House Speaker Richard Corcoran and Senate President Joe Negron are both attorneys, both conservatives, both former appropriations chairs -- but if you're looking for clues to leadership style, any other similarities are a lot harder to find.
Actually, one more thing they have in common: Both lost their first election. At age 28 Negron, R-Stuart, lost his state House race in the primary -- but he lost it as a Democrat in a conservative community; Corcoran, R-Land O' Lakes, who got crushed against fellow Republican Nancy Argenziano in the 1998 House race, has never switched parties, and ever since he went to work as Speaker Marco Rubio's chief of staff in 2006, he's been on a roll.
I'll be honest with you. I'm expecting two years of Oscar and Felix. Negron and Corcoran are one odd couple.
Don't get me wrong, these guys like each other. Corcoran called Negron a “good friend” and “an intelligent and principled leader.” I'm sure the feeling is mutual. But there are profound differences.
Negron is a top-down kind of leader. He's definitely got his act together, knows exactly where he's going, but Corcoran has spelled out so much of his speaker-purpose in defining terms, he makes Negron look casual, if not messy.
Negron came to the dance Tuesday with his heart on his sleeve, having spent much of the summer rolling out his two top priorities, "making our good universities great" and "stopping the Lake Okeechobee releases." Both of those items wear scary price tags. We're about to see how good his salesmanship and horse-trading skills are and he knows it.
Corcoran, on the other hand, is less top-down but no less committed to what he wants. Which, everybody in Florida knows by now, is to change the culture of Tallahassee. That includes limiting lobbyists' influence on lawmakers, imposing 12-year term limits for the judiciary, rethinking our health-care system and ending -- or severely curtailing -- "corporate welfare."
I think he can pull it off. I've never seen anyone walk into the Florida House with such a powerful, transitional script.
Corcoran sees his fellow House members as knights from the legend of King Arthur "... working together side by side, none greater than the other, and all willing to die for a cause greater than themselves." A good idea is a good idea, no matter where it comes from, he said during a press gaggle Tuesday. "It doesn't have to come from me."
I'm not sure what kind of horse-trading skills the speaker has. Or if, deep down, he thinks there's something a little dirty about trading favors even in-House. But he may need to limber up a little. He's throwing off rigidity alerts.
As for relationships with the governor, Negron's, like President Andy Gardiner's, is smooth and acquiescing; Corcoran's, quite the opposite.
"When we zero-funded corporate welfare last year ... we did it because it was the right thing to do," the speaker said Tuesday in his opening remarks. The "corporate welfare" Corcoran referred to was Scott's pet budget item, $250 million in business incentives. The governor isn't just steamed Corcoran stuck to his guns, he's as vengeful as I've ever seen him, still looking for ways to pay Corcoran back. Meanwhile, Negron sees value in using incentives to encourage new business and, ultimately, more jobs.
I see Corcoran as a fastidious fiscal conservative, a man with a conscience about taxpayers' money and a mission to do right by it. Negron is a fiscal conservative, too. But only to a point, I fear. Senators always strike me as more pragmatic than representatives. Certainly I've never heard Negron use the term "corporate welfare."
Everything will come together for this Oscar and Felix at the end, as it always does. In the meantime, I'm hoping for the best but expecting, at least at times, one contentious relationship.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
