Leading a veto-busting supermajority of Republican lawmakers, Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon would appear to have the cat by the tail.
But in a job that former Speaker Johnnie Byrd once impolitically likened to herding sheep, Cannon faces potential political pitfalls, too.
For starters, most of the House "sheep" are barely lambs. Of 120 House members, 81 have served just two years or less.
"That's an opportunity to lead them, and it's also an opportunity for folks to stray wayward," says University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith.
"There's not a lot of institutional knowledge in the House, so much of that transfers to lobbyists." Or to political rabble-rousers looking to chip away at party discipline.
Cannon, who was first elected to the House in 2004, learned quickly as he ascended the Republican leadership ladder.
Fulfilling crucial committee assignments during the last session, the lawyer from Winter Park chaired the Select Policy Council on Strategic and Economic Planning. He also served in the Office of Reapportionment, positioning him for arguably the biggest, most political task facing the new Legislature.
Positioning himself to the right of many establishment GOPers, Cannon has accused some Washington, D.C., Republicans of engaging in "appeasement" with liberals. But he modulates his partisanship by pledging that Florida Republicans won't abuse their legislative clout.
A FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT
While compiling a generally mainstream, pro-business voting record, Cannon hasn't always endeared himself to hardline conservatives.
Though Cannon won a fourth term with a healthy 58 percent of the vote, tea party groups have continued to criticize his support of passenger rail projects they contend are too costly.
Others question what role, if any, Cannon played in Republican Party financial dealings still under investigation.
And notwithstanding the speaker's assurances to the contrary, still others wonder if Cannon and the House GOP leadership will overplay their hand and end up consolidating too much power in Tallahassee.
"I'm worried they're going to 'Boss Hogg' the system," says Robin Stublen, a tea party activist in Punta Gorda.
Henry Kelley, head of the Fort Walton Beach Tea Party, thinks a revival of Senate Bill 6 next year would be an early tip-off.
That Cannon and fellow young gun, new state Senate President Mike Haridopolos, are not pursuing an override of SB 6 -- not yet anyway -- suggests a dose of pragmatism.
Likewise, Cannon pulled two other potentially contentious measures from this week's override list: a prescription drug bill for workers' compensation patients and an overhaul of the sprawling Department of Management Services.
In holding off on the drug bill, Cannon appeared to heed opposition from Democratic leader Franklin Sands. By delaying on DMS, the speaker acknowledged that incoming Gov. Rick Scott deserved to have a say on a bill that would substantially diminish executive branch authority.
For now, Central Florida tea party activist Tom Tillison is hopeful that Cannon will lead the House in the right direction.
"We're hopeful that Dean Cannon heard the clear voice of the people on Nov. 2, and that he understands that these results were not a mandate for Republican policies as much as it is was the American people strongly suggesting that government respect the will of the people," Tillison said in a statement.
"We look forward to open and honest leadership from Dean Cannon, leadership based on honorable and ethical behavior."
Then Tillison added: "The rail issue is shaping up to be an early line in the sand in the precarious relationship that exists between the tea party movement and the Republican Party."
To succeed as speaker, UF's Smith suggests that Cannon will need to marshall people skills as well as political acumen.
"Power will centralize in his office. Sometimes people bristle at that," Smith said. Bristling could be especially prevalent among newly elected lawmakers who may feel they have a mandate to pursue more conservative agendas -- such as school vouchers or an outright ban on abortions.
"There may be members who are more extreme than leadership," the professor said.
PUTTING COLLEAGUES, COURTS ON NOTICE
Born at Bitburg Air Force Base in Germany, where his father was on active duty, young Dean was 3 when his family moved to Florida in 1971. He ultimately enrolled at the University of Florida, where he earned degrees in journalism and law. In a prelude to his political career, Cannon was elected student body president.
In Orange County, the attorney served on several city and county boards before winning a state House seat in 2004. Married, with three small children, Cannon has been honored by the Christian Coalition, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Bar Family Law Section.
Unanimously elected speaker of the House this year, Cannon appears tuned in to the Zeitgeist of Tallahassee's power structure. Certainly, he and the state Republican Party are more focused and unified than the fussing, feuding Democrats in Washington, D.C.
Invoking his faith in God at the beginning and end of his welcoming remarks to House members on Tuesday, Cannon fired a shot across the bow of those who would expand government's role.
"It is a terrible temptation when you are part of government to succumb to the notion that we in Tallahassee can make all things better through government," Cannon said in his opening remarks.
"It's so easy to see people facing challenges and think, 'if we just had more government revenue, we could create a program to fix that,' or 'if the government would just impose more regulations these bad things would never happen to good people.'"
Calling those sentiments "dangerous," the speaker challenged his colleagues to ask "a much harder question."
"Instead of asking what government can do to fix a problem or prevent a potential wrong, when confronting the challenges facing our state, I challenge you to ask whether or not government should be involved at all. Or, better yet, what can government stop doing that will allow greater freedom to our citizens?"
Cannon then blasted members of the state's high court for tossing three constitutional amendments that had been placed on the ballot by the 2010 Legislature.
"Over the past year, three times we saw the work of a three-fifths supermajority of this legislative branch, the elected representatives of over 18 million Floridians, demolished by five unelected justices on the Supreme Court. This was done notwithstanding the fact that there is no express authority in the Florida Constitution for doing so," he said.
Laying down the law, and pointing to a possible legal battle to come, Cannon said Florida's Constitution "expressly grants the Legislature the unlimited right to place questions before the voters so that they, the people, may exercise their highest political right by voting to choose whether or not to amend their Constitution."
In any Tallahassee power equation, Gov. Scott will be key. Garnering broad tea party and grass-roots support, the insurgent Scott overcame passive-aggressive opposition from party insiders, including Cannon, to wrest the gubernatorial nomination from Bill McCollum. During the hard-fought primary, Cannon funneled more than $700,000 to a third-party group to attack Scott on McCollum's behalf.
Emerging battered and bruised from the primary, Scott, it could be argued, won the governorship despite Cannon and the state party apparatus, not because of them. As such, he may not feel compelled to make the speaker's job easier.
In making joint, albeit perfunctory, appearances since then, Cannon and Scott may have buried the hatchet. But as politics heat up in Tallahassee, it's safe to say both men are still watching their backs.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or (772) 801-5341.
