To Tallahassee and Back: Week 8 Round-Up

This is Week 8 of the annual legislative session.  Committee meetings in both chambers have ended, save for the final budget conference gatherings.  Only those bills that are, by rule, in a posture to be considered by the respective chambers may be heard.  With only one week to go until the final gavel falls “sine die” (Latin for “without day”), much has been done, and much remains to be done.  The session is moving along with some big issues (i.e. the state budget, ethics reform, expansion of health care) either poised to go to the governor or nearly so.

The budget conference, which is the meeting between the House and the Senate to hammer out differences in the respective budget plans, began at the end of the last week and is nearing completion.  Issues that were not agreed to by various subcommittee chairs are awaiting final decisions by the overall budget chairs and presiding officers.  The process has moved along remarkably smoothly this session.  Once the conference report is agreed to by the speaker and the president, it will be published and delivered to each member of the Florida Legislature.  The Florida Constitution requires a 72-hour waiting period before the respective chambers are allowed to vote on the conference report (the state budget).  That vote will not come until one day next week.  The conference report, which is the final product of the budget conference, cannot be amended.  It can only be voted up or down.

As of this writing a major ethics reform package is getting ready to go to the governor for his signature.  Dan Krassner of Integrity Florida stated that this is the first time in 36 years that such sweeping public ethics laws have been reformed.  The bill includes easier access to financial documents by the general public, tougher standards for public officials who enter the lobbying arena, improved methods to initiate ethics complaints, greater power for the Florida Commission on Ethics to force payment from those cited for violations and more.

Later this week the House will be taking up its vision about how to expand healthcare to Floridians without insurance.  Representative Mike Fasano and several colleagues will be offering their alternative to the House plan, which is much closer to a proposal being considered by the Florida Senate.  Under Representative Fasano’s proposal 1.1 million Floridians, many known as the “working poor,” will be able to apply for this coverage.  The House proposal, as it is today, would cover a mere fraction of those individuals.  If Representative Fasano’s proposal is not adopted, and the House version remains substantially as it is now, it is not known how the House and the Senate will reconcile their drastically different health care plans. 

As the final week of session approaches the members of the two legislative bodies will spend most of their days, and perhaps evenings, presenting, debating, amending and voting on legislation great and small.  A well-structured process has made for smooth floor action in the House.  The Senate, too, has been clicking along at a good pace.  As the process focuses solely on what goes on in the two chambers, the public would learn much about the legislative process if they turn on the Florida Channel or log-on to either the House or Senate websites and watch the legislature in action.  It is a fascinating process and one that everybody should experience in some form or fashion. 

If you have any questions or comments about bills that have passed or will soon be voted on, please do not hesitate to leave me a note below.  I will respond as quickly as I can since, as with everything this time of year, time is of the essence.