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Article
Courtesy of The Herald Tribune
By Jeremy
Wallace
Published
May 3, 2014
As the Florida Legislature hits the homestretch of its 2014 session, only this much can be predicted with certainty: more bills will die than pass.
For much of the legislation still pending, the drama over the next week will be the many ways in which lawmakers will seek to keep their bills alive.
Some bills will be loved to death, some will board a train of doom and others will be done in by previously close allies.
It partly explains why the final days of the legislative session are the most intense, as legislators and lobbyists see danger in every seemingly innocuous procedure and proposed amendment.
Statistics show why. While much is made in civics textbooks about how a bill becomes a law, a far more common experience in the state legislative process is seeing bills meet their demise. Consider that last year 1,848 bills were proposed. Just 286 of them passed. In baseball that is would be a .150 batting average. In other words, you can expect about 85 percent of the proposed laws this year to fail.
Here are some of the subtle — and creative — ways members of the legislature take out their colleagues’ bills:
1. Love them to death
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Mike
Bennett |
Former State Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, still says this was his favorite way to tank another member’s bill. When a lawmaker looked for sponsors or co-sponsors, Bennett signed on — not to support the bill, but in hopes of directing it over the cliff. Bennett typically filed scores of bills each session, including many aimed at ensuring he controlled ideas he wanted to defeat. He is hardly alone in liking that strategy. State Rep. Ray Pilon, R-Sarasota, said lawmakers are always aware that their co-sponsors could be planning to blow up their bill. |
2.
Train of doom
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Senate
President Don Gaetz, left, R-Niceville, is thanked by Sen. Nancy
Detert, R-Venice after he recommended renaming the SB 1036:
Independent Living bill after her,April 26, 2013 in the Florida
Senate in Tallahassee, Fla. |
Senate President Don Gaetz, left, R-Niceville, is thanked by Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice after he recommended renaming the SB 1036: Independent Living bill after her, Friday April 26, 2013 in the Florida Senate in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Phil Sears)
Senate President Don Gaetz, left, R-Niceville, is thanked by Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice after he recommended renaming the SB 1036: Independent Living bill after her,April 26, 2013 in the Florida Senate in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Phil Sears)
If a bill looks like its moving toward successful passage, everyone in the legislature starts looking for ways to add amendments that start to weigh down the original bill until it finally collapses. A classic case was in 2005, when Sarasota County sought state funding to remodel Ed Smith Stadium to hold on to the Cincinnati Reds’ as a spring |
training tenant. But as the bill by then-Rep. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, gained momentum, other legislators took note and started attaching amendments. By the time the bill went for a vote, it would have built a new basketball arena in Orlando, convention centers in several cities, a stock car racing museum and a retractable dome stadium in Miami. So loaded down, the train went right off the track, postponing the issues for another year.
This year, the House has created a health care “train” bill. The measure would make sure three trauma centers ensnared in a legal challenge, including Blake Medical Center in Manatee County, can stay open. HB 7113 also deals with telemedicine, nurse practitioners and supervision of pharmacy technicians. The Senate has dealt with the issues separately.
3.
Committee dance
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Rep.
Ray Pilon, R-Sarasota. |
This one works mostly for top leadership. If there is a bill that leaders don’t like, they simply assign it to as many committees as possible. Getting a bill through three committees in both the House and the Senate just to get reach the chambers for floor votes can be a bear. But if a measure is assigned to four or five, lawmakers know their ideas are being killed. It didn’t take Pilon long to reach that conclusion this year when his bill to change how Florida’s presidential vote is tallied was was assigned to four committees.
“You know if you get four or five committees, you know something is wrong,” Pilon said.
His House Bill 1045 would have awarded a
candidate |
only the electoral votes within the congressional district he or she won, instead of the current winner-take-all of the state’s 29 electoral votes. The move potentially would have benefitted Republicans, who hold the majority of House seats in Florida but lost the last two presidential elections.
Pilon’s bill was assigned to four committees. He said he got the message and focused on his other bills instead.
4.
The hijack
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Rep. Greg Steube, R-Bradenton. |
Just when legislators think they’re in the clear and their bill is moving, more experienced legislators and lobbyists pounce with an amendment to completely change the proposal. State Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, will never forget this tactic used on one of his bills during his first session, when he sought to eliminate an archaic provision requiring circuit judges to hold court in each of their counties twice a year. Toward the end of session, another legislator with more seniority amended the bill to eliminate many pre-trial programs that places like Sarasota use heavily to reduce jail populations — programs Steube has long supported. Steube couldn’t stop the amendment so he had to make the decision to kill his own bill by tabling it. |
5.
Technical death
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Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, right, and Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, confer on the senate floor during session on Thursday, April 25, 2013, in Tallahassee, Fla. |
While Steube had a
chance to fight that amendment, other amendments come in
stealthily in a “technical amendment.” That usually is meant
to clear up typographical errors or punctuation. But State Sen.
Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said often there can be more nefarious
intentions. For instance a technical amendment could change the
word “shall” to “may” which is enough to neuter a
legislative mandate. Last year, Galvano had a bill stymied by a
wording change in the session’s closing hours. The House tacked
on an amendment that could have been interpreted as allowing
underage drinking on a farm property, when Galvano was seeking to
stop those kinds of underage parties. Rather than pass the damaged
bill, Galvano let his bill die. |
6. Clock it
Time becomes a precious commodity toward the end of a legislative session. If a bill is on a committee’s agenda or waiting for a final House or Senate vote, other members can start asking more questions and prolonging debate on other bills to burn the clock. The longer the delay, the more bills are certain not to reach a vote and the bill “dies on the calendar.”
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