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| June 26, 2009 |
By: John Kennedy |
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Charlie Crist and Alex Sink
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lorida government is bracing for a sweeping change at the top that will ripple across courthouses, industries and investment houses, while touching even the gas pumps and cemeteries of the state.
For the first time since the modern Cabinet system was created in 1885, every incumbent is leaving office next year. Combine that with Gov. Charlie Crist packing it in after one term to run for U.S. Senate, and suddenly the Capitol has a surge of job openings in an otherwise recession-ravaged state.
“What we’re suddenly looking at is a perfect storm of opportunity and ambition,” said Lance deHaven Smith, a Florida State University political scientist. “It’s the kind of political change you don’t usually see in a lifetime.”
It’s basically musical chairs in the Cabinet room, a windowless setting in the basement of the 22-story Capitol in Tallahassee.
While Crist is eyeing Washington, the people who sit on either side of him at twice-monthly Cabinet meetings, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum, are running against each other to succeed him.
Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, a term-limited Republican, briefly toyed with the idea of running for governor. Then he endorsed McCollum.
“You’re going to see a lot more drama on the Cabinet in the next year,” said Colleen Castille, who served as former Gov. Jeb Bush’s chief Cabinet aide. “Every decision is going to be shaded by politics.”
Early jockeying
Signs of that may already be emerging.
Sink, who already is catching heat from Republicans as a former executive with financially challenged Bank of America, has worked to burnish her credentials by turning back a proposed $3 million budget increase for the state’s investment office.
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The request, eventually withdrawn by agency officials, included $1.3 million for salaries, benefits and a travel increase. It came just weeks after state lawmakers approved a $66 billion state budget by papering over a $6 billion deficit with almost $1 billion in fee hikes, stimulus money and a $1 billion boost in the cigarette tax.
Sink coolly applauded the agency, saying she considered it “wise that you decided to recommend withdrawing” the increase, “at a time when Florida’s families, businesses and state agencies are forced to do more with less.”
Even before they were officially rivals, Sink earlier this year criticized McCollum for airing a statewide television ad warning against Internet predators. Although it was an attorney general’s office spot, McCollum awarded the $1.4 million contract to the media firm that handled his 2006 campaign and two previous failed runs for U.S. Senate.
“You’re going to see plenty of back-and-forth now on the Cabinet,” Castille said.
Byproduct of Reconstruction
Florida’s unique Cabinet system is rooted in native opposition to federal control of state government following the Civil War. Governors in the post-war years had Yankee connections, but Cabinet members were independently elected and closely reflected the local voting population. They also served to diffuse gubernatorial power.
Almost 125 years later, things haven’t changed much.
“The Cabinet really provides something that a lot of states don’t have,” said Tom Gallagher, the only person in Florida history to hold three different Cabinet posts. “You have a lot of guys looking at ideas and trends and helping make decisions. It’s like a big county commission for state government.”
The attorney general, chief financial officer and state agriculture commissioner combined or separately control an almost endless array of state issues: legal affairs, insurance regulation, food inspection, gas stations, even cemetery regulation and “pre-need” funeral contracts.
In various combinations, the governor and Cabinet members also convene as more than a dozen different boards, deciding environmental permitting, state investments, clemency and power plant siting.
Like any governing board, routine matters dominate. But a few flashpoints have emerged over such disparate issues as felons’ voting rights, coal-fired power plants, insurance and the roller-coaster ride Florida investments have taken on Wall Street.
A state-run fund that pooled money from local governments for better returns on investments was subject to a multi-billion-dollar run on the bank in late 2007, causing the governor and Cabinet members to step in just as the subprime crisis was emerging.
While that fund has since stabilized, the Florida Retirement System, with 1 million pensioners, lost 20 percent of its value in the past year, falling to about $100 billion. With Sink, McCollum and Crist sitting as the State Board of Administration overseeing investments, there have been signs of partisan differences as the dollars diminished.
Sink has pushed for more “transparency and accountability.” She’s embraced a union-backed initiative that would expand the state’s investment advisory board to include members from employee organizations, governments, and pensioners.
Crist and McCollum, both Republicans, are wary of the move. But the state’s finances appear likely to remain a top focus of the Cabinet in the political year ahead.
“Sure, we’re concerned, watching these retirement funds decline,” said Doug Martin of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents many state pensioners. “It’s also an exciting and uncertain time politically, not knowing who’s going to run state government two years from now.”
Middle of the Road
On Cabinet issues, Crist, a moderate Republican, has nudged the state in directions that sometimes break with GOP orthodoxy. Crist effectively stopped Florida utilities from submitting Cabinet requests for coal-fired power plants because of his concerns about global warming, steering the state onto the carbon-reducing path blazed by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Florida Power & Light lost a bid to build a coal plant in Glades County, an hour’s drive from Everglades National Park. Four other smaller utilities followed, dropping a proposal to seek state permits for a coal-burning plant in Perry.
Crist also went against his party two years ago in getting the Cabinet to make it easier for felons to regain their voting rights. McCollum and Bronson initially opposed Crist, forcing him to revamp his approach and limit the change to nonviolent offenders, drawing Bronson’s support.
Regaining voting rights still isn’t simple in Florida. But with rights since restored to close to 100,000 residents, many considered likely Democratic voters, the impact of the Cabinet action may emerge in next year’s election contests.
Florida Democrats see the political overhaul as brimming with possibilities.
The state’s 10.2 percent unemployment rate is at a 34-year high. And Democratic registration is still swollen with a crush of voters drawn to President Obama’s candidacy last fall. The party sees the governor’s mansion and at least two out of three Cabinet posts as ripe for the taking.
Gaining such power, Democrats then envision 2012 redistricting as their best chance of regaining the legislative influence lost in 1996, when the party relinquished control of the Legislature to Republicans for the first time in 122 years.
A pair of prominent Senate Democrats, Dan Gelber of Miami Beach and David Aronberg of Greenacres have already jumped into the race to succeed Republican McCollum as attorney general. A well-known Republican contender has yet to emerge, but is expected to be Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp.
While McCollum has pivoted the attorney general’s office around crime fighting, focusing on cyber predators and fraud, a Democrat could tip the office more toward consumer issues, civil rights and combatting corporate wrongdoing, analysts say.
In the chief financial officer’s race, Republican Senate President Jeff Atwater of North Palm Beach is the most prominent candidate, facing a potential primary challenge from Deland state Rep. Pat Patterson.
Democrats at the state and federal level are pushing hard for Manny Diaz, Miami’s term-limited mayor, to run.
Partisan leanings could also shade the CFO’S future. Analysts say that if Sink is succeeded by a Republican, a more free-market approach may emerge toward regulating insurance, banking and other industries.
Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam of Bartow and state Sen. Carey Baker of Eustis are angling to replace Bronson, with Tallahassee environmentalist Eric Draper and Fort Pierce rancher Rick Minton running for the Democratic nomination.
The agriculture commissioner has always been close to the state’s powerful agri-businesses. But land use and development issues could change sharply if a pro-environment Democrat is elected to the post.
“For Democrats, the question always is, ‘Can they raise the money and provide the candidates’ that lets them take advantage of this opportunity,” said Darryl Paulson, a government professor at the University of South Florida. “But the stars are aligned for big changes.”
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