Who Are These People

Anyone watching the news over the last few weeks will recognize the guy in the upper left picture as the newly elected Speaker of the US House House of Representatives, Mike Johnson of Louisiana.  Significant debate (weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth)  has transpired regarding the process followed to elect a Speaker of the US House. 

So, who are the other folks? That's your Speaker lineup for the Florida House of Representatives for the next seven years. Speaker Paul Renner who is in his second and last year as Speaker. He will be followed by Danny Perez  who will take over beginning in November of 2024. He will be followed by Sam Garrison who will take over in November of 2026. He will be followed by Jennifer Canady who will take over for a two-year term beginning in November of  2028. Each will serve as Speaker for two years, wielding the gavel over the House for two legislative sessions. 

How were these people selected to occupy one of the three most powerful positions in state government (the other two being the Governor and the Senate President) and why for only 2 years? Easy. Members of the Florida house are elected for 2-year terms and  can serve for 8 years before being "termed out" because of term limits. So, there exist 4 classes of representatives in the Florida House. A freshman class, a sophomore class, a junior class and a senior class. Sounds like high school, right? Trust me. That's  actually not the only resemblance between the Florida House and what happens in high school, but I digress. 

In 2024, a new freshman class will be elected in November and will be installed during the "organizational session" that will happen later that same month. The existing senior class will term out at that time and the existing freshman, sophomore and junior  classes will move up in seniority. After serving together for one session, the newly elected 2024 freshman class will get together and select one of their own to serve as the Speaker for 2 years when they move up to become the senior class. All sounds rather  orderly and sophisticated compared to the chaos just witnessed in Washington DC, right? What could possibly go wrong? 

Just hang with me a little longer. 

We're talking about one of the 3 most powerful positions in state government. From where is this power derived and to what ends is it administered? I need to pause right here and state for the record that I am not trying to cast aspersions on any of the representatives  mentioned in this article. I don't know them personally, and I believe that each of them ran for their office with the very best of intentions hoping to represent the people of their districts with integrity, hoping to accomplish great things for all Floridians.  The problem is not with them. The problem is with the system and the role that money plays in the political process. The typical voter believes that there are limits on financial contributions that can be made to candidates running for office. The limit on  contributions to candidates for the Florida House and Senate is $1,000. For those running statewide, for Governor or a cabinet position, it's $3,000. That's correct. Except that it's not. Wait, What??? 

You see we have these political creatures called political committees that can be organized under the Florida Division of Elections or at the local level under the auspices of the county Supervisor of Elections. A political committee has its own bank account  and there is NO LIMIT on contributions to political committees. Guess what. Candidates for office can organize their own political committee with a separate bank account from their campaign account where they can take in 5 and even 6 figure contributions into  their political committees and use these funds to finance their campaigns. Typically, these PCs have nice sounding names like "Friends of" whatever the candidates name is or something else that sounds altruistic and is designed to create separation from the candidate  in the mind of the voter. Sounds kind of murky, right? It gets worse!

You see, political committees can make unlimited contributions to each other, and the politicians aren't the only ones that have them. Every institution, corporation, trade association, union, etc. with business before the legislature has a PC, many of which  are raising hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars to influence who gets elected. PCs make third party expenditures supporting or opposing candidates or make contributions directly into a candidate's PC. As I said, they can make contributions to each  other. It is not uncommon for money to flow through multiple PCs before it winds up in the PC of a candidate. The only thing the candidate has to report is the name of the PC that directly contributed to their PC, not where the money may have originated. This  is what we call "the legal laundering of campaign cash". 

For all you political junkies that are still with me, thanks for hanging in there. Let me bring this back full circle. You see those 3 most powerful people in state government, the Speaker, the Senate President and the Governor, have the ability to raise millions  and millions of dollars into multiple PCs (they're not limited to just one PC each) and every rank and file member of the house and senate know that leadership can use that money to reward those that tow the leadership line and punish those that don't. 

So, when that newly designated speaker in each freshman class gets picked after just one session under their belt, you can rest assured that the existing speaker and the lineup that follows will pluck that freshman class speaker designate up into their leadership  ranks and start grooming them. By the time they are actually installed as Speaker they will be convinced that they are God's gift to the people of Florida, that they know best and they have an obligation to wield their power accordingly even to the point of  pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into local campaigns completely usurping the ability of the voters at the local level to choose for themselves who should represent them. So, when the winner of that local campaign gets to Tallahassee because leadership  in Tallahassee invested so heavily in their campaign, who do you think they will feel obligated to?

So there's the dirty little secret. This doesn't happen in every race and there are still good people being elected in many races without significant interference from Tallahassee. But it happens often enough to have a corrupting influence on the system.  So, if you were thinking at the beginning of this piece that it sure sounded like our way of electing a speaker at the state level was better than how it's done in Washington, now you know, as Paul Harvey used to say, "the rest of the story". 

Thus ends my  rant for the day. If you made it this far, thanks for listening. 

In Liberty,

Bob White

Chairman, Come Clean Florida