Tallahassee's 'Good Old Days' Mostly Good for Good Ol' Boys

Before any more state capital folks take a misty-eyed stroll down memory lane, let's get one thing straight.

Term limits happened in Florida for a reason.

Not only were they approved in 1992 for most statewide elected offices, voters approved them overwhelmingly -- 76.77 percent to 23.23 percent -- and, by the way, that was in spite of the majority of newspapers in the state editorializing against them.

My point is, for the average Floridian, there was something very wrong with the good old days and the good ol' boys entrenched in the state's narrow and sometimes seedy corridors of power.

Why do I write this now?

If you haven't seen the latest edition of Influence magazine, dial it up online and read Florence Snyder's most entertaining interview piece, "Lions in Winter."   The story is a great back-and-forth with a pair of Tallahassee's most celebrated 'lions' -- liberal Democratic attorney Sandy d'Alemberte, 81, and conservative Republican lobbyist Van Poole, 80. But it certainly deserves a response.

I read it and I'm almost embarrassed for these guys.

About the only part of their good old days I see as better for Florida is the fact that back in the 1970s, campaign money hadn't escalated to the ridiculous level it is today. Candidates spoke with signs, bumper stickers and shoe leather -- not costly TV ads and glossy, biting mailers.

Nevertheless. What a picture d'Alemberte and Poole paint of legislative life in the good old days.  They ressurrect the cute and the folksy, but conveniently excuse the sleazy.

To hear them tell it, everybody got along great. There was none of today's animosity. Everybody socialized. "We had legislative trail rides. We had weekend trips to Cedar Key and Pensacola and Sarasota, all of us, and our families," said Poole. 

Who paid? "Chambers of Commerce," Poole said. 

Yes, but not just chambers. Lobbyists of every description up and down the state paid. It was all about access to lawmakers -- it was then, it is now. But in the good old days, it was perfectly above-board. A lobbyist-paid trip to the King Ranch probably wouldn't have made it out of the Travel section of  either Tampa newspaper. There was no gift ban back then.

And, by the way, I think maybe Poole is forgetting that party mattered plenty then, just as it does now. In fact, during some periods, there was absolutely no sense of "fair play." Until 1996, If you were a Democrat, you were allowed to present a bill; if you were a Republican and you smiled a lot at the right people, you might get to co-sign. Approprations Chair Sam Bell, D-Ormond Beach, was famous for banning all Republican legislation.

Back in the good old days, there wouldn't have been any Fair Districts Amendments. None. That's because there was no transparency. The internet didn't exist. Public records in the Division of Elections alone was a painstakingly laborious process involving literally hundreds of thousands of paper files. Follow the trail of the League of Women Voters over the last couple of years. Ask them where they would have been before 1990.  

As for meeting behind closed doors to redraw district maps, could d'Alemberte and Poole tell you that didn't happen when they served in the Legislature?  The good ol' boys had  closed-door meetings honed to a fine art. They were a given. Every lawmaker, particularly those in leadership, participated.

"There was a cocktail party every night," Influence quotes d'Alemberte as saying. "... The Holiday Inn. Howard Johnson's. The Red Door. The citrus folks had Old Florida rum. It was awful.  But there was other stuff at their bar."

And where was the press? They were "around, without their notebooks," Poole says. "It was an unwritten rule that 'it's after hours.'"

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why -- even with a press corps stumbling over each other in Tallahassee in the good old days -- the folks back home had not a clue of just how bad "the process" was. Reporters stayed busy keeping "the code."

Today there might be fewer media covering state politics, but with the advent of online newspapers and boutique political websites, it's certainly a more diverse and competitive media than it was 30 and 40 years ago.

Poole and d'Alemberte lamented that "everything is so scripted now," and Influence's Snyder remarks, "It's depressing to see people reading things they can't pronounce and don't understand.  ..."

Well, yes. The Legislature is indeed scripted today, and members do come in with a severe learning curve. And I don't care if they're illiterate, they were elected by the voters of their district, they have no choice but to play catch-up fast. Again, term limits  are looming from the day a legislator is elected. 

And then there's the reality of the Legislature's business in the 21st century. Florida has a $75 billion budget and 60 days to get between 2,000 and 2,500 bills filed. Today leadership's challenge -- between completing a balanced budget -- is getting lawmakers ready to be thrust into major committee chairmanships. They haven't developed the relationships. That short course in "process" isn't as easy as it used to be. No wonder they're reading things they can't pronounce.

Nobody likes that House speakers and Senate presidents are lined up so many years in advance. But with term limits, it's the way to make sure a future leader gets all the committee chairmanship experience he or she needs to advance.  It's the way to keep them serving in the Legislature while other temptations pull them toward non-term-limited positions -- the availability of a congressional seat, for example, or a tax collector position coming available back in the district.

Poole and d'Alemberte talked a little -- but not enough -- about "the trailers." The Florida Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Association lobbyists  were headquartered famously in Tallahassee at “the trailers,”  likened by one reporter to Sodom and Gomorrah.

One retired lawmaker told me straight out, "a lobbyist would arrange for you to get a prostitute in there. So you go into one of these trailers of an evening, the lobbyist and prostitute would be waiting for you and you would cut a deal -- one arm cradling a bottle of Jack Daniels, the other arm around the prostitute. And I wish I could tell you it was a rare thing, I mean, that it hardly ever happened."

Good old days?

Not for members of the public. Unlike the old days when amendments were handwritten and the public didn't have a clue, today technology keeps them in the loop. The public gets to see everything if they ask. Floridians didn't know what went on in the old days because the press only told them what was being done, not how.

Now, with the safety of time and distance, of course those bygone days look a lot better than they actually were. But nobody can tell me the good old days were all that good for Floridians, who had no idea their elected state officials were cutting deals the cowboy way.

Reach Nancy Smith at smith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith