Posted: May 13, 2009

The extended legislative session has finally concluded. As you know, this has been a very difficult session, for both our state and its citizens. Despite the fact that the budget dominated my time in Tallahassee this session, our District 53 office was able to claim a few victories for Floridians.

Service-Learning, a teaching and learning strategy that I first filed in 2006, finally passed as an amendment to another education bill. I am hopeful that Governor Crist will sign this bill into law.

Contamination Notification and Mangrove Protection both cleared several hurdles in each chamber and are both ready and likely to be passed in the 2010 session.

As the Ranking Democrat on the Energy & Utilities Policy Committee, I again pushed for legislation that would have provided our state with a new economic engine by creating a cleaner, greener Florida. At a time when most states are moving forward with innovative policies, such as feed-in tariffs, and are making real progress in adhering to a true renewable portfolio standard, Florida continues to be stuck in neutral. As such, I led the House Democratic Caucus in imploring Speaker Larry Cretul to consider a renewable energy package. Believing in renewable energy, I fought against the state senate plan, which created a “clean” energy standard, which included nuclear power and coal gasification. Unfortunately, despite all of our efforts, there was no renewable energy package this year, and none of the governor’s priorities (or mine) were met.

When I wasn’t working on the budget or advocating for or passing progressive legislation, my time was spent stopping bad things from happening. Secret ballots in the work place were under attack. Insurance companies sought additional deregulation. Attempts were made to interfere with our voting rights. The class-size amendment was under attack again, with efforts to dilute the will of the people and remove the vital funding associated with the class size amendment. Even worse, was the effort at passing a late-filed amendment to allow oil drilling in the Gulf 3- 10 miles off our shores. This amendment was heard with almost no notice given to the amendment’s likely opponents. Fortunately, this amendment died.

I worked diligently to make the telecommunications bill more consumer friendly. For awhile, this bill, dubbed the “Consumer Choice and Protection Act”, offered neither choices or protection. It allowed for a maximum rate hike, removed all regulatory power of the Public Service Commission, and generally just put a strain on seniors, rural residents, and small businesses. In committee, I was the lone NO vote. In council, only two of us voted NO. By the time this bill was heard on the floor of the House, many of my recommendations were incorporated into the final product, creating a bill which provided many of the consumer protections I was pushing for and only some of the regulatory relief sought by the telecommunications companies.

Finally, I voted against a bad budget. Aside from the cuts in this budget which will hurt our most vulnerable citizens, the budget included tax increases aimed at middle class Floridians. This budget was built on short term fixes to long term problems. Given that the budget blues aren’t going away, and that State economists do not expect Florida’s population or revenues to grow, as Floridians, we can only hope that the short-term quick fixes implemented by Leadership do not hurt our state in the long-term.