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The Power Goes To The Losers
For the Republicans, shut out of power for more than a century, the celebrating was understandable. But it's probably premature. Looking ahead, Florida's new GOP leaders have a lot to worry about. Most of all, they face the problem of living up to a set of unrealistic expectations they themselves have helped foster.
Even before they gained official control of the Legislature, on-the-rise Republicans were determining much of the Legislature's recent agenda on key issues like taxes, education, economic development and welfare reform. Now they'll have to deliver on the big promises their policies implied. It won't be easy.
"When the dust settles, they (Republican leaders) are going to be saying, 'We don't need to invent a long laundry list of agenda items, we've just got to make the stuff we passed last year work,'" says one Chiles administration official. "And if they don't, then they're way out on a limb."
"The power goes to the losers," predicted one legislative insider, anticipating that Democrats will have a field day blaming Republicans for Florida's failings.
Of course, Democrats have played a big role in creating the mire that Republicans are stuck in - particularly the state's inadequate tax system and historically underachieving schools.
But Republicans also could be blaming themselves in coming years for setting goals that will be difficult to achieve. For example:
Welfare reform. Incoming GOP Senate President Toni Jennings made welfare-to-work her big priority in 1996. In the end, the briskly confident construction executive put Florida on a faster track than the one Congress established for other states. Now she must hope that 100,000 welfare recipients can find jobs. If they can't, she likely will face blame for turning up the misery index.
Education. Many GOP candidates scored big points with voters in 1996 by emphasizing education, an issue that usually favors Democrats. Republican plans for charter schools might help. But such fundamental reforms likely will take a long time to work. Meanwhile, social conservatives like Webster - who home-schooled all six of his children - could stir controversy with their ideas for more radical reforms.
Taxes. GOP leaders have made clear they'll keep fighting new taxes. But existing revenues will fall short again in 1997, resulting in further deep cuts in social services, the Legislature's favorite target in recent years. With federal judges already throwing out some of last year's cuts, Republican leaders could begin to pay a price with voters for the Legislature's insensitivity.
Economic development. To their credit, Republicans appear to be embracing Enterprise Florida, Gov. Chiles' public-private economic development engine. But embracing Enterprise Florida means embracing its goal of producing high-wage jobs. Enterprise Florida leaders themselves say that without changes in Florida's education and tax systems, achieving that goal could be next to impossible.
While Republicans struggle to reach their goals, they also will face pressure to do things that could push the state further into its current rut - like cutting taxes and loosening regulatory restrictions on the healthcare industry. The biggest tax changes could come in the state's $700-million-a-year intangibles levy on businesses and wealthy individuals. It's become so tattered with loopholes that some lawyers now openly advertise the means to dodge it. It's also been historically difficult to enforce. As a result, some legislators suddenly are discussing the possibility of abolishing it. Other tax possibilities:
An increase in the administrative allowance the state gives to businesses for collecting and processing the sales tax.
A plan first advanced by Republican Jeb Bush to cut the unemployment compensation tax by 25%. That idea has been picked up by some business lobbyists, although state officials have questioned its real impact.
More tax incentives to encourage job growth. Those incentives were expanded significantly in last year's Enterprise Florida bill, but some businesses clearly want more.
Republicans also must worry about the growing political influence of healthcare providers, who could do damage to the state's cost-saving managed-care structure. Healthcare providers have become the state's biggest contributors in recent legislative campaigns - and the GOP's most generous supporters. But it could be hard for Republicans to rein in this powerful group's influence.
Preliminary campaign-finance figures from the 1996 campaign suggest the scope of the problem: While healthcare contributions to individual Democratic legislative candidates totaled about $590,000, contributions to Republican candidates reached more than $710,000.
The potential for problems is even greater in the House because the heir-apparent to Webster for the speaker's job is Rep. John Thrasher of Orange Park. He's a respected moderate who nevertheless is strongly loyal to the Florida Medical Association, which he served for years as general counsel.
In 1996, newly aggressive doctors succeeded in stripping the state's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) of much of its regulatory power over them and other healthcare professionals. That power is being moved to a new Department of Health, which by law must be headed by a physician. With Republicans now in charge of both chambers, doctors and other providers might have a better chance of taking more power from AHCA, which has tried hard to hold down healthcare costs. Business leaders also say privately that they expect more assaults on managed care.
To be sure, business people have reasons to celebrate the GOP takeover of the Legislature. The biggest one likely will be the improved prospects for tort reform. Look for a big role here for GOP Rep. David Bitner, 48, of Port Charlotte, Speaker Webster's point person on economic development issues during the last term. Webster, a deeply religious man with a passion for conservative social issues, is likely to defer frequently to Bitner on tort reform and other business issues.
Meanwhile, Bitner is said to be eagerly anticipating the approaching battle with lawyers over tort rules, workers' compensation and other issues.
So high is Bitner's profile in the area that he was targeted for defeat by lawyers in the 1996 GOP primary. Bitner, an advertising executive and former newspaper publisher, won anyway, despite heavy last-minute spending by workers' compensation attorneys. On election night, Bitner was one of the members who paraded Webster around on his shoulders.
Still, the early days of the GOP takeover suggested that the overall outlook for change was dim. Republicans even were struggling to make good on their promise of institutional change in the House, where staff has come to exercise enormous influence and junior lawmakers often are kept in the dark. For years, GOP leaders vowed to change the process when they took over. Yet as the days passed following the election, Republicans found themselves retaining most key staffers.
JUA & FWUA
The state's beleaguered property insurance pool, the Residential Property and Casualty Joint Underwriting Association (JUA), claims that things finally are looking up. By next spring, the JUA expects to cut its huge hurricane exposure roughly in half.
If so, they've got a long way to go. The JUA shrank for the first time in its history in October, but only from about 936,000 policies to about 932,000. As of this fall, the three-year-old JUA still faced a probable maximum hurricane loss of $4.8 billion, with nowhere near that amount in reserves available to pay policyholders.
The JUA was created in response to an insurance crisis following Hurricane Andrew in 1992, when many established insurance companies realized they were overexposed and began pulling out of Florida. It rapidly expanded to become the state's second-largest carrier.
Now, new private carriers are taking over JUA policies in response to financial incentives established by the Legislature. A total of 20 private insurers have come forward so far. JUA officials hope the so-called "take-outs" will shrink the JUA's size by half before the start of the 1997 hurricane season.
Further reductions likely will occur through expansion of another state-created pool, the 26-year-old Florida Windstorm Underwriting Association (FWUA). Insurance officials recently approved a plan to make FWUA coverage available in more coastal areas that have been hardest-hit by the insurance crisis.
Like the JUA, the smaller and lesser-known FWUA is overpopulated and underfunded. But at least the new policies will be out of the JUA, which is regarded as more vulnerable.
