Today’s entry: I don’t get why our elected officials in Florida only have two months to do their job. We elect them to serve for years. Not months. They should stay as long as it takes to do their jobs.
Bottom Line: What you say is true. However, the premise of our state’s legislature is a little different and yes, we’ve started our state session earlier than ever and it's looking likely we’ll enter overtime in the session. I understand where you’re coming from and ultimately, they will stay as long as it takes for them to do their one mandatory job, pass a budget. Everything else they do is arbitrary under Florida’s Constitution.
Florida’s state legislature isn’t designed to be a full-time job. Their compensation reflects this, they earn $18,000 annually. The only elected officials in Florida who are full-timers are the state-wide elected officials. The Governor and the cabinet. The state session was set at 60 days with a budget being the only mandate. With the session potentially headed to overtime and the budget being the reason why, the case could be made that the budget should always be the first priority with other laws only being considered after it’s completed. Otherwise, I appreciate the premise of our part-time politicians.
Despite the session being only 60 days, we still average around 200 new laws per year. Maybe it’s because of my fundamental belief in a limited government that I’m not interested in a longer session. But, 200 new laws a year, most of which we’re not even aware of unless we’re in the cross-hairs of them, seems like plenty to me. I’ve always disliked the term “law-makers” for this reason. It implies that unless they’re “making laws”, they’re not doing their job. I’d suggest that often the best laws are the ones that are never made or repealing existing laws.
On balance, I like Florida’s setup. The state can always convene a special session for emergency measures at any time if there’s a need, otherwise, we don’t pay more for people to hang out in Tallahassee passing new laws so they can say they’re doing something.
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