Daniel TilsonFlorida’s 2014 legislative session runs from March 4 until May 2.
Then comes Election Day on Nov. 4.
It’s that last date you want to keep uppermost in mind when you hear about winners and losers in Tallahassee these next couple of months.
When it comes to predicting win/loss percentages, let’s just say the casino gambling industry has nothing on the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) when it comes to benefiting from “House Odds.”
In this era of Gov. Rick Scott and a Legislature dominated by other hardcore conservatives, Democrats and moderate Republicans have little chance of winning anything much for middle-class Floridians.
Case in point is the legislative failure of “The Fair Economy Act,” a bill advanced by Democrats in 2012. It sought more economic fair play, and state revenue, by ending the multibillion-dollar tax evasion tactics condoned or engineered by the RPOF to benefit Florida’s largest, most profitable corporations.
The bill failed without having had a fighting chance, not even getting openly debated or voted on.
That’s what happens when Florida voters don’t make it a priority to keep things competitive and balanced in the Legislature (and when the out-of-power party fails to run candidates in every district of the state).
In our out of balance Legislature, even-handed political debate and conscience-driven lawmaking has largely been replaced by one-sided political gamesmanship and donation-driven payback.
The needs of the middle-class get outweighed and overwhelmed by the wants of the privileged and powerful few.
As recently reported in the Miami Herald, another case in point is last year’s defeat of a bill that would’ve repealed a juicy tax break enjoyed by health insurance giant Florida Blue. The bill’s demise was engineered by a committee chaired by Rep. Steve Crisafulli, whose largest campaign contribution ($275,000) this election cycle has come from — guess who?
That’s not to say any quid quo pro was made. Like his having already been picked to follow Rep. Will Weatherford as House Speaker next year, Crisafulli’s relevant chairmanship simply made Florida Blue’s contribution a doubly good…investment in the future.
The Herald investigation shows that the top 10 cash cow campaign committees this cycle all belong to key RPOF committee heads, leaders-in-waiting like Crisafulli, and/or torch-bearers for the Florida Chamber’s “Agenda For Jobs” – typically deceitful Chamber (and RPOF) doubletalk for what is a shameless Agenda For Business.
And mind you, it’s not just any agenda for any business. It’s all about clearing a path to record profit margins for Big Business, at the expense of small business owners, job-seekers and middle-class families.
An alliance consisting of the Chamber, Florida’s leading industries, biggest corporations and some of its wealthiest residents, has worked hard and spent big to take pay-to-play politics and lawmaking in our state to epic new levels.
They are the ones picking the lion’s share of winners and losers in our legislative sessions, and in our elections.
They work with friends and allies in government like Rick Scott to throw us mostly little but sometimes-bigger election-year crumbs, hoping it serves as distraction from them having their cake and eating it too.
This year our highlighted crumb is a $12 to $25 reduction in auto tag fees, while their cake will be layered with more corporate tax cuts and breaks, more dismantling of growth and development regulations, more funneling of public education funding to for-profit private schools.
So will you feel like a winner coming out of this session?
The only surefire way we can turn this game around and score significant wins in the future is to make the RPOF big losers come November.
A New York University graduate, Daniel Tilson owns a Boca Raton-based firm, Full Cup Media, offering “a la carte” and custom-bundled packages of communication services.
