Category: Florida

Last time Rick Scott picked Jennifer Carroll, the attractive-black-PR specialist-state representative-Navy vet-Aunt Tom, as his running mate. Maybe it fooled enough folks in an electorate that ultimately stuck us with Scott.

Now what’s a lieutenant governor-less governor to do as next year’s re-election approaches? Will he perceive the need for another blatant, pandering act of ticket-balancing? If so, Scott has undoubtedly noticed who’s already filed fundraising papers to seek the Republican Party nomination in 2014. Among them: Sarasota businesswoman Elizabeth Cuevas-Neunder. She is also president of the Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce of Florida.

It’s a given that the GOP needs to make inroads into the Hispanic vote, and Florida’s fastest growing Hispanic community is Puerto Rican. Scott was willing to make Carroll the first black elected to statewide office since Reconstruction. Might there be a Latina sequel for a governor still trying to combat a less-than-inclusive image?

They are not exactly the “sounds of silence,” but I suspect a lot of us are “hearing without listening.” But not without complaining.

Who among us has not been assaulted–or awakened–by drive-by cacophony, masquerading as somebody’s music?  Who has not said–and I’ll clean this up for you–“Thanks again for sharing your customized, decibel-driven universe”? Moreover, “What the hell makes you think you’re exempt from common-sense, common-courtesy societal norms?” Silly us.

And, come to think of it, would it be road rage if I responded by cranking up a Terry Gross Fresh Air podcast to the eardrum-assaulting amplitude of a jet engine? Just askin’.

But, seriously, this is an issue that keeps getting legally, politically and culturally rationalized, even as the imposed sounds themselves continue to technologically ramp up.

Last December the Florida Supreme Court wouldn’t uphold a law making it illegal for music coming from a car to be “plainly audible” from 25 feet. There were issues over exemptions (involving business or political purposes), but ultimately it was another free-speech and unreasonable-restriction-on-freedom-of-expression case. Probably not what the Founding Fathers foresaw. Common sense and common courtesy? How quaint.

This spring the Florida Legislature came up short in its effort to pass a measure that would have reined in excessive noise from vehicles. A key impediment: legislators who saw such efforts as unfair–as in blatant targeting, a form of discrimination. One such anti-targeting advocate was Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, who noted that really loud stereos were simply, well, an annoyance and, well, only to some.

“I continue to be against these (types of bills) because I feel it’s pointed and directed at one type of person and that’s the type of person like me who likes to hear their music loud,” said Braynon.   

Sorry, Senator, but this is not about cultural diversity or minority targeting or harassment. This is, in fact, about sound-harassment prevention. This is about reining in the drive-by assaults on hammers, anvils and stirrips. This is about rude, look-at-me behavior that inevitably targets everyone within earshot. If this is about people such as yourself who happen to like your music really, really loud, then so be it. You and yours SHOULD be targeted.

But let’s hear it for Tampa City Council. It hasn’t given up. It’s sticking up for constituents and trying to stick it to those who don’t care who gets blasted by their deafening sounds. Council members have now given preliminary approval to a city-code ordinance designed to get the attention–via fines and even jail time–of sound-pounding motorists. The “clearly audible” criterion is back–this time from 50 feet.

City Council, in effect, has heard local complainants loud and clear. This is a quality-of-life and quality-of-neighborhood issue, and they are properly coming down on the side of Howard Beale-like residents telling Council they’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

Not surprisingly, Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor is in favor of the crackdown. Her department has been burdened with more than 3,000 noise complaints in the last six months. TPD officers would like some leverage beyond finger wagging and stern appeals for the uncaring, the oblivious or the moronic to be considerate of others. If the noise ordinance receives final approval June 6, police could start issuing citations–with first offenders fined $250.

Downright disappointing has been the position of Arthenia Joyner, the state senator from East Tampa who ironically represents many of those who complained loudest to City Council. She’s made it clear that she suspects such a focus on really loud car-stereo music is just a variation on an all too familiar theme: racial profiling of blacks and Hispanics. Please.

She ought to know better. Failing that, she ought to be ashamed. It’s about prioritizing the battles you pick. This is not a civil rights issue. This is a quality-of-life and uncivil wrongs issue.

We knew from the ominous get-go that this was not good for Florida. First it was high-speed rail, with its guarantee of jobs to expedite the Orlando-to-Tampa megalopolis link.  Now it’s Amazon, with its offer to build warehouses and hire several thousand workers. Both were turned down for ideological reasons. But it could be worse. Imagine if Rick Scott were not the “jobs” governor?

Searching out agenda-promoting optics that can be converted to campaign-ad fodder later is a political given. And Gov. Rick Scott, as we’ve seen, has been in this mode for months. Dropping by Eustis or The Villages when your poll numbers are still awful is obviously of no re-election help. So, venues such as teacher-wooing schools have become a prime, de facto campaign gambit.

But it’s wincing to see all those pep-rally photo-ops with teachers and administrators who must surely be aware of their hypocritical prop status. But it’s downright duplicitous to see little kids, such as the fourth- and fifth-graders at Tampa’s Alexander Elementary, who were cued to thank Scott out loud last week.

If Charlie Crist winds up being the Democratic challenger to Gov. Rick Scott, he will need something–other than Scott’s unpopularity, Medicare-fraud connection and obvious, pander-fest re-election strategy–to divert attention from all his flip-floppery. He could use an issue that truly transcends such baggage.

If this were a memo to Crist, it would read: “Why not follow-up with what Congresswoman Kathy Castor has been doing on Cuba? Why not play the Cuba card while it’s still playable? Why not put yourself on the right side of history–as well as the right side of what’s best for Florida outside the sovereign enclave of Little Havana and the vendetta-agenda crowd? Why not become a Florida-first, de facto Washington player by playing up–and lobbying for–the economic, humanitarian and geopolitical benefits of a normalized relationship with Cuba? Why not promote a more progressive standing for Florida in our own Hemisphere? One that is fitting of a ‘Gateway to the Americas.’

“Why not be seen, for example, as aggressively pushing for more Port of Tampa exports and unfettered public university-related travel to Cuba? Why not underscore a commitment with a serious Havana visit and subsequent campaign theme?  Let Ileana, Mario and Ralph call you out. Your opponent will be judged by the counterproductive company he keeps.

“At a certain point, and it’s obviously coming, Cuba will open and capitalizing political wannabes will be too late to get credit for showing guts as well as Florida-first smarts. Timing is everything. You didn’t listen to those hinting at such a strategy when you were searching for a game-changer in that senatorial debacle. This time, go for it. You won’t be flip-flopping, you’ll be helping change history.”

At its conclusion, there were so many hardy hand clasps, high fives, fist bumps, embraces, man-hugs and cell-phone poses, you would have thought something celebratory had occurred at this year’s Florida legislative session. Frankly, it would have been more fitting if a Venezuelan Parliament fistfight had broken out.

But, yes, a required budget was passed and it was, indeed, balanced, as is constitutionally mandated. Gov. Rick Scott, who gave disengaged a bad name, now has 15 days to act on that $74.5-billion budget, which should be enough time to ponder any re-election calculus.

Basically, the Legislature’s biggest priorities were either ignored or passed in diluted form.

Medicaid expansion never escaped the ideological clutches of Won’t Weatherford’s GOP Safe House. In effect, so what if others–such as a majority of voters, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Florida, the health care industry and the Florida Senate–are in favor of this donor state accepting $51 billion over the next 10 years to help address the acute needs of a million low-income residents? It’s an absolute disgrace that ignores the reality that health insurance correlates with access to preventive care and a more productive workforce.

And speaking of workforce, Medicaid expansion would create thousands of jobs. Moreover, its absence puts business owners across the state in jeopardy of federal penalty costs. Thanks, again.

Nothing, of course, was done on internet sales taxes that remain uncollected, and Stand Your Ground still stands.

Texting-while-driving passed as a secondary offense, voting reforms were mainly a reversal of what the voter-suppressing Legislature did previously and campaign finance law came up half empty by targeting fundraising groups but not slush-fund-enamored political parties. Doing less than you could to save lives, not fully undoing an unconscionable effort to suppress votes and leaving political parties opaque are results well shy of celebration.

But there were also random acts of legislative conscience and common sense. To wit:

* When a child is conceived during a sexual assault, there will be no paternal rights for the rapist.

* Health providers will be required to provide emergency medical care to an infant who survives a failed abortion.

It speaks volumes that a society actually needs to codify such things.

He knew it was a long shot. Closer to no shot.

But Mayor Bob Buckhorn was obviously still disappointed that the referendum-expanding proposal he supported–as well as other mayoral members of the Urban Partnership (St. Petersburg, Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville and Hialeah)–“never saw the light of day” in the recent legislative session. Buckhorn and his municipal counterparts were pushing for an exemption to the county-only referendum law for cities of a certain population. The mayors wanted permission to run their own referenda among their own residents as a way to move ahead on priorities–such as modern mass transit–that might not resonate in non-urban parts of their counties.

Through its political prism, however, the GOP-dominated Legislature never saw beyond the red-flag implications of  “raising taxes.”

How ironic that this ideologically simplistic take, which panders to the usual “no-taxes-for-anything-ever-again” suspects, in essence downgrades the role of self-government, dismisses the notion of self determination and diminishes the priority of local government. Hardly a shining Founding Fathers moment.

But rest assured, Buckhorn will be back. He will utilize any and all means to the end of (literally) fast forwarding Tampa and this region into the 21st century of transit.

“Cities are the hubs of business,” explains Buckhorn. “I’d be shirking my responsibility to not continue this cause.”

Count on it

Remember all that principled posturing that accompanied the rationale for moving up the Florida presidential primary?  How dare the political parties relegate Florida, the mega, election-impacting–if not determining–swing state to possible rubber-stamp status? How dare they grant states that are not demographically reflective of America a priority position on the primary calendar? A position that gives them–at Florida’s expense–disproportionate influence in the process, especially during the momentum-building early going.

And Florida was, of course, penalized with delegate devaluation. And more punishment would be in store in 2016 should the state with the convention’s third largest delegation not reverse course.

But reversal happened. Florida has, indeed, relented and will not hold a primary in January or early February next time around. More like early March. The provision was furtively tucked into the election-reform bill at the last minute.

This now means that Florida Republicans retain all 99 convention delegates. And what a coincidence: If Sen. Marco Rubio is in the 2016 hunt, as is foreseen in most GOPster circles, he wouldn’t be cheated out of any Florida convention votes. This, then, is what it finally took for Florida to fall back in line–with Rubio weighing in on the side of moving the primary back. And how ironic that former Florida House Speaker Rubio was a key catalyst in moving up the primary back in 2008.

And come to think of it, how principled that a white, rural caucus state that’s not particularly representative of the rest of the country still gets to go first. American exceptionalism takes many forms, including the prominently positioned, presidential-primary silo vote.

Not yet seen on a bumper sticker: Nelson-Iorio 2014. That’s because it’s as preposterous as it is premature.

It would mean, for example, that the 72-year-old Nelson likely would have to promise before the election that he would be a one-term, re-election politics-be-damned governor. And he’d probably have to dramatically disagree with those who say we should jettison the lieutenant governor position by actually elevating it–to virtual co-governor status. Then he’d have to arguably find a younger, CEO-experienced female candidate from the independent voter-rich I-4 corridor who was, say, charismatic, of unassailable character and the possessor of superior podium skills–and for good measure, had a track record of never having lost an election.

Of course, it’s preposterous. But it’s fun. As would be Act II: 2018.

This may be a non-election year, but it’s never a non-speculation year in politics. Here are two prime examples involving prominent individuals with Tampa roots.

Native son Frank Sanchez, the current U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade, could be in line for the top spot. Former Commerce Secretary John Bryson resigned last year. The acting secretary, Rebecca Blank, is leaving the department this summer for academia. Sanchez, who lost a mayoral run-off to Pam Iorio in 2003, is not the odds-on favorite, but he’s in the hunt.

Then there’s this long-shot scenario involving next year’s gubernatorial race. Will Sen. Bill Nelson jump in or not? If he passes, it likely means former Republican governor-turned-Democratic-candidate-with-uber-baggage Charlie Crist will oppose unpopular incumbent Rick Scott. But if the three-term senator runs and wins–and he would likely be favored–Nelson, who keeps himself in good shape and excellent health, would be 72.

But suppose Nelson, who has name recognition and access to funding, does run–but with, say, a notable stipulation. He announces early that he would be a one-term governor. Thus nothing he would do would be with re-election in mind. Pure Sunshine State priorities, political spoilers be damned. He also underscores that the lieutenant governor position, which many understandably want eliminated, would instead be upgraded to virtual co-governor status with several critically important portfolios squarely in the domain of the lieutenant governor.

And in the aftermath of the Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll debacle, that person would have to be of pristine political reputation with hands-on, CEO-type skills. And geographically and demographically, it would help if this person were an I-4 Corridor female.

A one-term Nelson-Iorio ticket? And if it’s a winner, it begets a Tampa front-runner already established for 2018.