While there are no statewide elections coming up in 2015, Florida politics wont be dull in the new year.
Rick Scott heads into 2015 standing higher than he ever did in his first four years in Tallahassee. Scott won a second term and Republicans have strong majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, including a supermajority in the House. Already, the governor is calling for more tax cuts and higher education funding. With additional revenue in the budget and a GOP Legislature, Scott should be able to get his agenda through.
The House should be fine for the Republicans as Steve Criasfulli presides over a veto-proof majority. But the Senate will prove far more complicated and give conservatives a few headaches during the session. Even worse, the seemingly endless fight between Joe Negron and Jack Latvala to become Senate president in 2016 will continue for a few months at least but there are rising leaders, including Bill Galvano, who offer some hope for the chamber being less unruly down the road.
Northeast Florida will be in the spotlight for the first months of the new year. Republican candidates, including Doc Renuart and Travis Hutson from the Florida House, are battling in a special election for the Senate seat John Thrasher vacated. With two House seats now open, Paul Renner, who came close to winning a House seat against Jay Fant, looks like a sure bet to win Hutsons seat, while there are some strong candidates running for Renuarts seat. Over in Jacksonville, Democrat Alvin Brown is facing a serious challenge from Lenny Curry in the two-tiered mayoral election.
In the meantime, despite the big Republican wins in November, Leslie Dougher will have a fight to stay as chairwoman of the RPOF. More than a few people in Jeb Bushs and Marco Rubios camps think Dougher is too close to Melissa Sellers, Scotts chief of staff, and they dont like her and RPOF staffers ties to Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry. Scotts behind Dougher but her re-election is not a slam dunk by any means.
The Democrats will continue to try to rebuild in Florida in time for 2016. Allison Tant led her party to major defeats and made a few enemies by the way she treated Darryl Rouson and Nan Rich last year. But Tant and her allies remain, for the moment, at the wheel. If Democrats think Tant and her allies will hurt their chances of carrying Florida in the 2016 presidential election, a major effort could be launched against them.
There are plenty of issues looming. Same-sex marriage could be coming to Florida in the first days of the new year though there is currently confusion over whether a federal decision striking down the states traditional marriage law applies only to one county or the entire state. John Morgan and others have vowed to continue the fight to expand medical marijuana in Florida and the Legislature will tackle it again. Casino gambling also looms large while Andy Gardiner, now in charge of the often chaotic Senate, wants to fight for disabled Floridians.
There might not be any statewide elections in Florida but politics in 2015 will be anything but dull.
Tallahassee political writer Jeff Henderson wrote this analysis exclusively for Sunshine State News.
