Bill Cotterell: Orange juice in the rotunda? Not this year

Lawmakers, staff members and lobbyists celebrated the end of the 2023 session with a traditional “sine die” ceremony. [The Florida News Service file photo]

The Latin motto of the Florida Supreme Court—“Sat Cito Si Recte”—translates to “Soon enough if correct,” but maybe that would be a more appropriate slogan for the state House and Senate this year.

Lawmakers finished their scheduled 60-day session on May 2 without enacting a budget and will have to hammer out a spending plan during an extended session. History indicates these things usually blow up a time or two before settlement.

Whether it’s done right is a matter of opinion. A few senators and representatives will be satisfied with the spending plan produced in legislative overtime. But those few are the ones who count—like the House speaker and Senate president, appropriations chairs and some other major players—who control all the big decisions.

Whether it’s done soon enough is a matter of fact, and they’ve already demonstrated that they couldn’t do it in the constitutionally allotted 60 days. It was an active session, the first time legislators showed Gov. Ron DeSantis they really are an equal branch of government capable of saying “No” to some of his plans while also poking into a $10 million sleight-of-hand the administration ran with a state contracting settlement.

During the extended session, operating efficiency will improve because lawmakers can only consider a limited number of bills—pretty much bills involving money—with all other matters dead until next year. And when a joint negotiating committee reaches a compromise, no amendments are allowed. The House and Senate will have to either pass the budget or send it back to committee, which is never done. The new budget needs to take effect July 1.

Adjournment “sine die”—another Latin term, meaning “enough, already”—has changed in the more than quarter-century since Republicans took over. When the Democrats ran everything, nobody really expected the session to end on time. Resolutions extending the term or calling special sessions were common.

Lawmakers might convene at 7 a.m. in the last week and work until 3 or 4 a.m. Hand-scrawled amendments were literally run between the chambers by harried messengers, and members might recess a half-hour or less for a rump session of players on some issue.

As a young reporter, I sometimes left the Old Capitol with the sun rising over Apalachee Parkway. One budget standoff ran a few hours past June 30 and Gov. Lawton Chiles had agencies make lists of “non-essential” state employees to be furloughed if the fiscal year began without a deal. They got one in the wee hours of a Saturday, and everybody just sort of pretended time hadn’t run out.

But the GOP took over midway in Chiles’ second term and House Speaker Dan Webster decreed they’d finish at a business-like 6 o’clock or so. Chiles even set up a table in the fourth-floor rotunda and poured orange juice for Webster and Senate President Toni Jennings, toasting adjournment of the 1996 session.

The traditional handkerchief drop, hugs and congratulatory speeches marked the happy endings on the 60th day for a while.
But 10 years ago, the House got mad and went home on Wednesday—leaving the Senate in session for two days with nothing to do but pass or kill House-approved bills. Senators complained bitterly about not being able to amend House bills or pass their own, but they got over it.

It’s odd that political candidates always promise to run the government like a business. Then they have a huge, two-part squad of decision-makers, coming from antagonistic parties, taking multibillion-dollar actions and setting important policy in a tight time frame, with all the big deals pushed off to the final days and a small inner circle of leaders empowered to set the agendas.

Meanwhile, the stockholders—known as voters—are mainly unaware of the day-to-day goings-on. But they’ll get angry and never forgive the tough, unpopular votes legislators have to cast now and then.

Plus, lawmakers have to let outside interests, known as lobbyists, influence their decisions while making financial payments, known as campaign contributions, to the decision makers, who constantly need money to get re-elected to jobs they can only keep for eight years.

Run government like a business? What business would run like that?

Bill Cotterell is a retired Capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at [email protected]