Peter Schorsch
Rep. Eric Eisnaugle put pen to paper this weekend and wrote a scathing op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel calling for an end to “autocracy” in the state House’s internal affairs.
Citing a regime of strictly enforced loyalty and near-universal deference to leadership – which he described as a “pyramid of power” – Eisnaugle blasted the House’s prevailing culture in his hometown paper’s Sunday edition.
“Under the rules and practices that govern the Florida House today, a member who upsets leadership runs the risk of losing almost everything — from a chairmanship and committee assignments, to things as mundane as an office or a parking space,” wrote Eisnaugle.
Alarmed at how “the concentration of power in the hands of a few inevitably narrows the range of ideas and viewpoints” that have a viable voice in the chamber, Eisnaugle vowed to fight against entrenched interests in Tallahassee who like the speaker-as-strongman model just fine.
“I am convinced that the only way to fix these structural problems is to amend Florida House and caucus rules with bold and broad changes laser focused on aggressively decentralizing power. Only then will we get real and lasting reform. Only then will we have a truly ‘member-driven process’ — an incessantly invoked goal that too often receives only lip service,” read the Orlando Republican’s missive.
Though he provided few, if any, specifics Eisnaugle made plain his displeasure with the iron-fisted system with which he now seems to have fallen somewhat out of favor.
Eisnaugle’s piece seemed to contain an implicit critique of rising Speaker Rep. Richard Corcoran, who is seen as a top-down enforcer who rewards loyalty and punishes deviation from the caucus line.
Corcoran is reportedly involved in a plan to oust Eisnaugle from his tentative perch before he can be designated ‘Speaker D.’
“Breaking the ‘pyramid of power’ will also result in a more deliberative speaker-selection process,” wrote Eisnaugle. “Under today’s ‘winner take all’ rules, some members have feared being left behind if they don’t make an early commitment.”
“Decentralizing power will give members the freedom to make those decisions on their own time schedule, because speakers — and speakers in waiting — will no longer have the ability unilaterally to make or break a representative’s legislative career.”
Diverging accounts have proliferated but either Republican Party of Florida chairman and state Rep. Blaise Ingoglia or Rep. Chris Sprowls have been postulated as replacements for Eisnaugle.
Ingoglia partially addressed the rumors at the state GOP’s summertime quarterly meeting in Tampa last week.
“Let me be clear,” Ingoglia said. “I am currently not offering myself as a Speaker of the House, and I’m not going to offer myself as a Speaker of the House.”
Speaker-to-be or not, Eisnaugle pledged to push forward with efforts to reform the system he said disempowers those at odds with the House elite.
“I know that accomplishing these reforms will not be easy — but it is worth the fight. It is past time to return power to the membership — and through the members, to the people they represent.”
