Fla. Lawmakers Battle Over Naming Electors

For more than a century, Old South Democrats dominated state politics here, filling the state’s history books with colorful tales of politicians wearing coonskin caps, walking hundreds of miles to the state capital, washing dishes on the campaign trail to earn their blue-collar stripes.

But the state has shifted sharply to the right in the last decade, and when Jeb Bush became governor in 1998, Florida became the first Southern state since Reconstruction where Republicans control both chambers of the Legislature as well as the governor’s mansion.

The move by Republican lawmakers Thursday to seize control of the presidential election by choosing Florida’s 25 electors on their own comes at a time when Democrats have never been weaker. Republicans outnumber Democrats 77 to 43 in the House and 25 to 15 in the Senate, and Democrats cannot block the GOP from ordering a special session that could guarantee Republican George W. Bush the election even if Democrat Al Gore wins in court.

But though Democrats appear powerless to block Republican maneuvers if a special session materializes, they plotted to retaliate in other ways. Some are threatening to boycott. Others are organizing protests. And many vow that if they are going to lose, they are going to make Jeb Bush get his hands dirty--by forcing him to sign the bill handing the presidency to his older brother.

In Tallahassee, many believe the next week will cement a new era in Florida politics: a bitter, polar division between the two parties that would make decades of Southern gentility a quaint relic of the past.

“For the Republicans, this is a slam dunk,” said Ron Sachs, a political and media consultant in Tallahassee. “But it is going to be the political equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Capitol.”

A Florida legislative committee voted along party lines Thursday to call the special session, an unprecedented and enormously controversial move. Never before in history has a state legislature tried to swap out elected delegates with electors of their own.

The 8-5 committee vote was only a recommendation to the House speaker and Senate president, who are expected to convene the special session early next week. But GOP leaders are already talking about their constitutional right--maybe even their duty--to name a second set of electors if there is a chance Florida’s vote might not be included in the electoral college because of all the ongoing court cases. “This is not about stealing votes,” said state Rep. J. Dudley Goodlette (R-Naples).

It is about politics, pure, simple and nasty.

State Sen. Tom Rossin and state Rep. Johnnie Byrd sat four seats apart Thursday--but under the new political climate in Tallahassee, they are worlds apart.

Rossin is a Democrat, Byrd a Republican. Rossin is from West Palm Beach, a diverse city of seniors and minorities. Byrd is from Plant City, a small town in the heart of conservative Central Florida.

“Listen to your soul,” Rossin told legislators before the vote. “You know it and I know it: This is not the right thing to do.”

Byrd couldn’t have disagreed more.

“Someone has to step in to bring finality to this,” he said. “The people are yearning for it.”

Issue Signals Turn for the Worse

Democrats felt slighted from the moment the committee was organized. Republican leaders picked the members and made sure the Democrats were outnumbered. They changed the name from a committee on “voting irregularities” to the “Select Joint Committee on the Manner of the Appointment of Presidential Electors.”

“We all knew what they were going to do,” said state Sen. Betty Holzendorf, a Jacksonville Democrat.

The debate has only deepened the divide between the two parties--but it wasn’t always this way in Florida.

Democrats seized control of the Legislature in 1875 and didn’t relinquish it for more than 122 years. Florida was ruled by old-school conservative Democrats.

Reubin Askew, the Democratic governor in the 1970s, was deeply religious and opposed abortion, but he wrote the state’s corporate income tax law and fought for civil rights when most Southern politicians were looking the other way.

In the late 1970s, Bob Graham fended off Republican opponents by working dozens of everyday jobs while campaigning for governor, from dishwasher to car parker.

Gov. Lawton Chiles, a folksy man who fancied a coonskin cap and earned the nickname “Walkin’ Lawton” when he strolled across the state to the Capitol, was a crafty reconciler. Although he vetoed attempts to restrict abortion rights, he abandoned his call to expand the state’s sales tax base when Republicans began gaining power in the mid-1990s.

But Republicans, led by a conservative bloc in the Orlando area, won enough seats in the 1996 elections to take control of the Legislature. GOP House Speaker Tom Feeney compared it at the time to Moses’ people reaching the promised land. And when Jeb Bush became governor, a tradition of gentle, moderate politics was cast aside--setting the table for Thursday’s vote.

School Vouchers, Other Causes Gain

Since then, the Legislature’s agenda has changed dramatically, and Florida has lurched to the right. Legislation that failed repeatedly in the past, from school prayer bills to anti-abortion programs, has gained momentum.

In 1999, at the urging of Jeb Bush, who is enormously popular in many regions, the Legislature passed the country’s most ambitious school-voucher program, allowing children to use public money to transfer to private schools.

Lobbyists for the sugar industry, blamed for much of the pollution in the Everglades, have written environmental legislation. Florida now has stringent restrictions on lawsuits brought by injured consumers against corporations. There have been record tax cuts favoring powerful businesses.

The Legislature’s relationship with the state Supreme Court--seven justices appointed by Democratic governors--has disintegrated. It’s especially bad now. The Supreme Court has struck down a number of GOP proposals in recent years, such as a plan to limit the time the court has to weigh death penalty cases. Two weeks ago, the court decided to override a deadline, based on regulations established by lawmakers, to include South Florida recounts in the election tally.

“Basically, they feel that the court, in their words, is an activist court,” said Gerald Kogan, a Supreme Court justice from 1987 through 1998. “But, even though you have a separation of powers, you also have checks and balances. Legislators can’t pass anything they want. It has to be constitutional.”

Kogan said legal observers are expecting new attacks this spring on the Supreme Court’s power because of the court’s ruling on the recounts.

“This thing [the tension] has really come to a head,” Kogan said.

In the meantime, Democrats are left with little role but protesting. They acknowledge that they are powerless to block the GOP from trying to take control of the presidential election. Republicans have a clear majority in both chambers--and have the votes they need to award the electors to Bush.

“We’ve never had anything like this in Florida before,” said state Rep. Lois Frankel (D-West Palm Beach), the House minority leader.

“They have the ability to do anything they want. This isn’t about a difference in philosophy anymore. This is about making George Bush the president of the United States.”

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How the Statehouse Could Step In

A committee of the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature voted along party lines Thursday to recommend a special session early next week to appoint a slate of electoral college delegates loyal to Republican George W. Bush.

The decision to summon part-time lawmakers to Tallahassee now rests with the Legislature’s two GOP leaders, House Speaker Tom Feeney and Senate President John McKay. If they call the session, Republicans could pursue two ways to appoint the electors: through a bill or by a resolution. Democrats vow to challenge either action.

*

A BILL

* Would repeal a statute granting voters the power to choose electors.

* Could take at least six days for passage, unless legislators vote to fast-track it.

* Would require Gov. Jeb Bush, the Republican candidate’s younger brother, to sign the bill or let it lapse into law after one week.

*

A RESOLUTION

* Takes less time to pass than a bill.

* Would still require passage by both the House and Senate.

* Would not require the signature of Jeb Bush, who has tried to stay out of the election dispute.

* May not be effective because Republicans and Democrats agree a resolution cannot repeal a law.