Senate President Joe Negron is mulling an early exit from the Legislature.
The Stuart Republican will formally relinquish his leadership role to Sen. Bill Galvano after the November elections. But in an interview Friday with The News Service of Florida --- and in comments Tuesday to his hometown news outlet TCPalm.com --- Negron said he’s going to spend the next few weeks deciding if he wants to stay in the Senate the next two years as a rank-and-file member.
Negron joined the Senate after a 2009 special election. But while many lawmakers are term-limited after eight years, Negron can stay in the Senate until 2020 because certain quirks, including redistricting, give him more time.
“That’s an extra two years added on through the vagaries of litigation and reapportionment, so we have term limits for a reason,” Negron said Friday. “That extra two years is an option. I literally just got home. I still haven’t unpacked everything.”
Negron, who joined the Senate after former President Ken Pruitt left early following the 2009 session, won a special election that year and won what ordinarily would have been a four-year term in 2010. However, with redistricting, he was up for election in 2012, 2014 and, due to a subsequent round of court-ordered redistricting, again in 2016. With the 2016 win, Negron was finally in for a four-year term.
Negron wouldn’t agree that he is ideologically bound to the spirit of the state’s “eight is enough” term limit.
“I feel a sense of contentment about what I’ve been able to accomplish, but I enjoy serving in the Senate,” Negron, who served in the House before getting elected to the Senate, said Friday.
A policy wonk, Negron has headed the House and Senate appropriations committees, which oversee budget preparations. As Senate president, he said he’s satisfied with changes he has spearheaded in the higher-education system, including expanding Bright Futures college scholarships, and with progress in advancing a reservoir to clean and redirect water away from Lake Okeechobee.
“I enjoy working on the budget. So, there are plenty of things I care about and plenty of things to do,” Negron said. “But that’s not really the issue. The issue is timing. And there is a time and place for everything.”
A wise politician aware of his hometown media, Negron promised TCPalm Opinion Editor Eve Samples --- in an interview streamed on Facebook --- that she and the paper would be told first about his ultimate decision.
State Rep. Gayle Harrell, a Stuart Republican whose is term-limited from the House this year, and Robert Levy, a physician from Stuart, have started seeking to replace Negron by opening campaign accounts for 2020.
ANOTHER SENATOR THINKING EARLY EXIT
Tallahassee Democrat Bill Montford is also approaching a decision on whether to remain in the Senate until his term expires in 2020.
Montford, 70, first elected to the Senate in 2010, has faced growing local pressure to run for Tallahassee mayor. Since late January, he has said he would wait until after the end of the legislative session to decide. The session ended March 11.
WFSU reported that Montford --- who did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday --- told reporters on Wednesday that he’ll have a decision by the weekend.
MORE TALLAHASSEE POLITICS
There’s apparently no love lost between Tallahassee City Commissioner Gil Ziffer and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, a Democrat who’s running for governor.
In what appears to be a slap to Gillum, Ziffer threw his support behind Gwen Graham, a former North Florida congresswoman who is one Gillum’s primary-election foes in the gubernatorial race.
“Gwen Graham has a proven record of standing up for Florida families --- as a local PTA volunteer, as a public school official, and representing us in Congress,” Ziffer, who’s also the president of the Florida League of Cities, said in a statement released by Graham’s campaign Wednesday. “She also is a fierce defender of home rule and strongly supported local communities in their fight against fracking in Florida. Gwen defeated an incumbent, NRA-endorsed, tea party congressman and is a fighter who’s proven she can win the big battles. I am proud to offer her my most enthusiastic endorsement for governor.”
From the release: “Ziffer’s endorsement comes one day after Graham’s pledge to use her legal resources as governor to support local governments challenging the state’s firearm preemption law with common-sense gun safety regulations.”
But Gillum --- who’s made stricter gun regulations one of his key campaign issues and has boasted of taking on the NRA --- didn’t want city colleague Ziffer’s endorsement anyway.
According to Gillum’s campaign spokesman Geoff Burgan: “Gwen Graham’s a self-described ‘very conservative Democrat’ and voted to weaken Dodd-Frank provisions, while Gil Ziffer voted against ‘Ban the Box’ legislation in the City Commission and didn’t back the Mayor’s renewed push to fight the gun lobby following the shooting in Parkland. We never sought his endorsement and would not have accepted given these strong policy differences.”
Burgan also pointed out that “two of Graham’s former colleagues in Congress have endorsed us: Rep. Alcee Hastings and Rep. Frederica Wilson.”
That’s a “back at ya” to Graham’s press release, which notes that “Ziffer joins Leon County Commissioners John Dailey, Kristin Dozier and Leon Soil and Water Commissioner Tabitha Frazier” in endorsing Graham.
TWEET OF THE WEEK: “Happy #firstdayofspring from snowy Fort Knox! Cant wait to get back home to the sunshine and the ones I love.” --- State Rep. Danny Burgess (@DannyBurgessFL), a Zephyrhills Republican who serves in the Army Reserves
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