs. Require critical analysis. Revitalize OPPAGA.

“There are a number of legislators who don’t know OPAGGA exists,” says former Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg, who was term-limited last year.

It concerns Brandes that OPPAGA produces data but not recommendations, which is unhelpful.

“The number one issue in Florida right now is property insurance. Number two is housing, neither of which has a study going in the Legislature,” Brandes told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board.

Nothing has been heard from state universities, which have an abundance of intellectual depth on those subjects and many others.

Other neglected issues include criminal justice reform, Medicaid expansion and uncontrolled development. But the Legislature doesn’t want to know anything on these subjects that would antagonize the governor or deep-pocket special interests.

The Florida Policy Project, a think tank Brandes set up at Florida State University, has called for making better use of OPPAGA and the tax-supported universities and their many specialized research and policy institutes.

You would think that would be common sense, but DeSantis and the Legislature this year passed a shockingly contradictory law (SB 266) that prohibits “political or social activism” by the universities.

The Board of Governors expanded it to forbid “Any activity organized with a purpose of effecting or preventing change to a government policy, action or function, or any activity intended to achieve a desired result related to social issues, where the university endorses or promotes a position in communications, advertisements, programs, or campus activities.”

Recommendation: Repeal this senseless law. Utilize universities. Demand their experience and expertise.

The Legislature also deprives itself of advice from the public, especially if what people want to say isn’t what the governor, the leaders and lobbyists want to hear. People drive hundreds of miles to Tallahassee to be given as little as 30 seconds to testify at hearings. But lobbyists and their clients have easy access, greased by their collective millions, and there are a dozen of them for every legislator.

Recommendation: Put committee hearings on Zoom. Let citizens testify and submit documents remotely.

The Constitution calls for a governor’s “signed objections” to bills he vetoes. Until this year, all governors complied with explanations.

DeSantis, who has shattered a series of sensible political norms, seems to think all he needs to say is “I object.”

The question is whether the Supreme Court would agree. There’s precedent for it to review vetoes rather than defer them as “political” questions.

In 1990, the Supreme Court tossed some of Gov. Bob Martinez’s line-item vetoes as constitutionally defective. It upheld others that legislative leaders had challenged.

But litigation is slow and uncertain.

To override unconstitutional vetoes would take only a few minutes, and would go far toward restoring the Legislature’s reputation and respect.

Recommendation: Declare independence from DeSantis. Override vetoed bills such as the six from last session, including $510.8 million in line-item spending, for which he didn’t provide any reasons. Some appear to have partisan motives. House Democrats said about 40% of their projects were axed compared to only 16% with Republican sponsors.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.