The Illogical Florida Legislature. By Geniusofdespair

Every year I shudder when the Florida Legislature meets because I never know what they will attack. Invariably, they always target things I like. For example this year, among other things, they are attacking the State Growth Management Department (this came to me from Environmental Groups):

As we reach the last week of the 2010 legislative session, the fate of the Florida Department of Community Affairs remains uncertain. The state’s lead planning agency overseeing growth management is currently undergoing “Sunset Review” and must be affirmatively reauthorized. If not, DCA and Florida’s growth management process will be especially vulnerable to elimination, dismantlement, funding cutbacks and/or excessive political pressure over the coming year. Please help us send a strong message to the Legislature that they reauthorize the Department of Community Affairs this session!

Florida’s leading planning and conservation groups are calling on all concerned citizens to send an emphatic message to the Florida Legislature that the Florida Department of Community Affairs be reauthorized this session. Monday, April 26 is SAVE DCA DAY. Here is how you can help:


1. Call House Speaker Larry Cretul (850.488.1450 or larry.cretul@myfloridahouse.gov), Incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon (850.488.2742 or dean.cannon@myfloridahouse.gov) and Your Representative (Find Your Legislators). (Calls are best, as emails usually go unread the last week of the session). Ask them to “Re-Enact Intact” the Florida Department of Community Affairs this Session. Ask them to pass a “clean” bill without damaging provisions. Let them know that DCA and effective growth management are essential to protect Florida’s quality of life, environment and economic health.

2. Call Your State Senator (Find Your Legislators) and thank them for passing SB 282 to “Re-Enact Intact” DCA. Ask them to make sure that no damaging provisions are added to the reauthorization legislation.

signed:
1000 Friends of Florida * Audubon of Florida * Defenders of Wildlife
Everglades Foundation * Everglades Law Center * Everglades Trust
Florida Wildlife Federation * National Parks Conservation Association
Sierra Club * The Nature Conservancy

More on The Florida Legislature from around the state:

http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/2010/apr/25/la-legislators-having-a-field-day-paying-back-spec/

Legislators having a field day paying back special interests

The Tampa Tribune

Florida's Legislature is running amok and no one seems to care. Proposal after proposal flows from Tallahassee that would damage our state, and Gov. Charlie Crist is our only check and balance for most of this horrible legislation.

Most recently it's a bill that would allow trucks to haul 8,000 more pounds each on our state's highways. This might not seem like much until the price tag for millions of dollars in infrastructure wear and tear that these big trucks cause is considered by taxpayers.

Ask any road engineer and he or she will explain that it's not really our cars and pickup trucks that wear our roads out. It's the big trucks that do big damage and cause costly repairs. We understand that there's a need to provide roads for trucks to deliver our goods, and there's a balance between taxpayer dollars and industry profits that must be met. This new legislation is too much of a reach.

The trucking lobby wants to increase the weight limit to enhance profits. They sell it as a cost savings because goods can be moved cheaper. They don't factor in, of course, how much new roads and other infrastructure repairs also cost us.

Perhaps as we replace bridges and sections of roads, they can be strengthened to handle larger trucks, and at some point that can be the goal. Right now, however, Florida doesn't need heavier trucks breaking down our roads even faster, costing us many millions more to keep our roads and bridges safe for traffic.

What we do need is a Legislature that starts thinking about average Floridians living throughout the state and quit pumping legislation through the system that benefits special interests and big money lobbies that pour money into their campaigns.

Between Medicaid reform, education reform and now this, it's clear where our legislators' priorities are, and it's not with the people of Florida. They're masters of selling it to us, though. Of course, if Floridians want to sit on their hands and believe everything the Legislature spoon feeds us about this legislation, we deserve what we get.


http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/apr/25/co-lawmaking-at-its-worst/

Lawmaking at its 'worst'

By DENISE LAYNE

Special to The Tampa Tribune

After 12 years of being involved with growth management issues in Florida, I think this legislative session has got to be the worst.

Elected officials are focused on winning their issue at any cost. They seem to think the people are the enemy.

From the very beginning it was obvious they would use all tricks of the trade to keep the special-interest money machine fed.

Over 65 "shell" bills were filed in the Senate relating to growth management and local governments. These place-holder bills simply state a legislative intent to change something. Many of these shell bills have come alive with language week by week.

You can't conduct thoughtful, democratic dialogue on an issue when you don't know what the bill says until it is being heard in a committee.

The House played a different game. House members only filed nine growth bills at the beginning of session. The real work was hidden behind committees.

Starting the second week of session, huge water bills came alive in House committees. I consider only one to be actually good regarding our drinking water.

There is a new tactic this year for hiding things in bills. It is to reorganize statutes into new sections, then state that none of the language has changed. House Bill 1109 on water supply is an example. The danger of this bill is what you don't see.

Only part of the legislative intent from the original statute was kept, which would have changed the entire focus of supplying water in this state. Water authorities that want to create new water supplies wouldn't have to worry about those pesky environmental or health and safety concerns of the public.

Then we have the big economic stimulus bill, Senate Bill 1752. It included language very harmful to the environment and water permitting (more than 80 pages) that was heard in one committee and then went straight to the floor for a vote. The environmentally harmful sections of the bill were stripped away, but no one yet has said where the $100 million up-front money will come from to spur the economy.

After this came Senate Bill 6, which would have changed how teachers are evaluated. Talk about ramming something through the system. It was so bad Gov. Charlie Crist had to veto it.

In addition, the usual standby tactic of replacing the language of a bill with a "strike-all" amendment that no one has seen prior to a committee meeting is alive and well.

House Bill 7177 started in committee as a six-page water conservation bill and ended as a 22-page rewrite of many water issues, including wetland-mitigation banks and consumptive-use permits. This committee is the only group that has seen the bill, which is now going to the House floor for a vote.

More recently came a direct display of contempt for the public. Senate Bill 2288 recently was heard by the reapportionment committee in the Senate. Remember, this is the bill that would counteract the two ballot initiatives by Fair Districts Florida. Group after group filed opposition cards to this bill but waived their time speaking.

Many of the committee members demanded opponents come to the podium, where lawmakers chastised them for their opinion. Here were some comments from committee members:

"We know more about this; we are the experts." "How dare you object without talking to us."

Only one group supported this "clarifying" bill - Associated Industries of Florida. Need I say more?

The legislators get away with this behavior because we let them. Please, pay attention to how they act and vote on this session's nasty bills and vote them out of office. We, the people, have to change this unreality show.